Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles (21 page)

One of the sentries stamped his feet as he pushed his palms as close to the flames as he could bear. The mud crunched like dry twigs beneath his shoes. ‘Soon be winter . . .’

Another man was packing a blackened clay pipe. He brought it close to his face to gently blow specks of tobacco from the rim. ‘Drink the smoke,’ he muttered. ‘Keeps you warm.’

‘I told you,’ the first man replied testily, his breath leaving a wispy trail of vapour, ‘it makes me cough like I got the consumption.’

‘Suit yourself.’

‘Just get these other fires lit, eh? The next watch’ll whine like speared hogs if we leave ’em cold.’

‘
Guards
!’ a voice called in sudden, shrill panic. ‘
Guards
!’

The musketeers at the fire looked at each other. The man with the pipe sighed heavily. ‘Jesu, I’m in no mood for this. See what he wants, Gregor.’

The sentry who still had his musket nodded. ‘Yes, Corporal.’ He was a youngster, in his mid teens, with a pimply, sallow complexion. He nodded sullenly, adjusting his Montero so that the flaps covered his ears, and walked gingerly towards the building whence the cry had come. He stayed well away from the rickety door, levelling his musket. ‘What is it?’

A wracking cough rang out from within, followed by a lingering groan. ‘Plague!’

‘Wh—what?’ Gregor stammered, edging back a step. He blew on his match, keeping it fresh and hot. ‘What did you say?’

‘Plague, sir!’ the voice repeated its warning. ‘King Death! Help us, I beg you!’ A face appeared from the darkness within the makeshift gaol, pressing up against a palm-sized patch of exposed wattle in the wall beside the doorway.

Gregor’s mouth fell slack. ‘Pl—plague?’

The men at the fire had all heard the exchange. The corporal pulled a sour face, spitting into the flickering flames and thrusting his pipe into his belt. He marched angrily over to the tumbledown shed. ‘Tell ’em to keep it down.’

‘But they got the pestis, Corp,’ Gregor bleated querulously.

‘Nonsense! You ever seen someone wi’ plague before, dunder-chops?’ The corporal waited for his young protégé to shake his head. ‘Then who’s to say what sickness he’s got? Stupid bugger swived the wrong filthy slattern, like as not.’ He thumped on the door with a fist, causing it to shudder noisily. ‘Show yourself, man, damn your hide!’

The face that had so shaken Gregor now appeared again in the gap between door and frame. The corporal leaned in squinting, but he could not get a good enough view, and he quickly unhooked the iron ring at his belt. Finding the right key, he unlocked the door, waiting for Gregor to flip open the priming pan of his musket before he opened it.

What they saw made them step backwards involuntarily. The man within looked as though he was a half-rotten corpse. He was stooped and sobbing, dry, juddering coughs rolling through him like never-ending thunder. But that was the least of his problems. The skin of his face was utterly ruined. A swollen, undulating mass of sores and bulges had spread over his cheeks and neck. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were lumpy and flaking, the corners of his mouth pitted and moist. The disease had not simply afflicted the wretched fellow, it had utterly, ruthlessly consumed him.

The sentries still revelling in the brazier’s heat were beginning to twitch now, unwilling to relinquish their comforts, but unable to ignore what was happening at the dilapidated cell block. One of them called: ‘What is it, Corp?’

‘I know not,’ the corporal responded, though his eyes remained locked on the prisoner.

‘He has been coughing blood through the night!’ a man shouted from the gloom. He appeared behind the afflicted fellow to address the soldiers. He was tall, with a large nose, and his head nodded exaggeratedly with each syllable he uttered. ‘Splutters his guts and shits his britches all at once. Look at him!’

‘Jesu,’ the corporal whispered. He stepped back. ‘Out here, you corny-faced bastard. Out where I can see you properly.’

‘Out?’ the boy, Gregor, yelped. His musket trembled in his grip. ‘Jesu, Corp, what if he gives it us?’

‘On second thoughts, stay there,’ the corporal growled. ‘Stay there, I say!’ He turned to the men, who had finally edged away from the heat. They seemed transfixed in the face of this horror. He clapped his hands vigorously. ‘Fetch the captain, lads, and be swift about it. Fetch the fackin’ captain!’

The three guards disappeared between two of the crumbling buildings. The corporal watched them go, but before he had turned back, Gregor fired his musket.

*   *   *

Lancelot Forrester’s face felt like it was coated in dried wax for all the movement the caked bird shit would allow, and he was glad to feel clumps of the stinking excreta break off as he launched himself at the musketeer. Gregor was not watching properly. His musket was loaded and primed, pan exposed to the glowing coal, but its owner was more interested in watching his corporal than watching his mark. So Forrester, face smothered in a poisonous poultice of mud and sand, splinters and saliva, bird droppings and mucus, took his opportunity. Gregor saw him coming, pulled the trigger, but it took time for serpent to snap, match to fall, charge to ignite, and when the bullet had flown, Gregor’s muzzle was pointed at the cloudless sky.

The young soldier hit the ground hard, wind punched from his body as Forrester’s heavier frame smashed into his chest. He cried out, but no sound would come, and Forrester, wreathed in the white smoke still pouring from the musket, jammed his fist into Gregor’s face, obliterating his nose in a shower of blood.

The corporal drew his sword, but he had no musket, for he and his exhausted colleagues had dumped their weapons to approach the fire. He held the blade out, beckoning Forrester to him, but the rest of the prisoners were streaming out of the tumbledown shed like rats from a flaming granary, whooping and bellowing and pledging revenge, and the corporal knew he was beaten. He retreated immediately, tripping on his comrades’ muskets in his flight, desperate to be out of the courtyard before he was overwhelmed.

‘
Go
!’ Forrester screamed, yanking savagely on the length of match coiled about the hapless Gregor’s forearm. He threw it about his neck, pausing to scratch at his face so that some of the vile paste came away in sweet relief, and snatched up two muskets, a snapsack and a bandolier. Tossing one of the weapons to Sergeant Dewhurst, he called: ‘I go to Basing. Are you with me?’

The Hawk pecked the air as he caught the musket, pointing the barrel towards the courtyard’s southern arch. ‘The horses are stabled through there!’

A bell tolled, deep and repetitive. Forrester looked back towards the officer’s billet. ‘They’ve raised the alarm. The whole garrison will be out here in no time.’

‘What about the others?’ Dewhurst asked, casting his gaze about the chaos as fellow prisoners ransacked the buildings, smashed open doors to free their friends, or scattered in search of escape.

Forrester was already running. ‘Each to his own. We got ’em out, the rest is up to them.’

Dewhurst followed. They passed under the archway and made straight for the stable doors, found them unlocked, and hauled them open. A man in soldier’s clothes stood within, rubbing bleary eyes having evidently been disturbed by the ringing of the bell. He stared in stunned surprise, then darted to his right where, from a hook on a low beam, his scabbard dangled. Forrester was on him before he could draw the hanger, sweeping the butt end of the musket in a low arc that scythed through the man’s shins. A crack echoed about the building, and the man was on the floor, scrabbling at the filthy hay as he pawed at his legs.

‘There,’ Dewhurst said.

Seven or eight horses were tethered in pens at the far end of the rectangular building. Forrester saw his own mount, fixed to a rail by reins and a cheap-looking head collar. ‘Oberon! Good Lord, I’m glad you’re here! Come, Sergeant, choose a horse and let’s be gone from this damnable place.’ Dewhurst hesitated. ‘What, man? What is it?’

‘I cannot ride, sir.’

‘Then it is with us you must throw in your lot,’ Forrester ordered. He handed his musket and snapsack to Dewhurst, put the bandolier around his shoulders, and untied Oberon’s reins from the side-rail of the pen. He jumped up, clinging to the black gelding for dear life as he swung a leg across. There was no time to saddle the beast, and he had to clench his thighs tight to avoid sliding straight off. He took the muskets, laying them across his lap, and held out a hand. ‘Get your arse up here, Sergeant. They’ll be at our heels any moment.’

Dewhurst did as he was told, scrambling indelicately up on to Oberon’s muscular back. He took the muskets from Forrester, jammed them across his legs, keeping the stocks tight in the crook of an arm, and gripped the captain’s waist like a drowning man. Forrester kicked hard, bellowing encouragement into Oberon’s pricked ear, and the beast wheeled about, breaking into a canter before he was even out in the open. A blast of cold air hit them as they left the stable, and they could see men running through the archway now, blades and pistols, muskets and halberds brandished as the sun began to lighten the dawn.

Forrester gave the soldiers a wave, wrenched at the gelding’s reins, and they were away.

St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, 12 October 1643

The man stepping on to the wharf had a face that fitted well with the Scillies. Like the storm-beaten cliffs, it was hard and craggy, the nose crooked, a scar bisecting the narrow, cleanly shaven chin along its width. It was a face weathered almost to a sheen by seas and gales, scorched to the colour of honey by the sun and framed by long, thick hair that was a battleground of dark brown and silver. It was a face that belonged to a man used to hard living, a man accustomed to violence. The kind of man Captain William Balthazar dreaded welcoming to Hugh Town.

‘The storms have waned, thank God,’ Balthazar said, forcing the trepidation from his voice. He was standing on the end of the timber platform that extended like a huge tongue licking the shallows, hands clasped firmly behind his back. The wind was strong, forcing him to lean into it for stability, the sea glistening below the morning’s fresh sunlight.

The tall, wiry newcomer snatched off his wide, feathered hat and bowed low, like a royal courtier, the cliff-edge face splitting in a smile that was at once predatory and handsome. ‘Gave us a battering out at Lundy, I can tell you.’ Before the captain of Star Castle could respond, the man clicked his tongue. From down beyond the jetty’s edge there came a lingering howl and a short, sharp bark and a pair of dogs appeared. One was a scrawny mongrel, with a shaggy coat of black and white and one milky eye, while the other was a brindle mastiff, a hulking figure of slobber and muscle. They pressed about their master’s legs and he replaced his hat so that he might use both hands to ruffle the fur of each in turn. ‘Good boys.’

The skiff from which the newcomer and his hounds had climbed rocked wildly as its two-man crew shoved off with dripping oars, grunting against the capricious currents as they headed back out to deeper water. Balthazar let his eyes flicker to the anchorage at St Mary’s Pool. He adjusted his wire-rimmed spectacles so that he could better see the warship that had arrived just two hours earlier. ‘But your ship looks to be hale and hearty, Captain Gibbons.’

Titus Gibbons was master of the
Stag
, an English-built sloop of light ordnance and sleek lines, designed for speed and ambush. She was smaller than the frigates with which she frequently tussled, but much faster, and her crew, veterans of the never-ending fight against the Barbary pirates, invariably outclassed anything they came up against. But Gibbons, Balthazar thought bitterly, was, after all, not a great deal more than a pirate himself. It was common knowledge that the captain of the
Stag
, a native of Penzance, had been a smuggler in his time, only keeping his neck from the noose by his invaluable effectiveness against the feared corsairs who cruised out of North Africa to plague Europe’s Christian coasts, stealing their gold and enslaving their women and children. Now, of course, his attentions had turned to the Parliamentarian navy. As an experienced privateer and proud Cornishman, Gibbons had been licensed by the king to roam the seas, harassing Roundhead shipping, plundering their merchantmen and snapping at the heels of their ponderous, if formidable, men-o’-war.

Gibbons opened his mouth in a wide yawn, smiling in satisfaction as his strong jaw cracked loudly. ‘We would replenish supplies, if we may, and take the opportunity to repair a mast and a gun.’

Balthazar frowned. ‘You had trouble?’

Gibbons pulled down the hem of his green and silver doublet as if to flatten out any creases. ‘Rebel frigate off Port Isaac. Bastardly gullion slung a brace o’ chain-shot ’cross our deck.’

Balthazar looked again at the lazily bobbing sloop. ‘Toll?’

‘Three dead men, a cracked murderer and a damaged mast,’ Gibbons replied. ‘The bodies have long since been committed to the depths, but the repairs are not so swiftly dealt with.’

‘The mast you may see to, Captain,’ Balthazar said. ‘But the murderer,’ he added, thinking of the gunwale-mounted swivelling hand-cannon used to rake a ship’s decks, ‘may not be so straightforward. We have but one forge in Hugh Town, and its time and resource is stretched to breaking already.’

Gibbons shrugged. ‘So be it.’ He stooped to pat the mastiff’s wide pate, eliciting a barely perceptible whine for his trouble. ‘This bluff cove is Sir Francis.’