Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles (6 page)

‘You are sentries?’ Stryker said as he gripped the side of the bobbing vessel. They were in one of Beck’s trio of single-sailed skiffs, along with Skellen, Barkworth and the three sailors. Beck had appeared on the ridge with six men, all armed, and one of those sat in the stern. The rest, along with Stryker’s eleven wretched musketeers, were divided amongst the other boats, and together, forming a tiny fleet on the grey swell, they made their way south and west from Great Ganilly.

‘Aye.’

‘But you’re fishermen?’

‘Garrison now,’ Beck grunted in a voice worn harsh by salt air. ‘Since this war started, least wise. Men of fighting age called to serve.’

‘Our war?’

Jethro Beck nodded. He sat with his hand cupping the priming pan of his fowling-piece in order to keep the powder dry. That piece never wavered from its mark, its black mouth gaping at Stryker’s chest, swaying with the waves. ‘We’re peaceable folk, ’ere, cully. Loyal to our sovereign, devoted to our Lord. The blood shed on the mainland would be no concern of ours.’ He spat over the side. ‘Except you makes it our concern. You and your rebel knaves.’

Stryker gritted his teeth. ‘I have told you before, sir, we are no rebels.’

Beck shrugged. ‘Rebels, Roundheads, righteous bleedin’ men o’ justice. I could not give two bouncin’ tits for the name you gives it!’

Barkworth, at Stryker’s side on the foremost bench, seemed to twitch, and a constricted croak, like the whining of a rusty hinge, escaped from his throat. ‘Christ, man, are you an ignor­amus?’ He shifted forwards a touch, amber eyes bright as they darted up at Stryker. ‘Would ye like me to knock some sense into that thick fucking skull, sir?’

Jethro Beck snorted his derision, jerked the fowling-piece. ‘Easy now, cully, or you’ll get to feed the fish.’

Stryker placed a hand on the Scotsman’s forearm. ‘Do as he says, Simeon.’ He stared Beck in the face as Barkworth slumped back. ‘We are not for the Parliament, sir. That is the truth. We are Royalists. For King Charles. Sent here by His Majesty in person.’

‘Papers?’

Stryker sighed. ‘As I have told you, we have no credentials. They were destroyed in the wreck.’ He splashed the surface of the water with his fingers. ‘My damned papers float out here somewhere.’

‘Shame for you then, cully,’ Beck said. ‘P’raps they’ll bob past, eh?’

Stryker balled his fists in frustration, thinking of his sword that now sat between Beck’s feet. ‘Why do you not believe us?’

‘Why should I believe you?’

The skiff dipped off the back of a wave and was hit by the crest of another as its bow began to lift. The men were jolted together like powder charges on a shaken bandoleer. Stryker gripped the sides and looked to Beck, hoping the man had been thrown off balance, but there he was, steady and alert. Stryker waited for the skiff to regain some semblance of calm on the choppy water. ‘You say the islands declared for the King, and that no blood has been spilt here. We come to Scilly in the name of that same king. Why would you choose
not
to believe us? I do not understand.’ A thought struck him, then. The face of a man with a wispy auburn beard and grey eyes, whose deeply lined cheeks had been spattered by Roundhead blood on a hill above a place called Stratton. A hill that had become a charnel house one summer afternoon. ‘Bassett!’

‘Eh?’ Beck grunted.

‘Sir Thomas Bassett. I fought with him. I
know
him, sir.’ He looked down at Barkworth. ‘Major-General of our Cornish army. Governor of the Isles of Scilly.’

‘Lieutenant-Governor,’ Beck corrected. ‘Sir Francis Godolphin is our lord here.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘But both men are long gone. Sailed to the mainland when war was declared.’ They rounded the pale granite cliffs of the southernmost island Beck had named as Little Arthur, and tacked more sharply to the south-west, where, perhaps a mile away, Stryker could see the craggy coast of yet another land-mass. Beck risked a swift glance over his shoulder. ‘St Mary’s. Our destination. The King’s men await us at the Hugh.’

‘The garrison?’ Stryker asked.

Beck shook his head. ‘From the mainland. Emissaries from Governor Godolphin himself.’ He brayed at his captives’ obvious bewilderment. ‘You see? You claim to be from the King, but his men are already here!’

Stryker could not keep the puzzlement from his face. ‘I do not—’

‘And they have warned us of your approach,’ Jethro Beck went on, his mirth slipping away on the whipping breeze. ‘A company of soldiers led by a one-eyed devil, claiming to be for the King, but secretly a gaggle o’ bastardly rebel gullions, intent on taking this fair place for Pym an’ his hounds.’

Stryker’s pulse raced. He stared at the headland of St Mary’s, wondering what fate awaited them. ‘
Other
men have told you this? They are on St Mary’s now?’

Beck nodded, eyes brimming with indignation at his prisoner’s perceived ruse. ‘Aye, cully.’

‘Is that where you take us? To these men?’

‘To the castle at St Mary’s. And aye, to these God-fearing, loyal men.’

Skellen, silent until now, craned forwards from the bench behind to whisper in Stryker’s ear. ‘He’s mad, sir. Put the wrong bloody mushrooms in his pottage.’

But Stryker was not so sure. ‘Who?’ he pressed the fisherman. ‘Who are they?’

Jethro Beck grinned, exposing little brown teeth and equally brown gums. ‘You’ll know soon enough, cully.’

CHAPTER 3

Romsey, Hampshire, 2 October 1643

Colonel Richard Norton eased his substantial bay gelding to a halt beneath the massive elm that marked the entrance to the abbey complex. From here a cinder path led pilgrims through the grounds to the vast edifice of grey stone blocks that climbed like a castle over the land hereabouts. The horse craned its head to inspect the foliage, the leaves fanning out in the warm gusts from its flaring nostrils, and he arched his back slowly, revelling in the gentle pain of stretching muscles. He looked down, pleased to see the grass was firm, evidence of a dry spell this far south. He took a moment to glance at his shadow, an oversized forbidding ghost of himself snaking across the green turf. He liked the image very much.

‘Sir?’

Norton looked round to see one of his gentleman troopers approach at the head of the column. ‘We’ll rest here, Mac­Lachlan.’

The trooper reined in close by, unstrapped his three-barred helm to reveal a thin face with cleanly shaven, hollow cheeks and small, deep-set eyes. He propped the pot between his thighs and watched as cavalrymen trotted past in pairs, breastplates gleaming, hooves crunching heavily on the path. He waved at some of the men, indicating that they should spread out on the grass. ‘Will they feed us, do you think, sir?’

‘They will have to,’ Norton said with a shrug. He gazed about the open ground on to which his force filed from the road beyond. It was an area of tree-lined lawn, split by the cinder path and punctuated by a forest of wooden crosses and moss-clad stones. The grass had grown long so that it slanted to one side like a field flush with corn. He looked at MacLachlan. ‘Even a house of God is left to moulder in these dark days.’ He leaned forwards to pat his gelding’s solid neck. The beast whickered and dropped its head to the long green blades. ‘Still, at least there is plenty of fodder for the horses.’

MacLachlan raised a single thin brow. ‘House of God, sir?’

Norton plucked his own helmet free, scratching at the red-raw patch of skin that blighted the side of his neck. ‘Perhaps you’re right, MacLachlan. It is an old nest of vipers, I suppose.’

MacLachlan smirked. ‘Vipers wearing wimples, sir.’

Norton laughed. ‘Aye.’ He stretched again. ‘Well, let us proceed. It may be a bastion of the old order, but no longer. And besides,’ he added, looking round to see that, with the rest of his three hundred troopers, the rickety cart had made its way past the line of timber-framed houses and on to the cinder path that stretched out from the mouth of the abbey like a tar-stained tongue, ‘it is where our dear Francis wished to be laid to rest. We shall give him that.’

Norton twisted in his saddle to look up at the ancient complex. And what an impressive thing it was, he conceded. Romsey Abbey utterly dominated this little market town. Once home to the Benedictine order, it was a monster of a building, climbing above the skyline and reminding the world that England had once, long ago, bent the knee to Rome. Norton was a Presbyterian, and the idea of life under a Catholic boot-heel was utterly repugnant to him, but he could appreciate the looming buttresses and ornate craftsmanship that made this place so impressive, and so compelling.

He slid nimbly off his bay, leaving the lobster-tailed helmet fastened to his saddle, and caught MacLachlan’s inquisitive eye. ‘See to the men, Major. And find somewhere,’ he rubbed a gloved hand through his copper hair as he searched for the word, ‘
befitting
Captain St Barbe.’

MacLachlan nodded and turned to the men, but Norton did not wait to hear what was said. St Barbe had been a good officer, a close friend, and a staunch man for the Parliament, and he found the business of burying him difficult to dwell upon. Instead he scanned the grounds for signs of life, eventually spotting a hunched fellow skulking in a tangled copse some way to his right.

‘Ho there!’ Norton called. ‘Come hither!’

The man had been clutching a mud-caked spade, which he promptly tossed away before trudging, glum-faced and nervous, towards the waiting horsemen. ‘Did not hear you, zir,’ he said when he had reached Norton.

‘I’ve no time for lies, fellow,’ Norton said with a dismissive wave. ‘You are a gravedigger, I presume?’

‘Aye, zir.’

‘Then where might I find the priest? There is one, is there not?’

The gravedigger nodded. ‘He’ll be in chancel, zir.’ He pointed a grimy finger towards a sweeping archway some twenty yards along the wall. ‘North door’d be your quickest way.’

Norton turned his back on the frightened man and caught the eye of another officer, who dismounted and went to his side.

‘Colonel?’ the officer said. He was taller than Norton, with hair that was almost white and a beard that might have been the same colour, save the patches stained deep yellow by tobacco smoke. His face was badly pock-pitted, his nose huge, and his eyes pale and pitiless.

Norton plucked the glove from his right hand and unfastened the metal gauntlet from the other. ‘I have business inside,’ he said, picking at the red bristles of his beard. The inflamed skin beneath was burning again, and it took all his will to push it to the back of his mind. He indicated the arch with a curt nod. ‘Accompany me. You may have an interest.’

The big man brandished a set of impressively white teeth as they made for the entrance the gravedigger had said was the north door. Sure enough, a thick timber doorway, studded and decorated with swirling iron patterns, was set deep into the arch. ‘It will be a pleasure, sir.’

They were plunged into darkness as they pushed open the door, and it took a few moments for their eyes to adjust, but as Norton led his companion into the building, making straight for the wide nave, he began to see why the abbey was so revered by the High Church. It was huge, built in the Norman style of large, imposing windows, soaring pillars and rounded arches. The nave itself was laid with vast flagstones, scattered with clean rushes, and flanked by wooden seats that were clearly not the rough-hewn, functional offerings one might find in a Puritan chapel. They turned left, stalked up the nave and through the choir to the chancel, where the gravedigger had suggested they might find someone. Sure enough, a cluster of black-robed men had gathered at the far end of the vast chamber, near the high altar.

‘My name is Colonel Norton,’ Norton called loudly, his voice echoing like cannon fire high up in the chancel’s curving trusses. He smartly brushed the dust from his buff-coat and the tawny scarf at his waist while he waited.

One of the robed bodies left the group and scuttled down to greet the two soldiers. He was small and crook-backed, moving almost sideways like a crab. ‘I am Father Samuel,’ he said, trying to smile, though his face was tight with apprehension. ‘And I have heard of you, sir, of course.’ He bowed obsequiously. ‘Parliament’s chief man in Hampshire.’

‘I do not know about that,’ Norton blustered, unwilling to display the rush of pride that threatened to colour his cheeks. ‘But, aye, I have laboured for the just cause of Westminster, it is true. Indeed, I have come direct from one such trial.’

The clergyman’s little head bobbed. ‘We heard there was battle at Newbury.’

‘A bloody day. Victory for the Earl of Essex, thank King Jesus.’ Norton picked pointedly at his scarf with thumb and forefinger. ‘We make for Southampton, but rest here, seeking a place for a brave confederate of ours, slain at Newbury Fight. One Captain St Barbe.’

Father Samuel nodded. ‘I know the family, sir.’ His face clouded suddenly. ‘I knew Francis St Barbe when he was a boy. May God save his immortal soul.’

Norton looked back along the sweeping nave. ‘We will bury him outside.’

Samuel nodded his agreement, though both knew it had not been a request. ‘In the meantime, Colonel Norton, please be at your ease in our beautiful home.’

‘Beautiful indeed,’ Norton said, peering at the altar, the opulent-looking chambers behind it, at the big organ in one corner, and the tapestries and the ornately carved pulpit. ‘But Romsey
Abbey
?’