Traitor (40 page)

‘We’ll leave that for their pot,’ he said, grinning.

‘Let’s go,’ Andrew pleaded.

‘No, I want some wine. Cheese, too. To go with my supper.’

He closed the neck of the bag with string, then left it with Andrew and walked through an open doorway into the farmhouse.

For a few moments there was silence. Andrew watched the old house with a fluttering heart. And then he heard a scream, a girl’s scream. Without thinking, he dropped the sacks and edged towards the gaping doorway. He looked in and shuddered. A girl was cowering beneath a table in the kitchen. She was no more than sixteen or seventeen, about the same age and size as Ursula Dancer. Reaphook had his sickle out and was slashing at her as if cutting grass, trying to flush her out. She was desperately scrabbling away from him, holding a pan up like a shield to deflect the deadly arc of his curved blade.

‘Leave her!’

Reaphook put two fingers in the air, but did not turn around. He was down on his knees and he made as if to crawl under the table after the girl. Andrew leapt on to Reaphook’s back, tugged a handful of his jagged brown fringe with one hand and wrestled the sickle from his grasp with the other. Reaphook shook his head free of Andrew’s grip and tried to hit out, but Andrew had him pinned to the dirt floor. They both tried to lunge for the hook, but it spun across the floor, out of reach. Andrew hammered his elbow down into the side of Reaphook’s head. Reaphook grunted, momentarily dazed.

With a force born of rage and desperation, Andrew fought to wrestle the man’s arms behind him. Ursula had warned him of Reaphook’s vicious strength, but suddenly Andrew realised he could match this man. He could take Reaphook. Pulling himself back upright, he wrenched Reaphook up after him.

Reaphook wasn’t done. He twisted sharply and freed his right arm, which immediately went for the short sword in
his belt. Before it was unsheathed, Andrew pulled back his fist and landed a crunching blow in the middle of Reaphook’s face. He followed up with a knee to the balls as he had once seen Ursula do to him. Reaphook fell back, clutching his broken, blood-dripping nose. The kick to the groin had not been as skilfully performed as Ursula’s, but the blow to the face clearly hurt. Andrew dived for the sickle, but Reaphook got to it first. He lashed out wildly and nicked Andrew’s hand with its honed blade. He slashed again and tore into Andrew’s woollen cassock. He was coming forward relentlessly, half blinded by the blood that streaked his eyes and his smashed nose. Without warning, he screamed and stopped, his left leg crumpling as though hit by something.

Andrew did not understand at first what had happened, then spotted the girl, still under the table but now with a long-bladed kitchen knife in her hand, its point and edge streaked with Reaphook’s blood. She had stabbed him in the leg. Her dark eyes were wide in terror at what she had done and what she now believed would be done to her.

Reaphook gripped his leg. ‘She’s dead,’ he rasped. ‘I’ll kill the French bitch.’

‘Come away, Reaphook. Come away now. Someone will return any moment.’

Reaphook glared through his bloody slits of eyes. ‘First things first. I’m going to cut the trull’s throat.’

‘No.’ As Reaphook turned, Andrew grabbed the back of his soldier’s cassock with his own cut hand and pulled him back towards the doorway. ‘We’ve got to get this food back to the men. Have you learnt nothing from the beating Pinkney gave you? Leave her.’

Reaphook turned around, his face etched in bewilderment, blood and pain. He looked at Andrew. Pinkney’s name had really struck home.

‘Shouldn’t we kill her? She’s seen us. She can identify us.’

‘We’re in France, you dawcock, not England. No one’s going to arrest us. They might do their best to shoot us dead but they’re not going to take us to court for stealing chickens. Now come away!’

Provost Pinkney looked in the sack and pulled out a pair of chickens.

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not bad.’ With his knife, he cut open one of the sacks from the barn and dug his hand into the flour. He brought out a handful and let it spill through his fingers. ‘Yes, that’s fair foraging. But what’s happened to you two? Taken on Águila and the whole Spanish army, have you?’

Andrew and Reaphook stood to attention in front of him. Andrew’s hand was wrapped in a bloody cloth and his cassock was gashed across his chest. Reaphook had washed his face in a stream, but it was still caked with blood, and his nose was flattened and both eyes were bruised black. His leg was bandaged with the sleeve of his chemise, fastened with a thin strip of rawhide. He could barely stand on it.

‘We were discovered by the farmer and his men,’ Reaphook said.

‘Kill them all, did you?’

‘Yes, Provost Pinkney.’

Pinkney laughed, not believing a word. ‘I’d say you broke your nose walking into Mr Woode’s fist and got a blade in your leg from a farmwife. Is that not closer to the truth?’

Reaphook looked at Andrew to back him up. Andrew stared straight ahead and said nothing.

They were camped on the western side of a stone bridge across a river, sheltered in a group of long-abandoned farm buildings – a byre, a barn and some old pigsties. The buildings had no roofs and much of the walls had crumbled, but they
would provide some defence in case of attack. Nearby was a well-trodden road that led westward from the bridge. It was open country, with clear views in all directions save for a dense wood to the north and a copse to the south of the buildings. They had been there twenty-four hours, resting and foraging.

‘Well,’ Pinkney said at last, ‘I care nothing for your injuries. At least we shall eat well tonight. But I must tell you, Mr Reaphook, that we cannot afford to wait here any longer. I will not have stragglers. I do not know the state of your leg, but we have no help for you. On the morrow, you will have to march or we will leave you here. Do you understand?’

Reaphook nodded stiffly, his lips tight closed about his unwieldy teeth. But it was his eyes that caught Andrew’s attention: there was fear in them.

All the men received a share of chicken and their last portion of the peas brought over from England. Pinkney took no more than any other man. The cook had made an unleavened bread, kneading the flour into a dough with beer and salt, then frying it in a pan with lard. It was appetising and the men devoured it with relish.

Reaphook chewed at the chicken with his ungainly teeth, yet he did not seem hungry. Andrew sat as far away from him as he could, but found himself looking across at him, wondering about the man. He was a vicious bully, but he was also a broken wreck.

Andrew turned back to his meal, but once again he looked up. Reaphook was wiping the sleeve of his coarse woollen cassock across his eyes. Andrew sighed heavily, put down his food and walked over to Pinkney, who sat with his trumpeter and ensign, drinking brandy and smoking pipes.

‘Provost Pinkney, sir.’ Andrew stood rigidly to attention.

‘Yes, Mr Woode?’

‘What if I were to try to find another cart of some type? A handbarrow or somesuch. Could we not carry Mr Reaphook on it, sir, like a bier?’

Pinkney packed some tobacco into his pipe. ‘That is a fine notion, Mr Woode. We could do with another cart. If you find a cart of sufficient size, we would be able to carry more provisions. Are you planning to go alone to find this cart?’

‘Yes, sir. When darkness falls.’

‘Very well. Indeed, I do say again, you have the makings of a fighting man. I know you do not love Mr Reaphook, yet you put such feelings aside for he is your comrade-at-arms. It is the correct way. All we need discover now is whether your courage holds under the fury of pike and shot, and whether you have it in you to thrust hard steel into soft flesh. What you would do well to remember, Private Woode, is that the thing you kill is not a man, it is an enemy. And who is your enemy? That is simple – it is any person who would do hurt to you or your sovereign.’

L
IKE A LONG
snake, the five-thousand-strong army of Sir John Norreys trudged across the north-west of Brittany. At their head, the drums and fifes sounded the time and warned the everyday traffic of farmwagons and draycarts to make way or be cleared off the road.

John Shakespeare rode in the mid-division, a little way behind Norreys and Eliska. The army was heading for Morlaix to flush out the last of the Catholic League garrison and secure the north-west coastline, before moving on to the Crozon peninsula and the Fort of El Léon. Shakespeare knew that Norreys’s big fear was that the war would drag on into another winter; he wanted decisive action. The fort had to be taken, and quickly.

A cold wind was blowing in, with a light, squally rain. Shakespeare ignored it and constantly surveyed the countryside they were riding through, hoping to see the promised reinforcements of pressed men emerge from the mists and woods, with Andrew among their number. He turned in the saddle and looked back along the endless line of men and wagons carrying military equipment. A rider on a grey stallion was approaching, galloping along the flank of the marchers. As he reined in, Shakespeare recognised him as one of Cecil’s most trusted messengers.

‘Mr Shakespeare, I bring you this from Sir Robert.’

The man was breathless as he reached into his pack-saddle and removed a waxed waterproof packet, from which he took a sealed paper. He handed it to Shakespeare, then wheeled his horse and was gone.

Removing his dagger, Shakespeare slid the blade under the seal and broke open the letter. He unfolded it and glanced at its familiar, neat hand. It was encrypted in a code known only to Sir Robert and himself. He read it once, quickly, and found himself smiling wryly.

‘
John
,’ the letter said, ‘
by now you should have had your instructions from Sir John Norreys. Put your trust in him. Summon your courage and fortitude and do all that he asks of you. I suspect you may still harbour doubts about the Lady Eliska, but I would ask you to trust her also. I am certain she has the best interests of England at heart
.

‘
I know you will do your duty. In truth, I can think of no other man who could undertake this work. With this in mind, I wish to reassure you that the authorities in Oxford have agreed to look favourably upon the case of your boy, Andrew. All will be well with him. I can also tell you that your man Cooper has done all that has been asked of him in protecting the Eye and that, God willing, very soon his labours will bear fruit for England. God speed, John. Written in haste at Greenwich, your good friend, Robert Cecil
.’

Shakespeare smiled because he saw again the implied threat there. Do this and all will be well. Fail me and then … Well, the outlook is not so fair.

Taking out a tinderbox, he cast a flame, burnt the letter and scattered the ashes to the wind.

By the light of a hunter’s moon, Andrew approached the village. Dogs barked and he stopped. Had they caught his scent on the air?

It was a large village of two hundred or more houses, mostly poor, but a fair number of good quality, including a blacksmith, a brewer, a tanner and other tradesmen. On a normal night, they would all be asleep, but he knew they would have one or more men keeping watch because of the English soldiers, six or seven miles distant.

The barking stopped and Andrew moved on. Close to the village, he slipped off his boots and carried them, walking barefoot for silence. He trod across the fields and skirted the village. He knew where he was going, for they had passed through this place two days earlier, marching boldly down the main street while the villagers slunk in doorways or watched from windows. Some had jeered, some had offered them bread and wine, but most eyed them sullenly and said nothing. They had seen too much warfare already. The sooner the soldiers were gone – be they English, French or Spanish – the better.

He spotted it quickly. It was easily the largest building in the neighbourhood. A wayside inn – an
auberge
– with a stable block. Pinkney had gone in there with two of his men for a midday repast, while the rest of the men huddled on the street outside, eating bread, oats and the rancid remains of the salt beef they had brought with them from England. Then they had moved on, for a town or village was never safe. Too many windows, too many rooftops, too vulnerable to ambush.

The dogs barked again, but they were further away now and Andrew did not heed them. He crept to the walled stableyard of the inn and saw straightway what he wanted: a two-wheeled cart with long handles that one man could lie on and another could pull with relative ease.

He knew the wheels would creak and rattle, so he had brought butter with him. Now he smeared it into the hubs of the wheels and every joint. He rolled the cart slowly, this way and that, listening for squeaks and creaks. Near by, a horse
whinnied in its stall. He ignored it. At last, satisifed, he began to roll the cart from the yard, inch by inch. If he went faster, the iron-rimmed wheels would ring on the cobbles.

Once outside the stableyard, he dragged the cart away from the stone path on to the grassy verge of the field. He let out a breath of relief. He was away. Now all that remained was the long haul back to camp. Two hours it had taken him to walk here. It would be three or four hours on the way back, pulling the cart.

Half an hour before dawn, Andrew was almost asleep on his feet. His arms, shoulders and thighs were past pain and into numbness. He was exhausted from the long trek across country pulling the cart.

There was birdsong in anticipation of the dawn, but suddenly it was silenced and the stillness spooked him. He walked on, more cautiously now. Then he heard the crack-crack of musket-shots and the sinew-tautening blare of a trumpet. He stopped. The fatigue simply slid away from his body like a discarded skin.

He was instantly alert, his heart beating as though it would burst. The sounds were coming from the camp, less than a mile away. He dropped the handles of the cart and began running towards the commotion.

The sound of battle intensified as he came near to the bridge. He stopped again, trying to make out what was happening. A sudden thought hit him: he should run the other way. This place was death. He screwed his eyes shut and breathed deeply. How could he run? There was nowhere to go in this land of strangers. He was done with running. One boy alone could not survive and stay hidden long. He would be caught – and he knew well what happened when a common soldier was captured. The two ancients of the company had spoken of it in gory
detail. Private soldiers who were taken would be slaughtered with cold efficiency and without mercy. Only the officers were kept alive, to be ransomed. It had ever been thus. Word had reached men-at-arms throughout England of the ambush two years past at Ambrières-les-Vallées, a few miles to the east of this place, when a hundred captured English soldiers had been butchered. Such tales served to make English blood hotter.