Pistoleer: Slavers

by Smith, Skye

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  Was that the squeal of a baby pig? He opened his eyes. It would have been pitch black if not for some shards of light coming through the cracks in the wall that separated this room from the stairwell. A candle lantern was kept lit all night in the stairwell, just in case the guests were searching for the privy. Had he been asleep? For how long?

  He closed his eyes. He was lying on his back and Britta had turned towards him and was curled into one of his shoulders. His arm was asleep underneath her. If he tried not to think of how her breasts were pressed against his chest, perhaps he could stop dreaming of football.

  There it was again. Not the squeal of a baby pig, but the creak of a wooden step under load. Old George doing his rounds? Not likely. His rounds were outside. If he was inside he would be half asleep in the chair at the front desk. And again. Someone much heavier than old George was climbing the stairs slowly, trying not to make them creak. No shivering guest on his way back from the privy would be so thoughtful.

  He gently squeezed Britta's breast so that she would roll away from him and free up his arm. Luckily it was his left arm because once he sat up, it hung from his shoulder like a limp sausage. He swung his feet to the floor and stood, and luckily this edge of the bed was not under the low ceiling of the stair landing. He didn't bother with his cloak for he was decent enough in his nightshirt, but he did grab his dragon.

  Ever so quietly he drew the bolt on the door, and then crept out of the room and along the passage way that led towards the front door. He stopped while he was still in the shadows caused by the stairway lantern. Old George was asleep behind the front desk. There was a moving shadow on the wall, the shadow of someone much closer to the stairway lantern than he was. "Who goes there?"

  The slow creaks were replaced by a thunder of boots as someone rushed down the stairs two at a time. Daniel stepped forward to block the bottom of the staircase but he was too late by a second and the arm closest to the stairs was his left, which was still not cooperating. His left shoulder was hit by the full weight of other man's left shoulder, and Daniel was spun around out of his way. By the time he had the flint of the killing barrel cocked and the dragon raised, the dark figure had gone out through the front door.

  He gave chase, yelling to the man to stop or be shot, but the running figure knew his stuff. Instead of running away in a straight line, which would have made him a possible target, he was zig-zagging. He was already out of pistol range, but Daniel fired the load in any case. Better to give him, and any mates he may have, a good and noisy scare. Besides, it would wake the rest of the inn. From the corner of his eye he spotted more shadows. Two dark figures were running out from behind the inn and racing to catch up to the first.

  When he could no longer see the running figures, he went back inside. Old George hadn't stirred despite the crack of a pistol. He kneeled beside him. There was a trickle of blood oozing from his mouth and lips but at least he was still breathing. The desk was put away for the night and the top completely clear so he lifted the old man up and laid him onto it. The elder weighed not much more than a boy of twelve.

  The innkeep was the first to arrive, carrying the sawed off blunderbuss he kept behind the bar. He retreated back to the bar and returned with a pot of ale for old George. As Daniel propped the elder up, the innkeep tilted the pot into his lips. They knew he was alright when his tongue flicked out to clean the foam from his white mustache.

  "Should we come down?" It was Oliver's voice from the top of the stairs. "Do you need our pistols?"

  "Not necessary,” Daniel called back. "It's all over. Go back to bed. We'll discuss it in the morning." It was good advice, so he took it himself. While the innkeep and his wife were seeing to old George, he went back to Britta's room. He opened the door carefully. She was, after all, a clanswoman, and they prided themselves on being able to take care of themselves. They had no choice for their men were often away at sea for weeks and months at a time.

  It was good that he called to her first, else he could have been stabbed by her thin and razor sharp fish filleting knife. That or have been bashed across the head by the heavy cane that was raised up in her left hand. She was a vision from a Dutch painter's canvas, a naked beauty standing with weapons at the ready. "Back to sleep, love,” he whispered and crawled in after her. Almost immediately he was forced to think of football.

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  Up and down, up and down. For a half an hour heavy men had been stomping across the low ceiling above the bed. Up and down the stairway. More sleep was impossible. He felt Britta stirring awake in his arms. "Up and down,” he whispered to her.

  "You're telling me,” she whispered back. "All night long you were up and then down. I would just get to sleep again, and then your thing would be up again. Isn't there some way you can trap it between your legs so that it is not trying to push its way between mine?" She kissed his cheek. "I have to pee. You stay where you are. I can climb over you."

  By the time she had squirmed over him and then rolled off the bed, he was up again. "See?" she pointed at it accusingly.

  "It's no fault of mine. It's all your doing. Can I help it if your touch, your scent, and your breasts are so much like your mum's?" He was glad that they had cuddled all night, for she had needed a long hug from someone who cared for her. He was even gladder that it was over because the temptation was a sweet torture. "Are you coming back to bed?"

  "Not likely. It's Monday, market day. All of us women will be putting on our town clothes and escaping The George for a few hours."

  More heavy footsteps above. He decided to go back to his own room before anyone noticed that he hadn't slept there. With his boots on, and his night shirt hidden by his cloak, he carried his half-empty dragon through the passageways and up the stairs to room six, but did not unlock the door. Instead he spun on his heel and walked back down to the privies.

  By the time he got back to room six, all the other doors on this corridor were open and men, parliamentarians all, were walking back and forth between them. After a quick wash and a change of clothes, Daniel went to join them. He walked into the biggest of the rooms without knocking and walked over to the table by the biggest window. Most of the table was covered with pages of paper. They looked like lists.

  He absently nodded to the calls of 'good morning'. "What the hell is that doing here?" he asked, pointing to a grimy-looking basket on the end of the table.

  "Oh yes,” John Pym replied. "Do you know what it is? We found it this morning in the hallway outside my door, along with that jug of lamp oil."

  "It's a bloody fire bomb!" Daniel pulled a chair closer to the bomb so he could sit still and have a good look at it. "The buggers. I must have interrupted them before they could light the fuse." He leaned closer. The fuse was charred on the end. "No, they did light it but it fizzled out." He rolled the end of the fuse between finger and thumb. "Yeah, it's an old fuse. The powder has shifted inside leaving dead spaces."

  Now he had everyone's attention. They gathered around the bomb and John Hampden brought a candle lamp closer to help them see the thing. He was rudely told by Daniel to keep the effing lamp as far away from the thing as possible, or better yet, put the damned thing out.

  By using his knife as a pointer, he explained how the thing worked. "I've seen the Spanish army throw them at roofs, and the Spanish navy lob them at ships. The outside covering is a basket caked in pine tar. In the center of it is a standard Spanish bomb pot. Just a round pot filled with gunpowder with a fuse sticking out of it. The area between the pine tar and the pot is stuffed with oil soaked paper. See the loop on the top? You can attach a line there so that you can swing the thing around your head so you can lob it further."

  "But how does it work?" Hampden asked.

  With a sigh at such an obvious question, Daniel replied. "You light it, swing it around your head, and let it go."

  "No, I mean why is it called a fire bomb?"

  "Ahh, You light the bottom of the basket
and wait while the flame climbs the basket and heats the pine tar. The fuse is at the top, so it's best to light that separately once the tar starts to spit. As soon as the fuse is lit you lob it at something burnable, like the deck of a ship or a roof of a house. When the pot explodes it rips the oil paper and the tar basket into pieces and flings it off in all directions. Instantly you have a spreading fire over a large area. It helps if you throw some jugs of lamp oil first, just to make sure that the wood or thatch catch fire quickly."

  A few of the men pushed themselves away from this invention of demons, including Oliver, who now said, "It was in the hall. The man who you interrupted would have poured that lamp oil along the base of all the doors and then would have lit the basket, and then the fuse, and then would have run. After the explosion, the entire hallway would have become an inferno."

  "I must have interrupted him before he had everything ready. He hadn't yet spread the lamp oil, or lit the tar basket, so he just lit the fuse and ran."

  "But you saw three men running away,” Pym confirmed.

  "Aye, one from up here and two that came from around the back. They were probably waiting below the windows of the guest rooms."

  "But why?"

  "I can guess. With the hallway an inferno, you're only escape would be out the windows. It's not a long drop to the ground if you first lower yourself to the extent of your arms and then let go of the window ledge. Perhaps eight feet. You may have broken a leg, but you would have survived. The other two men would have been carrying cudgels to make sure that you tragically hit your heads in the fall."

  "That is diabolical,” Pym moaned. "Has it come to this?"

  "I recognized the man, or, well, not the man so much as the look. A look of dirty cheeks. He was at your rally yesterday."

  "Do you know his name?" Oliver asked.

  "No, but it may be on one of your lists. You know, those lists of names of those you recognized down in the rally."

  "Where was he standing at the rally?"

  "Halfway between me and Pym and close to the inner wall."

  "Hmm, that would most likely be in ...." Oliver searched though the separate lists made by a half a dozen different watchers. "This one." He motioned for Daniel to come to the window end of the table so he could read the list. "This column is the name, this his village or street or college, and this is a number from one to five. One means he is totally with us, while five means totally against."

  "Well, there was a group of at least a dozen standing together who were all against. A handful of students with their masters and a handful of mercenary types." He ran his eye down the column of numbers and stopping at each five to see what the name was. "There, see. A five but there is no name. Just that scribble."

  Oliver bent close to read the scribble. "It's hard to believe that a college doctor wrote that scribble. The word is 'Bodyguards' with six question marks."

  "That's what I thought they were,” Daniel smiled. "Not at first because I had assassins on the brain, but afterwards. It was something in the way that they were herding their wards and keeping them out of the crush. Read out any last names around that entry."

  "Waltham, Lindsay," Oliver read out, "these are all from Trinity College, Conway, Hubbert..."

  "Go back. Was that Conway?"

  "Yes, Edward Conway, Trinity College."

  "There was a Viscount Edward Conway in command of the King's army in Newcastle." Daniel told them. "I don't believe in coincidences. That scrap of a letter that Alex Leslie passed to us was from the fortress at Newcastle. This fire bomb is an army weapon. The bodyguards were professional musketeers. Do you think they would be lodging at Trinity College?"

  "The students perhaps, but not the bodyguards," Oliver replied. "Shall I walk to the town hall and find out if Conway has a house in Cambridge?" He looked out of the window and angled his head to look straight down. It was all paved below. If they had been forced to drop they would have broken their legs for sure. They would have been sitting ducks for men with cudgels. Dead ducks.

  "I'd rather you all stay out of sight and off the streets,” Daniel said softly. "The women are dressing to go to town. I will ask Britta to find out where Conway and his bodyguards live."

  "She has no standing in this town. The clerks at the town hall will ignore her,” Oliver said haughtily.

  "She won't need to go to the town hall,” Daniel replied. "She will just ask the first Trinity College student she recognizes, and he will find it out for her for no other reason than she looks so sweet in her town clothes."

  They all went down for breakfast together, and while they waited to be served by one of the kitchen lads, Daniel kept an eye out for Britta. He didn't have long to wait because the women were gathering to leave. Britta answered his wave by strutting towards him in her best town shoes and her best town cape and dress and bonnet. All clean, and with her hair brushed, she was as pretty as a painting. She accepted her quest eagerly. It would give her an excuse to wander away from the chore of marketing and stroll the College streets.

  Once Britta was away, Daniel went in search of the stable lad. He gave him a shilling, a written message and told him to take a horse and ride like the wind for Ely. "Find Richard at the Cromwell house and tell him to take the message it to Wellenhay with all haste. Oh, but say nothing to his mother." The message said simply that six mercenaries tried to fire bomb The George last night, and to bring the smaller of their ships, the Freisburn.

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  The Pistoleer - Slavers by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 12 - From the mouths of babes in September 1640

  The five parliamentarians sat together on the same long bench, with their back to the wall of The George and their faces in the sun. Oliver sat in the middle, for he was the local member, and he knew all of the people they were watching. After a frantic Saturday preparing for the rally at Sidney Sussex College, and a frantic Sunday while holding the rally, just sitting peacefully in the fall sunshine was a luxurious gift to themselves.

  After the attempted fire bombing late last night, both Daniel and the innkeeper had demanded that none of the politicians leave the grounds until they had found some guards for them. The small ship Freisburn that was now tied up at the river bank in front of them was unloading these guards. The guards were its oarsmen, dangerous men with strong backs and shoulders.

  "If those men had dark hair and beards they would look just like pirates,” John Hampden observed. There were women stepping ashore, and unlike the men, who were dressed for hard labour, the women were all wearing their go-to-town clothes. "And why did they bring their women with them? Would you bring your wife to a place that was almost firebombed?"

  They watched as the inn wife ran out to greet the four women walking away from the ship. She curtseyed to the old woman in the lead. "That must be the Lady of their village,” Arthur Haselrig observed. "She must be fifty if she is a day."

  "Try eighty,” Oliver whispered. "And she is not the Lady of Wellenhay, but the Seer of Wellenhay. And by that I do mean Seer and not witch. Her name is Oudje, and she is the keeper of the clan's chronicle. The last time I spoke with her I said a prayer that some literate person would soon sit with her and record all that she knows before her passing robs the world of such knowledge."

  "Of what church are they?" Haselrig asked. He was a devout Puritan, so was openly suspicious, if not antagonistic towards all those who were not.

  "Anabaptists, like most Frisians,” Oliver said quickly. "Their community is similar to those of the Mennonites, but with fewer mustn'ts and shouldn'ts." The clan always professed to being Anabaptists to those who were not close friends. Only recently had he come to realize that they were crypto-pagans pretending to be Christians.

  "Hrumph,” Haselrig snorted. "Frisian, eh? Foreigners."

  "Anglo-Frisian,” Oliver corrected. "That clan has lived in the Fens since a time before the Vikings. Look at the lines of the ship. The Frisians have been mak
ing beauties like that for at least five hundred years. They use it to trade with the Netherlands."

  "They crossed the North Sea in that? Surely not. It is too small and it is mostly open to the weather."

  Oliver had once said the same thing to Daniel and now he quoted him. "Despite its size, it is seaworthy and fast under sail or oar, and what is more, it draws so little water that it can even reach Cambridge on the River Cam." He watched as the crew stowed the oars. He knew most of them by name. "Its North Sea days are finished now, for it must be forty years old. Besides, they now have a larger, faster ship. A beautiful ship."

  "I'll tell you what is beautiful,” Haselrig whispered. "Those women are beautiful." The Inn's comely serving girl, Britta, was hugging each of the women as they were effortlessly lifted from the ship to the river bank by a blond giant.

  Oliver named each one as she hugged them. "That is her mother, Venka. She looks thirty at most, but she is closer to forty. When I visit Wellenhay on business, it is she that signs for the village. That is her aunt, Sarah. I don't know how old she is. She looks like Britta's sister but she must be well into her thirties. The lass is Teesa, her sister. Pinch her bum and you'll lose those same fingers to her eeling knife."

  Two tall and fair young men walked by and politely said 'good afternoon' to Oliver. They each had a bow and a quiver slung over their shoulder and were heading towards the far hedge and gate. "May I point out the obvious,” Pym whispered, "that the men are as pretty as their women. Not that I bend that way, of course."

  "The Frisians have always bred beauty,” Oliver replied. "Beauteous horses, beauteous cattle, and beauteous children. It is perhaps the cause of their downfall. For centuries, rich and powerful men have coveted the beauty that the Frisians have created. Their simple villages have been raided again and again to capture the women and the livestock."

  "What, their village!" John Hampden exclaimed. "Surely not, at least not recently."