The Bleeding Land (22 page)

And Mun Rivers whispered in Hector’s ear, mounted with practised ease, and prepared to ride.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘THEY SAY HE
is impotent,’ Matthew Penn said, ‘as likely to get it up as Trencher here is to be made the next Marquis of Argyll.’ Will Trencher’s mother was Scottish, which accounted for Trencher’s self-professed ability to put any man down with just one punch, for the Scots were proper fighters, born warriors, or so he was fond of reminding them. Penn took one hand off the reins and turned it palm up as though weighing something invisible in it. ‘Must have balls the size of crab apples and twice as sour,’ he went on, grinning devilishly.

‘Which explains why the bastard always looks so bloody miserable,’ Trencher said from the saddle of a heavy, plodding mare, chosen, he claimed, for her big heart and great strength, but really, Tom suspected, because she’d come cheap. But Trencher had a point about Essex. Now that Tom thought about it, he had never seen the general smile. He had heard the story of how the earl’s marriage to the flighty Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Sussex, had been annulled on the grounds of non-consummation. Essex’s second wife, Frances Powlett, had turned out to be no more faithful and some whispered that she’d ridden further than her soldier husband, though not on any horse. But whilst his women had been cavorting, Robert Devereux Earl of Essex had been fighting, in the Netherlands
and
at Cadiz, and John Pym’s Parliament valued his military experience, needed his vast personal fortune even more, perhaps. Which was why the earl had marched out of London at the head of an army called into existence by Parliament’s Committee for Defence, and why Tom Rivers found himself riding north with men such as Penn and Trencher and, some said, ten thousand others.

No, Tom had never seen Essex smile, but it was entirely possible, Tom thought, that the men he now rode with said the same thing about him. Penn had taken to calling him Black Tom on account, he had said, of the ill-humoured scowl he believed must have been carved into Tom’s face as an infant. ‘You call yourself a Scotsman, Will,’ Penn had said, ‘but young Tom here could out-misery you six days out of seven.’

Not that Tom cared what men thought of him. Essex’s sergeants had ploughed through the inns and alehouses, the churches, guilds and offices of Southwark, recruiting men to fight for the safety of the King’s person and the defence of both Houses of Parliament. Together they would defeat His Majesty’s feckless advisors, his Cavaliers and the papist forces that sought to subvert him. They would free the people from tyranny. As for these things Tom cared little and yet he had joined up with Penn and Trencher and their friends and they had asked but few questions of him other than could he ride and shoot and preferably do both together, to which Tom had answered that he doubted any man could do so better, though he had thought of his brother at that moment.

For what Tom needed was vengeance. Vengeance for Martha. For himself. He craved and thirsted and only the blood of his enemies would satiate him.

And now he found himself in a rag-tag army marching north. To give battle.

‘We are a rabble, I’ll not deny it. But by God, we are a frightening sight!’ Penn said, twisting round in the saddle to take in the massive column of horse and foot regiments, the
artillery
and baggage trains hauled ever northwards by oxen, horse and mule. A smart troop of horse had joined them in Northampton. Good riders all and well kitted-out with firelocks, breastplates and helmets, they had been raised in Cambridge, Tom had heard, by an officer called Cromwell. There were hundreds of soldiers of fortune too, men who had taken Parliament’s shilling and whose knowledge of war would be invaluable and inspiring, so said Penn, when the shooting started. But as yet they were a loose collection of regiments whose parts were more impressive than the whole. In Tom’s mind Essex’s army was like a stallion that would need to be broken before you could be certain it would jump the ditch and not halt on the edge and throw you off.

Trencher, it seemed, agreed. ‘Too many pressed men,’ he said in his gruff voice, dragging his shirt’s sleeve across the sweat-soaked slab that was his face. ‘I’d wager we’ll lose fifty or more every night,’ he added, then raised a thick finger. ‘
If
I was given to the sin of gambling. Which I ain’t. They’ll bugger off at the first opportunity.’ His hat hung from his saddle and sweat was running in rivulets down his bald head, wetting his stained collar. ‘But we have God on our side, boys, and God is a Scotsman. Which is why we shall scatter our enemies like chaff in the wind.’

‘Well said, William,’ Penn announced cheerily, raking a hand through his shorn hair and raising it into spiky tufts so that what little breeze there was might cool his scalp. ‘Let those with the stomach for the fight march on with faith in their hearts. Let those with pale livers go back to their meaningless lives for we need them not. Besides,’ he added, winking at Trencher but nodding towards Tom, ‘we have Black Tom and his fine, fearsome pistols.’ But Tom did not take the bait. He swayed gently in the saddle, hardly touching the reins, letting Achilles choose his own way along the well-worn road that was pitted with dips and holes. The loose fit of his shirt and doublet was a constant reminder that he had become thin
and
drawn, but he had not let Achilles starve and the beast was as strong as ever, his black coat lustrous, his mane thick and healthy. Tom had seen men look enviously at Achilles. Knew they wondered how an ill-dressed wretch could own such a horse. He cared not what they thought.

After a few moments of silence Penn sighed. ‘Truly I cannot see what Ruth Gell saw in you, Tom. A cheery wench like that. There are rocks with more mirth than you. I’ve laughed more at Shakespeare’s tragedy of King Lear than I do in your company.’

‘Leave the lad alone, Matthew,’ Trencher said, taking a long draught from an ale skin before leaning out of his saddle and passing the skin to Tom. ‘So long as he fights, he need not be a bloody jester too. We’ve all got our reasons for taking the shilling, the lad here just like the rest of us.’

‘Quite so, Will,’ Penn said, ‘only, Tom has never so much as told us his father’s name, let alone how it is that he rides the finest horse in Essex’s damned army, owns expensive pistols and a pretty sword and yet became a guest of the Leaping Lord. Not to mention a conscientious student of hard drinking.’

Trencher frowned and a tributary of sweat was channelled to run off the end of his bulbous nose. September was just a few days away but it was hot enough that the air above the fields either side of the road seemed to shimmer like water. ‘Aye, Penn’s got a point there, lad. I’ve never seen you praying, neither, not that I’d take you for a God-fearing man even if I had.’ He hawked up a gobbet of phlegm and spat it onto the dry ground. ‘Why have you come?’

But Tom gave no answer. He glanced down at the polished, flared handles of his father’s firelock pistols holstered either side of his saddle. And he hungered for the killing to start.

Mun looked up at the grey sky, felt a fat raindrop splash on his cheek and cursed. He wished he was wearing a buff-coat like some of the others in Boone’s troop, for the tough leather
would
keep the rain off much better than the steel back- and breastplate he now wore over his tunic. Little brown spots of rust were already beginning to appear even though he had cleaned and oiled the plates just three days earlier. But the harquebus armour had belonged to MacCarthy, in whose place Mun now rode, and he had been obliged to purchase it along with the man’s three-barred pot helmet as recompense for breaking his leg – and, moreover, ‘for denying the man the honour of serving his king’, as the Prince himself had put it, forcing a sombre look onto his face in front of Nehemiah Boone and the rest of the troop. And so Mun had bought the man’s gear, paying over the odds at five pounds but hoping the generous price might go some way to lessening the hostility he still felt from the other men, despite having trained and ridden with them for several weeks now. But that had been a foolish hope, he realized, and he wished he’d only paid MacCarthy four.

That day in the market place at Hucknall Torkard Mun knew he had made an enemy in Nehemiah Boone. Like most of the highborn, wealthy men in Boone’s troop, the captain was used to getting his own way and if it had been up to Boone, Mun knew, MacCarthy’s broken leg would have been redressed with a rare beating. Maybe even with Mun’s death. Instead, Prince Rupert had rewarded Mun. At least, that was how Boone saw it. For Mun had been granted the privilege of riding with the Prince’s own chosen men, thus the pride of the Royalist army.

And yet Mun had had no choice but to show his skill, to do his best in spite of the beating he had taken which had made the ride through the square agonizing to the point of being almost unbearable. He smiled now at the memory. Boone’s men had jeered as Mun had mounted Hector and those jeers had smeared a grin onto the captain’s face that Mun had wished he could wipe off with a well-placed fist. Instead, he had ignored the insults and he had whispered to Hector, telling his friend that he needed him now. Together they would show
these
pompous bastards. God damn Nehemiah Boone. And damn Prince Rupert, too, if he was playing some sort of game with him, expecting to see Sir Francis Rivers’s son fall from his horse because of some hurt, because he had been fool enough to stand up to them. Because he had lain a horse down and the animal had broken a man’s leg.

He had done one circuit of the square at the trot, just to test that none of his bones was broken and to give Hector a taste of the course. Then he had pricked the stallion to a canter and together they had moved as one creature, weaving in and out of the stalls and the debris, as neat as the seam on a silk purse. But on the third circuit Mun raised the stakes. To the men watching it would have looked as though he would pass to the left of a trestle and board upon which were laid some felts which Boone’s men had not wanted. But at the last moment Mun had spoken with his knees and a flick of the reins and Hector had turned and leapt the stall, Mun low against his back, and landed six feet clear and then jumped the next obstacle too before threading between a butcher’s bloody board and the leatherworker’s stall and breaking into a gallop across the hard ground back to the church.

A couple of Boone’s men, the Irishman O’Brien for one, had cheered. Most, including Boone, had stayed silent. But Prince Rupert had laughed and his dog, Boy, had yapped, which had sounded like laughter. The Prince had laughed so hard that he had placed a hand on his belly and raised a palm in surrender. And it was then that Mun knew he wanted to ride for this man, the King’s nephew. Damn Boone and all the others too, but he would ride for Rupert.

And now, at last, summer had slipped away and the sky was grey and heavy. And Mun’s armour was rusting because he wore steel instead of buff-leather. And most of the other sixty-nine men in the troop hated him. And he was riding to war.

From Nottingham they had ridden at the head of the Royalist
army
south-west to Stafford and then on to Shrewsbury, their number swelling as the unseasonably gloomy sky swelled with cloud. At last, money was coming in too as the King’s cause began to gather momentum and his wealthier supporters gave generously through loyalty or duty, or even as bargaining counters for future rewards.

Sir Francis and Emmanuel had been sorry to see Mun leave them to join Prince Rupert’s men, but they also knew such an honour could not be spurned, so the three had vowed to meet regularly, at least whenever the army made proper camp.

‘And we three shall soon ride home victorious and full of tales,’ Mun had said, sensing disappointment in his father, who, though he might not show it, feared losing Mun as he had lost Tom. ‘It will be a celebration to shake Shear House to its very foundations.’

‘I trust we shall have the victory, Edmund,’ his father had replied with a curt nod, ‘and be home before Christmas and grow fat on venison sent from His Majesty for our service.’ He had frowned then. ‘But that will not happen unless we can bring this rebellion to an end . . .’ he thrust a fist into an open palm, ‘with one great blow. A troop of horse requires one-and-a-half tons of bread each month. The horses alone need thirteen-and-a-half tons of hay. War is the very worst kind of business to be in,’ he had said gloomily, and Mun had felt disappointed in his father. He wanted Sir Francis to show a hunger for the fight. Had he not been a fine soldier in his day? Could he not ride and shoot better than most men half his age? For the first time in Mun’s life he’d looked at his father and seen frailties, more perhaps in spirit than body.

And yet there were, Mun was beginning to see, more selfish motives at work too. There was more to it than simply wanting Sir Francis to share the thrill of the chase. After all, he had Emmanuel for that. No, he needed his father to be a hawk to ease his own conscience, to blunt the point of that spur that gouged his soul at the prospect of fighting against – killing –
fellow
Englishmen. Father just needs to catch the fox’s scent on the wind, Mun thought. And then we shall hunt.