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

by Arnold, Michael

  k

  It was growing dark as Sir John Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, found the men commanding the defence of his magnificent house. They were standing on the wall beside Garrison Gate, yards from where the desperate Roundhead attack had faltered an hour or so earlier. Rawdon had picked up a wound just below his eye, a horizontal nick from a shard of brick that gaped red, winking in a macabre parody of the lids above as he spoke. He peered down into the Grange through his brass-bound perspective glass, muttering to his subordinate colonels, Peake and Johnson. Stryker was there too, with Forrester and Major Lawrence, and together the five had formed a hasty council of war to decide just how to proceed. They had successfully cleared the civilian members of the garrison, those, at least, unable to bear arms, back to the buildings on the south side of both houses, installing the chirurgeon in the wine cellars beneath the Great Hall so that he might tend to the wounded without fear of careening iron shot. The single heavy artillery piece pos­itioned on the north side of the Old House had been adjusted so that it would point directly down into the Grange, lest a renewed attack come from that quarter, and the walls and towers had been inspected by teams of musketeers. Now they had to wait and watch. The fighting continued, lambent tongues of flame licking the darkness as shots burst from each faction, but the determination for a concerted escalade seemed to have been dowsed by the rain. Groups of Parliamentarians sallied out from the various farm buildings, or from the village church to the north-east, but they reached only far enough to discharge their muskets in a desultory volley that achieved little.

  ‘How now, gentlemen, and a splendid fight it was!’ Paulet announced gleefully. He was enclosed against the weather in a coat that reached to his ankles and was crusty with wax. A large, thick pelt swathed his neck and fur gloves warmed his hands. ‘They run back to the Conqueror with tails firmly betwixt legs, do they not?’ He moved to the rampart, leaning elbows against its bullet-chipped summit. Half a dozen shots rang out from the enemy positions below, but the reports were strangely muffled, and none so much as reached the wall. ‘And now their powder’s damp!’

  ‘Ours too, my lord,’ Colonel Rawdon observed wryly.

  Paulet pulled a sour expression, then squinted up at the black mass of Cowdrey’s Down. ‘Tell me, sirs, what game does Waller play? The man has five thousand troops out there, on the hill, at the river, in the farm, the village and even the churchyard. Yet they tarry where they stand. Our men put them to flight . . . huzzah for their bravery . . . but why does Waller not come again?’ Paulet shook his head. ‘I cannot fathom it.’

  It was as if the rebels had been so embarrassed by their ineptitude at Garrison Gate that they had not the stomach for another attempt. The rain would add to their reticence, of course, and the fall of night too, but it had still been something of a surprise. As Stryker stared down at the Great Barn watching the men walk in and out carrying sacks and crates to some of the outbuildings, realization dawned. He cleared his throat, awkward in the company of so many high-ranking men. ‘Vittles.’

  All eyes went to him, but it was Paulet who spoke. ‘Stryker?’

  ‘The Great Barn, my lord, is fat with supplies.’

  ‘And ale,’ Lancelot Forrester added.

  ‘And ale,’ agreed Stryker. ‘A lot of ale.’

  It took a moment for the meaning to sink into the marquess’s mind, but slowly his jaw dropped. ‘Good Christ, Captain Stryker, you do not suggest the rebels have stopped for supper?’

  ‘Waller has not, sir,’ Stryker replied. ‘His colonels have not. His men?’ He glanced up at the inky sky, feeling the fresh pricks of rain flutter over his face. ‘The night is cold, and we gave them a hot fight. They’ve stumbled into a paradise of oysters and meat and beer, my lord. Beds, sheets, pewter goblets and warm hay. Why would they vacate such a home?’

  ‘Why fight, my lord,’ Forrester chimed, ‘when you may feast?’

  ‘Would you expect your men to behave thus?’ Paulet argued.

  Stryker shook his head. ‘But my men are not a parcel of pie-sellers and cobblers, newly enlisted and prodded down from the City.’

  ‘The scoundrels,’ Paulet blustered, utterly incensed at the notion. ‘The villains!’

  ‘Sir?’ Stryker said, unsure if he was more surprised by the marquess’s naivety or by the fact that the opportunity for plunder had waylaid the rebel advance. ‘It has curtailed Waller’s attack.’

  ‘Aye,’ Rawdon seconded his words. ‘This is a good thing—’

  ‘Good?’ Paulet cut the colonel off, face as red as Rawdon’s wound. ‘Good? Protestant drivel, as ever, Marmaduke! Is it a good thing that the rebel knaves thieve my hard-grown, hard-reared, hard-reaped provisions?’ He slammed his fur-mitted fist on the parapet. ‘That they gnaw their way through my meat and corn like an infestation of voracious vermin?’

  ‘What would you have us do, my lord?’ Robert Peake, military chief until Rawdon’s arrival, ventured gingerly. ‘We cannot very well claw those supplies back.’

  ‘And yet?’ It was Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson who spoke. All eyes went to him, and all saw that he was looking at Stryker.

  ‘And yet,’ Stryker said, ‘might we deprive the enemy of them?’

  ‘Sally out, Stryker?’ Rawdon asked. He shook his head vigorously. ‘An absurd notion. We cannot risk such a thing. Waller’s army is vast.’

  ‘It is vast, Colonel, aye,’ said Stryker, his pulse beginning to quicken with the fermenting idea. ‘But it is tired, it is damp, and, in the Barn, I’d wager it is firmly in its cups.’

  * * *

  Stryker checked his borrowed pistol. It was primed, sitting safely at half-cock, with the frizzen pulled back over the pan. The weight in his grip felt reassuring. Lancelot Forrester came through the group. He held a pistol too. In his other hand he gripped a cup, and he lifted it in salute. ‘Drink today and drown all sorrow, you shall perhaps not do it tomorrow. Best, while you have it, use your breath, there is no drinking after death.’

  ‘Shakespeare?’ Stryker asked.

  Forrester took a long sip and handed it to Stryker. ‘Fletcher and Johnson.’

  Stryker drank from the cup. It contained strong wine, and he gulped it back. ‘Are you ready?’

  Forrester blew out his cheeks as Stryker passed the cup to the next man in the group. ‘Never more so.’

  The sally party was small, because Rawdon was determined that he could not afford the loss of any more men. What he agreed to, therefore, was an act of stealth and guile. One not designed to hurt Waller’s main army, or even to dissuade him from his objectives, but simply to deny to Roundhead stomachs what had been intended for Royalists.

  Sergeant William Skellen loomed over Stryker. ‘You reckon they’re bumpsy, sir?’ he said quietly, halberd in one hand, blazing torch in the other.

  Stryker nodded. ‘You saw how many beer barrels there were, Sergeant. What would you do?’

  Skellen grimaced. ‘Nothin’, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’d shove this halberd up my arse.’

  The thirty men gathered behind Garrison Gate amid the glow of flaming torches. Twenty-five were chosen men, sergeants and musketeers, hard, gallant and itching for a fight. Before them, swords bared for a night’s slaughter, Basing’s council of war almost in its entirety readied itself for the off. Only Frederick Lawrence had stayed behind, for his crooked spine limited his effectiveness out of the saddle, but Colonel Rawdon had insisted upon leading the charge, and he had been joined by both Peake and Johnson. Stryker went too, his men forming the left flank of the twenty-five, and Forrester could not be dissuaded. Now they waited as Rawdon’s best shots clambered to the north wall and prepared their muskets, poised for the command to give covering fire.

  ‘But what of the rebels?’ Stryker said, his voice deliberately soft. ‘Did you see their officer?’

  ‘Down in the Barn? Aye, a young peacock.’

  ‘Indeed. A good swordsman, granted, but a stripling. You think his
hard-faced lads will keep sober after the fight we gave them?’

  ‘Reckon not,’ Skellen muttered.

  Stryker slid his basket-hilted broadsword a few inches up and down its scabbard, ensuring it would not stick in the moist conditions. ‘The whole garrison could not best Waller’s army, for it is truly vast, but the rebels in the Grange will be enjoying the comforts therein.’

  A heavy clunking sound emanated from the gateway itself as the locks were turned and bars lifted. Rawdon hissed something to an aide, who scuttled up to a man on the wall, and the long row of musketeers blew in unison on their match-tips. Stryker fought to catch suddenly hasty breaths. He looked at Skellen. ‘Godspeed, Will.’

  ‘An’ to you, sir,’ the tall sergeant intoned. He said the same to Forrester, turning the halberd shaft in his palm so that the triple-headed blade glimmered in the torchlight. ‘Let us crack open a few skulls.’

  ‘Traitors!’ Captain-Lieutenant Jedidiah Clinson raged. ‘Rotten-hearted, copper-nosed, scrofulous knaves! I shall—I shall—’

  ‘You shall drink with us, Cap’n, sir, and make merry,’ the corporal crooned from his perch on a pile of feather beds. The side of his black-gummed mouth was crammed to bursting with salted bacon, and in his hands he cradled a pewter goblet, beer slopping over its rim as he raised it for a toast. ‘For we have this day bit a chunk out o’ the Markiz of Winch’ster’s ignoble fackin’ arse!’

  ‘Aye!’ another soldier cheered. ‘And a pox on him!’

  ‘A pox on him an’ his Pope-buggerin’ posse!’ the corporal exclaimed. He quaffed his beer and dunked the cup into the barrel that had been crudely torn open. ‘We’ve won us this day, sir, and we shall all enjoy it!’

  Following the abortive assault against the north-east gate, Clinson had fallen back with the rest for shelter in the Grange, and he had waited for orders to come down from Waller. But nothing had been forthcoming. What he found in the Barn was drunken, shameful chaos. The men, it seemed, were more loyal to their stomachs than their Parliament, and they had poured into the huge chamber to loot and eat and drink. There was plenty to go around, enough to have supplied Basing for weeks, and they went to the kegs and boxes like slugs at a vegetable garden, devouring their way through whatever they could find. Most, however, stayed near the beer barrels. They imbibed the welcome brew like babes at the teat, taking their fill without pause, and Clinson was left to simply watch with growing disgust.

  ‘We have been ordered to pursue the attack,’ he bleated, though he knew his words sounded ridiculously small in the high-trussed space. ‘Make again for the walls. Storm the castle.’

  The corporal shook his head. ‘We’ve no ladders, sir. No ram, no explosives. It is a worthless escapade. One to which Sir Billy will toss our wretched skins for nought but his pride.’ He took another long draught, belching hard. ‘Well I ain’t goin’ no more. Not till the morrow, leastwise. Soldiering treats a fedary worse than scouring latrines back ’ome, sir. Six days o’ shit till Sunday. Not tonight. Tonight we drink, eh lads?’

  The others cheered. Clinson silently took names for the dawn hanging that would surely follow. And outside, from the Royalist positions, a huge volley of musketry ripped into the night.

  k

  The man known in Basing House as Tom Chivers ignored the sudden spike in musketry while he skulked from the rain under the eaves of the Great Hall. It had been an impressive building once, but it had been long superseded by the more palatial spaces of the Tudor mansion. As such, it was a good place to hide, for Basing’s residents rarely went near.

  Roger Tainton watched the Great Gatehouse. Or, rather, he watched the low-set doors at the foot of a slope that led into the Gatehouse’s foundations. He watched the guards, new men since his unfortunate tangle with the French witch. Stryker’s men, he knew, for he recognized them from Scilly. These were not the brawny apes in Paulet’s employ, but had been hand-chosen by Stryker himself, and he would not chance his arm against such men with just a chisel or blade. What their arrival had confirmed, however, was that this, without the shadow of a doubt, would be where he would find the Cade trove. All he had to do was wait and watch.

  God, of course, and as ever, had provided the answer. Waller’s guns had continued through the night, focussing their dead-eyed anger against the Gatehouse, which meant very few civilians had remained in this sector of the complex. Only the infirmary seemed to be using one end of the hall, for the wounded were being ferried up and down stone steps that led to the old wine cellars, and that posed little concern for him. Moreover, a trio of heavy guns had since been brought to bear upon the New House, which had necessitated the evacuation of the stables, meaning Tainton’s presence there was no longer required. It was all perfect. Nearly perfect.

  Tainton stared at the guards. He shifted his weight from one snug and dry foot to the other, pleased with the retrieval of his beloved riding boots, their spurs chattering to him softly. He kicked the bulging snapsack gently between them. His provisions would last a good while yet. Time was on his side. Now it was left only to pray.

  When the cannon fired Tainton knew he had been heeded. It exploded up on the rampart, the only piece in Basing’s armament able to be trained upon the Grange, and a huge cloud of dirty white vapour bloomed into the sheeting rain. The guards, almost identical in their tall frames, pinched faces and blond locks, ran out from the slope, crossed to a ladder close by on the Old House’s ancient wall, and clambered up the worn rungs. Theirs was an action borne only out of inquisitiveness, but they would be gone long enough. Roger Tainton collected his snapsack and moved out into the courtyard. As the rain pelted his wool-hugged pate, he remembered a verse from the Book of Proverbs. ‘In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord devises his steps,’ he whispered softly, plunging a hand into a coat pocket. When he pulled it out, the small object felt cold in his grip. Slim and rusty, it was hardly a tool of glory. And yet tonight it would do the very work of God.

  k

  The volley had had the desired effect. It had torn out from the northern perimeter of the ring-work, rippling all along the rampart of soil-buttressed stone, bright tongues lapping the night, smoke billowing in unison. The musket-balls whistled across the narrow divide of the road and slammed into the Grange wall, behind which many of the Parliament men were huddled, and a shower of shards sprang up as the rebels sheared away from their loopholes.

  As those foremost Parliamentarians cringed from the volley, the sally party raced out of the Garrison Gate. They sprinted over the sticky road, muskets, pistols and blades ready for blooding but mouths firmly shut until the time was right. Stryker was near the front, between Forrester and Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson, and he felt his senses sharpen with every pace. There were a lot of soldiers in the Grange, but they were spread out, at rest and enjoying their unexpected repast, and it was that ill-preparedness that the Royalists were relying on.

  The big gun fired from up on the battlements. It was the only piece pointed northwards, for Rawdon’s belief had always been that any attack would come from the Park to the south-west, but it would be useful all the same. Stryker caught a glimpse of a large, filthy puddle up ahead, its surface shivering at the booming report of the cannon. He jumped it, pulling the pistol to full cock as he landed, and then they were at the Grange.

  The iron shot careened over their heads. It punched into the Great Barn, smashing a large hole in the brickwork just below the roof, and Stryker could hear the frightened screams from within even as he hurled himself over the wall. He stood quickly, staring into the darkness of the farm. There were buildings all across the eastern half of the complex, while the Barn domin­ated the west, and already Rawdon and Peake had taken some of the sally party into those mud-spattered shacks. Bellows of alarm and rage rang out and shots crackled. From the black abyss came sudden light as the first thatched pen was consumed in flame.

  Stryker looked to his left, down the line of the outer wall, and saw that the Parliamentarian musketeers, having
shaken themselves from the covering volley, were frantically making their own weapons ready.

  ‘Charge!’ Stryker brayed without hesitation. He drew his sword, levelling it at the startled enemy, and bolted forth. He heard the howls of the men at his back, could discern the familiar cries of Skellen and Forrester and Barkworth, and then they were at the first Roundheads. A man in a blue coat sprang out from the shadows of the wall immediately to his left, and Stryker emptied the pistol, shooting him square in the face. The man vanished in a bloom of smoke and blood. Another came on almost immediately, so Stryker threw the pistol at him, clattering his temple in a sickening crack. Then they were into the Roundheads, tearing like a hungry pack of wolves, their swords whirling and slashing and cleaving, the air alive with the sound of swords and the cries of men. Stryker’s group contained perhaps ten musketeers, and their shots roared beneath the torch glow, snatching men to their deaths at no range at all. Johnson was there, he now realized, and the colonel – a man Stryker reckoned to be in his early thirties, with auburn hair and a sharp triangle of beard thrusting from his bottom lip – was bawling for the sortie to veer right, away from the wall and towards the Great Barn.