“White? Who are they? I know not of such a family.”
The colonel was puzzled, could not understand Daniel’s purpose.
“The son of the family refused to ride with you, sir. You had him flogged almost to death and left him hanging, bleeding on the village green. It is only just that I return you to their care.”
“I did what was right! He defied the summons of his King.”
“No doubt the family will do to you only what they consider right. Take them away, Red Man.”
Micah had them led to the baggage and oversaw his men as they tied them into line behind the waggons.
“Do not fall, gentlemen. The waggons will not stop for you.”
He turned then to the remaining prisoners, waiting in some terror to hear their fate.
“Take your boots off! Now!”
They obeyed, unable to see why but frightened to refuse.
“You have a choice. You may carry musket or pike in our ranks – in which case, put on your boots. If you prefer, you can walk away, without boots and penniless.”
One of the older men called out nervously.
“I walks off, they villagers going to scrag I, master! I ain’t got no way to look after meself.”
“Your problem.”
“Wait a minute, master, whiles I puts me boots on again. Take I a minute or two. I be going for a soldier with thy men, sir.”
The captive sat down in the grass and wrapped his foot cloths tidily before setting his feet into his riding boots and stamping them into place.
“Begs permission to serve with thee, sir.”
“Granted. Join us and if you show loyal, you will be given a horse in time. For now, go to the pike company to your front.”
A second raised a hand, painfully.
“I’se a bit cut up like, master, across me back where one of you blokes swiped I wi’ a sword. Didn’t do more nor nick me a bit but I ain’t in the way of carryin’ no pike for a couple of weeks.”
“Join my company as an officer’s servant until you are healed. Put your boots on.”
A third called out to ask where they were going.
“If so be thou art bound for Devizes, master, then I had best not come with thee, for they was like to hang I excepting I become a trooper in the regiment.”
“They will not hang any of my soldiers.”
“I’ll join thee, master.”
Micah did not ask what he had done; he preferred not to know and a soldier’s past was his own affair while he behaved in the ranks.
He saw the others were putting their boots on, assumed they had volunteered and pointed them either to pike or musket, depending on their size, the pike being better suited to the bigger men.
“The remainder of the prisoners volunteered to serve, sir. Some few have wounds and are to be servants until they are healed.”
“Nearly fifty men between the two encampments, Red Man! Useful indeed!”
“Very much so, sir. Without doubt, some will run when they have the opportunity, but they might knuckle down and make soldiers.”
“Desertion always exists. Let us be thankful that we have the chance to persuade them to stay.”
They marched just ten miles on the day for making a late start, ended up making camp on the common outside Odstock, to the south of Salisbury.
Daniel was uncomfortable.
“Not where I wanted to be, Red Man, but little choice now I am here. Put together a guard of half a dozen troopers, if you would be so good, and come along yourself. We shall visit my parents.”
Daniel pointed to a hillside a mile or so distant where they could see a big house, a mansion.
“The ancestral home of the Carews.”
“Rich!”
“Thus speaks the soldier! You have become one of us, Red Man.”
They laughed and set out down the carriage lane to the house.
“An avenue of old yews, Red Man. Tradition says that many of the bows used at Agincourt were cut from these trees.”
“A good use of the timber, sir.”
Micah glanced behind him, made sure the dozen troopers were correctly in pairs and upright in the saddle.
The house was ancient, grey local stone, fortified in parts, Elizabethan manor in its more modern wings. It was large with a multiplicity of windows under brown baked tiles. There was a lake and lawns to the fore, a gravel driveway leading up to a massive portico and double doors in black oak.
“The rose beds are just coming in, Red Man. A week or two and they will be a blaze of colour. They will have seen us; let us discover whether they wish to give a welcome to the rude soldiery.”
The doors were opened by a pair of servants and a man in his fifties, dressed as a gentleman, walked out.
“The prodigal returneth! Well, Daniel?”
Major Carew dismounted, signalled Micah to do the same.
“Good afternoon, Father! Do I find you well?”
“You do, young man. I do not believe your men have the look of those who support the King.”
“I am major in command of Colonel Jevons’ Regiment, sir. We are raised in support of Parliament.”
“Not necessarily the least short-sighted of moves, my son. It seems that the King might be winning just now.”
“I doubt he has the capacity to bring matters to a successful conclusion, sir. He is not a capable man and has not surrounded himself with the most able of his subjects.”
“That is true, for I am not at his side! Come indoors, your mother and sisters will wish to greet you. Who is the Judas-haired gentleman at your side?”
“Captain Slater, second in my Regiment, sir. The Red Man, who has attracted some attention already in his career.”
The two made their bows, Micah having learned how to do so from Daniel.
“Come in, the pair of you. My steward will take your men and the horses to the rear, Daniel. That is a fine stallion you ride, Captain Slater.”
“Schwartzer, sir? Or is my lord more correct?”
“My lord, if you insist.”
“He is a black horse, I am told. Brought across from the Germanies and recently come into my hands. He is a good horse to ride, sir. Powerful and with a smooth gait.”
“A Landsknecht horse, I believe. I shall not ask how he came into your hands. He is a fine beast indeed – too good to send out into an untidy and confused war. I would be pleased to offer you a strong gelding in exchange – a good working horse – and as much as thirty pounds in cash. I would dearly like to put him to some of my mares.”
Micah grinned – it was a tempting offer.
“Much though I would wish to oblige you, my lord, you might cause offence to some of your neighbours by taking him. I believe his original owner’s family may be found towards the town of Devizes. The young gentleman is marching as a prisoner in our train.”
The elder Carew showed disappointed.
“Wiser I should not put him into my stables, Captain Red Man. A pity! I would dearly like his bloodline in my pedigree. I doubt I have ever seen his like – read of them, but never come across one such… I might be able to keep him a year or two, ignorant of his provenance, one might say, and then offer to purchase him when he was inevitably discovered in my possession – I could not keep knowledge of so magnificent a beast from spreading… I will risk it, if you will sell, sir.”
He was a truly magnificent animal, Micah knew, and would attract every eye. He would dearly love to ride out on such a stallion – but it would be hard to keep him in condition, marching him every day and without a certain supply of grain, reliant on grass-feeding.
“He is yours, my lord. I must not keep him without a certainty of looking after him properly. A reliable gelding in exchange, if you would be so good. As for money? He cost me nothing and it would be wrong to take your cash. Bid your groom to change my saddle to my new horse and we shall be even, my lord.”
“You are very good, Captain. Come back in four or five years and I shall make thee
a gift of one of his line.”
“Should I survive and still be in England, my lord, I shall do so.”
“A bargain! Come into the house now. The family is waiting to see you, Daniel, and you, Red Man, will ever be welcome here.”
King’s follower or Parliament’s was irrelevant – Micah was the man who had presented my lord with a magnificent stallion and given himself freedom of the house for life.
Chapter Fourteen
“Do come in, both of you.”
Daniel ushered Micah in front of him and down a hall to a large reception chamber.
Micah delayed long enough to strap his helmet to his shoulder before entering the comfortable room, out of place in steel plate, leathers and high boots. He was conscious of the six pistols he carried and of his heavy sword, a brutal intrusion into a place of peace. He bowed as he was introduced to the four women and two younger men there.
“Lady Carew. My daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, Rachel. My eldest son, Samuel Carew and his brother, David. Captain Slater.”
Micah was able, just, to make an impression of the six, noticing that Lady Carew was too young to be mother to the three men and the eldest daughter. A second wife, evidently. The two younger girls were of his own age or a year or two less.
The eldest brother, Samuel, a solid-seeming gentleman of more than thirty greeted his junior with some slight disapproval.
“Well, Daniel? How are you after so many years?”
“Eight, is it not, Samuel? I am well in myself, though I have yet to make my fortune, I will say. I am a major and command one of the larger battalions in the Parliamentary army, which is some slight achievement at my age. Captain Slater, the Red Man, is my senior captain and leads my troop of horse as well as his own company of muskets. We are the better part of nine hundred strong.”
Samuel nodded, acknowledging that his brother had achieved something, even if not in a field that he could admire.
“Are you on the march to join the Western Army?”
“No. We have been making all tidy in the South Country before waiting further orders. There were a few of disaffected garrisons and small fortresses holding out for the King and offering a threat to the Wealden gun foundries. They have been pacified and the supply of muskets and great guns has been made secure. For the moment, we are tidying up on the south of the Plain here.”
The middle brother, David, two years younger and even less approving it seemed, frowned and commented that he had understood the Devizes Regiment of Horse had been recruiting in the area.
“I had been considering joining their ranks, Daniel.”
“Such consideration is moot, David. We met the Regiment this morning. Those of the officers who survived the encounter are now held prisoner and the rankers have mostly joined our companies. Their horses, of course, have made a very welcome addition to our strength. We have also benefitted by some scores of pistols and straight swords.”
Lord Carew smiled quietly.
“I had wondered about their martial skills, I will confess. I believe you suggested that natural virtue and gentle birth would be adequate to ensure victory, David?”
There was no reply.
Lord Carew enquired what was to be done with the prisoners.
“They are a nuisance, sir. I asked their parole, as is normal practice, to send them home under pledge to fight no more, and they refused. I have threatened them that they will be taken to Larkhill village where they had made themselves obnoxious; I intend to place them in the hands of the squire there. One of the gentleman’s sons of that locality refused to ride with them and they flogged him almost to death and left him displayed on the green there, as a warning to others who might not be loyal to the King.”
“Truly?”
“A boy by the name of John White, sir.”
“I know of the family. The Whites own broad acres around Larkhill. Two families in fact, brothers who split the lands, grazing to one and arable to the other. It is a shameful act on the part of the colonel of the Devizes Regiment. Oldbury, his name, a man I have never liked.”
Samuel shook his head.
“That puts an end to your riding with that particular crew, David. Wiser far to stay at home and avoid all such adventures.”
David was shocked, scowled mightily.
“The oldest of the Whites is not eighteen years, Daniel! It cannot be right to flog a boy!”
“I agree. His close friend, one Henry Parsons, was much angered and has joined my people. I expect to make him an officer within weeks.”
“Parsons? I do not know the name.”
Lord Carew did.
“Small family – settled in Larkhill from Poole, perhaps ten years ago. The father was a shipowner and did well on the Guinea Coast trade. There is money to be made there, for those who survive the fevers. Mostly running servants to Bermuda and the Virginias. They have no land – just a big house and three or four acres – but they have wealth, I believe. Foolish to offend those who might otherwise dip their hands in their purses.”
Daniel nodded.
“If you wish to ride to war, brother, I can always find a place for a gentleman.”
“No. I might have fought for the King, though I shall not now after such brutality. I cannot support Parliament.”
The youngest girl applauded that sentiment.
“How can any gentleman not stand for his King, David?”
“Daniel is a gentleman. Ask him.”
She did.
“Rachel, I can give you a short answer or a long. In brief, the King is a fool. He has the idea that he rules solely by the will of God. I believe that he leads the English people as their fountainhead of honour and virtue, and at their consent. We are not Frenchmen or Spaniards to be slaves to King and Church. We are freeborn men to be ruled by law and justice, not by royal whim.”
“But… he is King!”
“Not for much longer, sister. If we lay hands upon him on the field of battle, we shall remove his crown, and his head with it. No few Kings have gone that way in our past. We shall do our best to ensure that he is reminded of the English way of ruling the land.”
She could not believe his words. Killing a king was not to be countenanced, that she knew.
“Richard III discovered the falsity of that belief, sister. No doubt there were others previously, but I was never one for my history book.”
“He was a false king.”
“Only after he was killed at Bosworth Field, my dear. He was a perfectly ordinary king until that slight error on his part. Had he won the battle, he would still have been a very fine king.”
That smacked of impiety.
Micah was mildly amused, while thinking she was a very handsome young lady when animated by indignation. She was darker than her brother, with striking blue eyes her main feature. She was a well-grown girl besides, not a lot shorter than him and built strongly. Clever, too, and there was much to be said for a female with a mind of her own. She was also daughter to a lord and as such not one for him to look at twice. He grinned, amused that he should even be in the same room as such a young lady.
“What of you, Captain Red Man? Can you approve of killing your King?”
“Only if he comes within the length of my sword, ma’am. If I meet him on the field of battle, then he will go the way of all my enemies. As for taking him captive and then removing his head – that I must leave to a court of law. I am a soldier, ma’am, and very little more.”
“A fierce soldier, it must seem! Do all such carry six pistols and a sword that smacks of the butcher’s cleaver?”
Daniel intervened to say that Micah had been made to his current rank solely for his virtue in the field.
“His men love him dearly, sister, for being first to enter the fray, leading them whatever the risk may be. As for the great sword he carries, he is a strong man and can swing that blade for an hour at a time if need arises.”
Lord Carew interrupted to say that he did not know of a family of Sl
aters.
“No doubt from the North Country, Captain Slater.”
“Midlands, sir, not so far from Stamford. But you would not have heard of the family, for there is none such. My brother owns two quarries at Collyweston and I grew my strength hewing and toiling in them. I joined the armies as a runaway boy and was fortunate to meet a few Scots first and then other disaffected individuals and was made an officer. I find I enjoy soldiering far more than ever I did hacking out slates in a quarry!”
“That I can understand. I must correct you, Captain: there is a family of Slater now, for you have created it. All families have a beginning, sir.”
Micah had not considered that concept, was not greatly moved by it now that it had been set before him.
“You may well be right, my lord, but I do not have any expectation of becoming a power in the land. I suspect that when this war is over I shall be, as they say, surplus to requirement, and will quietly disappear. Possibly there will be another war in a different land; perhaps I shall take ship to the Americas and make myself a home there. I do not think there will be a place for the bloody-handed in a land newly made at peace with itself.”
“You may well be right, Captain. Do you expect an early end to this war?”
“I hope so, my lord. I have heard little of the progress of the campaigns but know for sure that ordinary folk, and some of the mighty, have suffered for being fought over. John White is but one example of the innocent being abused. It seems that war allows the wicked to give free rein to their passions.”
Daniel nodded shortly.
“Indisputably so, Red Man. One might say in its favour that war also gives the opportunity to bring to an end the careers of the wicked. I much suspect that we should have hanged the good Colonel Oldbury, you know; the world would be a far better place without him defiling it.”
“You may well be right, sir. You probably are. I have no stomach for the noose, however.”
“Nor me – but that may be weakness on our part. That one is a man who would be far better with his neck stretched.”
Red Man Page 24