Green Earth Shaking: A Fantasy Adventure Series (Gunpowder & Alchemy Book 3)

by Dan Davis

  Practising was fine by Archer because it was barely his second day as an officer of the New Model Army and he hated it.

  ‘They don’t respect me,’ Archer said to Sergeant Jones as they crept through the trees. The new growth of leaves speckled the branches above them, giving the overcast, grey light a slight green edge.

  ‘They’re hard men,’ the Sergeant admitted.

  ‘But they’re right to not respect me,’ Archer said, keeping his voice down lest any of them hear him. ‘I have no experience.’

  ‘It’s not exactly that, Captain,’ Jones said after thinking about it. ‘They’ve been used to young gentlemen with no experience telling them what to do. Captain Widmouth was just fifteen when he caught a cannonball at Edgehill and he was respected well enough. The men know that the officers give the orders and age don’t come into it. That’s how the world works, sir, we know that.’

  ‘But I’m not a gentleman,’ Archer said. ‘I’m a farmer. A shepherd. And stop calling me sir.’

  Sergeant Jones looked over his shoulder. ‘Do you truly want to know why they don’t respect you?’

  ‘Truly.’

  ‘Because you don’t act like you’re a real officer,’ Jones said.

  ‘That’s what I’m saying,’ Archer whispered. ‘I’m not a real officer.’

  ‘You’re a real officer if Cromwell says you are, sir. So it isn’t that. Listen, the men can sense weakness in an officer. Before Cromwell created the New Model Army, we served in local militias. The local lord would raise a regiment from the labourers in his county and the officers would all be gentlemen. Every soldier can tell right away which gentlemen is a good officer and which is bad. It wasn’t what they said or did so much as how they said it. A good officer acts confident, even if he’s probably nervous.’

  ‘So it’s just pretending?’

  Jones thought about it for a few more steps. ‘Well, a good officer makes decisions quickly and makes it look easy. Doesn’t even matter too much if those decisions are good ones. And the best officers seem like they care about their men. Bad officers are afraid of their men, or they don’t hide their contempt for them.’

  ‘I see,’ Archer said.

  ‘Probably not very useful advice, sir,’ Jones said.

  ‘It’s very interesting,’ Archer said. ‘But you’re saying that to be a good officer I need to... be a good officer.’

  Jones laughed. ‘I’m just saying stop worrying about it and be yourself, sir. Because you’re a smart lad, sir and the boys will see it if you just have confidence in that fact. That’s what I reckon, Captain Archer.’

  Just then, Poxy Tom strolled right by Archer and Jones, hocked up a wad of phlegm and spat on the ground in front of Archer’s feet. Tom stalked off with a sneering grin on his pockmarked face.

  ‘You just watch yourself, Tom,’ Jones snarled. Tom ignored him.

  The men in the company were mostly indifferent or slightly prickly and one or two seemed pleasant enough. But Poxy Tom seemed like he was a nasty bloke.

  ‘Now, having said that, sir,’ Sergeant Jones said. ‘You might have a problem with our Poxy Tom.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to like me very much,’ Archer pointed out.

  ‘He doesn’t like anyone too much,’ Jones said. ‘And people don’t like him in return. He was a poacher and thief before he turned to robbery. You know what robbery is?’

  ‘Stealing.’

  Sergeant Jones nodded. ‘Stealing the stuff out of your pocket by force, sir. You don’t have robbery down in Bede’s Vale, I’m guessing? Robbers stop you on the street and make you hand over all your coins and your boots and your rings and anything else you have that they could sell on. Some do it by threatening you with a knife.’

  ‘And that’s what Tom used to do?’

  ‘Poxy Tom and his gang liked to stop folk on the roads outside London. At night, they’d jump out of the shadows with pistols and muskets and rob you three ways from Sunday. They liked taking whole wagonloads of goods. He got caught in the end on account of the smallpox scars on his face. The flaming idiot never thought to disguise his face.’ Jones chuckled at that.

  Archer had been wondering about the strange pits scaring his face. ‘What are smallpox scars?’

  ‘You don’t have smallpox in the Vale neither?’ Sergeant Jones asked, impressed. ‘Well, I’ll be. You are a lucky folk. Smallpox is nasty. Usually gets you when you’re young. It gives you these terrible sores over your face and arms and body, like the biggest, worst spots you ever had but worse. All weeping pus and pain. It kills about half those that catch it but if you live then you end up with scars where the sores were. That’s why they called him Smallpox Tom, which is too long for a nickname so it got shortened to Poxy Tom when he was in gaol.’

  ‘If he’s a criminal, why did they let him in the army?’

  Jones laughed. ‘If they stopped criminals joining then we wouldn’t have enough men to guard a chicken coop. It was Cromwell himself who recruited Poxy Tom. You know why? Tom’s said to be the best shot in England, although that’s mostly big talk. He was certainly famous for it when he was robbing folk. He’d shoot a man’s hat off his head. He’d shoot a woman’s earring off her ear without hurting her... well, not too bad anyway. He shot other men’s muskets out of their hands with his pistol. Tom had fame and respect. No one liked him but they were afraid of him. And he had respect. There were pamphlets about him. He was mentioned in Parliament. Rich men started hiring guards because of him. That’s why Cromwell got him out of gaol. Gave him a chance to redeem himself.’

  ‘Cromwell would trust a man like that? And forget his crimes?’

  ‘He don’t trust him, sir. Certainly, he don’t forgive him. But you know that Cromwell started a war against the alchemists. An outright war of brother against brother that has ripped England apart and Scotland and Ireland too. That’s how much he hated them. And yet he captures the leaders of the Alchemists’ Guild and does he execute them? No. He uses them. He’s got them working for him, in the Tower of London. He put aside his personal hatred because he thought he needed them in order to win. No, sir, it’s not that he don’t care what Poxy Tom has done. It’s that he believes in victory no matter the means. Sir.’

  ‘Right,’ Archer said.

  ‘Sir,’ Harry the Corporal said as he hurried back towards him. ‘Cavaliers through the trees.’

  ‘I thought we were miles away from the King’s Army?’ Archer said.

  ‘We are, sir,’ Sergeant Jones said. ‘Sort your eyes out, Harry. Probably our own blokes.’

  ‘Maybe, sergeant,’ Corporal Harry said. ‘But they look like Cavaliers to me.’

  Archer realised Harry and Jones were looking at him. ‘Right, yes,’ Archer said. ‘Spread the men out at the edge of the trees. Stay out of sight.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Corporal Harry said and ran forward again, repeating the orders to the others.

  Sergeant Jones waved the rearmost men forward too. ‘Cavaliers, maybe, beyond the trees. Move up but stay hidden.’

  ‘Was that the right order?’ Archer asked Jones when the men had passed.

  ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we, sir?’ the Sergeant said, smiling. ‘Makes sense to me, though. And to the lads.’

  They pushed on to the tree line. Beyond the edge of the trees was a series of long, narrow fields that sloped away and down toward a wide valley floor. Houses and clusters of trees were scattered here and there between the fields. Some fields had tattered winter greens covering them but most were muddy. The one before him had rows of tiny green shoots just poking above the ground on the ridges.

  ‘Where are they?’ Archer asked Jones.

  ‘Ha,’ he heard Poxy Tom say in a loud whisper. ‘He can’t even see them. New officer’s blind as a bat.’

  Other men hushed Tom so Archer ignored him.

  ‘They just went behind them trees down there by the river, sir,’ Corporal Harry said, pointing. ‘Horsemen with fancy clothes and feathers in their cap
s. They had long hair.’

  ‘Long hair?’

  ‘Ha,’ Poxy Tom said in a mutter that was loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘Don’t know nothing.’

  ‘Quiet,’ Sergeant Jones growled. ‘I’ll have silence or I’ll have the next man who speaks emptying the latrines tonight.’

  Archer continued to ignore it. Keeping the men in line was a sergeant’s duty, Jones had said.

  ‘How many?’ Archer asked Harry.

  ‘Hard to tell, sir, on account of them going in and out of the trees from left to right. Thirty? Fifty?’

  ‘Too many for us, sir,’ Jones muttered. ‘We’d get cut down after our first volley. Never have time to reload.’

  ‘Our standing orders are to observe any enemy encountered, count their numbers and report back. And to not engage unless we are left with no other choice,’ Archer said.

  ‘Exactly, sir,’ Jones said. ‘I’ll pull the men back.’

  ‘No,’ Archer said. ‘We haven’t observed the Cavaliers properly yet. We need to know how many of them there are and we can’t do that if we wait here. They’ll be out of sight.’

  ‘That’s all very well, sir but if they observe us then we haven’t got a chance of outrunning them.’

  ‘Then we’ll stay out of sight,’ Archer said. ‘Harry, lead the way down the hill. We’ll follow the line of that ditch and hedgerow to that copse of hornbeam and hawthorn. If they were going from left to right along the valley then they should come out downhill from us and we can count them as they pass by. Then we’ll pull back.’

  ‘Them sounds like orders, lads,’ Jones said, grinning. ‘You heard the Captain. Lead on, Corporal.’

  They went in line down the ditch, Archer and his Sergeant in the centre. Archer’s heart racing. Archer wanted to prove to his men that he was brave and could make decisions quickly. He had no idea if what he was doing was the right thing. The men didn’t seem to think so. They wanted to pull back and perhaps they were right. But he was committed now and if he changed his mind he knew he’d look weak. They would call him a coward even though it was what they wanted to do themselves.

  In the copse, they waited, spread out, for the Cavaliers to emerge downhill. There was a road down there a few hundred yards away.

  ‘There,’ Harry whispered.

  A horseman.

  Too close.

  Not on the road at all but in the field between their copse and the road. Archer sensed the men around him freeze from fear as more Cavaliers emerged from the tree line. Some were on the road and others beyond it down by the stream. The horseman was so close Archer could smell him. More and more poured out.

  ‘This was stupid, weren’t it,’ Poxy Tom said, loudly. He spat a wad of phlegm toward the enemy.

  Jones glared at the man. If looks alone could kill you, Archer thought, Poxy Tom would have exploded.

  The nearest Cavalier walked his horse over to the copse. Archer ducked further behind his tree root, lowering himself slowly until he was squishing himself into the leaf litter and cold mud. Jones, Harry, Poxy Tom and everyone else were doing the same thing. Archer’s heart raced but he held his breath.

  The cavalier seemed unhurried, unconcerned as he rode up to the shadows at the edge of the copse. Archer knew that when it was sunny outside and you looked into darkness, such as into the doorway or window of a house, then almost all you saw was an impenetrable blackness. He was sure that the man couldn’t see anything but what if he could hear them? What if he could smell the stink of Archer’s men? After all, Archer could smell the cavalier and his magnificent horse.

  It was the horse that smelled them. It snorted and whinnied and stepped backwards a step, then pawed the ground.

  ‘What is it, Powick?’ The cavalier patted his horse’s neck. ‘Smell a fox, can you? No hunting today, my friend.’ He soothed it and made reassuring clicking noises with his tongue.

  Archer knew that he would be all right.

  Then there was a grunt behind him, and someone swore and Archer glanced round to see Poxy Tom standing upright with his rifle at his shoulder.

  Sergeant Jones was scrabbling toward him, hissing and growling warnings.

  Archer glanced back to the cavalier. The horseman frowned, peering toward the sound. His horse stepped sideways, suddenly nervous.

  Jones grabbed Poxy Tom’s arm right as Tom pulled his trigger.

  The rifle going off split the air and the smoke poured and the cavalier cried out, pulling his sword just as a spray of blood flew from the horse’s rump. The horse kicked and the cavalier dropped his sabre and the horse bolted away across the field, the cavalier holding on.

  Sergeant Jones clouted Tom in the ear, knocking him to the ground.

  ‘Here comes the rest of them,’ one of his men shouted. ‘Run for it.’

  Archer glimpsed the Cavaliers forming up in the field, facing their horses towards the trees and trotting on, the riders knee-to-knee. The Cavaliers drew their swords.

  Jones bellowed at the men. ‘No man runs. We fall back in good order, two by two. Like we practised.’

  Archer fought down his fear, fought down his anger at Poxy Tom and tried to think. The Cavaliers weren’t charging yet. He had time.

  ‘Form line!’ Archer shouted. ‘No falling back. Form a firing line here next to me between these trees.’

  The men hesitated, looking between Jones, Archer and the advancing Cavaliers out in the field.

  ‘Sir,’ Jones said. ‘No need to prove a point. There’s no shame in withdrawal from a superior enemy.’

  ‘They’re not superior,’ Archer said and raised his voice. ‘Form a line here and prepare to fire.’

  He did not wait to see if his order was followed. It probably wouldn’t be. But if the men ran then the Cavaliers would catch them and cut them down. They had to stay together and use their rifles to fend the horsemen off. It seemed obvious to him but perhaps his men knew better.

  He strode right to the edge of the trees. The horsemen saw him and the cry went up along the line. Guttural, angry shouts and cheers. Swords pointed, the men crouched lower in their saddles, racked back their heels and charged.

  Archer called up the wind. It was easier, now, than it had been even a few weeks before. It felt as though he was unlocking a door and stepping through into a room filled with cold, blinding white light. Each time it was as if the door was opening more freely.

  The air above him rushed downward on top of him, crashing through the branches above, rattling the sappy branches and pressing them down. He poured the wind down into the row of charging Cavaliers. Horsemen went flying backwards out of their saddles. Horses reared up and threw their riders off their backs. The rows of Cavaliers behind pulled up, looking afraid and then angry.

  Some of the Cavaliers swerved to the side out of his flow of air and they kept coming. Archer heard the familiar sound of his men’s rifles cracking behind him and the Cavaliers swerved off.

  The Cavaliers were pulling back, forming up again down at the line of the road. They looked furious. Determined.

  ‘Bring up the battlemage,’ he heard them shouting. ‘Where’s the battlemage?’

  Jones was at his elbow. ‘Captain. We have to pull back while we can.’

  His men lined up behind him, grinning. All but Poxy Tom who was looking furious, holding a hand over his ear. Archer had no idea how he was going to deal with the man.

  ‘We’ve held them off,’ Archer pointed out.

  ‘You held them off, sir,’ Sergeant Jones said. ‘But have you ever gone up against a battlemage?’

  Archer had not. ‘Fine. Let’s go.’

  His first action in command had almost ended in complete failure. And now he was running away.

  Weaver’s Prisoner

  ‘I hear that Archer had a run in with the Cavaliers yesterday,’ Winstanley said, hammering a plank of wood on the side of his new wagon at their camp.

  The night before some wagon driver had parked it up behind Burp’s wagon, unhit
ched the oxen and led them off. Winstanley and Susan had been working on it all morning while the army got ready to head out.

  Weaver had agreed to help them by holding the planks in place while he hammered them in and handing out nails and everything. The Winstanleys wanted the wagon to be strong enough to carry a ton or two of soil.

  Weaver sighed. ‘Why does everyone keep going on about Archer and his little scrap? My company has fights with the enemy all the time. And we don’t run away, neither.’ It was a cold morning and grey. The wind was gusting and she had not slept well.

  ‘All the time?’ Winstanley said before hammering another nail in through a plank into the solid wooden frame. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Right enough,’ she said. Everyone was always going on about Archer. It was stupid. It was as if no one cared about how good she was at riding a horse and going on patrol. ‘Archer nearly got himself killed.’

  ‘Quite. It sounded to me as though he was lucky to get away,’ Winstanley said. ‘It’s quite dangerous, do you not think? Running around with soldiers?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Weaver said. ‘You can’t go out there without a horse. With Artemis you can get away quickly so you don’t need to run.’

  ‘Not quite what I meant,’ Winstanley said, pausing his work to look over at her. ‘There is no need for you to go riding with the soldiers. Not at all. Do you ever wonder why they would take you along?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They take me because I’m good at it. I protect them.’

  ‘I see,’ Winstanley said, stopping with his hammer half-raised. ‘I wonder why Cromwell has given you and Archer everything you both wanted.’

  ‘Not you, too?’ Weaver sighed. ‘Archer keeps saying that. As if we’re not powerful. As if we don’t make his army stronger. Cromwell needs us.’

  ‘I am sure he does,’ Winstanley said.

  ‘Cromwell’s a Machiavellian,’ Susan said, while she hammered a nail in. ‘Do not be deceived by his country squire demeanour. Oftentimes he forces people to do his will through the sheer strength of his personality. And through outright threats, of one sort or another. But he can be subtle, too. I am certain that he is much cleverer than he seems. To appear to be a simple man is part of his cleverness. A clever, subtle man can be dangerous because you do not know what his true intentions are.’