Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles

by Arnold, Michael

  ‘Our walls?’ Paulet echoed, almost spitting the words back in Rawdon’s face. ‘These are my walls, Colonel Rawdon, and I’ll thank you not to forget it. I did not ask for a curmudgeonly Protestant to interfere in matters here, as you would do well to recall.’

  Rawdon’s cheeks flushed. ‘I recall it clearly, my lord.’

  Paulet’s simmering gaze fell on Stryker. ‘What is happening, Captain? You are the most experienced soldier among us. Tell me exactly what game Waller plays.’

  ‘I suspect there is no game afoot, my lord,’ Stryker said, feeling cornered. ‘Lord Hopton was sent to invade the south-east and Sir William Waller has been dispatched to stop him. Hopton has been waylaid at Andover, and Waller has decided to blood his troops in an attack upon Basing House. I know not the reason for either decision, my lord, but that is the nub of it.’

  Sir John Paulet’s shoulders seemed to slump. He gnawed his lower lip. ‘Thus, we must face this new army alone.’

  ‘Aye, my lord,’ Stryker agreed solemnly. ‘I fear we must.’

  Stryker asked Forrester to go to the men as soon as they were dismissed. His greencoats had come so far these weeks since Gloucester and Newbury. Marched and fought, sailed and survived. They had buried friends and taken beatings, lost a fortune and won it back. Now all that the remnants of Captain Stryker’s Company of Foot wished to do was return to their regiment with the prize so dearly bought. ‘They are restless, Forry,’ he said in the corridor outside Paulet’s capacious chambers. ‘Stand them to arms. Put them up on the walls. Let them watch for the enemy.’

  ‘I will,’ Forrester agreed, making for the spiral staircase that would take him to ground level. ‘And you?’

  Stryker followed him, descending in his wake as far as the floor below. ‘I would tarry here a while.’

  Forrester raised his brow in amusement. ‘Is that what you call it?’

  Stryker laughed. ‘Hardly. I hope only for her to open the damned door.’

  ‘Then your hope is not a forlorn one, old man,’ Forrester said, nodding towards the door at Stryker’s back. As Stryker turned, he grinned and continued down to the courtyard.

  ‘Canard,’ Lisette Gaillard said, a pale wedge of her face visible from beyond the door.

  ‘Duck, is it not?’

  ‘Duck, oui,’ she answered, beckoning him inside. ‘I have duck.’

  ‘Does it not wish to be near the river?’

  ‘A poor jest,’ she muttered witheringly, closing the door behind him. ‘It is roasted. A gift from his lordship.’

  Stryker went further into the room, stepping on to the first of several large pelts that brought warmth to the hard timbers of the floor. It looked comfortable, with expensive furniture and a large, four-poster bed. There was a huge window facing out to the north, and he went to look down, though he could see little in the darkness. There were a couple of braziers flickering near the Great Barn, but they seemed blurry and obscured, and he realized mist was drifting off the Loddon. ‘Paulet must like you.’

  Lisette wore a long, flowing gown of silver and blue. It seemed an age since he had seen her dress in anything remotely femin­ine, and he stood admiring her until she made an irritable sound at the back of her throat. ‘I am Catholic.’

  ‘Most people in here are Catholic, Lisette. I think he is pleased to have a beautiful woman in his company, not least one with the ear of the Queen.’

  Lisette went to a polished table of walnut wood and began carving strips off a trussed duck sitting on a plate. The juice pulsed in russet rivulets where the steel had punctured the flesh. ‘Will you eat?’ She looked back at him, suddenly concerned. ‘How do you fare now, mon amour?’

  Stryker’s guts still griped with every morsel that crossed his lips, but he cared nothing for his ills in that moment. ‘It has been too long since you have addressed me so.’

  Lisette laid down the knife. ‘You should not have told Tainton, Stryker.’

  ‘I disagree.’

  Her gaze sharpened, pupils tightening to pin-pricks. ‘I am still angry, Englishman. Cecily died for that bloody secret.’

  Stryker steeled himself for an argument, though he could already sense that the searing fury she had harboured on Scilly had abated. Now it seemed more like grief, and he knew the feeling well. ‘Cecily died, aye. You will always mourn her, however you may rage. Nothing will close that hole, Lisette, believe me.’

  She shook her head. ‘You should not have told that bastard.’

  ‘I had no choice. You are too dear to me.’

  She planted her hands on her hips in exasperation. ‘I am your weakness, Stryker. It is not good for a warrior to have such a thing.’

  Stryker moved closer. ‘On the contrary, I believe it is what makes a man fight harder than other men. He has something – someone – he would protect with his life.’

  She shook her head angrily. ‘But I am not someone, mon amour. I am a warrior, too. I cannot be sheltered and shielded and coddled. I am not your bloody goodwife, tending to children and waiting by the hearth for your return.’

  He laughed at the image. ‘And I would never ask it of you.’

  ‘Which is why I am such a danger, don’t you see?’ She went to him, gripping his arms tight as though she might shake him. ‘My presence turns you foolish. Compels you to make stupid choices that, if I were any other woman, you would never be forced to make. You cannot be the soldier you were meant to be when I am near.’

  ‘Do not speak so, Lisette,’ Stryker replied, touching his fingertips to her mouth. He wanted to kiss her, but feared her forgiveness would not extend that far. ‘We have the gold. We took it back! I regret what happened, but I will never regret my reasons.’

  Lisette stepped away, her face strained by a sadness that stole his breath. She returned to the table and the steaming meat. ‘What now?’ she asked. ‘The escort should have arrived. I hear Waller is near.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Will he attack?’

  ‘I believe he will.’

  Now she looked back. ‘So our escort is too late.’

  Stryker nodded. ‘We are here for good or ill.’

  CHAPTER 22

  Basing House, Hampshire, 6 November 1643

  Stryker woke when he felt the tremors. At first he had assumed it to be part of some vague dream. Often he slept fitfully, assailed by old battles and vengeful enemies, and he guessed the vibrations crawling along his legs and spine were recollections of some explosion or escalade in which he had once taken part. Except that they persisted. He lay still, hearing only his pulse, and let the almost imperceptible sensation reverberate through his limbs, all the while blinking at the billet’s low ceiling to ensure he was truly awake. After a minute or so, he sat bolt upright. Across from him, also sitting up in their beds, were Forrester and Skellen. Both men turned to him, eyes wide. ‘I feel it,’ he said.

  After the news reached Basing of Waller’s change of plan, they had almost expected to see a vast horde appear immediately over the horizon. The lookouts had not left their posts, the gun-crews had doubled their drills, and the scouts prepared to ride out in larger numbers to scour the hills and roads for a rebel vanguard. But the fog had descended. It had lain thick through the night, blanketing the land in clouds so bilious and white that it seemed God Himself had wanted to shield his eyes from the wickedness that had befallen England. Basing’s defenders had clambered on the walls, straining their eyes through perspective glasses to snatch a look at the roads and the park and the river, but the fog had confounded them and prevented their scouts from negotiating the treacherous countryside. And so, much to their vexation, the Marquess of Winchester and his five hundred or so fighting men had been forced to wait and watch, wonder and fear. Stryker had returned to quarters desperate for rest. A large part of him had wished to stay with Lisette, to feel the warmth of her against him, but she had not invited his touch, and shame had kept him from broaching the subject. In the end, he had had to console himself with the kn
owledge that hatred no longer festered between them. It would have to suffice for the time being.

  Stryker went to one of the windows carved into the side of the long building, and pushed open the shutters as his men roused themselves from their cold slabs of compacted straw. A freezing gush of air hit him square in the face, and he took an involuntary step back. It was still foggy, the courtyard wreathed in thick white, as though twenty feet of snow had fallen during the night, but already he could see the ghostly outlines of figures moving within the cloud. A bell rang somewhere, though it seemed strangely muffled by the fog, and he realized an alarm had been raised. He touched the window pane. The low thunder that had woken him was vibrating still, ominously building with every passing minute.

  He and his greencoats left their quarters to find Colonel Rawdon while the tremors thickened in the misty air. It was as if some great storm raged off the coast or up in the rebellious metropolis. The sensation penetrated the walls and ramparts, the soaring towers and the deepest cellars of the fortified mansion, and soon every person within the ring of defences was wide awake and perched high on wall or tower, palisade or roof, staring into the drifting fastness that yet enveloped them.

  Stryker left his men at the foot of the Great Gatehouse, telling them to make ready their weapons, and climbed up the spiral staircase. As expected, Rawdon was there along with the marquess and the lieutenant-colonels Peake and Johnson. ‘They’re here, sir.’

  Paulet rounded on Stryker. ‘You cannot possibly be sure, Captain!’

  Stryker wondered how the place was to survive with Paulet and Rawdon vying for command, but he stifled his concern. ‘I know the sound of an army on the march, my lord.’

  Paulet, who was wrapped in a luxurious robe, pulled a sour expression and turned back to the crenellated rampart. ‘Piffle, sir.’ He raised his highly polished brass perspective glass. ‘And I’ll thank you not to scaremonger down in the house.’

  ‘Scaremonger?’ Stryker answered. His tone approached disrespect, but he went on nonetheless. ‘My lord, the alarm is raised. The people are aware of what awaits this day. The trembling you feel is that of hooves and of gun carriages, of supplies and of thousands upon thousands of feet.’

  Paulet let the glass drop a touch as he peered into the mist with his naked eyes. ‘I had prayed—’

  ‘You are certain, Captain Stryker?’ Colonel Rawdon said, finally finding his voice as Paulet’s faltered. ‘Should we call the garrison to arms?’

  Stryker stared down into the mist and then looked from Paulet to Rawdon. ‘Aye, sir, we should. General Waller comes hither, and if we are to save Basing, we must give him a fight.’

  An hour after noon the mist began to clear to reveal an army. Stryker had remained with the group on the Great Gatehouse, waiting for the inevitable, but when it finally happened, even he found the breath punched clean from his chest. The road into Basing village – the Lane – came into view first, its broad muddy band resolving slowly from the thinning shroud, and then the farm buildings of the Grange edged through, their rooftops like brown spines on a vast white beast. Beyond were sudden glimpses of silver of the River Loddon, and then the green of the lower slopes of Cowdrey’s Down. The sun was bright, burning away the mist with every passing moment, but it was only when a sudden gust of chill breeze swept across the hill that the first colours were revealed. There was a huge red standard spangled in stars as silvery as the Loddon. There was a banner of deepest green and brightest gold, and another of yellow, its blue decoration jutting defiantly through the lingering wisps. Behind the colours were row upon row of infantrymen. Dense forests of pike and neat ranks of musketeers, some of which were already beginning to move out of file and stream down towards the river. To the flanks were the horse. Vast swathes of grassland were entirely obscured by men in helmets and breastplates, arrayed behind their cornets, armour and weapons glimmering with ominous beauty. Stryker saw cuirassiers too, completely encased in their iron shells like knights of old. Their presence worried him little, for horsemen were entirely ineffective against fortresses, but he felt a building sense of unease all the same. The cuirassiers had been shattered and humiliated at Roundway, and now here they were, reborn before Basing House. A statement of sheer Parliamentarian determination, if ever there was one.

  ‘Christ Jesus,’ Sir John Paulet whispered as he stared, slack-jawed, at the revelation. ‘Holy Mother protect us.’

  ‘Look there,’ Rawdon was saying. ‘The colour marked by a tree in full leaf.’ He was pointing at one particular standard that flew at the very front of the horde.

  ‘Fructus Virtutis,’ Robert Peake said, using a glass to read the motto inscribed beneath the device. ‘Fruit of valour.’

  Rawdon nodded. ‘It is Sir William Waller’s personal standard. There can be no more discussion, gentlemen. We must act.’ He indicated the section of yellow-coated infantry that was already deploying down towards the river. ‘Get some of our musketeers down to the Grange,’ he said to Johnson. ‘If the enemy strive any closer, give them very hell.’

  More important than any luxury was the fact that from her rooms set high in the Great Gatehouse Lisette could look northwards through her large windows and watch for the enemy. Like every other man and woman in Basing, her view had been hindered by the fog, but as the afternoon slipped by, she found herself ideally positioned to watch the firefight that now erupted in the marshy land immediately north of the Royalist defences, played out between the racing river and the outer wall of the Grange.

  The Parliamentarian musketeers, in yellow, had crossed the Loddon by a narrow, raised lane, and fanned out on the southern bank, their match-tips glowing like beastly eyes in the murky sunlight. They kept up a brisk rate of fire, diving behind the hedges and shrubs that hugged the watercourse, the plumes of their powder smoke rising and rolling to replace the fog. Opposing them were Rawdon’s men, also in yellow, and they swarmed along the breadth of the lower walls that separated the Grange fish ponds from the rushing river. Soon, with return fire rippling out from those outermost defences, the whole area around the marshy banks was enveloped in smoke as the rebels edged inch by inch towards the Royalist positions.

  Lisette was seated on the edge of the window-sill, skirts bunched so that she could draw her knees to her chest. It was a strange experience to witness the bitter contest through the tessellated glass diamonds that somehow removed her from reality; an experience made more strange because she herself had wandered with Stryker in the wild land beside the river just a year earlier. The mood of the house had been optimistic then. The walls had echoed with musket fire, but it had been recruits practising for a war they still hoped would pass them by. She and Stryker had slipped into a tangled copse and made love as the guns roared out. Now those trees had gone, the copse cleared mercilessly away, and the guns worked in furious anger. The world had been turned upside down.

  After two hours it was clear to Lisette that there were not enough of the rebels to make a true inroad. They had barely advanced a matter of twenty paces beyond the Lane, and, though casualties were thin, they would soon expend their ammunition. It seemed a strange opening gambit for a man as experienced as Waller, but then she noticed the movement on Cowdrey’s Down. The hill loomed immediately to the north-west, and it was there that many of the Parliamentarian units had appeared when the first mist had burned away. But they had moved down and away during the afternoon, gone, she presumed, to make camp and set up their own siege-works. What was left, she now noticed, was the train. She could not tell exactly what pieces Waller had at his disposal, but the black barrels appeared huge beside the crews that busily unhitched them, their muzzles gaping from the side of the hillock like so many sharks, intent on biting chunks out of Basing’s walls. She counted ten in all, guessing the majority were demi-culverins that would make little impact. But two seemed bigger than the rest. Demi-cannon, perhaps. Castle-killers, capable of hurling a twenty-four-pound shot that would eat away at all but the very stoutest defences
. She had seen one – named Roaring Meg by the men –at work on Hopton Heath. Meg had carved a swathe so wide and bloody through the rebel ranks that day, they had been too afraid to fill it. The Cavaliers had held the field as a result. Lisette leaned in closer to the diamond-shaped panes, although the leadwork impeded her view. She could see the gunners scurrying like ants. A few of the heavy pieces were on the move, trundling on their huge wheels to the west, and she guessed they were destined to hook round towards the southern flank, to be ultimately placed on the plateau of Basing Park so that the fortress might be pounded from both sides.

  Six big pieces seemed to be static on the hill. Wicker sheets were being tossed from the back of a wagon and laid out to make a platform at the rear of the gun carriages to allow the heavy ordnance to recoil without sinking into the wet soil. It was a mark that they intended to bring the iron monsters rapidly to bear.

  Lisette rose from the sill and wrapped herself in a riding cloak she had been lent by the marchioness. Fetching up the knife she had used to carve the duck, she went down the spiral stairs to the inner yard of the Old House. The crackle of musketry seemed louder out here, spitting in desultory clusters as the distinct scent of sulphur drifted up from the discharging weapons. Lisette was well accustomed to the sounds and smells of war, and yet still she flinched, for the noise was achingly close.

  ‘Warm work, Miss Lisette,’ a familiar voice came through the gunfire. She turned to see the tall, languorous form of William Skellen.

  ‘It is, Sergeant. Where is Stryker?’

  Skellen was sucking a pipe, his perpetually carefree manner reassuring. He took it from his mouth and pointed up at the Great Gatehouse roof with the stem. ‘Up there, Miss Lisette.’

  ‘They mean to bombard us.’

  ‘I’m sure they do.’

  ‘Now, William,’ she added, more urgently this time. ‘They are making ready the heavy cannon. I saw it from my window. Will you tell Stryker and the others?’