Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles (29 page)

Whinchat Place was a soot-stained shell. The greencoats formed a loose cordon around the smouldering plot, Sergeant Upton determined to find useful employment for his sally party, while Stryker led his men into the ruin. Approaching from the west, they entered through the rear of the house, where a breach had opened in the walls after the collapse of a section of stone. Lisette was already inside, and they followed her lead, picking their way over the crackling debris like kites at a carcass, tearing at shards that were still warm, tossing them aside when nothing but more charred rubble lay beneath.

While he sought Lisette, Stryker ordered his party to spread out in search of casualties, a small hope that Tainton might have been trapped tugging at the back of his mind. He balanced upon a black slab that he supposed had once been a large table, though now it was precariously poised upon a mass of other furniture, evidently having crashed down from above. He was forced to brace himself, stance wide, so as not to topple the precarious perch, but it afforded him a valuable view over the scene. The ground-floor ceiling was completely gone, and he could see right across the tumbledown grid of walls that now contained the contents of the upper floors as well as the lower, like so many lidless boxes. He could see Lisette at the far corner of the house, in a chamber close to the main arched entrance.

Skellen was close at his side, hauling at the debris in a deep hearth, the brick stack of which was still standing, alone and incongruous where the walls on either side had fallen away. The tall sergeant cursed softly as he snagged a finger, sucking it like an infant. ‘None survived this, sir.’

‘But who died?’

‘You think Tainton?’

Stryker shook his head. ‘We would not be so fortunate. But keep looking. I’ll go to Lisette.’

Skellen pulled a face, but Stryker leapt down regardless, boots crunching as he landed in the carpet of ash. He picked his way from room to room, shell to shell, until he reached her.

Lisette was half sitting, half slumped against one of the decrepit walls. She was filthy, more so than the others, her hands and knees and face smothered in soot. He realized that she had been grovelling on all fours, digging at the layer of grime with her nails, and he noticed, too, that the debris in this chamber had already been thrust to the edges, leaving the centre of the floor clear. And in that space, a deeper patch of black amongst the shrivelled floorboards, he saw a hole. It vanished into the bedrock beneath the house, a gaping maw that looked as though it had come from purgatory to swallow souls. He looked back to the Frenchwoman. ‘The gold.’

‘Is gone,’ she said.

‘It was down there?’

She nodded, not looking up. ‘I thought it was so safe. That we might catch Tainton still searching, or that he might have given up.’

‘The warden talked.’

That made the blue eyes dart up, fixing him with a venomous glare. ‘Not every man is so easily coerced as you, Stryker.’

Stryker felt as though he were a cooking pot, a mixture of guilt and anger bubbling up so that the concoction might overwhelm him. He swallowed hard. ‘Then where is he, Lisette?’

‘They killed him,’ Lisette said, ‘fired the house, and the boards burned away.’

Stryker looked at the hole in the floor. ‘It is empty?’

‘Of course it is bloody empty, you half-witted English dullard! It is over! Wait, where are you going?’

Stryker bit back another surge of anger and spun on his heels. ‘Let us be on the move.’

Old Grimsby, Tresco, 14 October 1643

The cart creaked and groaned under the weight of its clanging bounty. The ox, underfed for such a burden, bellowed to the grey skies and snorted its discontent, but still it trudged on, the big wheels trundling inexorably in its wake. Tainton, Fassett, Cordell and Squires walked at the sides, too heavy to sit in the wagon, though the latter kept the reins looped tight about his powerful wrist lest the beast think twice about its work. They followed the track north through the island because it gave them the best chance of avoiding any curious soldiers coming from King Charles Castle, and so far they had been fortunate. Down in the bay, Tainton could already see their means of leaving Tresco. The
Silver Swan
was a large blot against the waves, its dark hull and white shrouds huge amongst the scores of fishing vessels that bobbed all around, so many horseflies harrying a magnificent mare.

The vehicle was full. Tainton did not know what exactly he had imagined. Jewels, he supposed, more colourful than a hundred rainbows and glittering like a lake in an August dawn. The reality was somewhat different, of course, but nonetheless impressive. The secret pit below Whinchat Place had revealed riches of a less ostentatious nature. The treasure took the form of plate, in the main. Gold and silver salvers, ceremonial dishes adorned with exquisite friezes of the ancients; Greek, Roman and Byzantine myths, false idols and scenes of debauched paganism. Tainton despised such trinkets, the baubles of a bygone age, prized by the likes of Sir Alfred Cade but soon to be ushered out of Britain by the new wave of enlightened and Godly men. There were almost two-score of the objects, and he had Fassett’s lackeys stack them on their edges, pressed together in rows, so that they fitted neatly in the wagon, leaving ample room for the rest of the hoard. There were three finely worked jugs, made in gold and decorated with rubies and emeralds, a thick golden cross that weighed more than a musket, a small garnet twinkling at its base, and a dozen rings of various size and worth. What remained was coin. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces, dozens of denominations, all piled high within seven stout chests. There were groats and farthings and shillings, silver sixpences and golden crowns, even solid, glittering angels worth eleven shillings a piece. It was a true trove, a cache of delicious, gorgeous metal the like of which Tainton and his comrades had never seen. In short, a fortune.

They drove the plaintive ox northwards with renewed purpose, now that the ship was in sight. When the terrain became difficult, Locke Squires lumbered out in front, taking the harness in hand and lending his great strength to the beast, dragging animal and vehicle together as one. They no longer needed to rest, for the final act in their great enterprise would soon come to pass. They would return to St Mary’s, put an end to Stryker and the French harlot, and then make for England. The Parliament was calling to them.

Tainton prayed constantly. As they descended the final slope that would take them down to the bay, he could only thank God for His providence. Just as their failure to extract information from Toby Ball had rocked the foundations of his faith, so the exposure of the hoard by divine fire had reaffirmed it a thousand-fold.

He glanced from the harbour to the wagon. His three hirelings had removed their coats, using the garments to cover the precious bounty as best they could. He had refused to donate his own, for he needed the voluminous cloak to conceal his hid­eous appearance, but he was satisfied that the treasure would reach the ship unhindered. His main concern was the confederates themselves. Fassett, Squires and Cordell were evil men; thieves and murderers; the kind of men with which he would not usually consort over matters of vast wealth. But there were no alternatives in this case, and he was forced to trust them. Even so, the cloak concealed more than scarred flesh, and he rubbed his hand across the solid hilt of one of his two hidden pistols as he paced.

They reached the beach in less than an hour. Tainton tossed a tupenny coin to the lad guarding their boat, and added another when he had located a second vessel, and they began unloading the hoard, wading out to the boats that now bobbed in the shallows. Cordell and Fassett did the majority of the work, supervised by Tainton, whose hand never left his side, while Squires positioned himself a little way up the sand, standing with folded arms and a grim expression between the boats and any curious fishermen. They divided the treasure in half to spread the weight, then clambered aboard, Tainton with Cordell, Fassett with Squires. And then they were away, another penny thrown to the boy so that he would push them off. Tainton twisted to wave at the men aboard the
Silver Swan
while Clay Cordell worked the oars. When he turned back, he caught a flicker of movement up on the rising land above the coast. His eyes were not as good as they once were, but still he could make out the shapes of more than a dozen men on the grassy hill. They stood in a line, very deliberately gazing down at the bay, at Tainton’s boats. He could not see their faces, nor the detail of their clothes, but one of them, smaller than the rest, was tiny, the size of a child, and another seemed to have long hair that was as golden as the ornate salvers piled at Tainton’s feet.

‘Is it?’ Clay Cordell said as he heaved against the waves. He too gaped at the figures. ‘The froggy bitch?’

Tainton shielded his eyes with his hands ‘I believe it is, Mister Cordell. Somehow they have escaped.’

‘Fuck,’ Cordell said, splashing them both with water.

Tainton’s heart thundered like the drums at Brentford Fight. His revenge would not come, and it made him want to weep and vomit both at once. All this time, all these months, he had thought of the moment when he would give Lisette Gaillard a lingering death of exquisite, horrific agony. And now somehow, inexplicably, she was free.

‘Balthazar must have lost his nerve,’ he said eventually. It was the only explanation.

‘Just as well we’ve got ourselves away, then.’

And Roger Tainton’s pulse began to slow, because the choleric-looking mercenary was right. How and why Stryker’s band of Cavaliers had managed to extricate themselves from Star Castle, he could not fathom. And the escape of Lisette Gaillard was particularly vexing. But, he realized with the most perfect, uplifting rush of relief, it mattered not a jot. He had the gold. He had defeated Stryker, defeated the French whore, and would be a hero of the rebellion. He wept now, but out of joy instead of sorrow, and he thanked King Jesus at the top of his lungs, waved up at his enemies, and began to laugh.

Near Overton, Hampshire, 14 October 1643

Forrester’s initial elation at his escape had been cruelly punctured by the knowledge that Dewhurst had been plucked clean away by a pistol ball. But that sorrow was compounded further when, around noon the previous day, he had looked back to see three horsemen on the horizon. They had closed the gap, gradually but inexorably, and Forrester had known that he would not make it to Basing House before nightfall. As evening descended, he had veered off the most direct course to Basing, plunging into the enclosed fields and coppiced forests to the north. The trio of hunters had followed, and, before the light faded completely, he had been able to make out the white hair and beard of Wagner Kovac, and he had understood that his shot had simply unhorsed the Croatian. Kovac was no longer riding his big bay, but the grey of another of his troopers, and Forrester had realized that Dewhurst’s shot had been the killer. Kovac, unharmed, had merely lost his mount to Forrester’s bullet.

Now, while this second day wore old, somewhere in this forest of silver birch, Wagner Kovac and his two remaining troopers were prowling; silent, watchful and hungry for blood. After hours of slinking from one tangled thicket to the next, Forrester had decided to go to ground. He would make a stand, once and for all.

He had scanned the terrain and picked a place where the soil had been ruined by a coney warren and where men had once asserted their ancient grazing rights by digging shallow ditches that were now furred with moss and capsized by tree roots. And now he waited.

Forrester blew on his cord of slow-burning hemp. His mouth felt terribly parched. He ran his tongue around his gums, biting the inside of his cheek gently to force some saliva to come. He had supped from the last stream he had crossed, but already the heady mixture of exhilaration and weariness was beginning to take its toll, and his sticky lips scraped on his teeth. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand, yawned and stretched, keeping to his feet but leaning back on a thin, peeling trunk. When he opened them he saw the horseman, a charcoal silhouette some sixty paces into the watery mist, made unmistakable by the outline of lobster pot, sword and mount. This was it, Forrester knew.

‘Come then, sirs, for I grow weary of this game!’ he bellowed, his voice echoing amongst the trees. As if responding directly to his challenge, two more figures resolved from the gentle miasma. Forrester offered a deep bow as their collective attention fixed upon him, fishing in the side of his boot for a couple of musket-balls as he did so. ‘Then we shall have our reckoning at last!’

He popped the leaden spheres into his mouth and blew on his coals again, sidling backwards to where his musket rested, muzzle up, against a gnarled stem. The spot he had chosen was a small half-moon of a clearing carpeted in the yellow of fallen leaves. The curved side was thick with silver trunks around whicch clustered thorny brambles and decaying bracken, while the straight front was open, the trees more sparse. It was from this side that the horsemen came now, breaking into a gallop that sounded more like an entire cavalry charge in the eerie stillness.

Forrester shouldered the musket. It was primed, and at this distance he did not bother to fix the match in place. He exposed the pan, dipped the burning tip into the powder, and the world exploded. He fell back immediately as much to clear his own field of vision as to remove himself from danger, and was horrified to see three troopers racing towards him. He had missed. He dropped back further to where his snapsack and bandolier rested, and flicked the stopper off one of the powder boxes. He already had the next bullet wedged against his lower gum, and he spat it down the muzzle after the charge had been decanted. They were close now, too close, at the very edge of the clearing, leaves and mud flinging up in clods to blur their fetlocks, and he knew they would be upon him before he could prime the shot.