Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles (32 page)

Forrester grinned. ‘Major Lawrence. Well met, sir.’

‘We thought you long lost, Captain,’ Frederick Lawrence said as he strode into the room. ‘Feeding the worms, as it were.’

Forrester grimaced. ‘Do not speak to me of worms, sir, please.’

The cavalry officer looked a tad confused. ‘As you like, Lancelot.’ He waved towards the door. ‘Care to take the air? I would show you how busy we have been.’

The garrison of Basing House, under Rawdon’s military governorship and with Paulet’s money, had indeed been busy in the week Forrester had been gone. He and Lawrence strolled to the western periphery of the fortress, where new earthworks had sprung up and existing ones extended. The ditches had been deepened, the walls buttressed with earth and the ramparts carved into the land like raw wounds. Forrester clambered to the summit of one such rampart and looked along its length. There were new fieldpieces set upon bastions of piled soil. Sakers or minion drakes, by the look of them. Light, compared with big siege cannon, not worth pointing at a wall, but devastating against massed ranks of flesh. They were protected by bunched cannon-baskets that, though made simply of wicker, were packed to the brim with spoil from the palisade, making them dense and almost impervious to small-arms fire. This part of the defences fairly bristled with ordnance and staked ramparts, and Forrester could not help but be impressed.

Lawrence leaned on a cannon-basket and looked out upon the wild terrain. ‘I hear the conditions in Norton’s prison are not good.’

‘I’ve experienced worse, I can assure you,’ Forrester said. ‘My only regret is losing the warrant.’

Lawrence nodded. ‘The rebels will make merry with it, I fear.’

‘Aye.’ It was just a piece of parchment, and yet the warrant would, he knew, be used to condemn the marquess in the eyes of Parliament. They already considered him an enemy, for his religion marked him as a Royalist without the raising of arms, but now it could be proved that he posed a real threat to the rebellion in the south, he would doubtless become an active target.

‘Still,’ Lawrence said, his eyes narrowing in a look of ruefulness, ‘that is what the powers in Oxford wanted.’

‘They did not wish to lose Basing, Major.’

Lawrence shrugged his crooked shoulders as he absently watched two labourers hauling a dog-cart laden with earth clods along the base of one of the outer ditches. ‘Shake the hornet’s nest, you said.’

‘I assure you, sir,’ Forrester protested, ‘that shake is what I intended. I never wished to pull the whole damnable nest from the tree.’

‘All the same, your purpose in coming here was to capture Westminster’s attention, and that is what you have achieved.’

Forrester felt heat come into his cheeks. ‘You do not think I lost the warrant intentionally, Major?’

Lawrence shook his head. ‘Never, Captain. Simply that we will not be required to sacrifice any more men by sallying out needlessly. Parliament will soon know that the marquess is raising the county against them. We, in turn, should look to our defences.’ He slapped Forrester’s shoulder. ‘And we must rejoice, for you have returned to us. God is to be thanked for that.’

‘God and Sergeant Dewhurst.’

Lawrence’s temple twitched violently as he nodded. ‘May he rest in peace.’

Forrester thought again of the warrant, how gleeful Norton had been to have it in his possession. ‘If Parliament had no design upon Basing before, they will surely come now. The marquess cannot be left to rouse the local Royalists.’

‘I am ready for the fight,’ Lawrence declared, rubbing his hands at the prospect.

‘Good luck to you, Major,’ Forrester said.

‘You think the Roundheads will come?’

Forrester nodded, again reflecting upon the fire that he had seen blaze in Richard Norton’s eyes. ‘I’m certain of it.’

CHAPTER 15

The English Channel, 15 October 1643

The rugged shore climbed out to port, a grey crescent above the evening sea like the spine of an unfathomably vast whale. It was the Sussex coast, the cliffs of the Isle of Wight having been left behind them. Hope swelled like a tide in Roger Tainton’s breast as he dipped his shoulder into the northerly wind. He knew they could not reach London if matters went on unchecked, but Sussex was, at least, a Parliamentarian county, its towns and ports generally declared for the rebellion, and the prospect of overreaching themselves must, he felt certain, soon become a genuine concern for the bold Cavalier crews. They were not a real navy, he told himself, but a rag-tag fleet of privateers. He prayed they would abandon the chase. Either way, the crew of the
Silver Swan
had performed admirably, plying their trade amid the thunder of cannon fire, adjusting canvas fraction by fraction as the wind changed direction and strength. The chase had worn them to red-eyed ghouls as the afternoon dragged, the need for rest overtaking their innate instinct for survival, but still they would battle on. God would compel them.

Tainton watched the undulating coastline, the dark mass pocked white where villages hugged the cliffs. More explosions made him flinch, and he was thankful his cowl concealed his timidity.

‘It is over, Mister Tainton, sir,’ the ship’s captain, Trouting, called above a rumbling volley from one of the frigates. Expert seamanship had dragged out some distance between predators and prey, and they were just out of range, but the shots were still too close for comfort as they smashed the surface of the sea. ‘We must put in.’

Tainton felt as though he had been hit by one of the whistling iron shots. He stepped back to brace himself. ‘We agreed—’

‘You agreed.’

‘I asked you to have more courage!’

Trouting shook his narrow head. ‘You commanded me to run east, and I have done so, but the men have had enough. They are worked to the bone! You claimed the enemy would disengage, but they have not!’

Tainton drew breath to launch a stinging tirade, but the captain’s watery eyes were full of determination. ‘Where?’

Trouting scratched roughly at his salt-stiffened bristles. ‘Selsey Haven.’

‘Selsey?’ Tainton blurted. ‘Might we not choose Chichester? Is it not for the Parliament?’ In truth, he was already forming a strategy in his mind, a tactic for dealing with the local author­ities wherever they landed. Chichester’s Roman walls would offer the best protection for his precious hoard, and protection was what was needed, regardless of the political leaning of a town. So much gold could capture a man’s heart, twist his allegiance and disintegrate his scruples, and Tainton needed to be sure that he could get the treasure behind the thickest walls he could find.

The captain shrugged. ‘I could not give a goat’s ballock, Mister Tainton. Who’s to say it ain’t gone back to Cavalier hands?’

‘It has not,’ Tainton rasped through gritted teeth. ‘I am sure.’

‘Not sure enough. Towns change colours from one moon to the next, and I ain’t of a mind to brave the harbour guns if they’ve turned their coats.’

Tainton could see that he was beaten. He pulled his cloak tighter about his chest and stared out at the rugged coastline. ‘Selsey Haven.’

‘Pagham, to be more exact. The harbour offers good shelter.’

‘Will not the men-o’-war follow us?’

Trouting licked cracked lips. ‘Too treacherous for them what don’t knows the tides, sir. Specially for those big bastards. Besides, we’re far enough east for ’em to think twice afore they risk trappin’ theyselves in harbour.’

Tainton rubbed cold fingers over the dull skin of his jaw. His mind whirled with the difficulties of removing the treasure from the ship and having it stranded in a little provincial town miles from any rebel stronghold. Mercifully, a thought struck him. ‘Can we not wait, then? Sit in harbour for the malignants to lose interest, turn back?’

Trouting nodded. ‘You may wait, sir, aye, but you’ll be waiting a goodly while.’ He glanced up at the tattered topsail and the dangling strands of rigging. ‘We’ve repairs to make.’

Tainton could not believe his ears. He felt the fury bubble up inside his throat. ‘How do you know you are safe in Pagham? What about
their
guns? Or their men, for that matter?’

‘I’ve kin there, sir,’ Trouting replied brightly. ‘The
Silver Swan
is welcome in its waters, whichever way the tide of war might turn. I should like to stay a while.’

‘What am I to do?’ Tainton spluttered, aghast. He thought of the gold stored below decks. ‘I cannot very well remain aboard ship. Eventually someone will discover our cargo, and things will go awry.’

The grizzled seaman pushed thick fingertips into the dense thicket of an eyebrow, pulling at errant hairs, just as the
Silver Swan
began to tack about, making for land. ‘Do what you will, sir.’

Tainton wanted to choke the stubborn old man with his bare hands. ‘You’ll see no payment, you mutton-headed palliard.’

William Trouting cackled and spit at Tainton’s feet. ‘You have three men wi’you, sir. I have thirty. You’ll cough up some golden nuggets or I shall tell the crew what really sits in our hold.’ He pointed back at the tailing warships. ‘Then you’ll wish those sons of whores had caught us after all.’

Roger Tainton chewed on the inside of his mouth, seeing his avenues of opportunity blocked suddenly with high walls. ‘Very well.’ He jabbed the captain’s chest with his forefinger. ‘God will judge you, sir.’

Trouting beamed and spun away with an agility that belied his advancing years. ‘Sounds good and well to me, Mister Tainton!’

The waters off Sussex were inky as the light dimmed. They made for a choppy fastness that made Stryker’s insides dance as he stared out of the boat. The oarsmen hauled on their paddles, water droplets leaping up to spatter his face, but he cared nothing for the cold spray, his mind in turmoil. The
Stag
had followed the four frigates as soon as they had sighted them off Plymouth. They had watched as the men-o’-war belched bitter fury from their bristling flanks, topmen shouting down from the most precarious sections of rigging, calling the action as they saw it. But the fight was spread across the eastern horizon, rendering it difficult to discern until the sun had pushed further overhead on its perpetual arc, and by then the focus of the warships’ ire was well hidden by smoke, by the coast of the Isle of Wight and the hulking bodies of its pursuers.

In due course the floating fortresses had tacked about, a quartet of ocean-borne monsters falling silent as abruptly as they had opened fire. The
Stag
’s range was such that it was impossible to tell precisely what had transpired. Gibbons had blankly refused to come too close to the frigates while their collective blood was up, lest their rows of black-mouthed killers be turned upon the privateer, so they had been forced to amble in the rear, wagering on the chance that the Royalists’ ships were tailing Tainton’s vessel.

‘Worry not, Stryker!’ Titus Gibbons had exclaimed happily as they cut through the writhing waves. ‘The men-o’-war will make short shrift of their quarry and we, like a ravenous red kite, will swoop down and pick at the pieces.’

But even Gibbons’s seemingly indefatigable ebullience had withered as the frigates struggled to keep up with their prize, all the while coughing broadsides into the sea with no obvious joy. No flotsam bobbed past the
Stag
, no bodies drifted on the roiling water, tossed and battered in the angry meeting place of Solent and Channel. Instead, and to everyone’s surprise, the day’s end was signalled by the abrupt cessation of fire and the slow turn of the masted behemoths. Gibbons had quickly run up every Royalist colour he could lay his hands upon and, with Stryker’s hopes fading with the light, ordered one of the
Stag
’s boats made ready.

An hour later, accompanied by one of Gibbons’s officers, captain on sea and captain on land were skidding over the darkening depths, the vast shape of a first-rate warship looming like a storm cloud above them.

They hove to, coming close to the ship’s hull but careful to keep an oar’s length away until strictly necessary. The coarse bellows of seamen rang out above, a ladder of thick ropes dropped, unfurling along the barnacle-speckled keel, and they let the boat slide in, bumping worryingly off the huge hull. Then they were up, scuttling over the side of the frigate, more harsh voices sounding above their heads in gruff encouragement. Stryker had wondered at first whether he would manage the climb, but the fresh air and sense of renewed hope had invigorated him more than he dared expect, and he felt some of his old strength as his fingers curled around each rung of twisted hemp.

Big, calloused hands manhandled them over the rail. They stood and waited like a trio of lambs in a slaughterhouse, utterly at the mercy of the crew of the warship, who stared at them unabashed. Calls sounded further along the walkway, and all heads turned to see a man in a crusty coat emerge from below deck. He looked like an old fisherman to Stryker’s eye, for he was grizzled by the wind and sun, with one blue eye peering brightly over a wedge of ash-coloured beard, the other eye milky and sightless. His nose was bulbous and pulpy, his gait marked by a severe limp, and his teeth dark brown and strangely out of kilter with his mouth, as though his lips did not quite stretch round them. He offered a brief bow, a motion that made the cloak flap open a touch to reveal an elegant green doublet and breeches beneath. ‘Captain Nehemiah Walsh;
Eagle
.’