Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles (39 page)

‘Finally rid themselves of that wastrel Murford, have they?’ Colonel Samuel Jones replied.

The German fellow nodded. He tossed his helmet to one of his nearest troopers and dismounted, finally discovering his manners. ‘Aye, sir, they have indeed. And Colonel Norton would challenge Basing Castle.’

Tainton felt a knot form in his throat, as it always did when the serendipitous nature of the Holy Spirit worked in his life. He forced calm into his breaths, moved past a cluster of musketeers, and found himself at the inner edge of the circle.

‘Does he now?’ Jones was saying.

‘He looks to reduce Hampshire’s malignants for good an’ all,’ the white-bearded cavalryman went on. His eyes were pale and hard, and he raked them over the groups of infantry like a man choosing a prime bull at market. ‘I require men. Fighters for the cause.’

Jones was fiddling with his handkerchief again. ‘These are Surrey folk, Major,’ he replied levelly, but in the same superior tone that had so enraged Tainton. ‘Hampshire is not their concern.’

The major tugged at the strands of his beard. ‘Sir, I beg of you,’ he said, his voice growing more contrite with each moment, ‘Governor Norton would—’

The handkerchief jerked up to cut him off. ‘Besides, and as I have told this gentleman already,’ without looking he swept an extended finger round to point directly at Tainton, ‘we do not have leave to send men into the countryside. Sir William Waller comes hither. We are expected to muster with the rest of his army. It will simply not do for me to dispatch much needed resource on your private errands.’ Now he turned, glancing between Tainton and the major. ‘Either of them. Now good-day, gentlemen. General Waller will be here within the week. Should you wish to take the matter up with him, please feel at liberty to wait within my walls.’

Basing House, Hampshire, 22 October 1643

The room was lined with stout candles of fine beeswax, each little flame tilting forwards as the man swept past, as if bowing to acknowledge the Earl of Wiltshire and Fifth Marquess of Winchester.

Stryker stood up, bowing along with the candles. He and Lisette had been invited to dine with Sir John Paulet and his military governor, Colonel Marmaduke Rawdon, in the Great Gatehouse, but the queen’s agent had declined, preferring instead to visit the estate’s private chapel with Paulet’s wife, Lady Honora. He could not begrudge her that right, for the opportunity was rare in a land where overt Catholicism was a privilege reserved and tolerated only for society’s elite. In fact Stryker was secretly pleased; he hoped the time apart would heal their mutual wound.

‘I am deeply grateful for your kind welcome, my lord,’ Stryker said as Paulet and Rawdon approached. The table at which they now found their seats was a huge slab of polished walnut, dark in colour, bright in sheen, like a muddy puddle turned to ice. It was full of salvers, ornate and solid like the ones, Stryker mused, forming a significant portion of the Cade fortune. They were piled with various sweet meats, breads, an array of cheeses and colourful fruit. The array was interspersed with more candles, a tall-necked decanter made of delicate glass, and three silver goblets. At the table’s centre was a plate carrying a shoulder of mutton that looked utterly succulent and had already set Stryker salivating. After his days aboard ship, in prison and trudging over hill and down valley, such luxury was a veritable poultice for the senses.

Paulet was swathed in a cloak of red trimmed with dark fur and embroidered in thread of gold. Beneath he wore a blue and yellow doublet, a silver gorget and a white shirt that carried a fringe of lace in a nod to an old-fashioned ruff. He was thinner than Stryker remembered, gaunter of face, though his brown hair was still neat and his beard sharply trimmed and waxed. He took his chair, leaning back so that it creaked loudly, and watched as the others followed suit. ‘I am pleased to offer respite to so revered a fighter, Captain. Your message is dispatched, you will be pleased to hear. The escort will come forthwith, and you may be safely away. But for now, please take your ease. The gold is securely hid.’ One of his thin brows flickered just perceptibly. ‘Though I confess I am unable to fathom why, dear Captain, you would refuse the offer of my vaults.’

Stryker had wondered whether Paulet would take offence at his selection of an underground store-room that had once formed part of the stabling of the Old House, and he took a moment to choose his reply carefully. ‘I would simply keep the wagon and its contents in one place, my lord,’ he lied, ‘so that it might be retrieved with ease when my escort arrives.’

Paulet pursed his lips, putting Stryker in mind of a pouting child. ‘It would be safer in Basing’s deepest foundations, Captain, nestled secure beside my own coffers.’

This was exactly what Stryker did not want, for he half suspected it would not be easily separated from the dwindling Paulet family fortune when the time came. However, he simply nodded his thanks again. He had arrived at Basing just hours earlier, after an uneventful slog over the open pastures of the South Downs, and immediately set his men to their ease. They had disappeared into the sprawling complex of the Tudor mansion, while Stryker had seen the wagon put securely under guard in the empty store-rooms that had been carved out of the ancient motte. He had spoken briefly with Rawdon, who had come to greet them at Garrison Gate, and the evening audience with the marquess had been swiftly arranged. It was strange to be back in the grand house after a year of war. The buildings were the same, but the defences had changed drastically. There were staked palisades and ditches, high earthworks, jutting bastions and artillery batteries, all linked in a vast ring around the fortress. A formidable place indeed.

‘I could not lose any more men, you understand,’ Paulet said apologetically, shifting to the side so that a servant might fill his cup with wine. ‘Not now that Waller is waking from slumber.’

Stryker thought back to the information he had gleaned from George Webb. ‘I hear he raises an army at Windsor, my lord.’

Paulet nodded, snaking bejewelled fingers around the goblet. ‘Where he’ll march is anyone’s guess, but I’ll not be without my men.’ He lifted the cup, taking a delicate sip. He grimaced, but not as a result of the wine. ‘Still, that weasel at court would be pleased if William the Conqueror marched south.’

‘My lord?’

Paulet twisted his face again. ‘He plays games with me, Stryker.’

‘He?’

‘Rupert’s creature,’ Paulet answered sourly. ‘Killjoy.’

‘Killigrew, my lord,’ Stryker said. ‘Ezra Killigrew. I know him well. A toad, if ever there was one.’

‘A schemer, sir,’ Paulet persisted. ‘A game player. He would sacrifice me at a damned altar if he thought it would aid the cause. He sent your acquaintance, Forrester, down here from Oxford with the express purpose of stirring Basing to action.’

‘That was what Forrester was here to tell you?’ Stryker asked. He knew Forrester had gone, captured in Petersfield by Norton’s roving cavalry, but he felt duty-bound to discover what on earth his friend had been doing away from Oxford. ‘To attack the rebels hereabouts?’

‘Aye,’ Paulet said, though the word was uttered in something akin to a growl.

Stryker cast his eye down at his plate as the servant set several chunks of mutton upon it. ‘Is that not a noble aim, my lord?’

‘Not when it is purely to take Westminster’s malicious gaze away from Hopton,’ Paulet snapped.

‘Baron Hopton of Stratton,’ Colonel Marmaduke Rawdon interjected upon seeing Stryker’s nonplussed expression. Rawdon was a straight-backed, square-shouldered officer who carried a perpetual air of sensible sobriety. He was dressed entirely in black, though his coat was slashed along the sleeves to expose radiant yellow silk beneath. ‘He raises a new army to the west.’

‘Our esteemed high command,’ Paulet cut in bitterly, ‘order me to sally out from here, harass the enemy. Make certain they are not looking west when our newest baron makes his move. In short, Killigrew would happily see my estates destroyed if it served his design. And now that might very well happen, for, as you so rightly state, there is rumour of a second force readying for the field.’

‘Essex and Waller must have set aside their differences,’ Stryker said.

Paulet nodded, his face sullen. ‘More’s the pity. I believed my actions would enrage one monster, but not two.’ He took a longer draught of wine, the breaths from his nostrils echoing within the goblet. Eventually he set it down with a small belch. ‘Killigrew and his ilk. We are but pawns in their grand game. But what can I do? I must obey, for it is in the name of our dear sovereign that each of us shift.’ He offered a twitch of a shrug. ‘Suffice it to say we have done as instructed.’

Rawdon was cutting into his meat, but he looked up at that. ‘Indeed, your friend has been instrumental in our struggles. Led my men to war, no less.’

Stryker smiled. ‘I am not at all surprised, Colonel.’

‘I confess, however,’ Paulet said, ‘That I misused him. Came to rely on his skill. We are not blessed with seasoned warriors within these walls, you understand.’

‘Misused, my lord?’ Stryker asked.

Sir John Paulet used his thumb and forefinger to smooth the triangular point of his beard. ‘Sent him on an errand, Stryker.’ He winced. ‘A dangerous one.’

‘That was how he was captured?’

Paulet nodded. ‘It was.’

Stryker blew a gust of cool air through his nose as he glanced at the high beams above. After all the suffering of recent times, he had reached a degree of safety he had barely thought pos­sible, only to find his friend and comrade in mortal peril. ‘Do you have any knowledge of his whereabouts, my lord? Anything at all?’

‘Much,’ Paulet nodded, too happily for Stryker’s taste. ‘He was taken by Norton’s scouts, imprisoned in Southampton, before achieving a dramatic and glorious escape.’

Stryker’s jaw dropped in surprise. ‘My lord?’

‘I have lately been accosted in the most despicable manner,’ a loud, aristocratic voice rang like a bell from the doorway. ‘A willowy sergeant and a yellow-eyed dwarf, firmly in their cups, stumbled into my person like a pair of old soaks in an alley. When confronted, they simply let fly a barrage of foul oaths and bawdy laughter.’ Captain Lancelot Forrester grinned, stepping into the room. ‘Their commanding officer must be the very devil himself.’

Farnham Castle, Surrey, 22 October 1643

The brazier played its crackling tune as the two men regarded one another. They were either side of the iron grate that stood waist high at the edge of the courtyard, embers pulsing brightly within, each holding palms up to absorb the heat. The night was cold and crisp, and similar fires lit the entire castle grounds, infantrymen mingling warily with their cavalry counterparts as they clustered about these places of welcoming warmth. Sergeants patrolled, grim and menacing, weaving between the groups to ensure friendly exchanges throughout, but they did not venture close to this pair.

‘You rode with troop?’ newly promoted Major of Horse, Wagner Kovac, said across the brazier, his words turning to tongues of roiling vapour.

Roger Tainton nodded slowly. ‘I was a captain in my father’s regiment.’

‘See action?’

Tainton reflected upon his short career with the Parliamentarian cavalry. Only days before his terrible wounds, he had led his men to a glorious and bloody rout of a Royalist unit, and the memory brought new sense to his dulled skin. ‘Plenty.’

Kovac gazed with seemingly morbid fascination at Tainton’s face. ‘This was in battle?’

‘Brentford,’ Tainton said, beginning to regret the removal of his hood.

‘Thought that was all infantry.’

‘Then you were mistook.’

Kovac’s head twitched to the side to show that he did not care. ‘And now work for the Parliament?’

‘That is what I said,’ Tainton answered. He did not enjoy being questioned. He leaned into the fire. ‘Waller comes hither.’

‘William the Conqueror,’ Kovac said sourly.

‘He is preparing to protect the south-east against Hopton.’

‘General Hopton?’

‘The same,’ Tainton confirmed. ‘You were not aware?’

Kovac shook his head, gnawing his bottom lip as he did so. ‘My colonel governs Southampton for the Parliament.’

‘Then you had better send a rider back to inform him. Hopton will march east any day now, and I am certain Norton will wish to know.’ He paused briefly as a green-coated sergeant paced past, using the butt of his halberd as a walking stick. ‘And yet,’ he said when the sergeant had moved out of earshot, ‘you are unconcerned with such things, Major Kovac. Like me, your sights are set upon Basing House.’

‘My mission is one of revenge,’ Kovac replied with eyes made narrow. ‘No more, no less. There is a man inside I need to kill.’

‘But you cannot hope to reduce Basing with, what, one hundred and fifty men?’

‘Two hundred,’ Kovac corrected brusquely.

Tainton turned his head to study the courtyard. Troopers milled amongst the garrison men, spurs marking them out. ‘Still—’

‘No,’ Kovac grudgingly agreed. ‘I have letter from Governor Norton. Orders help from rebels hereabouts.’

‘And you hoped to borrow some of the Farnham greencoats.’