Digby took a long, lingering drag on his pipe, the embers in the blackened bowl roaring to life, and blasted the smoke out in a long jet from wide nostrils. Stryker sensed the cavalryman wanted to argue, but knew it would be futile.
‘So you see,’ General Hopton said, drawing attention back to him, ‘it is a hard fight now or an impossible one later.’ He paused to let the words sink in, reaching to his right to pick up a small glass. As he lifted it to his lips, Stryker noticed the dark liquid glow crimson as it caught the candle glow, and found himself wondering how Sir Ralph had managed to find a supply of wine when the rest of the army were forced to make do with sour beer and gritty biscuits.
Hopton swallowed, the glass clinking as he set it down. ‘We must take the fight to Stamford and the Chudleighs, gentlemen.’ He looked down at the map once more, this time concentrating on the hill itself. ‘We shall divide our force into four equal columns and advance upon the west face.’
‘Is the north not the shallowest option, sir?’ Trevanion ventured, frowning at the map’s contours.
Hopton nodded. ‘But the scouts say it is too heavily defended for us to work around that flank. So it is the west face we scale.’ He pointed to the southernmost tip of the V-shaped hill. ‘Lord Mohun and I will attack here, with six hundred men.’
‘And I, sir?’ Grenville asked eagerly, keen to take an active part.
‘You, Sir Bevil, will lead the second division, another six hundred, to my left, supported by Berkeley.’
Grenville and Sir John Berkeley leaned over the map, studying their point of advance. The latter planted a hand on a thin, jagged line leading half way towards the hill’s summit. ‘A lane?’
‘Aye,’ Hopton confirmed. ‘Sunken and wooded. We must traverse those channels to reach the upper part of the slope. But have a care, sirs, for they will surely place men in the trees to stop us.’ He glanced at Slanning and Trevanion in turn. ‘Your regiments will form our third division, gentlemen. You will advance upon Sir Bevil’s left flank. Whilst Sir Thomas—’
Basset, Hopton’s Major-General of Foot, raised bushy brows. ‘Sir Ralph?’
‘You will lead the fourth division with Godolphin’s men, here,’ he pointed to the most northerly part of the hill’s western slope, ‘protecting the third column’s left flank.’
‘And who will protect our left flank?’ Basset asked wryly.
Stryker held his breath, bracing himself for a tirade at what seemed a grossly impertinent comment, but Hopton merely jutted his bearded chin towards Digby. ‘Sir John will take the horse and dragoons out to the west. Thus, they will guard your flank while watching for the rebel horse’s return.’
Basset bowed. Digby’s nod was cagey. ‘Sir George Chudleigh commands near three times my number.’
Hopton simply sat back, folded his arms. ‘Then pray we carry the day before he fills the horizon.’
‘I should see to my lads,’ Forrester said when he and Stryker had been dismissed.
They reached the manor’s main doorway and shook hands beneath the lintel, candles in the nearest corridor guttering frantically in the draught whipping in from the now empty courtyard beyond. ‘I’ll be across presently,’ Stryker replied, thinking his own men, camped with Forrester’s up on the dune-blemished wasteland, would need their commanding officer present to compel them to stay awake. ‘It’ll be a long night.’
‘That it will.’
‘The morrow, then.’
‘The morrow.’
Stryker watched his friend vanish into the shadows, and said in a loud voice, ‘You two hide like a pair of striplings.’
As if conjured from the night itself, two men suddenly emerged from the courtyard’s shadowy recesses. One was tall, with long, sinewy limbs, a near bald head and small eyes that were sunk deep in cavernous sockets. His companion, by contrast, reached barely beyond the first man’s waist. He might have been a child, had his grey uniform and jangling weaponry not given martial credentials away.
‘We weren’t hidin’, sir,’ the taller man protested. ‘Just waitin’s all.’
‘And what did you want, Sergeant Skellen?’
The short man coughed, drawing the others’ eyes down to his. ‘We fightin’ then, sir?’
Stryker nodded. ‘Dawn, Mister Barkworth. General Hopton would have us attack the hill directly in four divisions. We’re with Sir Bevil’s party.’
‘What of Miss Cade, sir?’ Barkworth croaked.
‘Plans are afoot to locate her.’
Skellen gave his typical sardonic snort. ‘So once we knows where she is, we just need to survive the bloody battle and go rescue her.’
Barkworth winked at the sergeant. ‘Simple, eh?’
‘The men are ready?’ Stryker asked impatiently.
Skellen’s small head shook. ‘Not ’specially, sir. They’re exhausted. The army’s got barely enough powder to go round—’
‘And we dine on a single shitty old biscuit a man,’ the little Scotsman added bitterly.
Stryker sighed. ‘Nothing changes. Get up to the camp, lads. Keep the men alert.’
‘Sir,’ both men grunted, turning away to begin the trudge back up to the sandy common where two and a half thousand musketeers and pikemen waited to march upon an enemy army more than twice their size.
Stryker lingered in the courtyard a moment longer. He had no more business in Bude, but did not wish to discuss the forthcoming battle any further. The walk back to camp would be more peaceable alone.
He heard a crunch of feet on gravel somewhere at his back. Swinging round in alarm, his sword rasped free of its scabbard and wavered out front, a viper ready to bite.
‘It is I, sir,’ a tentative voice rang in the shadows.
Stryker could still see nothing, but he knew the voice as he knew his own. ‘Andrew?’
Lieutenant Andrew Burton stepped into the dancing torchlight. The reddish glow cast dark shapes and lines across his narrow face, ageing the young man by a decade. ‘I heard you were in town.’
Stryker was thrown by the lieutenant’s calm demeanour. ‘Captain Forrester and I stumbled across Grenville’s regiment after you left.’ He hesitated. ‘I am glad to see you made it through.’
Burton shrugged. ‘Hopton would not otherwise know of Stamford’s advance, sir.’
‘I meant I was pleased to see you reached the general safely, Andrew.’
Burton smiled tightly. ‘Thank you, sir. A shame Sir Edmund is back in Launceston, though. They shall miss all the fun.’ For a second he stood stock still, evidently weighing up his next words, and Stryker half expected an attack, but then he stepped forward, words tumbling from his mouth, ‘I—I am sorry, sir. Truly. I do not know what came over me. I was bewitched by her.’
Stryker held up his palms to calm the lieutenant. ‘You sound like Osmyn Hogg.’
Even in the flame’s tremulous light, Stryker could see his protégé colour. ‘A poor choice of words, sir.’
‘I understand, Andrew. We have all been burned for the love of a woman.’
Burton swallowed hard. ‘The lust.’
Stryker offered a wry smile. ‘Aye, the lust. But you must hear me when I say that not a thing happened. Cecily Cade was never interested in either of us, Lieutenant. She picked me to seduce for sheer expediency, thinking I would let her escape the tor.’
Burton nodded, and, for the first time, Stryker could see that the shroud of jealously had been removed from his eyes. ‘Because of what her father told her.’
‘Aye.’
With that, Burton’s good hand dropped to his sword-hilt. Stryker’s blade was still naked, and he flicked his wrist upwards in preparation for the coming attack.
‘No, sir!’ Burton blurted when he saw his captain’s reaction. ‘Wait!’
Stryker stayed his sword and took a small step back, making sure he was out of range. To his surprise, the lieutenant proceeded to ease his blade free of its long scabbard, but instead of pointing it at Stryker, he reversed the stee
l, holding the tip in his hand and offering the hilt to the captain.
‘I am in your custody, sir.’
Stryker was taken aback. ‘Custody?’
Burton was crestfallen, his voice sombre. ‘For my ill words to you, sir. You are within your rights to try me for my foul conduct.’
‘Indeed I am,’ Stryker replied casually, before offering a half-smile. ‘But you are a fine soldier, Lieutenant Burton, and I would rather you were commanding my redcoats than rotting in some cell. Are we in agreement?’
Burton returned the smile. ‘We are, sir. Thank you.’
‘Now put your blade away, man. We must to camp.’
Burton did as he was told, suddenly embarrassed at his solemn display of fealty. ‘Aye, sir, aye. We must keep the men vigilant.’
‘Not only that. Hopton would have me send a man into Stratton to find Miss Cade. I must select the fellow while there is still enough darkness for him to go about the task.’ He made to leave, but Burton immediately stepped into his path. Stryker caught the look on the younger man’s face, and shook his head firmly. ‘Not you.’
‘But I am eager to make amends, sir.’
‘Not you.’
‘I am the best man for the task, sir,’ Burton protested, refusing to move out of Stryker’s way. ‘You know it.’
In truth, Stryker knew Burton spoke sense. He had conducted many such clandestine missions for the company, and, despite the obvious disadvantage of having only one useful arm, the young officer had worked hard to compensate, with blade and in the saddle. But the recent estrangement had made Stryker realize that Burton was more than a protégé to him. He was like a son. A son he had already lost once. He was not inclined to risk him again so soon. He thrust his own sword home and placed a firm hand on Burton’s shoulder.
‘Not this time, Andrew. Back to the company with you.’
Lieutenant Burton’s eyes searched Stryker’s face for a second longer, but eventually they flickered down to look at the gravel. He stepped out of Stryker’s path. ‘As you wish, sir.’
Stratton, Cornwall, 16 May 1643
Cecily Cade was a shadow of her former self.
By the pitiful light of a single brazier, she had been subjected to one of witch-finder Osmyn Hogg’s most efficient tools of interrogation, and, he prayed inwardly, soon she would surely snap.
‘You have enjoyed you stroll so far, Miss Cade?’ Hogg said with a smug sneer.
Cecily was standing at the centre of the room, propped against the bulk of a sweaty José Ventura. She lifted her head slowly, revealing a face that had changed from its natural paleness to a sickly ashen pallor, with eyes that appeared dark and hollow. ‘Father and I always enjoyed a brisk constitutional. It does so keep the ill humours at bay.’
Hogg laughed at her defiance, hoping she would not sense his frustration. He and Ventura had walked her for the best part of five hours now, ever since Collings had authorized him to treat her as he would any other named witch. It was a bloodless technique, of course, and often seemed to be rather timid to the outsider, but he had had many successes with it. Deprivation of sleep was a powerful tool, and when combined with constant walking – with no pause for rest, food, or drink – it could be more effective than even the sharpest pricker.
And yet Cecily Cade was a stubborn cow, determined to take her punishment with solemn bravery and a tightly shut mouth.
He shook his head as if exasperated by an errant child. ‘Are you ready to speak with us properly, Miss Cade?’
She forced a smile. ‘We are speaking now, are we not?’
He shrugged. ‘Have it your way, girl.’ He glanced at Ventura. ‘Walk her another hour, señor.’
Cecily Cade watched the witch-finder stalk furiously away but felt no solace in her small victory. She was exhausted, uttterly empty in body and mind. She prayed her torturers would not read that terrible truth in her eyes, but feared it too obvious to mask.
And yet mask it she must. Bite down her woes, bury them deep within her chest and refuse to show them the light of day. They could walk her all night. Prick the very skin from her back as they had done poor Otilwell Broom, but her knowledge would not be spoken aloud.
‘Come, señora,’ the corpulent Spaniard was saying, the acrid stink of his clammy flesh ripe and nauseating in her nostrils.
‘I am surprised your heart has not given way before now,’ she hissed as caustically as her weak body would allow.
Ventura licked his lips so that they glistened. He winced as he broke wind, reaching behind to pick his breeches from his huge backside. ‘I have done this many times, señora. And I will soon rest, while Master Hogg takes my place. You, however, will walk all night.’
He lurched forward, dragging Cecily at first before she gradually found her feet. They were sore. Her knees hurt too, and her hips pounded with a dull ache that seemed to creep around just below the skin like some kind of insidious parasite.
But she would walk, nonetheless. She had to suffer this torment, just as she had had to attempt the seduction of Stryker. It was her duty. Besides, she thought as they made the first of many more turns at the end of the chamber, what she knew had to be protected at any price.
Any sacrifice.
The Common Near Bude, Cornwall, 16 May 1643
It was five hours into a new, mist-clogged day when Stryker took his turn to patrol the area of the encampment populated by the redcoats of Sir Edmund Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot. He screwed up his bleary eye, yawned, and rose to his feet, buckling on his scabbard without thought. He had allowed his men to sleep, but in shifts of no more than an hour at a time, so that they would be ready to move if the rebel army decided to march down from their hill. If that strict policy was to be observed by his fighters, he had decided, then it would be observed by their leaders too. Thus he had taken his turns, stared into the blackness, listened to the owls and the gulls, and now, as the morn chipped away at the eastern horizon, felt dog-tired as a result.
He strode carefully over the legs of snoring men, past a pair of hounds growling at one another over a dead crow, and lifted his hat to a grim-looking sergeant-major wearing a broad red sash, billowing pipe stem propped in the hole left by a long-rotten front tooth. The camp was quiet as men considered the day to come, gazed out across the dark grey sea or eastwards to Stratton and its deadly hill.
He reached the deep, bramble-thick hedge that divided this part of the common from the next, and began to walk beside it. To his surprise, Stryker soon strode past a man he recognized, seated on the messy turf of compacted sand and grass. He was of middle age, with short hair that had once been dark but was now speckled liberally with shards of silver. He was carefully cleaning his musket’s serpent with a small piece of rag. ‘Abbott?’
The man, one of his musketeers, clambered smartly to his feet, leaning lightly on the tall gun, its wooden stock propped against the ground. ‘Sir?’
‘What the bloody hell are you about, man?’
Abbott looked nonplussed. ‘Don’t follow, sir.’
Stryker could not believe his ears. This was the man chosen, only hours ago, to travel beyond the enemy’s lines and search for Cecily Cade. It was all he could do not to crack the man’s jaw with his fist there and then. ‘Should you not be in Stratton?’
The redcoat displayed his evident consternation with a frown of deep lines that travelled all the way up to his receding widow’s peak. ‘L’tenant Burton told me to stay put, sir.’
Stryker’s heart almost stopped. He gritted his teeth, feeling his gums ache. ‘Why, Musketeer Abbott?’
Abbott’s gaze, hitherto fixed on some faraway point, suddenly focussed on his captain’s single grey eye. ‘’Cause he was goin’ down there ’iself, sir. Far as I could gather. Didn’t you know?’
Stryker’s mind began to reel, but, just as he had got to grips with his lieutenant’s rash insubordination, a solitary cry rippled out across the sandy encampment. Something about the sound jarred, because the shout, far fr
om being the usual dawn chorus to rouse half-drunk or march-weary troops, did not ring true. It was louder and more shrill than those he had become inured to. Someone further along the dense hedge was desperately raising an alarm.
Stryker squinted to a point at the hedgerow where a man in morion helmet, breastplate, and jangling tassets was pointing frantically at the thick bushes. Some of his comrades were staring too, following his outstretched arm, and Stryker noticed that they, in turn, were beginning to echo the cry.
‘Jesu,’ a man muttered, appearing at Stryker’s blind left flank. ‘What’s the din?’
Stryker did not bother to look at the speaker. ‘Something’s happening down there, Will.’
Sergeant William Skellen belched, casually tapped a fist against his sternum, and spat a globule of mucus on to the sandy earth. ‘Can’t be the Crop’eads. We’d have seen ’em before now.’
But Stryker wasn’t so sure. An ink-black night had given way to murky daybreak, and he imagined a determined and disciplined force creeping down from Stratton Hill without word or lighted match. Could they have reached this far west without being spotted? He could see nothing definitive at the place where the rapidly frenzied pikemen were gesticulating, so allowed his gaze to rake its way along the hedgerow, resting finally on the portion of tangled branches that ran adjacent to his own company’s section.
‘Oh no,’ he whispered, catching a flash of what looked to be steel through a tiny gap in the foliage.
‘Sir?’ Skellen prompted cautiously. ‘What d’you see?’
Stryker stared at the hedge for what seemed a long time, but could only have been seconds, searching for movement not thirty paces away.
There they were again. Shapes shifting quietly on the far side of the green barricade. He wondered if they were animals at first. Horse or deer or cattle. Perhaps the metallic glint had been a bridle or bit. But then the distinct glow of smouldering match penetrated the tangled branches and his guts began to churn. The shapes were men. Two, a dozen, then a score. Perhaps as many as fifty; snaking along the far side of the natural barrier as though they were part of the mist, their very bodies made from the white miasma. Another shout went up from the Royalist side, someone at the other end of the hedge had seen them too. More shouts. More alarm. But now there were more specks of burning match appearing through the hedge like a sudden swarm of flaming wasps. And then the firing began.
Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 37