Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  "All right, all right," the wife said wide eyed at the flourish of the pistol and backed into her kitchen while groping along the workbench for her carving knife. "I lied. The colonel rented the entire inn. There is no extra charge for your crew's room. Yee can't blame a girl for tryin' can yee?" Her question went unanswered for the good looking fellow had left her and was racing towards the privies.

  "Who is in there?" Daniel yelled out as he came close to the privies. There was no answer. In one movement he rushed around them so as to face the two doors with his dragon raised. They were hanging open. He held his breath and looked into each small, whiffy closet. No one. He looked all around. Nothing was moving, not towards the inn and not towards the stable. With great care he uncocked the dragon and stuffed it back under his belt. Then he moved slowly along the narrow path to the stable with the lantern held low to the ground.

  If he hadn't automatically looked in the direction of more shots from the north, he would have missed them. 'Them' being the boot tracks through the soft soil of the rows of kale in the kitchen garden. He followed those boot tracks to the other edge of the garden to where two planks had been removed from the high fence that protected the garden from browsing animals. The soil at the fence had not been dug over, so it was smooth, but it was still soft. The same boot tracks were there.

  There were two sets of tracks of the same sized boots leading through the hole in the fence. They were the only tracks. This was a new hole. The wife would have their balls for breaking her fence, for everything in the garden would be eaten before dawn. Two sets of boots, but Oliver's boots were still with his clothes in his room. He calmed his suspicions from running wild, and calmed his mind and stilled his body and allowed his senses to take over from his mind. What was he missing about this spore, these tracks?

  His instincts knew there was something strange but he couldn't seem to put the thought into words. Of course. Two men, same sized boots, therefore same sized men. Then why was one set of boot prints so much deeper than the other. Twice as deep. As if one man weighed twice as much as the other. Or... or ... was carrying another man. He stood up quickly to follow the tracks, but then immediately slumped onto the soft ground. He had come up hard under the cross member of the fence. Ow, ow, ow, effing ow!!!

  He'd left his helmet in the taproom. That could cause him trouble. Without a helmet and in just his sheepskin vest rather than chest armour, he looked like any local yokel. There was a curfew. There had been shooting. He was skulking around in the dark on the inland side of High Street. It would be just his luck for one of the men he had just been sharing ale with to shoot a ball into his leg. Or worse if in their excitement they forgot the standing order to aim low.

  Daniel put that thought completely out of his mind. To think such thoughts was to tempt the fates, and worse, to tempt the Wyred sisters who enjoyed weaving irony into the fates of men. He ducked under the cross beam and loped along following the two-boot-trail. Just his luck, it was too dark to follow the trail without the light of the lantern, and yet the lantern was ruining his night vision for seeing ahead. And worse, though he could not see ahead, those he was trailing would clearly see his lantern.

  The boot prints ended when they reached the more solid ground of a path that ran diagonally across a common that stretched between two of the east-west roads of the town. His best guess was that they had used this path, and so he dowsed his lantern and set out along the path. By the time he reached the wider road that that led to the bridge and then to Norwich Road, he could see ahead quite well. Quite well for a black night that is. This because there was a soft light ahead, which was likely from the watch fire at the bridge.

  What was that? Something dark had moved across light from the fire. Daniel pulled out his dragon, cocked it, and began to trot, and tripped. Bloody potholes. He tried to trot again but his ankle made him wince. Bugger. Once you injure an ankle the golden rule is to soak it immediately in cold water, and stay off it until the swelling goes down. No chance of that when you are alone in the dark on a road out of town and hunting two men carrying something heavy.

  He couldn't even risk hopping, because if there was one pothole there would be others. Instead he dragged his bad ankle at the angle that made him wince the least. He consoled himself that the man carrying a weight equal to his own would be tiring by now, until the thought came that they would be taking turns. Ahead a shadow moved. He had actually caught up to them by half. They must be tiring. He wished them a few choice potholes.

  He thought he saw them again, but this time they were low to the ground and stopped. They were likely watching the pickets on the bridge. The fire lit the bridge so the pickets could see anyone who tried to cross it, but that also meant that they were night blind to anything moving outside that light. Finally some good news. If the pickets were night blind, then so would the two who were watching the pickets. Daniel was now close enough to them that stealth was more important than speed. They were less than a hundred yards ahead, and he could clearly see the shapes of their heads.

  Bugger, they had stood up again and were now loading a third figure over one of their shoulders. Who else could it be but Oliver. When they began walking again, it was no longer towards the light of the bridge. Instead they had turned off and were making their way towards the river bank. He continued on to where he thought they had turned off the road, and then made his way across some open grazing land. The soft ground was a relief to his ankle after the hard pack of the road, but that was the only good news. The men had disappeared into the dark night and the dark shadows of the line of bushes that marked the tow path along the river.

  There was a breeze off the water so he stopped still and listened, and sniffed, and watched. Silence. No longer any shots from the north. No voices from the bridge. Silence. A splash. Another splash. They couldn't possibly cross the river on foot. Even if the tide was low, the bottom was a quagmire of mud. A thud of wood on wood. Bugger. They've got a boat. What had the pickets at the bridge told the captain. That all of the boats were tied up on this side, so there was no alternative to their bridge.

  But that was only if the enemy were trying to come to town, not if they were trying to leave. He half limped half ran through the bushes to reach the tow path and then looked up and then down the river bank. The river was much wider here than at the bridge, and there were many small boats tied up. This was the town's inner harbour for small craft. Something moved. A boat pushed away from the river bank. A small boat with one man amidships on the oars and another sitting in the stern.

  Daniel hopped along from small boat to small boat along the bank looking for any that still had their oars aboard. None of them did, of course. Even if you trusted to leave your boat tied up, you certainly would never leave it with the oars, for that was just asking for it to disappear. He looked around frantically for anything he could use as a paddle. Nothing came to view. Bugger, bugger, bugger. There, a rotten board. He stuck his dragon in his belt so he could pick up the board and then jumped aboard the closest dinghy.

  Luckily someone with knowledge of knots had tied it off and they had used a running knot which released with one hard tug. With a push of the board he was away from the bank and moving. Now all he had to do was catch up. With dragon and lantern safely laid out on a seat, he knelt in the bilge water and began to work his back and arms against the board. Stroke, stroke, stroke, curl-stroke to true the course, stroke, stroke.

  He was holding his own with the other boat but not catching up. He worked harder, faster. So fast he had to pant between strokes. His arms began to ache, his back was twinging, and worst of all the bloody board had stuck him with a sliver right in the soft part of the skin between his thumb and finger. But he was gaining on them. But how long could he keep it up? Would the man in the stern of the other boat have a pistol? When would he turn around and see him and shoot him? Stroke, stroke, stroke, curl-stroke.

  Even though the man on the oars seemed to be staring straight at him, he didn't
seem to notice him. Despite all the splashing of his crude paddle, they didn't seem to hear him. That is, until he was within pistol range, and then suddenly the man in the stern twisted around, aimed a pistol, and fired. Daniel didn't bother breaking his stroke. The man could be the best shot in the world, and it wouldn't matter. Hitting him at this distance with a shot between two different moving, bobbing, lurching boats would be sheer luck.

  Now the oarsman was putting his back into his oars and they were pulling away. There was no way that Daniel's board could compete with a set of oars, but he had to try. The other man was bent over, probably reloading. At least since Daniel was paddling, not rowing, he was facing forward so he could keep an eye on them.

  And then suddenly the other boat stopped still, and the oarsman fell over backwards, er, frontwards, er, bow-wards, as had the man reloading the pistol. The small boat had snagged on something. Perhaps a tree floating downstream, or a fishing net set ready for the morning, or even a mud bar. It didn't matter which. It gave Daniel the chance he needed to close the distance. As soon as he was in dragon range, which was closer than pistol range, he stopped paddling, picked up his dragon, cocked it and pointed it towards the two men in the other boat. They had by now righted themselves back into their positions and were glaring at him.

  Without any warning Daniel pulled the trigger. The flared barrel erupted with flame, smoke, bird shot, and more smoke. The oarsman went down holding his eyes and screaming. Daniel always kept his dragon loaded to blind, not to kill. Even if the oarsman had been too far away to be hit in the eyes by stinging smoke and slaked-lime-grit, the birdshot would have reached him.

  Blinding the oarsman was the good news. The bad news was that the other man had seen the dragon come up and had ducked down below the gunnels. Now he was up again and pointing his freshly charged pistol at Daniel. At this range, with both boats still, it would be hard to miss. "Don't," Daniel yelled to the man.

  "Why not? You shot at us!"

  "You've got a friend of mine aboard. He's a sick man." Daniel said, playing for time while his trigger finger flicked the safety off his second flint dog.

  "He's not sick, he's drugged. So the colonel is your friend? Traitor. All the more reason to shoot you.” He had just finished saying "shoot you" when the empty pistol his was facing, barked, and then his pistol arm erupted in pain. He howled and screamed in agony, and his pistol dropped down into the boat.

  A call came loud and clear over the still water. "Don't any of you pick up an oar or a paddle, else we'll run you down!"

  Daniel looked around. From the far side of the wide river a small ship was looming towards him at a good clip. By her lines he knew her immediately. She was the Four. "Mick, it's Danny," he yelled out, and then fumbled to get his whistle to his lips and give three sharp blasts. Danger, danger, danger. "Slow down!" he yelled. "Slow down, our boats are caught on a snag."

  The oars of the Four stopped digging water, and she glided towards him. There was a man near the bow swinging a swivel gun around, and he yelled out, "And just who do yee think stretched the fishing nets all along the middle of this bloody river then, eh? Are yee wounded?"

  The Four was now close enough that Daniel could lower his voice. "Nay, but the others are. One got a dragon load in the face, and the other got a ball in his upper arm. Keep them covered. Oliver is lying in the bilge water, so if they put a hand to a weapon, blow them to shit.” The two wounded men immediately raised three hands above their heads.

  * * * * *

  "Poppy juice," Daniel said to the questioning looks that men shot him as he came into the taproom. He hoped that they had left him some of the roast beast. "I forced him to drink salted ale until he puked the rest of it out, and then I fed him milk curds and a mint infusion to settle his stomach. He'll sleep until morning, and then feel like shit.” He snickered to himself at the vulgar jest made by all healers. "He will feel like shit but won't be having one." Poppy juice bunged you up.

  Mick lifted a lid off a plate which he then shoved down the table towards Daniel. He would be the last to eat. The kitchen was closed. Everyone save the lads from the Four were sleeping at their posts tonight. It was late enough that even the women had sought their pillows, but they had kindly left them some full jugs.

  Once a few chews of salty crackling had curbed his hunger, Daniel asked, "So how did you know that they were going to spirit Oliver away by boat?"

  "Didn't," Mick said. Mick was not a story teller like Daniel was, so his explanations tended to be short and to the point. The look Daniel gave him encouraged him to say, "You wanted us to walk about amongst the town folk and look for anything suspicious. You told us that the men guarding the bridge were to let any royalists know that we had already captured their weapons and powder, and that all of the boats were tied up on the town side of the river.

  We figured that if you wanted the royalists to know that we had found their cache, then the best thing was to release our prisoner. You know, the gunner we had tied up on the Four. Who better to spread the word than another royalist. While we were on board we had a look up and down river and realized that there were just too many places to hide boats on the other side, so some would have been missed by our lads. That troubled us, so we borrowed some long fishing nets, the floating type, and strung them out in the middle of the river. Once it was dark we just cruised up and down the other side of them nets looking for men in boats."

  Daniel thought for a moment and then said, "But the gunner had three fat purses. He wouldn't have spread the word to the other royalists. He'd be on his way to some other town where he could drink and whore his way through those purses."

  "Do I look stoopid?" Mick said with a great gesturing of arms. "We took one back and left him with only two, and told him that if he spreads the word, that we'd give him the other in the morning."

  * * * * *

  Oliver looked decidedly seedy as Daniel helped lower him into a chair. Daniel had spent the morning rousing him to the point where he could eat breakfast with his officers and listen to their reports. Mick and his clansmen were in the tap room eating, but since officers generally didn't speak to the likes of Mick, it was quite likely that none of Oliver's officers knew that he had been drugged and abducted.

  Each officer in turn made a report, including Daniel, and when they were all finished, they looked expectantly towards Oliver for him to speak the summary. His mind was still not clear and so he asked Captain Whalley to do the summary.

  "So it seems that everything that happened last night was part of a carefully planned royalist plot to capture Colonel Cromwell," Whalley began. "He was drugged by someone here in this Inn. The attack on the northern barricade was a ruse to empty the Inn of men. During their absence the colonel was spirited away to the south, and to sidestep the guarded bridge they used a boat."

  "Daniel," Oliver said while putting a hand on his arm. "I must thank you for keeping me safe. You exhausted yourself in the chase, and risked your life to foil the abduction."

  "All for nothing," Daniel said glumly. He had his ankle up on a stool resting. "Mick and the Friesburn Four would have foiled it in any case."

  "Where are the men that you shot? On your ship?"

  "Nay, it was more important to make sure that you would not die from the poison, than to see to some wounded men. With one temporarily blinded and the other having the use of only one arm, it would have taken them some time to reach those waiting for them on the other side of the river. Though they may have escaped your justice, they have not escaped their punishment."

  Oliver slammed his fist down on the table. "None of them shall escape me. I will comb Suffolk and Norfolk for all the royalist leaders and capture them and put them behind bars."

  A maid with a cloth arrived to clean up the spills Oliver had made while trying to use a spoon in his still drowsy state. Daniel reached out and grabbed her by her young thin wrist as she was wiping. "This is the girl who drugged you. I left her watching over you, and she fed yo
u salted soup."

  The girl looked at Daniel in horror, and then at Oliver, and she began to sob and plead. "I did no such thing. I fed you hearty soup to bring down your fever."

  Oliver looked on her pretty face with unforgiving anger and hatred. "She is a poisoner and should be tried as a witch. What is to become of good men when there are such pretty witches about to prey on them?"

  Daniel had carefully watched the girl's reaction to his accusation and knew the truth when he heard it. If she had been the poisoner, she wouldn't be innocently mopping up tables, now would she? "Calm down, love. Who gave you the soup to feed to the colonel?"

  "Martha did." the girl sobbed. "She was the only one in the kitchen at the time."

  "Is Martha in the kitchen now?"

  "She's gone. She left at first light. She's run away to get married."

  "Get married?" Captain Whalley asked, with his mouth hanging open. "But, but ...” Of course he couldn't admit that he had been bonking her. "Run away with whom? Marry whom?"

  "She had lots of men friends. One of them came into some heavy coin, so she went away with him. I think he was the king's man. You know, the one who lived in the cottage at the northern shore batteries to keep a watch on the cannons. He was always in here complainin' that the king hadn't paid him in a year. His back pay must have finally arrived."

  Daniel opened his mouth to speak, or to laugh, but then closed it. After all, it may not be the same gunner who Mick had bribed with purses. That Martha ran away with him did not prove that she was a spy for the king. Besides which, if serving poppy juice to a sick man made you a poisoner and a witch, then what of all the physicians?

  Instead he told Oliver, "This plot against you was complex and well thought out and well staged. Don't waste your time searching for an alewench or her gunner, or even for the men who carried you away. Instead, go out and capture the leaders who would have the men and the coin to organize such a plot. They are your true enemy, not their paid stooges."