‘No!’ Merriman screamed, terror still freezing him in place.
‘He will cut off witchcraft,’ Hogg went on. ‘Do you not see? To make compact with Belial is not only a symptom of evil, but one of its prime causes. It must be rooted out and destroyed.’ He saw Ventura look back at him, and nodded. ‘Search her.’
Now John Merriman moved. He lurched forward, quicker than Hogg had anticipated, and was beyond the central brazier in a heartbeat, but Hogg had been ready with his stick, and thrust it firmly between the taller man’s legs. Merriman collapsed in a tangled heap, clutching a sprained wrist and weeping for mercy.
Hogg ignored him. ‘I said,’ he addressed Ventura, ‘search her.’
In the blink of an eye the dirk swept down the back of Elspeth’s dress. The material tore easily, splitting from the nape of her broad neck to the small of her back. Ventura left the woman’s skirts in place, but tugged hard at the material at her shoulders, hauling it down over her arms and torso, so that her entire body was laid bare from the waist up. She had fallen silent now, trembling slightly. Her stricken husband sobbed into the dusty floor.
Hogg leaned close to the woman so the scent of her filthy flesh made him gag, and peered carefully at her skin. Nothing.
Unwilling to touch her, he used the end of his walking stick to compel her to turn. She resisted at first, but a little extra pressure soon made her comply, and Hogg leaned in again like a doctor examining a patient. ‘Usually,’ he said quietly, his long nose poised just inches from her ample breasts, ‘a mark will come here, near the bosom.’ His gaze lingered just a little longer than was necessary, before he gestured once more with the stick, compelling her to face the wall again. He studied the side of her ribcage. ‘Or here, on the flanks.’
‘You’ll find nothing, sir,’ murmured Elspeth, voice muffled by the wall. ‘This body is pure. You’ll see no mark.’
Hogg checked her other side, and, with his stick, lifted her arms to examine the pits. ‘So it appears. Of course, it is often the case that a witch may conjure foul spells to conceal her teat. Fortunately, Señor Ventura is rather adept at revealing them.’
Elspeth Merriman’s little eyes seemed to bulge out of her head when she looked across her shoulder to see Ventura’s dirk. ‘No, sir!’ she wailed. ‘You would not use such a thing on a defenceless woman!’
Ventura picked nonchalantly at his fingernails with the tip of the thin blade. ‘A witch will hide her imp-suckler beneath the skin. The place will not break. Will not bleed or cause pain.’
‘So it is simply a matter,’ Hogg added, not bothering to hide the relish in his voice, ‘of pricking the accused until such a place is discovered.’
Now Elspeth screamed, but Ventura took a fistful of her coarse, mousy hair and ground her face against the wall. She shrieked again, a sound that grew from beseeching wail to shrill, agonized cry as Ventura slowly pressed the dirk into one of her shoulder blades. She squirmed against him, thrashed with her arms, kicking backwards at him like an enraged mule, but he did not flinch. Blood seeped from the fresh hole, making the blade gleam in the brazier’s orange light.
‘Not there, José,’ Hogg said. ‘Try another.’ He looked down at John Merriman, whose pale eyes seemed large as apples in the gloom. The man was simply agog at what was happening to them. Good, thought Hogg. It would secure a quicker confession. He stooped suddenly, ignoring the pain shooting through his rump and lower back, and grabbed a handful of Merriman’s grubby collar. He hauled the pathetic townsman up, so that their noses were just inches apart. Behind him, Elspeth screamed again. ‘You can stop this.’ He pulled Merriman’s face even closer, smelling the man’s rank breath. ‘A confession will end it.’
Merriman glanced from Hogg to his wife, gritted his teeth, blinked once to let a fat teardrop plummet down his cheek. ‘I shall not condemn her. She is no witch.’
Hogg released his grip and looked up to where Ventura was taking aim with his dirk again. ‘Leave her, José. Pick up this wretch.’
Ventura sheathed the blade, backing away quickly to let the bleeding, half-naked woman slide down the wall and curl into a tight, shuddering ball. He stooped without pause, hauling Elspeth’s husband to his feet with a reserve of raw strength that was belied by his blubbery physique.
Hogg went quickly to the brazier and jerked one of the irons free. The last two inches of its tapering end were a livid ruddy orange.
Merriman tensed, swallowed hard. ‘Please, sirs, have mercy, I beg of you,’ he whispered, eyes never leaving the iron’s glowing tip.
Hogg shot Ventura a glance. ‘Hand.’
The Spaniard’s sweaty face cracked in a wisp of a smile and he grasped Merriman’s thin wrist with a strength the latter could not begin to match. In a flash, he twisted the tall townsman’s forearm roughly so that his palm faced the ceiling.
‘I will ask one more time, sir,’ Hogg said with deliberate slowness. ‘Will you confess that you and Goody Merriman did knowingly and wilfully make vile compact with the Devil, in order to bring unnatural sickness and death to the son of Michael Hood?’
‘I will not,’ Merriman replied stoically.
Hogg was both surprised and impressed by the accused’s stubbornness. Perhaps the Devil had given him extra reserves of courage. There was only one way to find out, he thought, and let the iron drop so that it tickled the surface of Merriman’s palm. The skin immediately bubbled at the touch, Merriman howled like a man possessed, and the stench of roasting flesh filled the room. Fearing Merriman might pass out, Hogg withdrew the iron, leaving it to hover menacingly before the man’s face.
‘Fuck your lies, sir!’ Merriman bawled. ‘Fuck you both, and Hood too! I cannot! I will not condemn her!’
Hogg wielded the iron again, but this time he bypassed Merriman’s blistered hand and dragged it along the brittle forearm. The skin melted at the touch, sizzled and crackled like an animal carcass on a spit, smearing the tissue beneath as though it were fresh curds, and Merriman bellowed to the rafters.
‘Stop!’
It was Elspeth who screamed. Hogg thrust the iron back into its searing home and turned to look at her. She was sitting now. Rocking gently. ‘You wish to speak, madam?’
‘It was I, sir. I did see this man-imp like how Master Hood claims. I made a pact with him, as you say.’
Hogg’s heart began to hammer. ‘To follow Satan in exchange for the power to kill?’
She nodded. ‘I swear it. And I swear John knew not a thing of it. Upon my life.’
It felt as though a great weight had been lifted free of Hogg’s shoulders. He whispered silent thanks to God. Another one rooted out. Another condemned.
A knock at the door shook him from his private contemplation, and he jerked his chin at Ventura. The porcine Spaniard released Merriman to paw at his destroyed arm, waddling quickly across the room to yank the door back.
A man stood there, the moon above his pate like a halo, and for a moment Hogg thought it might just be the angel he had prayed so long to see. A just reward for righteous works. But then he noticed the man’s breastplate and tall boots, the scabbard at his waist and the gauntlet on his left arm.
‘Well?’ he snapped irritably. ‘This had better be good.’
The trooper took a step inside and seemed to sniff the air, evidently scenting Merriman’s cooked limb. Then his interested eyes settled on the two bodies, curled like tight foetuses, and the brazier at the room’s epicentre, and he rapidly backtracked, speaking only when he was well out into the fresh night air. ‘You are Osmyn Hogg, the witch-catcher?’
Hogg tapped the ground impatiently with his stick. ‘I am.’
‘Compliments of Major-General Collings, sir. He said you’d wish to hear the news from Colonel Wild?’
The hairs on the back of Hogg’s neck bristled uncontrollably. ‘News?’
‘The Colonel’s found the man he was looking for.’
The Tor, Dartmoor, 1 May 1643
By first light Captain Stry
ker’s Company of Foot had reached the summit of the natural fortress they had spotted as Wild’s defeated troopers made their hasty retreat. Those horsemen, deflated and vengeful, had regrouped quickly and trotted their mounts alongside the straggling Royalist column, watching like a flock of hawks for a sign of weakness. But the redcoats had driven them away once already, and they knew better than to venture within musket range. Without the element of surprise they were rendered toothless against seasoned infantry. Thus, the two groups had passed the dusk hours eyeing each other warily as Stryker’s company followed the northerly course of the river. Wild must have known they were headed for the tor, but there was little he could do to prevent it, and eventually his troop had skulked away beyond the horizon.
The tor itself was not as vast and forbidding as some of the others on the high moor. It was more hillock than mountainous crag, with slopes that, though steep, were perfectly scalable on foot. Had it been an empty mound, simply carpeted in the ubiquitous heather and gorse, Stryker would have ignored it, for Wild’s horsemen would be posed little difficulty in reaching the summit, but his eye had been taken by the jagged network of boulders strewn all over the slopes, rendering any cavalry advance treacherous at best. Moreover, he had been attracted by the far larger outcrop of granite clustered on the flat pinnacle. To Stryker, it seemed like a derelict citadel, uneven and weather-beaten but imposing nonetheless, still proud in its mouldering grandeur, guarding the river that meandered past its eastern foot. And with every step his battered charges had taken, picking their way between the scores of smaller stones littering the slopes, Stryker felt a building sense of optimism. Because it was a fort. Not one made by man, but a fort all the same. And he would defend it.
‘Stone me if m’ kneecaps ain’t fallin’ off!’
Stryker, standing at the edge of the tor’s crest in order to count his company home, could not help but grin as Sergeant Skellen passed him. ‘Getting old, Will?’
Skellen, finally over the sharp brow, snatched off his wide-brimmed hat and fanned himself, before putting hands to thighs and chuckling breathlessly. ‘Think you’re in the right of it, sir.’ He looked up, revealing a leathery face and thinning scalp that gleamed with sweat. ‘Dead are all a-bed, sir.’
The company had lost a total of sixteen souls in the fight. Corporal Omphrey Shepherd was the most senior man to fall, shot in the mouth by a carbine ball that had killed him instantly. He had been joined on the butcher’s bill by nine pikemen and six musketeers. The loss brought bile to Stryker’s mouth each time he dwelt on it, and he had to swallow hard as he considered Skellen’s words. ‘All properly buried?’
Skellen frowned as if hurt by the question. ‘’Course, sir. Down on the flat, as you ordered. Lads had to watch their backs for them harky-busiers, but we got the job done. In truth we was glad to get them in the ground. I wouldn’t ’ave liked tryin’ to drag them up this bleedin’ hill. The wagon’s heavy enough as it is.’ The tall sergeant’s eyes drifted beyond Stryker’s shoulder, and he whistled. ‘Christ, but this is a snout-fair little castle you’ve found, sir.’
‘It’ll keep Wild off our backs.’
Skellen nodded. ‘Aye, sir. All we need now is a roof ’case it rains, a fat powder magazine, a few cannon, plenty o’ food and runnin’ water. We’d be set for the rest o’ the war, sir.’
Skellen’s tone had been light enough, but his meaning had not been lost on Stryker. ‘Do you trust me, Sergeant?’
Skellen frowned, chewed the inside of his mouth, scratched his balding pate, then grinned broadly. ‘With my life, sir.’
‘Set the Trowbridge twins to picket. Have them watch for Wild’s approach; he’s doubtless nearby. Then fetch the lieutenant and the rest of the senior men,’ he pointed to the nearest granite stack, ‘and meet me there.’
All around the summit’s fringe were lonely stone stacks, tall and sharp like giants’ teeth. If this was a fortress, then these were its turrets, forming a ragged ring around the outer walls. Within, at the very centre of the tor, were two impressive rows of clustered stacks, each as tall as a two-storey house, running diagonally parallel to one another from north-west to south-east. Between them was an avenue of rocky grassland, like the fort’s courtyard, and it was into this flat, open space that Stryker took the leaders of his company.
‘If we remain on the lower ground,’ he said, turning to face the impromptu assembly, ‘then Wild will cut us to pieces a little at a time.’
‘Let him come, I say.’ It was Simeon Barkworth who spoke, typical aggression shaping his opinion. With him were Burton, Skellen, Ensign Chase, Sergeant Heel, and the two drummers, Lipscombe and Boyleson. ‘I’d prefer a straight scrap to hidin’ up here. We’ll show the bastard how proper fighting’s done.’
‘Aye,’ replied Stryker calmly, prepared for out-and-out attack to be the Scot’s first and only recourse, ‘and we’d repel his charges time and again, for certain. But where will we go? He has blocked our route west. So would you have us run east, back to Parliament’s lines?’
‘All the while taking casualties,’ Lieutenant Burton put in.
‘He’ll take us at his leisure,’ Stryker went on remorselessly. ‘Attack us by night, so that we cannot see him coming. Our musketry is only effective when we can see to aim.’ He removed his hat, rearranged the grimy feathers jutting from the band, and gently patted some specks of dust clear. ‘Eventually our bravery would count for nothing. He would wear us to the bone.’ Barkworth’s fiery gaze dimmed a touch at this, and Stryker saw that he was winning the man over. ‘We need shelter. This will suffice for now. It’s not the ideal place to garrison, isolated as it is, but the stony slopes will give Wild something to ponder, and these,’ he indicated the formidable granite stacks towering either side of them, ‘provide good protection from the wind.’
‘And if it rains?’ Skellen asked bluntly.
‘Then we’ll get wet,’ Stryker replied with matching tone. He studied the places where each stack met the earth, noticing that, here and there, small caves had been formed where the huge, irregular shaped stones touched. He pointed to the largest cave. ‘But the wagon can go in there, which means our powder will stay dry.’
‘Ideal for protecting against sparks as well,’ Barkworth said thoughtfully.
Stryker nodded. ‘Aye, but no fires up here, just to be certain. The weather’s fine enough to do without.’
He led the group along the avenue while the sounds of the company settling into their new home rattled on in their wake. They had advanced to the tor from the south, and he was eager to investigate its northern approaches.
The sunlight seemed unusually bright as they moved out of the natural corridor’s shadows, finding themselves on the edge of the crest. They gazed down at a landscape of wide, fallow terrain, punctuated in the same manner as the southern periphery by gorse bushes and craggy rocks. Tiny birds, chatting and singing, skittered madly along the slopes from boulder to boulder, in and out of bracken and between the wind-stripped branches of small trees. The view was expansive, affording a clear sight for several miles, with a horizon interrupted by other, grey-topped tors and patches of green forest.
‘We’ll see him coming,’ Stryker said to himself.
‘He will attack, then?’ Barkworth’s croaking voice responded, though it was more of a statement than a question.
Stryker nodded. ‘Be certain of it, Simeon. But thanks to Master Bailey’s wagon, we have plenty of shot and powder. We’ll place our pikes in the gaps between the rocks,’ he turned to look back at the huge stacks, ‘and our muskets will fire down from up there. He’d find this no easier than taking a real fort.’
‘Sir,’ the short, barrel-chested Ensign Chase hailed Stryker from ten paces down the hill’s northern face. He was pointing away to the north and east, where a smudge of grey and russet blotted the landscape some six hundred paces from the foot of the tor. ‘Is that a barn?’
Stryker followed Chase’s gaze for a moment. ‘I think it is. We�
��ll send out a party to take a look. Perhaps it stores something useful.’
‘Vittles,’ Skellen said hopefully.
Stryker kept his eye trained on the building. ‘One never knows, Sergeant.’
‘And if it’s empty?’ Burton asked, his voice unusually glum.
Stryker looked at the lieutenant. ‘Supplies are dwindling, I accept that. But water is more vital, and the river runs right past us. We can last a few days.’
‘And after that?’
‘After that, Andrew,’ Stryker said seriously, ‘we eat the horses.’
‘Sir!’ a man called suddenly from further along the avenue.
‘What is it?’ Stryker shouted back, recognizing the voice as one of the company’s twins, though unable to tell which.
After a few seconds’ wait, Jack Trowbridge emerged from the grassy passageway. ‘It’s the enemy, sir,’ he said, chest heaving from the run. ‘They’re back.’
As ever, Colonel Wild’s cavalry troop were easily identified by their tall cormorant feathers. They filed along a track just over half a mile to the south-west of the tor, following the cornet and his fluttering black and white flag.
Stryker, having jogged back through the avenue to stand on the southern edge of the tor’s summit, peered down at the horses and their silver masters, wondering which of the lobster pots concealed the face of Colonel Gabriel Wild. The obvious guess was that Wild would be at the head of that glinting serpent, the rider in place beside the standard bearer, but from this distance he could not tell for certain. At least up here, on this new-found bastion, Stryker could feel some semblance of security. The Roundheads could circle the hill like a shoal of hungry sharks for all he cared, but they would be tempting death if they came within musket range.
‘Just having a look,’ Stryker said when Lieutenant Burton appeared next to him.
Burton adjusted his shoulder strap, as he tended to do when he was agitated. ‘They can’t attack us here, can they, sir?’
Stryker looked at his second-in-command. ‘They’ll try, Andrew. By God they’ll try. But we have the advantage now. They can no longer catch us unawares.’ He glanced at a lonely granite obelisk that stood tall and jagged a little way down the slope. ‘Keep an eye on them, Pikeman Clegg!’
Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 14