Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles (18 page)

‘Lisette, I—’

If she had possessed a blade at that moment, there was no doubt Stryker would be several fingers short. ‘Do not touch me, coward!’ She spat the last word. ‘Do not bloody look at me.’

‘It—it was for you, Lisette,’ Stryker protested weakly, hating the words even as they left him.

She stared up at him, her smile malicious. ‘For me? I plead for you not to tell those bastards, and you tell. You fucking tell. If I had my dagger, Stryker, I would pin you to the floor by your stones, God help me! I had it. Had the gold. Found where it was, and still I did not tell them.’

‘Jesu . . .’ Stryker retreated a step, searching for something, anything, to say. ‘They were going to rape you.’

Lisette slapped a palm across her lips in an exaggerated gasp. ‘Mother of God, no! And what of it? You think it would be the first time I’ve spread my legs to protect your stammering bloody king? Tainton hates me. He was going to kill me. So he rapes me first. What will I care when I’m dead?’

‘I would care.’

‘
Exactement
!’ Lisette hissed. ‘
You
would care. The great Stryker does not like his woman touched by other men. It does not matter if the whole bloody world depends upon it!’

Stryker wanted her to see what he saw, to feel the dread that he had felt. But in the end he knew that the facts spoke for themselves. She was right. ‘I was prepared to tell them about the gold for you,’ he said softly. ‘To protect you.’

She spat at his feet. ‘Then you are a bloody foolish bastard, Stryker. A bloody foolish, jealous bastard. You do not own me! All you had to do was keep your damned mouth shut! But you could not do it because you could not see other men have their way with me. It is pathetic, Stryker. And now they will have the gold. All our work. Cecily’s death. All for nothing.’ She sat back against the wall. ‘You could not keep your silence before. Well keep it now and leave me be.’

‘Good to see you back, sir,’ William Skellen said as Stryker went to slump against the wall he had made his own. ‘And I see Miss Lisette’s in fine fettle.’

Stryker glared caustically. ‘Have a care, Skellen.’

Skellen swallowed hard. ‘I will, sir.’ He went to sit nearer his captain. ‘I will.’

Barkworth’s yellow gaze glowed like a pair of lighted match-cords in the murk. ‘You’re no in fine fettle, sir.’

Skellen pulled an admonishing expression, but Stryker held up a hand. ‘They poured seawater down my throat every few hours.’

‘Bugger me backwards . . .’ The diminutive Scot’s voice was little more than a croak at the best of times, but here, despite the silence of the rest of the men, seemed barely audible at all.

‘After a while it felt like my innards were coming out with the vomit.’

‘They wanted you to tell ’em where the gold was?’ Barkworth said.

‘Aye.’

‘And now they know.’

‘They always knew it was in the Scillies,’ Stryker said. ‘But not which island it was on.’

‘How did they know?’ Skellen spoke now.

Stryker spread his palms to show that he was as puzzled as they. ‘Remember Collings? The major-general who sought the gold? He is in disgrace for his failure, as far as I can ascertain. These new vipers work in his stead.’

Barkworth cleared his throat gingerly, glancing back at Lisette. ‘Take it you told ’em, sir, beggin’ your pardon.’

Stryker wanted to follow his gaze, but fought the instinct. ‘Aye, I told them.’

‘Shite,’ the Scot muttered.

‘Indeed.’ He looked at Skellen. ‘It’s more than that.’

The sergeant frowned, his bald head creasing above deep-set eyes. ‘Sir?’

‘Our gaoler is Roger Tainton.’

‘Tainton?’ Skellen echoed, cocking his head to the side like a hound listening for its quarry. Then his mouth lolled. ‘
Captain
Tainton?’

Stryker nodded. ‘As was.’

‘The stripling with the blackened armour?’ When Stryker nodded again, Skellen looked at Barkworth. ‘Gilt rivets and everything. Very nice.’

‘Very rich, I’ll wager,’ Barkworth replied.

‘Pappy funded the regiment,’ said Skellen. ‘Tainton was good, though. Proper horseman. We saw his lads smash one of our troops to bits.’ His head swivelled back to his captain. ‘But he—he drowned.’

‘It appears he was saved,’ Stryker said. ‘But he was badly burned. You would not recognize him now.’

‘I bet he remembers Miss Lisette.’ The sergeant turned to stare at the sullen Frenchwoman. ‘That’s what happened, sir, ain’t it? He recalled his
meeting
with her.’

‘Beg pardon, sir,’ Barkworth interrupted upon seeing Stryker’s face, ‘but you’ll nae find privacy in here.’

Stryker sat back. How could they help but eavesdrop? ‘That is what happened, aye. Tainton threatened to—’

He tailed off, but Skellen simply set his jaw. ‘Understood, sir.’

‘And I told him the treasure was on the island of Tresco,’ Stryker went on.

‘Every man has his weak spot, sir,’ said Skellen. ‘His Archi­medes elbow, as Cap’n Forrester would say.’

Barkworth thumped the tall man’s shoulder. ‘His Achilles heel, you willow-armed bloody bufflehead.’

Skellen shot him a grin that was black-gummed and amber-mottled. ‘If you say so, Tom Thumb.’

‘That is all beside the point,’ Stryker said. ‘She will die either way. Tainton wants his revenge.’ The pains gripped his guts again and he pressed a balled fist into his midriff. ‘All I have done is stop her rape.’

Skellen shrugged. ‘Well, I do not blame you, sir.’

Stryker let his shoulder-blades hit the cold stone behind. He wished Lisette saw it that way.

Petersfield, Hampshire, 10 October 1643

Forrester shared a cup of passable claret with George Webb before turning in for the night to a room at the rear of Webb’s workshop.

Unfastening his baldric, he collapsed fully clothed on the dense pallet, happy to rest his body despite the tumbling of his mind. He had taken a map from his saddlebag and now unfurled the scroll above his face, plotting his route south to the village of Rowlands Castle, where he would meet his final contact. He could not travel on the major thoroughfares, but there were plenty of alternative tracks that, albeit more circuitous, would have to suffice. Where were those Parliamentarians Webb had mentioned? The roads were full of soldiers, footpads and highwaymen, and he was well accustomed to dealing with such dangers, but Webb’s reputation was not something to be dismissed. If he made mention of a particular force at large, then that was a force to be reckoned with.

Forrester set down the map. He needed to get back to Basing and then north to Oxford. He felt sorry for the folk of Petersfield, but it was no place to linger. For once he would be pleased to rejoin the wintering regiment.

It was the smell he noticed first. He sat bolt upright, scrambling for his sword without consideration, because the odour was a mix of things he knew well: tobacco smoke, sweat, leather and horse flesh. Soldiers.

There was no time to collect his belongings, and he was thankful he had kept the Marquess of Winchester’s warrant stitched firmly into the lining of his coat. He could still get himself out of this, so long as the soldiers had approached the rear of the premises first. If he was lucky, they had not reached the front. He eased the latch and moved into the workshop. He could make out the shapes of tools hanging from nails on the walls all around, straps of leather dangling from the beams and the huge black shadows of the lathe and its great wheel. He went quickly to the entrance that fronted on to the street, surprised that the doors were not barred. Something moved to his left, catching his eye. He froze, turned slowly, blade levelled and ready. Beyond the long spokes of the great wheel a figure lurked. Forrester took a step back as it slid out from its hiding place.

Forrester let a huge breath gush from him. ‘Jesu, boy,’ he said to the apprentice, ‘I almost ran you through.’

Webb’s apprentice was, now that Forrester saw him up close, probably about fourteen years of age, with a bowl-shaped thatch of black hair and a pinched, shrewish face. ‘S—sorry, sir.’

Forrester moved past, making for the double doors. ‘Wake your master, lad. He has visitors, I fear.’

‘Nay, sir.’

Forrester spun round. ‘What?’ He need not have asked the question, for his answer was etched all over the apprentice’s furtive expression. It was why the bar had been removed from the door. ‘You treacherous little bastard!’

The double doors swung violently inwards at that moment, starlight beyond obscured by soldiers. They came quickly, filling the workshop. Four flaming torches were in the room, carried in gauntleted fists, and Forrester was forced to shield his eyes. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he blustered.

‘Mouth shut, sow-swiver,’ one of the men commanded, ‘or it’ll be the worse for you.’ There were nearly twenty soldiers packed into the workshop now, all with a blade or pistol brandished, the metal glinting in the glow of the flames like the winking eyes of some hellish beast. The man who had spoken stepped forth. He held a pistol, twitching it towards Forrester’s poised weapon. ‘Drop your hanger, fellow, or I’ll blast this dag right in your belly.’

Forrester dropped his sword. They were cavalrymen, by the look of their clothing and weapons. The leader jerked his chin at Forrester and two men stalked out from the crowd to grasp him roughly by his arms.

‘I say!’ Forrester yelped, twisting away. ‘Get your damned grubby claws off me!’

‘Proper gent, this one,’ the commanding trooper declared to a chorus of laughter. ‘Out we go, your lordship.’

They dragged Forrester out into the night. More cavalrymen were streaming back from the rear of the building. A hundred yards down the road, near the timber-framed edifice of a large tavern, waited the rest of the troop. They watched his approach with grim interest, some clapping sarcastically, others spitting streams of brown tobacco juice in his direction.

Forrester quickly scanned the group. There were perhaps threescore men, all similarly dressed in the ubiquitous buff hide and metal of a well-equipped troop of horse. It was not a large troop, but he guessed this was the sum of the unit, for the cornet was present, clutching his pole from which, hanging limp but unfurled, was the colour. It was a square of black and blue mater­ial. Forrester did not recognize it as overtly Parliamentarian, and a jolt of hope punched through him. Perhaps this was not the feared rebel unit Webb had warned against, but a Royalist patrol, passing through the town by chance.

He saw the scarf then, almost glowing in the light of the moon, wrapped about the waist of a man who immediately slid down from his horse and removed his helmet. The garment was tawny, the colour of the Earl of Essex and, therefore, the device chosen by many sections of the various Roundhead armies, especially those who had been with His Excellency at Edgehill, Gloucester or Newbury. Forrester’s heart sank.

‘Good-evening, fellow!’ the man in the scarf called, his accent strange to Forrester’s ear. He strode quickly towards his new captive. ‘And what have you been up to?’

Forrester shook himself free of the grasping fingers. He straightened, squaring his shoulders. ‘I am Captain Lancelot Forrester, of Sir Edmund Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot.’

The cavalryman had a huge nose and a thick, white beard, and he rubbed the bristles with a gloved hand. ‘Cavalier.’

‘Oxford Army.’ There was nothing to be gained by lying. He was well armed, in possession of a good horse and clothed like a soldier. Honesty, about this aspect at least, would keep him alive. ‘I would offer you my sword, sir, but you already have it.’

A growing group of onlookers was gathering on the roadside now, disturbed from their beds by the commotion, and the tawny-scarfed man offered a curt bow, playing to the crowd. ‘I am Captain Wagner Kovac. Richard Norton’s Regiment of Horse.’

Now that the man was close, Forrester could see that his skin was badly marked by the pox. His eyes were very pale, almost like clear glass. They showed no sign of friendliness, despite the spoken pleasantries. ‘You are abroad late, Captain.’

‘We hunt,’ Kovac said bluntly. He looked back at his men with a wry smile, exposing the ostentatiously large knot of his scarf, which bloomed like rose petals at the small of his back.

‘Then good hunting,’ Forrester said, fighting to keep his fear in check.

Kovac was taller than Forrester by an inch or two, and he seemed to raise himself to his full height as he spoke. ‘Tell me, Captain Forster.’

‘Forrester.’

‘Forrester,’ Kovac corrected himself. His left cheek twitched. ‘Tell me, what are you doing here?’

‘I was captured at Newbury Fight,’ Forrester lied. ‘I escaped, stole a horse, rode as far away from London as I could.’

Kovac stared at him, gaze pitiless and implacable. ‘You come direct from Oxford.’

‘I was at Newbury,’ Forrester protested hotly.

‘You might have been at Newbury, Captain,’ Kovac cut him off, ‘but you were not captured. I say you carry a warrant from Pope-lover Paulet.’

‘I do not know what on earth—’ Forrester blustered, but rough hands immediately took him. They tore the coat from his back and tossed it to Kovac, who held it up high, patting it with a palm until he rested upon a particular spot.