Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles (40 page)

‘Aye.’

Tainton nodded understanding. ‘I had the same ambition, Major, but it seems we are both thwarted by this order from General Waller. We need troops; he needs troops.’ He shrugged. ‘We cannot possibly compete.’ A group of Jones’s junior officers gathered about one of the nearest braziers, chattering and laughing like yapping dogs. Tainton lifted his hood, unwilling to give the pups any more inspiration for their jests. He took a deep breath, praying Kovac’s ears would be open to the Word of the Lord. ‘But I wonder. Perhaps we might coerce matters a touch.’

Kovac’s hard face furrowed. ‘Coerce?’

‘Work things to our advantage, Major.’ Tainton kneaded the air with his fingers. ‘Together, God willing, we may fashion our mutual failure into a mutually beneficial success.’

‘How?’

‘There is gold in Basing.’ He waited a second, making sure their eyes were locked upon one another. ‘Help me destroy the great house, and you will get your share.’

‘Of course there is gold,’ Kovac replied derisively. ‘If the house falls, there will be much to go around.’

Tainton gritted his teeth. ‘Not the trinkets of a wicked peer, Major.’ He blew out his cheeks, peering through the billowing cloud his breath had created. ‘I do not mean candlesticks and goblets to be plundered shoulder to shoulder with our grubby musketeers.’

Kovac looked nonplussed as he teased the straggly ends of his beard with a thick thumb and forefinger. ‘What then?’

Tainton leaned closer, lowering his voice further still as he glanced around the busy yard. ‘I speak of a large hoard,’ he said, ‘already packed in the back of a wagon, ready to be removed without fanfare or the need to share. If Basing falls, you may leave your men to fill their pockets with baubles, while you and I take the real prize.’

‘How do you know the gold is packed in this wagon?’

‘Because a man named Stryker has it, and he would not be so stupid as to let a greedy peer get a sniff.’

Kovac shook his head. ‘Jones will not give us men. And Basing is too strong for me alone.’

‘Waller,’ said Tainton. It took a few moments to let the name sink through the pottage-brained German’s skull, but eventually he saw a glint of understanding in the pale eyes. ‘The conqueror comes to Farnham,’ he went on. ‘Forget Jones and his craven greenbacks. We shall have an entire army. You help me, Major Kovac, and you will be a rich man. Moreover, you will be afforded the chance of the vengeance you so crave.’

Kovac sucked his teeth in thought. ‘And how do we find the gold?’

Tainton smiled, because the glint he had seen in the cavalryman’s eyes had transformed from one of understanding into one of greed. He tapped his nose with a finger. ‘Leave that to me.’

Basing House, Hampshire, 22 October 1643

‘A pricker?’

Lancelot Forrester laughed as he lifted the wooden pot to his lips. ‘As God is my witness, Stryker!’ He tilted back the pot, neck quivering as he drank.

‘How does such a thing come about, sir?’ As he dipped his own cup into the barrel they had prized open, Skellen paused to ask his question. He stood protectively over the slopping vessel as though the Cade treasure were contained within.

Forrester wiped his upper lip with his sleeve. ‘Hadn’t the time for a musket-ball, so I stuck a pricker in his thigh.’

Stryker and Forrester had finished the feast in good spirits and bidden the masters of house and garrison goodnight. They had made their way through the winding corridors, and gone to make sure that the men were behaving themselves in the labyrinth of red-bricked buildings. They had discovered Sergeant Skellen about to retire for the evening, ordered him to join them, and the three men had walked down to the Grange. The agrarian facility, with its stables, pens and granaries, was quiet in the main, but Forrester had insisted they make their way down to the Great Barn. He inveigled his way past the guards, invoking fire and brimstone on any man that dared keep the door barred, and soon they were inside.

‘A pricker, sir,’ Skellen went on. ‘If you was a recruit I’d have your ballocks for that.’

‘Indeed, William, it was hardly a regulation manoeuvre, I grant you.’ Forrester was perched on a stack of stakes intended for the palisade. The beer kegs, dozens of them, were all around, and he had assured Stryker that a single barrel would not be missed. ‘But needs must, when the devil drives, eh?’ He looked blearily at Stryker. ‘And what of your escapades? Parliament knew all along?’

Stryker nodded, cradling his own cup in both hands. ‘They knew enough. Knew that the gold existed, that it was on Scilly. But they did not know where.’

‘And Tainton was already on St Mary’s, waiting for you?’

‘Not waiting. He and his men had been seeking the treasure. They had been warned that we were on our way.’ He drank deeply, relishing the heady vapours of the ale, but still, somehow, tasting the acrid salt water that seemed to have left an indelible mark upon his tongue. ‘Tainton would have gladly taken the gold and sailed for London before we even arrived. As it transpired, we reached Scilly before he could locate it.’

Skellen snorted. ‘If you can call that reached.’

Stryker’s mind raced back to the wreck: the sucking tumult of black waters; the flotsam pulsing up to the surface around them; spars and sails and corpses. He nodded, catching the look of horror that ghosted like a veil over Forrester’s face.

‘Christ’s kneecaps,’ Forrester exclaimed, staring into his drink. ‘I am sorry, Stryker. You have my sympathies, truly.’ Glancing at Skellen, he added: ‘All of you.’

Stryker, sat on a dusty three-legged stool. He leaned forwards as he spoke. ‘Tainton had papers, Forry. Royalist credentials. He was able to convince the garrison . . . a
Royalist
garrison . . . that we were rebels.’ Stryker shrugged. ‘We had no credentials after the wreck.’

Forrester frowned in thought. ‘How did he discover the whereabouts of the gold? I do not believe Lisette would have betrayed Cecily. They grew close before she died.’

‘I told him,’ Stryker admitted, sensing Skellen shift his feet in discomfort. ‘They threatened Lisette.’

Forrester’s mouth twitched in the suggestion of a wry smile. ‘Has she forgiven you yet?’

‘No.’

‘But you recovered it, thank God.’

‘The price was high.’

Forrester grunted ruefully. ‘Ain’t it always?’ He reached out to Skellen, handing him the cup, and watched in silence as the sergeant dipped it into the barrel before returning it, replenished. He lifted it in salute before quaffing several gulps in a single breath.

‘And you were here,’ Stryker said, ‘to suggest the marquess leave the safety of this place?’

‘To rattle the bear cage, so to speak,’ Forrester said. His chest heaved as he stifled a belch. ‘While Hopton readies to strike into Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire.’

‘And then on to London.’

Forrester nodded. ‘That’s the general idea. Though things might not be so simple. We were aware of Essex’s army, the danger they posed, but they were hurting after Newbury Fight. We had hoped they would be spread too thin to engage Hopton with any degree of efficacy, especially after our sallies from Basing gave them something to consider.’

‘Yet now we must contend with Waller,’ Stryker mused.

‘Precisely,’ Forrester agreed. ‘The Cropheads will imminently have two independent field armies in the south-east. One of them is bound to engage Hopton, regardless of what nuisance the marquess makes of himself. Which means my recent efforts have been rather wasteful. I was ordered to draw the rebel fury to Basing in order to distract them from Lord Hopton, yet I suspect the enemy will engage him regardless.’

‘And war will come ’ere too,’ Skellen said.

‘You have it, William,’ Forrester agreed. ‘I rather think we should return to Oxford as soon as circumstance allows.’

Stryker drained his cup. ‘As soon as my escort arrives.’

CHAPTER 19

Windsor, Berkshire, 25 October 1643

The mount, a dun-coloured mare with tufty brown fetlocks and a white patch between her eyes, tore up huge wads of grass with docile indifference as one of the rebellion’s great men clambered ungracefully into her saddle. Sir William Waller adjusted his rump, moved his scabbard out of way so that he could place a dangling foot in its stirrup, and straightened to his full – if rather modest – stature. He wore armour, considering it proper and pertinent when welcoming new units to his army, but the day was cold, bitterly so, and the polished plate was concealed beneath a heavy, wool-lined riding coat. The irony was not lost on him, and he said as much to the man who drew up alongside.

‘Get to use it soon enough, General,’ Colonel Jonas Vandruske replied.

‘God willing,’ Waller said. The experienced Dutchman had become a valuable source of advice since the humiliation at Roundway Down, and he was well used to the man’s sombre frankness. ‘I do not wish to remain at Windsor all winter.’

Vandruske fished in the bags hanging at the flanks of his white-eyed stallion, but his gaze never left the road. He was watching a brigade of three regiments march into Windsor town. The lead regiment was clothed in red and followed a huge red standard. ‘Now our Trained Bands have arrived, we go to Farnham?’

Waller tilted his head to the side as he totted the newcomers, mentally adding this complement to his total strength. There were dense blocks of pikes, row upon row of musketeers, a long train of baggage and camp followers, flamboyantly scarfed officers, ensigns hefting regimental and company colours high in the chill breeze, and squads of drummers pounding like an orchestra of thunderclaps to herald their arrival. ‘We await the artillery train. When word reaches me of their arrival, we will march south.’

‘His Excellency will look north, then?’ Vandruske said, having taken a pipe from the bag. He began to pack it with a wad of rich brown tobacco.

Waller nodded, still counting the files as they marched past. ‘My lord Essex will deal with the Oxford Army; we shall engage Baron Hopton, who, we are told, advances from the west. His army amounts to near four thousand in all, half horse, half foot.’

Vandruske had lit his pipe and now he sucked at its mouthpiece in a staccato rhythm that sent a stream of tiny clouds about their heads. ‘His aim?’

‘Aside from sacking London itself?’ Waller chuckled. ‘Winchester, so the spies tell us. Parliament grows anxious, as you might imagine.’ He unhooked a water flask from his saddle and took a sip. Baron Hopton of Stratton, he thought. He would have to write to congratulate Sir Ralph on his new title. His old friend truly deserved the accolade, despite earning it in the defeat of Parliament’s army in Devon and Cornwall. He pushed the thought from his mind while the last of the red-coated ranks came by, replaced immediately by men in green. Vandruske was a pragmatist, but even he might find Waller’s enduring friendship with the enemy general a little hard to stomach. ‘Farnham will be our base, Colonel, for the castle is robust and the terrain well known to me.’

Vandruske patted his horse’s neck. ‘Best keep these men in reserve, sir, should we see action.’

Waller nodded. The London Trained Bands were the regiments raised from the City to protect the City, mustered by local grandees to defend their own streets and property, a force intended to keep the peace rather than prosecute prolonged war. And yet Newbury Fight had changed things. The London recruits so hastily sent out to the relief of Gloucester had found themselves facing the might of the king’s Oxford Army, and the bitter gunfights and hand-to-hand murder that followed had tested the Trained Bands like the very flames of hell. Yet to the surprise of even their own commanders, they had not been found wanting. Now Parliament were keen to repeat the experi­ment, dispatching three more regiments to form the bedrock of Waller’s new army. None had seen active service, however, and that fact weighed heavy on their new general’s mind. They had not yet received wounds, nor marched through snow or slept in the rain. They had not yet buried their friends. ‘Still,’ he said, producing a scroll from the folds of his riding coat and scrutinizing the spidery handwriting within, ‘the Westminster Liberty Regiment boast 1,084 musketeers, 854 pikemen and 80 officers. Not a terrible offering, wouldn’t you agree?’

The corners of the Dutchman’s thin mouth turned down exaggeratedly. ‘And the others? The Cripplegate Greens and Tower Hamlets Yellows?’

‘The Green Auxiliaries – let me see – 1,200 men, all told.’ Waller looked up and squinted further down the road to where he expected the green-coated column to end. ‘The Yellows a clean thousand. And Colonel Sir James Harrington, of the Reds, commands the combined brigade. I rate him highly.’

‘Let us hope they deserve your faith, Sir William,’ Vandruske intoned dryly, returning to his tobacco.

‘See them quartered,’ Waller said. ‘Plenty of villages here­abouts. The rendezvous at Farnham will be the first day of November. They may take their ease until I give orders to march.’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Vandruske, sucking the pipe in long, deep drags. ‘There is one more matter, however.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Waller said. ‘Now, let me clap eyes upon this ne’er-do-well.’ He waited for Vandruske to summon a subordinate, who in turn ordered two grim-looking soldiers to come up. Between them, battered and bruised, was a young man of thin frame, lank, greasy hair and mottled-blue lips. Waller peered down at him along the length of his nose. ‘Where was our game snared, Colonel?’