Pistoleer: Edgehill

by Smith, Skye

  "But I thought you were Welsh? That is, I mean, by your pretty looks and your small body."

  "Oh I am. Anyone can see that, but my family always claims that they are from solid Cheshire stock and will fight anyone who says different."

  "Where in Cheshire?"

  "Congleton."

  "Is that near Wheelock?"

  "Near enough,” she replied.

  When they were back at the barrow he told her. "Tomorrow we are going to Wheelock."

  "I can't. I must wait here for my husband."

  "You have no choice. I am well enough to travel, and travel I must, which leaves you and Nia here undefended. You wore that torque for how long before you buried it. It is only a matter of time before a thief comes for it, or a king's gentleman comes for you."

  "Why Wheelock?"

  "Because it is on my way home and I know a man there, an old carter. He will be very pleased to see me because I will take him a gift. You can either stay with him, or have him take you back to your parents. Your choice."

  "My parents won't take me back,” she hissed, getting angry.

  "Believe me, your mom will open her arms to you as soon as she sees Nia. As for your dad, take him one of your smallest bits of metal jewelry from the barrow pots, like the pin with the woven knots, or the ring with the green stone. Believe me, he will welcome you with open arms."

  She was thinking about it, for she was nodding. "Will we be safe traveling the roads?"

  "I watched the road today. There was no one on it. We will be safe enough,” he told her with a confidence that he didn't feel.

  "But what about all of my things?" she asked, looking around at all her worldly possessions which she had carried up from the cottage.

  Daniel looked around and peered into the dark corners. In a market you wouldn't get five shillings for the lot. "There is nothing you have that would interest a thief other than your torques, and those you have safely buried. Your harvest is in the pots, and should keep well enough even if rats begin living in the barrow. Your clothing you can take with you, along with your metal cooking pots. If I leave your husband a note telling him where to find you, will he be able to read it?"

  "Yes, but you can't ride a horse yet, and it is a long walk."

  "Trust me, love."

  * * * * *

  "But it only has three wheels,” Cerys complained.

  "No, it has four, but one of them has to ride with us,” he told her with a grin. The missing wheel was the right rear, so he loaded broken wheel, mom, baby and all their gear into the left front of the cart. Most of the horse leathers had gone away with the cart horse, so he attached the cart shafts to Femke's empty saddle using the stirrup straps. He would have to control her by voice commands.

  Once Femke was attached to the cart he slowly, very slowly, he led Femke back to the road, and the cart did not tip despite the sharp turn. Once it was straight and on the road facing back to Cheshire, he climbed up on the left side and made a bed for himself and for Nia behind where Cerys was sitting. Once he and Nia were comfortable, and once he had organized his guns to be close at hand, he called out in Frisian to Femke to walk. The cart lurched and then was moving with Cerys looking all the world like the driver.

  When they came to the cart track along the ancient raised road they turned off so that they would bypass Drayton. Daniel stayed awake long enough to turn right onto the other cart track to take them back to the main road, and then cuddled up with Nia and went to sleep.

  "Wake up Daniel, wake up,” Cerys was leaning back and shaking him. "There's trouble ahead."

  He had been in a deep sleep and it took him a while to find his senses. "Where are we?"

  "Not yet to back to the main road but we are close. There are men and a cart ahead. Oh sit up and see for yourself."

  Ahead in a field to the north of the cartway there was a cart with two men on it, leading a small procession of cattle with four men walking behind to drove the cattle. There was also a mounted outrider. "Bloody king's bloody foragers,” Daniel cursed. "Probably from the garrison at Drayton. They'll have seized all that from whichever farmer owns them fields. His house will be north of here, and that is the farm track that leads to it."

  "The cart sped up just before I woke you. I think they are trying to cut us off."

  "That would be a very bad thing,” he told her. To Femke he yelled "Run!" in Frisian of course. The other cart saw them increase speed and therefore so did they. It was a race to see who got to the crossroad first. It was a race that Daniel could not afford to lose.

  As the three wheeled cart's speed increased so did its swaying. Nia began to cry, and Daniel pulled Cerys backwards off her seat to stop the baby from bouncing about. Meanwhile he refreshed the flash pans of his guns with more powder to make sure there was some in each of the barrel vents. It was tough to do in a cart that was rocking about worse than a small ship in a thunder storm and with the powder blowing everywhere.

  They won the race not because their cart or Femke was faster, but because the other cart was so heavily loaded down. As soon as they were passed the crossroad he yelled for Femke to slow down, which she did quite happily. Just because they had won the race did not mean they were safe. To the foragers they must have looked like a young farm family, and they sent the outrider after them. That was a race they could never win.

  Now that they had slowed from crazy rocking run down to a bumpy trot, the outrider was quickly gaining on them. Daniel yelled to him over and over to go away, but of course he didn't listen. He was a heavily armed king's gentleman, a cavalryer, and how dare this cart of peasants run away from him. Whatever was going through the cavalryer's mind he made the foolish mistake of shooting his pistol at their cart.

  Foolish because he wasn't close enough to have any chance of hitting what he aimed for. Foolish because he could have hit a woman or her child. Foolish because shooting your only ball was not a good way of forcing a cart to stop for you. He was almost upon them when whatever was going through his mind was replaced by a ball from Daniel's carbine. The heavy ball smashed the rider's head backwards and it lay across the tail of the running horse for a few seconds until the body was bounced off the back, out of the saddle and left in the cloud of dust on the road.

  "Slow,” yelled Daniel to Femke, and she did, which cause the slowing riderless horse to almost over take them. Daniel did a long reach out of the side of the cart and grabbed a hanging rein. By this time both horses were walking, so he pulled the riderless horse closer and tied him off to the back of the cart. Behind them the body on the road was not moving. Well behind the body the other cart was still lumbering along with the cattle behind it.

  "Stop,” he yelled to Femke, and then he hopped down from the cart onto his good leg and then went and took a good look at the riderless horse. It was too good of a horse with too good of a saddle to be seen with the likes of them. First he took all the gear, especially the sabre, off the saddle and dropped it to the ground. Then he removed the saddle and heaved it into the back of the cart and threw his blanket over it. A few handfuls of dust rubbed into the horse's hide and mane made her look a whole lot less elegant.

  "They're at the body,” Cerys called to him, so he scrambled back aboard the cart and yelled out 'walk', and then 'trot'. The other cart made a long stop at their comrade's body, so it was far behind them when they reached the crossroad with the main road. They turned north onto the main road and then kept Femke trotting until they reached the first ale-shed about two miles further on. Not only did Daniel enjoy his first ale in weeks, but he switched the horses to have the new one pull the cart.

  Now Cerys actually did have to drive because the new horse was not trained to words, but at least she had a bit and some reins, reins made longer with some rawhide thongs bought at the ale-shed. The good news was that with the larger horse pulling the cart they made it to the fork in the road that would take them to Wheelock well before dark.

  Just beyond the village of Wybunbury th
ey showed a friendly farmer their bad wheel, and he just shook his head and let them park their cart behind his barn where they could sleep in safety and unseen from the main road. Or rather, Nia goo-goo'd and chortled the farm wife into letting them stay and into feeding them. They were obvious a fine young family who had run into some bad luck with a wheel. The farmer and his sons tried to fix the wheel, but they gave up because the axle and the hub were so charred. The wheel was toast, literally.

  The next morning there was an old ruin of a carter in Wheelock who welcomed them more than the farm wife had, and for good reason for no longer was he ruined. He was a working carter of means again.

  "But that is not my horse, or my saddle," the carter whispered to Daniel so the rest of the carters eating at the bridge-side alehouse wouldn't hear.

  "I know. The captain that took yours liked it so much that he traded with me. Who would believe it?" Daniel said in a false voice, and then more quietly, "If I were you I would make the horse look ugly and lose the saddle as soon as you can."

  The gossip amongst carters at the alehouse was that the king's army was on the move. It had left Shrewsbury and was marching south-east towards the garrison town of Bridgnorth to cross the River Severn. That meant that they weren't marching for Bristol or Oxford. They were either going south along the Severn to confront Essex's army in Worcester, or they were making a break for London.

  Once the carter had promised to take Cerys to her parents, and after some hugs and some tears, Daniel and Femke rode out alone across the bridge over the River Wheelock. Not for the fens and home, but to find a marching army so he could try to buy out a village worth of men.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Edgehill by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 23 - Flying Squads at Warwick, October 1642

  For days Daniel had been shadowing the king's army, or rather, shadowing the king's foragers. It was not difficult for you could tell immediately where the foragers had been because after their visit to a village, the village women would wear black. It was as if the king's foragers were creating a black shadow that was moving across the countryside.

  The army was marching straight east, passing just south of Birmingham. Daniel had tried and tried to find out where the were marching to, but everyone he spoke to told him something different:

  To Warwick to punish the rebels there.

  To Northampton to punish the rebels there.

  To Watling Street to march on London.

  No one knew for sure, and even if one of them had known for sure, to Daniel their voice would be just one of the many.

  When it was obvious that the army was likely on its way to Warwick, Daniel rode Femke hard to get ahead of the foragers and then dropped south to warn the town of Warwick that the king's army was on its way. He expected a good bed for the night because he knew Robert Greville, one of the partners in Robert Rich's Providence Company, and he knew that Greville and not Rich owned Warwick castle even though Rich was the Earl of Warwick while Greville was just the Baron Brooke.

  He rode directly to the castle to tell the news. Daniel had been expecting a true Norman style castle, but what he found was a monstrous building that was one part castle and two parts palace and everywhere there were the destructive signs of the siege that the castle had survived in August. When he was last in London, John Hampden had told him about some minor siege in Warwick, but devastation did not look minor and the folk would have suffered terribly.

  Hampden had said something about Greville having a gentleman's agreement with the royalist Earl of Northampton about the Warwickshire armouries in Banbury or Coventry. The agreement was that neither would seize them. On the strength of Northampton's word, Greville had returned to London, wherein the Earl had seized the armouries and used them to lay siege to Warwick Castle. Hampden and Greville had rallied the militia's and had broken the siege. Was that only in August? It seemed an age ago.

  At the first gate he asked to speak with Greville and was told to fuck off by the guard. He tried pleading, and then threatening, and finally asked to speak with the captain of the guard. The guards refused, so he had found a stable lad who, for a copper, ran to fetch someone of authority.

  A half hour later, a familiar face came to the gate and vouched for him to the guards. It was Valentine Walton, Oliver's sister's husband. The MP from Huntingdon who had helped Oliver and Daniel snatch some of the plate silver from the colleges of Cambridge. "Let him in,” Valentine said politely to the guards and they jumped to his request. "Danny, what are you doing here? Oliver is asking everywhere about you. Your village is worried about you."

  "I've come to warn Greville that the whole god damn king's army is heading towards Warwick,” Daniel blurted out in frustration. He had been trying to give the warning for an hour.

  "Well why didn't you say so,” one of the guards at the gate replied. Daniel gave him 'the stare'.

  "Before you go into details," Valentine interrupted him, "come up to the house so you don't have to say it twice,” House? It must have had a hundred rooms. "I am just passing through on my way to Worcester. I'm taking a troop of Huntingdon Pistoleers to join Essex's army. He has sent out calls to all the militia for horsemen because the king's cavalry have attacked his outposts."

  "Attacked in Worcester ? That's ... umm .... sixty miles from here? How can he be attacked in Worcester when the king's army is not five miles from here?"

  "Bloody hell,” Valentine groaned. "Typical Essex. He's got his facts upside down again. The worst news is that Greville has already joined him in Worcester."

  That was not the sentiment of the castellan, Edward Peyto, after listening to Daniel's warning. "Thank you Captain Vanderus for bringing me this warning, but it is so different from our other reports that you must be mistaken,” he told Daniel. "Essex is waiting in Worcester for the king's army. The king's cavalry is leading the advance down the River Severn and there is no question of their numbers. Moreover, Prince Rupert is leading them."

  "Well if Prince Rupert is in the lead then you can be sure of one thing ... trickery,” Daniel replied. "All I know is that the infantry and the artillery are almost to Kenilworth and likely less than five miles from this castle. Send out some scouts if you don't believe me."

  "I'll go,” Valentine told them. "My men are ready to mount up because we were just about to leave for Worcester."

  "I'll come with you,” Daniel said but then looked back at Peyto. "Perhaps I am wrong about the numbers but not about the danger. I suggest that you call up what militia Greville left you and prepare Warwick for a siege."

  Instead of backtracking all the way around to the north of the king's army, Daniel suggested that they approach it from the south. Valentine welcomed the suggestion. He also welcomed the suggestion that they not take his entire troop of sixty but just enough men to capture a foraging party. Ten of them rode out along the Birmingham Road.

  They saw their first royal foraging party in the village of Rowington. There were a dozen in the foraging party including the carter, but at the sight of the flying squad of pistoleers galloping towards them they did not even attempt a fight. They had just left Rowington and the cart was full. Valentine had the forager's tied and roped together and then they led the cart back to the village so that the villagers could claim back their things.

  This group of foragers had been very efficient at their work. They used the tactic of ransom to save them the trouble and the danger of searching through houses and barns. They had done this by arriving quickly, grabbing the first villagers they met and binding them to the gunnels of the cart as hostages. The villagers were given an hour to fill the cart with food, else the hostages would be executed, one at a time, to hurry the gifting. It was a tactic that had served them well all the way from Bridgnorth, and only a handful of times had they ever actual executed anyone.

  It was the villagers who told the flying squad about the ransom demand, as they lined up on one side of the
cart to claim back what they had given. Valentine had the foragers lined up along the other side of the cart with nooses around their necks. Valentine then walked along the noosed men and spoke to them.

  "You are about to be hung as looters. I will spare the first man to tell me how far the king's army is from here."

  Seven men blurted out "four miles" immediately.

  "Is the king with them?"

  "Yes,” they all blurted.

  "Is Prince Rupert with them?"

  "No,” came the reply from only five lips.

  "Why not?"

  Only one man answered. "Because the prince and his cavalry are following the River Severn south to keep Essex in Worcester." The other men called him a traitor, thus unwittingly confirming the news.

  "Then I am finished with you,” Valentine told them. "As far as I am concerned you are free to go." He pulled on Daniel's arm to get him moving back to their horses.

  "Then cut us free,” one of the foragers yelled out.

  "I am in a hurry,” Valentine replied, "so ask the villagers to cut you free."

  The flying squad rode out of Chadwick and were careful not to look back despite the horrific screams that were echoing behind them. "Come, we must warn the castle and then ride hard to Worcester to warn Essex." Valentine told Daniel.

  "I'll come with you as far as the castle, for I need a meal, a bath, and a rest, but I must stay near to the king's infantry,” Daniel replied.

  * * * * *

  By the time they reached the castle everything had changed. Greville had just arrived back from Essex in Worcester to raise up more of the Warwickshire militia and to transport them and their armoury to Worcester. Daniel had met Robert Greville, the Baron Brooke, as he had met most of the shareholders of the Providence Company ... through the Earl of Warwick. Greville was one of those keen minded men who never forgot a face or a name and indeed he greeted him by name.

  Though Greville looked and sounded like a school master, and had published scholarly papers at the universities that made him sound like a Scottish Covenanter, he was so much more. He was a man of action and a strategist. If he had been put in charge of Parliament's army rather than Essex then by now the king would be in the Tower of London.