‘I, Mistress,’ Stryker protested, ‘slaughtered those found under arms, as was our order.’
‘You follow every order?’ she sneered.
‘Of course.’
‘Even those that would have you massacre a town?’
‘The townsmen were called upon to surrender,’ he retorted. ‘If they had done so, they would certainly have been spared. Indeed, if they had surrendered after our first assault, terms would have been forthcoming. The Prince is not so evil as your news-books would have it.’
‘Then why—’ she blurted, but her voice wavered and cracked.
‘Your halfwit friends strung up one of our officers. No forgiving that. No forgetting. The Prince understands courage. He understands pig-headed bloody Puritans. But he does not take kindly to the public and dishonourable hanging of an honourable prisoner. It was a grave mistake that could not go unpunished.’
Stryker’s response was harsh, and Faith’s bottom lip quivered, but she held his gaze stoically, unwilling to yield. ‘You approve of such punishment?’
‘I neither approve, nor condemn.’
‘The coward’s answer,’ she hissed. ‘You are not wicked, sir, but you consort with wickedness. Excuse it.’
He shrugged and rubbed his eye with a grubby palm. ‘When you see what a man can do to another man,’ he said, more softly now, ‘you understand that we are all of us capable of terrible deeds.’
‘I do not believe that,’ she answered defiantly.
‘Then you are a fool. All men have the seed of wickedness within them. That seed will grow if allowed. The cultivation is pure circumstance.’
‘The seed will grow,’ she said, calmer herself now, ‘but a man may trample its dark shoots.’ She went to the Bible, snatching it up, holding it out to Stryker. ‘With God’s help, Major, and only with His help. You saved me. You did not need to, but you did. King Jesus guides you.’
‘I wish I could believe that, Mistress Helly. Truly.’
She kept her arm extended, offering him the book. ‘God calls to you, sir, I know it. You hold not the hatred for the likes of Master Sydall – for the likes of me – that clouds the eyes of so many of your brethren. With His guidance you may choose the righteous path, Major. There is still time.’
‘Hatred for your kind is often deserved, Mistress Helly,’ Stryker said bitterly, regretting the tone as soon as he had uttered the words. He deliberately softened, adding: ‘Your Puritan tolerates no other. They are a—difficult breed.’
She looked hurt. Her arm fell away. ‘The Godly admit our own weaknesses, sir, for we know we are sinners. We have not the arrogance of others. Thus we accept all creeds.’
He laughed sourly. ‘In my experience it is quite the opposite. Your reading of Scripture assures you of the guidance of the Holy Ghost in all that you do. Does it not follow that any man thinking differently could not, therefore, enjoy that same divine guidance? Thus you afford him no toleration, no friendship. You claim you have no arrogance. I say it is your arrogance that renders you so despised by the rest of the world.’
A group of harquebusiers cantered past following a bullet-holed blue cornet; too close for comfort, they both shrank back. Faith saw that Stryker was not about to take the Bible, and so she held it instead to her chest. ‘I do not understand how you can fight on the same side as that man.’
He knew who she meant, and stared out through the foliage as he searched for the right words. He had not told her of the chance encounter in the rain-soaked field outside Standish. What had he seen, exactly? The Vulture drinking smoke as he met with another man? The fleeting moonlight had shown his companion to be a skinny youngster in a Montero cap; hardly a surprising scene in a camp full of soldiers. Yet something had not seemed right. The meeting was clandestine, and it had jarred with Stryker ever since. ‘Kendrick and I fight for the King,’ he said eventually. ‘I do not have to like him.’
‘In your heart,’ she said, ‘you know you follow the wrong banner.’
‘A politicker as well as preacher,’ he chided, secretly impressed by the girl’s conviction. She reminded him of Lisette.
Faith’s stare did not waver. ‘Power, unchecked, can lead only to tyranny.’
‘So say those who would steal power for themselves.’
‘Steal?’ she scoffed. ‘Common men would only be His Majesty’s lawful subjects, rather than his serfs.’
‘And you speak for these serfs, Mistress?’
Drums boomed from the roadside. They were not played in unison, but for practise, each section hammering out a rhythm or one of the complex beats to communicate an order, so that a cacophonous melee reverberated all the way along the road, as though a storm brewed over the hills.
‘Why not?’ Faith asked, when the sound ebbed a touch.
‘Forgive me, but yours are not palms accustomed to work, I’d wager.’
‘How dare you, sir?’ Faith retorted hotly. ‘My father is a wool merchant, an occupation made untenable by a tyrant king. Do not presume to speak of that which you know nothing.’
Stryker held up his palms in placation. ‘My own father was also a wool merchant, Mistress Helly. I speak as I find.’
The drums had ceased now, replaced by the stentorian shouts of sergeants and corporals as they saw their charges safely into Wigan to search for billets. Stryker froze. The trees, away to their left, were rustling. He cursed himself, for his lack of sight had compromised them. Faith had heard it too, and she instinctively moved behind him, shielded by his body. Stryker studied the trees on the shallow bank, hoping to see a deer or stray dog, perhaps even a pig, rooting through the undergrowth. They waited. Nothing emerged. Stryker could hear his own heartbeat pulsing in his ears. ‘Clear,’ he said after a long moment.
‘The King,’ she rasped, careful to keep her voice down, ‘seeks to control God-fearing, honest men who would but put food in the mouths of their babes.’
Stryker felt the puckered skin of his damaged face pull taut as he raised his brow. ‘Honest men? The merchants, the lawyers, the men of commerce? These are not common folk, but the middling sort. It is the middling sort who would paint His Majesty tyrant, for he would curtail their greed.’
‘For his own greed.’
‘For the good of his people, Mistress.’ He was playing with her now, though he could see she was genuinely angry. In truth, he merely regurgitated the argument he had heard so many times since returning from the cruel conflagration that had consumed Europe. These were not his principles, for he had not been in England to witness the divisive parts of the Stuart reign, but it was impossible to resist baiting the girl. In her ire she was becoming whole again. ‘Was it not the King who did force the price of wool to be kept low at home? Were it not for his intervention, the common folk would have frozen while the merchants counted their gold.’
‘The King’s meddling has done far greater hurt than good, sir,’ she answered, levelling the Bible at him. ‘The Parliament fought against his monopolies for the benefit of all England. In return it received aggression and threat.’
He laughed. ‘You wave that book like a cudgel, Mistress. It transforms from olive branch to weapon.’
‘Do not mock me, Major,’ she warned, though a flicker at the corner of her eye told him that she began to mellow.
‘Forgive me, but I believed I was protecting an innocent girl from a terrible fate. All the while I harbour a Puritan, a Roundhead and a traitor!’
The Bible retracted, vanishing within arms she now crossed over her chest. She looked him square in the eye. ‘Then hand me to your king’s judges, Major Stryker, and I will defend my treason and my God.’
‘Never, lass,’ Stryker said, still grinning. She seemed perplexed, and he took a step closer. ‘Upon my honour.’ His voice was serious now. ‘Never.’
The tavern’s air was grey and thick, its walls dirty and its beams black. It was raining heavily outside, the water thrumming on the tiles above and pooling in the road. The hearth roared to dry
the soldiers’ garments, and the taproom was muggy in the extreme. Men swilled ale in only their shirtsleeves, foreheads glistening as they cradled cards or sang to the fiddle’s tune. The whole place stank of sweat and beer and tobacco. Three men quarrelled in a corner over a game of Irish, a pair of drunken corporals clasped palms over a bench, snarling spittle-sprayed oaths as they arm-wrestled for a pile of tarnished coins, and a serving-girl struggled from a cross-eyed pikeman’s lap, slapping his pock-dented cheek with one hand and scrabbling at the loosened ties of her bodice with the other. He laughed, made a half-hearted grab for her departing rump, and made do with the blackjack she had discarded during their tussle.
Captain John Kendrick picked at his front teeth with a silver pin he had liberated from Bolton. He was one of seven men seated around a large circular table that was rough-hewn and sticky to the touch, and he eyed his companions as they craned over the curved edge, scanning the untidy piles of coins and gnawing lips as they considered their wagers. They chattered incessantly, placing side bets amongst themselves, taking odds and laying money according to how they guessed the throw would play out. Kendrick removed the pin, using its point to slide his own money into the playing area, and muttered his bet. The rest considered it, sucking pipes and quaffing drinks, and then more hands went to the table, pushing groats and pennies through puddles of spilt ale to chink in the crowded centre.
Kendrick sat back, adjusted the sleeveless buff-coat that he retained despite the warmth, and observed silently as the caster took the box in which the pair of bone dice rested. The man, one of Tillier’s drummers, blew on the dice and took his throw.
Cheers and groans rippled around the table as the nuggets of finger-polished bone came to rest. Players and onlookers alike hurried to make the count and gauge the result. Kendrick drew breath through his nose with studied slowness, propped the pin between his lips, and reached out to gather his winnings. A hand fell firmly across his.
‘Cheat.’
Kendrick looked up, tugging his arms away from the clammy pressure. ‘A strong claim.’
The accuser, who had introduced himself as a dragoon, was a thick-set, balding fellow, probably in his mid thirties, with chubby hands and a pulpy face. ‘You cheated, sir.’ He fixed Kendrick with a blood-shot stare. ‘We did not begin with these pieces.’
‘You accuse me of trickery?’ Kendrick asked, glancing at the table. ‘Of conjuring dice anew?’
‘Of swapping the fucking dice, aye!’ the dragoon snarled.
Kendrick folded his arms, laughing scornfully. ‘You are copper-nosed and dull-witted. Now shut your mouth and play.’
The dragoon shook his head. He was still leaning in, protecting the uncollected windfall like a guard dog. ‘I’ll not play with a cheat. Nay, I will not, as God’s m’ witness!’
The tavern was silent now, the fiddle and the song and the bawdy laughter having died away. Some of Kendrick’s men had abandoned their own games to sidle over to the table. One of them spoke: ‘You speak to an officer, you poxy cur.’
‘Wait,’ Kendrick ordered, not looking round. ‘We are all equal at the hazard table, as agreed. But have a care,’ he said, addressing the dragoon again, ‘you stinking weasel, lest you cause a scene.’
The dragoon bridled, scraped his fat fingers over a chin of stubble. ‘I know you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The Vulture, they calls you. On account o’ that beak.’
Kendrick smiled, making certain that his carefully filed fangs were visible. ‘I have not a clue as to the name’s true provenance, but I’d be willing to wager my rather curious stature claims a hand in it.’
‘Ha!’ the dragoon brayed, looking to the men gathered just behind him. ‘Bastard crook-back, lads!’
‘There again,’ Kendrick returned, ignoring the laughter that ensued, ‘perhaps it is my lovely cloak, for the fur doth lend a man’s mind to thoughts of black plumage. Of course, a country maggot like you would never have seen the bird in question. Would not know it if it did shit in your eye.’ The mirth fell away, the dragoon’s face was suddenly tense with the sting of the insult. Kendrick clicked his fingers and one of his men was at his flank, the heavy cloak he had shed for the game hanging in his grip. ‘Nor would you have knowledge,’ Kendrick went on, shifting in the chair so that the cloak could be draped over his shoulders, ‘of the animal that really lent its skin to my garb.’ Now he let his eyes rake over the rest of the dragoons. ‘It is the pelt of a bear. A black bear.’
‘Ferocious beast,’ the strongly accented voice of Sergeant Janik intoned gruffly behind. ‘Was bastard.’
‘And what happened to that bear, Andor?’
Janik sucked his moustache theatrically. ‘You open it from belly to ballock!’
Now Kendrick’s men laughed. The dragoon and his friends kept their silence. ‘Ah yes. That is what happened, truly.’ From within the fur-trimmed garment, he pulled a huge knife, turning it slowly so that the flame’s light danced on the broad steel. ‘Opened it with this fine thing. My cinquedea. My pride and joy. All of five fingers wide.’
The dragoon made to speak, but Janik interrupted: ‘I’d open mouth for nought but cocks if I were you.’
The pulpy cheek quivered gently. ‘You do not frighten me. I have my own blade, and I knows how to use it well enough.’
‘But will it do any good?’ Janik growled from his place at Kendrick’s shoulder. ‘Captain, here, is hard-man. He has supped of magic brew.’
The dragoon forced a nervous chuckle, but went to grasp the nearest of the disputed coins. ‘And my colonel’s a forest faerie.’
‘But you have heard of our creed,’ Kendrick said, and he knew from the man’s thickly laboured swallow that he was right. ‘There is a certain herb of which the men partake. I had the honour of its consumption in my time skinning Turks.’ He dug at a spot of grime beneath his fingernails with the tip of the knife. ‘It makes us strong, this herb. Bullets bounce off our very skin.’ He looked the dragoon in the eye again. ‘But I have no need of such power here. My beautiful cinquedea will be more than capable.’
The dragoon stared at the blade, as if bewitched by it. ‘Capable?’
John Kendrick rammed the cinquedea down as hard as he could. It pierced the top of the dragoon’s hand easily, driving through flesh, snapping bone, and bursting out through the palm. The man stared in wide-eyed disbelief for a long moment, and then he screamed. His hand was pinned fast to the table top, the fingers of the other clawing at the inert flesh, desperate to release the bone-handled spear, and all the while his confederates were reaching for their weapons. Kendrick sat back, as if he were basking on a summer’s day. His men crowded round, their swords scraping free of scabbards. He knew there were too many of them to be bested. More importantly, the enraged dragoons knew it too, and quickly their numbers ebbed as men made their own count and slunk towards the tavern door and a quiet night.
The wounded man sobbed over his stricken limb. Kendrick whistled a jaunty tune as he swept the blood-spattered coins into a rough heap and deposited them into a leather pouch that one of his men held open. Only when all his winnings were safely tied away did he collect the dice. He winked at the keening dragoon, produced the original bone chunks from between his thighs, tossing them to the table, and stood. With a quick jerk, he plucked the cinquedea free from hand and table, eliciting a high-pitched scream from the man who seemed to fold in on himself, cradling his ruined hand to his stomach and sliding to the floor.
Kendrick was just deciding whether to cut off the dragoon’s nose or ears when he was disturbed by the mention of his name. He stopped dead, turning to see one of his officers stalk from the murk. ‘News?’
The newcomer nodded rapidly. ‘You were right, sir.’
‘About?’
‘The bitch.’
‘Come.’ Kendrick looked briefly down at the whimpering dragoon. ‘Remember this moment. For it is the moment your life was spared by the Vulture. You are fortunate.’ He walked away as the remaining drago
ons fell to their friend’s aid, and led the officer into the deepest corner he could find. ‘Speak.’
‘Saw her, sir. With that one-eyed bastard. The one you fought, sir.’
‘Well, well, well …’ Kendrick paused in thought. And the more he thought, the more it made sense. He had sent his men out into the burgeoning Royalist fold almost daily since the escalade at Bolton. They had first checked the Sydall house, but, though the cold bodies had been removed, no warm ones had apparently returned. Kendrick had spoken personally with the musty aldermen of the grieving town, to no avail, and it was only then that he had decided the devious wench must have secreted herself somewhere within the itinerant city that was Prince Rupert’s army. The obvious place to look was amongst the blossoming ranks that accompanied the baggage train, that straggling band of wives and whores, wheelwrights and peddlers, snot-nosed children, smiths, sutlers, hawkers, cooks and quacks. She was not to be found. And now he knew why. ‘I have been a fool.’
‘Sir?’
‘When the Prince ordered me to Lathom House, I was angry. It took us away from the search. But Stryker was too quick to fight me. Too eager. He is a veteran of the Low Countries, every man knows it. The things that grey eye must have seen.’ Kendrick shook his head, for he had seen such things too, and those things had turned his soul black as night. ‘Why was he so enraged when he saw our colour at Lathom? Why so determined for me to kill him? Bolton was not the first time he has waded through carcasses, I can assure you.’
‘Then why?’
‘The girl was with him. Her presence stirs him to vengeance.’
‘He swives her?’
Marston Moor Page 11