Without further words, the Parliamentarian colonel wheeled his mount round and led the procession back towards the distant barn, leaving Otilwell Broom’s half-naked, blood-crusted corpse to sway gently in the breeze.
CHAPTER 12
Gardner’s Tor, Dartmoor, 5 May 1643
Cecily Cade found Stryker down at the ruined village. He was patting one of the horses, leaning across the waist-high wall of an ancient building to whisper soothingly into the skittish beast’s pricked ear. He straightened when he caught sight of her approach.
‘I would apologize for the way I spoke to you yesterday,’ Cecily said when she had successfully negotiated the stones that pushed up from the narrow river. ‘I know you were trying to protect me.’
Stryker nodded awkwardly. ‘I had no right to try and send you away. Broom was your friend.’
Cecily offered a tiny shrug. ‘Not really. That is to say, he was a faithful servant to my father, but I did not know him well. It was simply a shock.’
‘It is always a terrible thing to watch a man die.’ He thought of the hanging tree, happy to be on the other side of the hill to those sinister branches. At least, he supposed, Broom was no longer swinging from its creaking bough. A party of musketeers had crept warily from the tor as dusk had lengthened the shadows around the granite stacks. They had cut down Broom’s body, stiff and reeking of blood, and carried it back to be buried with the rest of the dead. He looked up at Cecily suddenly. ‘It is my fault, all of it.’
Cecily gave a sad smile and shook her head gently. ‘I am no fool, Captain. I understand that you were compelled to take Wild’s powder wagon. It was your duty. And I have not forgotten how we came to be with your company. Without you, Otilwell and I would be dead already.’
‘You do not understand,’ Stryker said obstinately. ‘Broom was not hanged as a witch.’
‘He signed a confession. Albeit one tortured out of him, but a confession nevertheless.’
Stryker left the wall and went to Cecily, taking her shoulders in his hands. ‘Hogg is after me, and me alone.’
The image of Osmyn Hogg came into his mind. He was older now, of course, and his face, if anything, was even sourer than Stryker remembered. But the hard eyes and hooked nose, the deep voice and those prominent, almost equine teeth were the same as they had been so long ago. ‘Our paths crossed many years back. I had near forgotten him, truth be told, and I never knew his name, but he has not forgotten me.’
‘What happened?’ Cecily asked.
‘He tried to hurt someone—someone dear to me. I stopped him.’
‘A woman?’
Stryker nodded, retracing the explanation he had earlier given to his senior men. ‘Aye. Though she died soon after.’
‘And now Hogg wants revenge?’
‘I think so.’
‘Do you have a woman now?’
Stryker looked up sharply, so unexpected was the question. ‘Yes—no—I don’t know. She is often overseas.’ He knew the answer was inadequate, but in truth he did not know how to describe his relationship with Lisette Gaillard. He loved her, that was for certain, and would have long since married her, had she felt the same about him. But her first love was duty. Duty to Queen Henrietta Maria. And that love, that diamond-hard loyalty, meant that Lisette would spend most of her time away from Stryker. Away, indeed, from England altogether.
Stryker drew breath to speak, hoping to offer a better explanation, when he noticed Cecily’s distant expression. ‘What is it?’
She peered back at him, brow furrowed, tense. ‘He told them.’
‘He?’
‘Otilwell. He told that vile man about me.’
‘They could see you, Miss Cade. Your presence was hardly a secret.’
She gnawed at her bottom lip. ‘But if he talked, what else might he have said?’
‘What do you mean?’ Stryker replied cautiously. ‘What might he have said that is worse than naming you a witch?’
She looked past his shoulder, eyes suddenly fixing on something beyond. ‘It does not matter.’
Stryker turned, letting his hands fall away from Cecily, to see Lieutenant Burton ambling down the slope towards them. ‘What is it, Andrew?’
The younger man’s gaze had been set firmly on Cecily, and it seemed to take some effort to acknowledge Stryker. ‘Simeon is in a rare stupor, sir,’ he said eventually. ‘He’s dangerous. Made to stick Fallon with his dirk. Skellen had to bully the fight out of him with his halberd.’
Stryker sighed, unsurprised. ‘I’ll speak to him.’ He saw Cecily’s look of surprise. ‘He was once hanged as a witch.’
Cecily’s jaw dropped. ‘Hanged?’ She covered her open mouth with a hand. ‘That is how he came by his scar?’
‘Aye,’ confirmed Stryker. ‘Folk took pity on him, cut him down before he died, but he is haunted still. To be accused again is difficult for him.’
‘Go, sir,’ Burton said, moving to stand close to Cecily. ‘I will take care of Miss Cade.’
Stryker bade Cecily farewell and left her with the lieutenant, and jogged nimbly up the tor’s eastern face. When he looked back, Burton was still staring up at him.
‘I want to kill that witch-catcher, sir,’ Simeon Barkworth rasped.
Stryker had found him on the tor’s summit, leaning against one of the largest stacks and staring away to the north-east. A dirk glinted in his hand. ‘Then you’ll need to get in line.’
Barkworth’s little eyes, so catlike in their gleaming depths, darted across at the captain. ‘It was a hard thing to watch.’
‘I understand.’ Stryker stepped closer, noticing Barkworth’s knuckles whiten around the knife’s hilt. ‘But there’s talk you threatened Pikeman Fallon.’
‘A matter of regret, sir,’ Barkworth croaked, still examining the north-eastern hills. ‘He made to jest—’
‘But not about the hanging.’
Barkworth looked round at him. ‘I know that now. I heard laughter, Fallon’s high bloody chirp. I mistook him.’
Stryker glanced at the dirk. ‘Nearly a fatal mistake.’
Barkworth offered a wan smile. ‘For us both. Skellen might be a gangling piece o’ piss, but he’s mighty fearsome wi’ that pole-arm in hand.’
‘Just as well he was there.’
The Scot nodded. ‘Aye.’ His eyes widened then, and he stared down at the dirk in his fist, as if realizing for the first time that he still gripped it. He immediately sheathed the thankfully unbloodied weapon. ‘I will apologize to Fallon.’
‘Yes, Simeon, you will.’ Stryker took a small step closer. ‘This siege is taking a heavy toll.’
‘That it is,’ Barkworth said heavily. ‘When I think back on Lichfield, I know we were no better off there. At least we’re not starved this time. But here,’ he swallowed thickly, ‘we are utterly alone. There’ll be no aid, no chance of reinforcements. And still I might have dealt with it better.’
‘But the hanging changed things.’
Barkworth closed his eyes, rubbed them hard with the palms of his little hands. ‘It was a thrust too deep, sir. It has filled my head with old memories. Poisoned me, like digging up a rotting corpse.’
‘You will make your peace with Pikeman Fallon,’ Stryker said after a moment’s silence. ‘Then you will make the best of this situation as the rest of us must. When the time comes, I need you ready and willing to kill the enemy.’
‘To kill Osmyn Hogg.’
Barkworth pulled a puzzled expression. ‘Did you really give him that limp?’
Stryker thought back to the day he had encountered the hanging party in a Saxon forest. ‘I shot him.’
‘In the leg?’
‘In the arse.’
Barkworth snorted with laughter. ‘Money or girl?’
‘The latter.’
‘Ach, the best fights always come back to some wench. Was she worth it?’
Stryker let Beth Lipscombe’s face come to him. He remembered whisking her away from those hypocritic
al Puritans, caring for nothing but the girl. They had plummeted from the horse into a pile of leaves, and there, in the sun-dappled wood, they had made frantic love. He remembered unpicking the lace of her bodice, freeing those warm brown breasts, and remembered rifling in her voluminous skirts like a man possessed. Beth had died of a fever just months later, but, by God, it had been worth it. ‘Aye, without doubt.’
‘But now you have a witch-hunter after your neck,’ Barkworth said with a weak smile.
Stryker thought of Broom’s piss-drenched body. ‘We’ll flay the bastard together.’
‘I look forward to it, sir.’
‘But mark me well, Simeon. If you kill any of my men, I will flay you myself. Do you believe me?’
Barkworth’s mottled neck convulsed as he swallowed. ‘I do, sir.’
That would suffice as far as Stryker was concerned. He had had to deal with his own demons more times than he cared to consider, and would not condemn Barkworth for one lapse. Offering his hand for the diminutive Scot to shake, he went to Barkworth’s side, watching the dark hills. He ran his single eye from the craggy summits, down beyond the gorse-blotted slopes and on to the bleak plain that stretched all around. The river cut through the plain, running north to south, and he tracked its rushing progress for several hundred paces, until something caught his eye. Movement; a white flash, darting in and out of view amongst bracken, rocks, gorse, and trees. He squinted hard, trying to add definition to the elusive shape. There it was again, a bright smear against the dark earth, and he realized that it was a man, pale and bearded, scampering stealthily along the western bank in the direction of the tor. Seek Wisdom and Fear the Lord Gardner had returned.
‘I saw what they did to your man,’ the former priest said as he knelt by the river. Filling cupped hands with the clear water, he splashed his face and hair.
‘Hidden away somewhere, were you?’ Stryker, standing behind Gardner, replied bitterly. ‘Having a grand cackle at Broom’s expense?’
Gardner turned, beads of river water dripping off his long, matted beard. ‘No, boy. I prayed for him.’
The pleasantness of the reply seemed to puncture Stryker’s bluster. He sighed. ‘Forgive me, I am easily vexed.’
‘I was out in the trees near their bloody barn,’ Gardner went on, shrugging off the apology. ‘Saw it all. A sad and terrible thing to witness the life throttled from a fellow.’ His face creased impishly. ‘They’re saying you’re a witch, boy.’
‘A lie.’
‘The girl too,’ Gardner added with relish, turning back to the river, ‘and even your firebrand Pict.’
Stryker knelt beside him, taking a leather flask from his snapsack and plunging it into the finger-numbing depths. ‘You’re a man of the cloth, Seek Wisdom,’ he said, watching the bubbles of air escape from the vessel’s throat. ‘Why are you here, if you believe I am a witch?’
Gardner stared at him, pale eyes wide with surprise. ‘I don’t, boy! Not all priests are that gullible.’ He stood, shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘I could see they’d tortured your man, plain as day.’
Flask now heavy, Stryker took a long draught of the cold liquid, topped it up with a last dunk, and stood. An image of Broom’s bloody torso came to him. ‘Cut him to pieces.’
Gardner met his strained gaze. ‘It is called pricking, boy. An abominable practice.’ He extended a thin, gnarled forefinger and jabbed the air between them. ‘They stick the flesh with sharp pokers till they find a spot that don’t bleed. And that’s your witch’s mark.’
‘Christ,’ Stryker whispered.
‘There’s no commandment for filthy words, boy, but number three’s quite clear about blasphemy, so mind your fucking language.’ Before Stryker could respond Gardner had strolled to a nearby hawthorn bush, and busily set about stripping the skinny branches, cramming the green leaves past his black gums. ‘Trouble is,’ he went on, lips dyed emerald, ‘in my experience a man’ll tell you whatever you want to hear, just to make the pricking stop. Imagine that bed-pressing Spaniard jabbing you again and again.’
‘Spaniard?’ Stryker interjected. ‘The darker man?’
‘Aye, or so I can gather. I heard one o’ the tin-heads call him Señor. He’s the witch-finder’s lackey. The mattross to Hogg’s gun captain, if you will.’ He popped a handful of leaves into his mouth, a trickle of dark juice welling at the corner of his lips and tumbling down the coarse grey hairs of his beard.
‘As I say,’ he mumbled through the pulp, ‘imagine that sweaty pottage-guzzler stickin’ you with his wicked little poniard. You’d confess to any amount o’ sorcery if it meant the pain would stop. If I were that poor bugger, I’d finger a few of you too, just to make the tale that bit juicier. And who better than a beautiful girl, a man with only half his face, and a midget?’ The Welshman cackled madly, greatly amused by his own words.
‘Ha! You’re the perfect coven!’ The silver fibres of his bushy brow ruffled. ‘Come to think on it, I might turn you in myself.’
Stryker shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it was Broom’s intention to name me. They want me dead, Hogg and Wild.’
Gardner was incredulous. ‘The badger wants you for taking his wagon, boy, I understand. But that horse-faced warlock sniffer?’
‘Hogg and I have unfinished business from the Low Countries.’
The former priest tilted his head to the sky. ‘Hear that, God? Our friendly Cyclops truly requires your grace, for his enemies verily converge upon him!’
Stryker smiled ruefully. ‘Aye, it appears that way.’
‘So our witch-finder is here for you, boy.’ Gardner’s face became serious. ‘Will the men betray you?’
‘No.’
The blue eyes narrowed. ‘The suggestion of witchery is a powerful brew, boy.’
Stryker thought of his company. The men that had fought alongside him for so long, endured so many hardships, spilled so much blood. ‘They will not turn me in.’
Gardner nodded, his attention returning to the hawthorn. ‘Then there’ll be more fighting. Except this time you’ll lose.’
‘I know what you’ll say,’ Stryker responded quickly. ‘They have dragooners now, meaning we’re sore outnumbered.’ He stared up at the high tor, the natural fortress squatting on its flat summit. ‘But they will struggle to chase us off this hill, nevertheless. Our supplies are good for another few days, and they cannot keep us from the river, lest they wish to brave a hail of lead.’
‘No no no, boy,’ Seek Wisdom Gardner retorted, ‘I wasn’t about to say anythin’ o’ the sort. Not about dragooners, leastwise.’
‘Oh?’
The old man scratched at a blob of green paste that had congealed on his beard, and leaned close. ‘Guns, boy. They got cannon comin’.’
It was as though Stryker had been punched in the guts. ‘You jest.’
‘Why would I?’
‘You’re certain?’
Gardner winked. ‘Certain as I am that Archbishop Laud used to suck—’
Stryker held up a staying hand. ‘If you say witch’s teats, I’ll—’
‘I was going to say Strafford’s balls.’
Stryker could not prevent a smile, though the news was dire. ‘Do you know what kind?’
Gardner pursed his lips as he considered the question. ‘The usual kind, boy. Low hangin’, I shouldn’t wonder, and shrivelled like a couple of dried plums.’
Stryker glowered. ‘The cannon, Seek Wisdom!’
The Welshman shook his head rapidly. ‘No, boy, I couldn’t discover that particular morsel. But they’re expected in a short while.’
Stryker thought about that. The terrain was treacherous all across the moor. Hills one mile, woodland the next, interspersed by valley and bog. It had been difficult enough dragging a cart across the inhospitable land, let alone a piece of ordnance. ‘Which means they’re probably smaller pieces.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Gardner agreed.
‘Again you help us, Seek Wisdom.’
The bony man shrugged. ‘Like I said before; I don’t hold with either side in this scrap. But I like you, boy.’ He looked directly upwards. ‘Isn’t that right, Lord?’
‘Then you have my gratitude once again.’
‘Besides, the badger is in league with a witch-catcher now.’
That surprised Stryker. ‘In my experience, priests are ever too eager to hunt witches.’
Gardner’s big blue eyes fixed on a point some distance away. ‘I dislike zealots, boy. You know that. It is zeal that chased me here, chased my friends to the New World. Witch hunts are merely another form of zeal. A way for powerful men to control the weak by stupefying them with fear.’
‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’ Stryker replied, quoting Hogg.
‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’ Gardner repeated. ‘I’m sure God meant it. But let Him point the evil-doers out. Witch-finders are but men, and they must be seen to be proficient in their work, boy. So they accuse the most vulnerable. Those easily blamed, and never missed. They are the worst kind of men; mean, merciless, and cruel. If the badger and his tin-heads are allied to such a fellow, then I am allied to you.’
Stryker nodded his thanks just as a thought struck him. ‘We have food here, Seek Wisdom. Not much, but something to fill your belly better than leaves. Thankfully plenty was taken from Ilsington.’
‘Poor Ilsington,’ Gardner replied wryly.
‘Aye, well,’ said Stryker, embarrassed by Gardner’s sharp thrust. ‘Would you take victuals? Stay?’
‘I’ll eat, my boy, certainly.’ Gardner patted his inwardly curved midriff. ‘This stomach’s been growlin’ all too much of late. But stay? When I’ve just told you there’s ordnance on its way?’ He tutted theatrically. ‘I might be mad, boy, but I’m not insane.’
Stryker nodded his assent. The enigmatic former priest would leave again, melt back into the Dartmoor terrain like a dusk wraith. An idea came to him then, and he chided himself for not thinking of it sooner. ‘Will you take a message out, Seek Wisdom? Broom was my only hope of rescue.’
Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 23