Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  A boom of another cannon roared behind him and Mick ducked without thinking, and then felt silly. Tom's ship had fired. He scanned the wall around the gate wondering what they were firing at, but then a spray of broken stucco showed him. They had hit the top of the bell tower in hopes of stopping the snipers from using it. The shot didn't seem to do much damage to the structure but it must have scared the shit out of the men hiding up there.

  A voice called up from the waterline beyond the ship. "Did they hit it?"

  Mick walked to the starboard gunnels and looked down. There were three punts with three men apiece coasting along towards the bridge. The faces looked up at him and one of the men said, "Tom sent us to circle round and toss some Grenados in with their horses in the back courtyard. Is the bridge clear? Is the watch tower clear?"

  "Aye, but keep to the cover of the reeds along the river bank just in case. We'll keep the gents from sallying out from the bridge gate." He turned towards the cannon and called out, "Daniel, did you hear that?"

  "Aye, I'll load her with grape this time," Daniel called back. "Send some musketeers forward to keep watch."

  There was another boom from behind them, and another ball hit the bell tower with a thud and a spray of stucco and brick chips. Mick looked down at the punts and called, "Right, go, go, go.” The three punts sprang ahead like water walkers because the men were sitting low and using their long poles like oars.

  Everyone on three ships began counting, estimating how much time it would take for the punts to circle behind the abbey and then begin lobbing Grenados. The other two ships took turns shooting cannon balls at the tower to keep the watchers and snipers out of it, while Daniel kept the bridge gate covered with his cannon. Mick ordered the crew to push the ship closer to the bank so that they could leap ashore if necessary. The men made ready to leap ashore, not to storm the abbey gates so much as to create a diversion in case the punters needed to retreat.

  The first of the Grenados went off in a poof, then another poof, but then finally a kerpow. Daniel grabbed up the starboard gunnels emergency hatchet, the one kept there expressly for cutting lines, checked that the royalists behind the walls were looking elsewhere, and then leaped over the gunnels and onto the shore. As soon as his boots were on dry land he began a mad sprint towards the main gate. No one on the three ships quite knew what he was doing, but everyone swung their guns around in case he needed covering fire. The sound of shrieking horses was continuous, and there was still an occasional poof or kerpow. Daniel was counting on the diversion to get him safely to the main gate.

  With a leap up, Daniel slammed his hatchet into the rope holding the pastors left wrist. The man screamed in agony as all of his weight fell and wrenched his still bound right wrist, and then that wrist too was free and he fell. The man braced himself for the pain of the landing, but instead Daniel grabbed him and threw him over one shoulder. Once he had balanced the heavy load, Daniel turned and began striding back towards the ships. Musket fire from the wall was cause enough to have him to drop to the ground, load and all.

  "Fire," yelled Teesa and Tom at the same time. As soon as they had seen Daniel sprinting from Mick's ship towards the pastor hung as a shield over the main gate, they had ordered their cannons to take aim at that gate. Now that same main gate erupted into a thousand deadly splinters. Then the most amazing thing happened. Two horses, horses without riders, charged out of the ruined gate. Behind them were two more horses, but these ones carried riders.

  Thunder erupted from Mick's ship, and seconds later both riders were hit by either grape from his cannon or balls from his musketeers. Either way, both horses and riders hit the dirt in a tangle of broken bones. A hatless man in a torn cloak stumbled out of the gate. He was waving a white flag of parlez. He called out, "I have come to warn you that we are holding prisoners within the abbey, a lot of prisoners, mostly women and children. If you keep attacking us, then a lot of them will be injured."

  Daniel's head popped up out of the long grass just to the side of speaker. In a booming voice so that everyone could hear, he yelled out, "Do you mean prisoners or do you mean hostages, cause it sure sounds like the latter.” While the words hung in the air, it came to him that whether the Campdeners wanted to retreat along the Peterborough road, or along the Market Deeping road, that retreat had to start by crossing the Trinity Bridge.

  "Everyone hold your fire!" a woman’s voice yelled out. Daniel looked around. Teesa was striding out from her ship. She was still dressed for the spring market so to take such long strides meant lifting the front of her long skirt up to her knees. This even though the skirt's hem line was above her ankles in the way of all women who lived in muddy places. "I will not respect your white flag while you have men hanging from their arms from the wall. Give me a reason why I shouldn't have you shot."

  "You let your women do the talking for you?" the Campdener called out to Daniel in a sarcastic tone.

  "I am the master of one of those gun ships, so I have more say in this than the man you are speaking with," she called back. A group of Spalding clubmen from her ship were running to catch up with her, almost as if they had just woken up to the fact that wee Teesa was striding out across open land

  "Then order this man to cut the others down, like he did with Reverend Ram," the Campdener called back. He called it twice, once to Teesa and once as a warning to his own men behind the walls.

  It took Daniel mere moments to cut down the other three men, but they seemed like hours for he was expecting a ball point blank in the head the whole time. They must have seemed like an eternity to the poor men still crucified against the wall.

  By the time the victims were cut free, Teesa was surrounded by the Spalding clubmen and had therefore walked closer to the spokesman for the Campdeners. "Cutting them down is a start. Our mission is to rescue the local commune, especially the women and children. Send them out to us, and we will load them onto the ships and be gone."

  "That is a bad bargain for us, mam," he replied though he felt foolish calling this slip of a girl 'mam'. She was a pretty little thing, perhaps twenty, and he wished she had been with the farm girls they had captured two days ago. "May I present myself as Lieutenant John Perry of the Baron of Ridlington's Rutland Regiment of Horse. Who commands your force?"

  "So you are not one of Viscount Campden's flying squads?" Teesa asked.

  "The viscount is also the baron, mam."

  After a nod of understanding, Teesa introduced herself. "We represent the clubmen of many local villages, so there is no one person in command. I will speak for the others groups until they object. I am Theresa Venkadotter of the village of Wellenhay. My guard are members of the Spalding Clubmen. They will abide by any decision made by me."

  "If you please, mam, I would rather negotiate with someone who has more experience of battles and rules of engagement.” His voice was calmly sweet, as if he were speaking to an innocent child.

  "You are wounded and ragged sir," Teesa told him, ignoring his request and his insulting tone. "So I must suppose that others within the abbey are also wounded. My main interest is the safety of the women and children. Send out your prisoners to load onto our ships, and in return we will see to your wounded."

  "If the stampeding horses had not injured so many of my men, then I would not be standing here talking with you. My problem is that our only defense against your cannons is to use our prisoners as shields."

  Teesa kept the man talking. As long as they were talking there was peace. As long as they were talking all eyes within the abbey compound would be facing them. She was counting to herself so as to track the passage of time. There was a good reason that she was doing the talking, and not Tom or Mick. Tom was in charge of the cannons back on the ships, while Mick and his crew would by now be halfway around to the back of the abbey to join the men who had launched the Grenados.

  Meanwhile Daniel was making the men he had cut down as comfortable as possible in the spring grasses in front of the wall, but he w
as listening intently to the negotiations. It was obvious to him that Teesa was stalling for time, and it was likely only her beauty and her enchanting smile that were keeping the Campdener from realizing it too. That Tom and Mick were not doing the negotiations meant that they were up to no good somewhere else.

  This was all too calm, Daniel mulled. They had all missed something, something important. Why was this Campdener out here negotiating. Why wasn't he upset that Teesa was so obviously stalling. So what if a few Grenados had scared their horses. They didn't need horses to hold the abbey. So what if the cannons had splintered the main gate and the bridge gate. They could simply barricade them. So what if the cannons had made life dangerous for their watchers in the tower. So what? So what? The watchers. From such a tall tower they would have all around visibility for miles and miles across the flat Fens, including the traffic on the roads, for miles and miles. What had they seen to cause this parlez? Who knows. It didn't matter. All that mattered is that suddenly they wanted these ships and their crews to leave.

  No ... it wasn't the ships and the crews ... they wanted the cannons to leave. He cleared his throat to gain Perry's attention away from Teesa and told him, "The ships are the only way we have of evacuating the women and children to Spalding. If the ships leave, then so do the cannons. You send out two thirds of your prisoners, and we will load them onto two ships and those two ships will leave for Spalding. Once they are gone, then send out the last third, and the third ship will leave."

  "Ah, you see," Perry said with a lurid wink at Teesa, "all it took was the logic of a seasoned veteran. Do we have an agreement then. I will release the women and children first, and once they are away in two ships, and only then, I will release the men. I warn you though, that if you do not keep to this agreement, then I will certainly be cutting some throats."

  It was with fear in his heart that Daniel looked over to Teesa. She had been stalling, which meant that Tom and Mick were up to something. Would she, could she now stop stalling and accept the terms for the release of the prisoners.

  "My dear Lieutenant Perry," she said sweetly. "I came here with my ship to evacuate the commune, not knowing that you were already here. My desire was ever only to make sure of the safety of the women and children. We have an agreement, and I will abide by it. You go back and send them out, while I go back and have all of our clubmen report to the ships.” As if to assure him of her authority she then turned to Daniel and told him, "You go and tell this to the ship near the bridge."

  Daniel did not linger to hear more, but loped along through the grass towards Mick's ship. Who knew what Mick was up to but whatever it was, it would surely break this truce. When he reached the ship he was not surprised that the only men aboard were those manning the cannon. "Where's Mick?" he called out.

  "He'll be around the back o' the abbey by now," one of the gunners replied. "The trick with the Grenados worked so well that they decided to repeat it, but this time they are going to blow the back gate first in hopes that the horses all run out of it."

  There were no punts tied up to the ship, so the only way that Daniel could reach Mick would be to run around the bridge end of the abbey wall. This truce was shaky and unproven so such a suspicious run may not only cost him his life, but the lives of others as well. All he could do was to signal with his whistle and hope Mick was paying attention.

  One long blast and then three short ones. The long one to get all ears turned, and the three to say emergency, come quick. That done he dove for the flag locker and found and raised one of the signal flags up into the rigging. The one that captains raised when wanting to make ready to leave port. It meant, 'all hands return to the ship, now'.

  Meanwhile Teesa and Tom had brought their ships up along the bank at the best place to load the prisoners. Gangplanks were being dropped into place. That made good sense. She and Tom would take the women and children aboard and then leave for Spalding, while Mick's ship, which was further upstream, would cover their loading, cover their leaving, and then take the same position to wait for the release of the male prisoners.

  A bump against the ship made Daniel turn away and gaze down to the river. A punt had come alongside and two of Mick's lads looked up at him as they jammed their poles into the mud to hold their flat bottomed boat in place. "Mick sent us to find out what's up," the younger lad told him.

  "A deal has been struck for the release of the prisoners. We have a truce that mustn't be broken until the prisoners are safe aboard our ships."

  "Then yer whistle came just in time," the elder lad said and then he reached out and waved his arms at someone up river. A moment later a string of punts filled with men came out from under the bridge.

  With a stretch of a leg while a hand balanced him, Daniel stepped down into the punt. "Take me to the far side of the bridge. I'll tell Mick what's up as we pass him.” A moment later the two lads were poling him away from the ship and towards the bridge and the oncoming punts. Seconds later Mick's punt glided up alongside, and Daniel explained the truce and the prisoner release to him.

  "Well that's a piece of luck," was Mick's opinion, "but why do I feel like it's too good to be true."

  "I had the same feeling," Daniel agreed. "The only thing that came to me was that their watch up in the tower must see something that will change this situation, perhaps a troop of cavalry from Cambridge. From that height they would have seen a column almost as soon as it left Peterborough."

  "Still doesn't make sense. That would mean they need the hostages even more."

  "And I expect that they will keep a few back, but meanwhile they won't have to watch and feed all those mouths, and our cannons and men will be gone back to Spalding. Especially our cannons."

  "Aye, there is sense in what you say Danny," Mick said thoughtfully and then grimaced. Mick grimacing was not a pretty sight. Though he was a Frisian clansman he was neither tall nor fair, and his bulbous face was proof that as a lad he had been an alehouse scrapper. "Where are you headed?"

  "The only tall lookout other than the abbey tower is that bog oak over beyond the bridge. I was going to get these lads to help me up it to see what I can see through my looker. Meanwhile you should get the rest of the men back to the ship and make sure that them Campdeners keep to the terms of the release. They should be ready to send the women and children out by now." There was nothing more to say, so the punts went their separate ways.

  The bog oak beyond the Trinity Bridge was mostly dead, with its few live branches all on the southern side. Of the dead parts only the main trunk and main branches still stood tall, and countless generations of local children would have climbed them on a regular basis. At one time it would have been a holy tree, for it was so much larger and heavier than anything else that grew in the Fens. It must have been very holy, for even the monks that built the abbey had not used it for timbers, even though beams hewn from bog oak would last a thousand years.

  The lads scrambled up the great tree ahead of Daniel, as if on a lark, but it was not so simple for a middle aged man with joints that had seen battle and were carrying a bit too much weight. Eventually he waved away their helping hands and satisfied himself with a perch two thirds to the top.

  "There, on the Peterborough road," the youngest yelled down from above. "A column of troopers, but they seem to be stopped, mayhaps restin' the horses. I can almost make out the flag, well the colors anyway. Blue on yellow. Them's Cromwell's colors ain't dey?"

  "Aye," Daniel replied as he found the column and then focused the spectacle lenses of his looker on them. He heart was leaping for joy. Cromwell, and in the right place at the right time for once, and with a troop of cavalry. The messengers sent from Sparling and Boston must have fetched him. He spotted the cornet, the troop's flag, and he focused on it while trying to hold his hand steady. There was almost no wind so it was drooped down. My god that lad must have good eyes. The wind stirred. Yes, blue diagonal on yellow. Cromwell. He felt like cheering. It stirred more. Blue diagonal on yellow wit
h a red bar. Wait, that wasn't right. Ollie always bordered his colors on white, not red, because red was what his infamous ancestors used.

  "Help me down, now, help me down," he yelled to the lads. "We've got trouble, big trouble."

  "But it's Cromwell ain't it?"

  "Yes, but the wrong Cromwell. It's Oliver's cousin Henry, but he is a royalist colonel, and a right son of a bitch. I'll take the punt back to the ships and give them the bad news, and hurry them up. Who knows how long it will be before the Campdeners realize whose troopers they really are. You two stay in this tree and blow your whistles when the troopers get within a mile of the bridge. Understood?"

  * * * * *

  As soon as Teesa's ship was brimming over with children and grandmothers Daniel ordered her to leave for Spalding. Of course she ignored his order. "Me and my crew are needed by the teens and young moms," she pointed to the flock of homespun skirts limping towards Tom's ship. "You can tell what has happened to them just by their wide legged gait. All of them will have thighs bruised black and blue, and puffy lips. Tom!" she yelled. "Come and take my ship downstream. I'll take yours."

  Tom was carrying two teen girls who could not stand, one in his arms and one on his back. He passed them both in turn up to some strong arms on his ship and then walked towards Teesa. "Why, what's happened?"

  "These children and grandmothers don't need a healer's care, but the women you are loading do," Teesa called back. She signaled to the other four clanswomen of her crew to follow her, and then again she called to Tom, "My Spalding clubmen can man the oars but they will need you on the wheel."

  Tom looked at his own crew of rough seamen from Fishtoft, looking more like pirates than fishermen. They had heard the exchange and looked back at him. "Right lads. Teesa's yer skipper. Keep her out of harm's way," he told them and then began to walk towards Teesa's ship. He gave her a hug in passing, and then gave each of her crew a hug in turn. Then with the bowline in hand he leaped aboard the Five and began giving orders to the motley crew of farmhands and market lads that made up the Spalding clubmen.