Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles (54 page)

He had felt the gold. He could barely see anything at all, but beneath the sheet had been the wagon, and there, crammed tight, had been the treasure. Even in the darkness, he had checked it, probing hands snaking over the ranks of cool plate, across the various bejewelled baubles and over the solid forms of chests that he knew were brimming with coin. He had expected Stryker to keep the trove in one place, for only a fool would trust the marquess not to skim the cream for himself, but it was still an exquisite feeling to have his instincts proved right. Yet he had not been able to fling open the double doors to the tune of Kovac’s Teutonic tones echoing around the Old House amid a great Parliamentarian victory. He had not been able to hitch his compatriot’s horse to the wagon and drag it out of the estate while Waller’s victorious men rampaged in search of blood and loot and women. None of that had come to pass, and he had been left hoping and praying for a miracle.

Two days, he estimated, had passed since the end of the assault, though it was difficult to tell. Only the constant, tortuous drip of water down one of the slimy chalk walls gave him company as he sparingly gnawed his way through the snapsack-load of provisions. More worrying had been water, for the flask he had brought only contained enough for a couple of days, but the rain had kept the slick walls well irrigated, and he had found he could syphon enough to survive. At his lowest moments, when his mind played tricks and his ears echoed with hollow voices whispering promises that this place would be his tomb, he wondered at the audacity it had taken to steal the gold from under Royalist noses. Mocked himself for the very hope that he might relieve Stryker of his great prize a second time by hiding here, locked away, awaiting a rescue that had not materialized. But the mission, from conception to the coast, from stormy seas to the search of Scilly’s windswept islands and all the way back to the mainland, had been fraught with risk and danger and cost. Diving into this clammy hole on the chance that General Waller could reduce the Marquess of Winchester’s estate to rubble was just one more risk upon many. One more leap of faith. And that was the crux of it. Tainton still had, albeit in an oblique way, possession of the treasure, and his faith was undaunted and undeterred. Tainton had come too far for the King of Kings to abandon him now. So he prayed, sitting in the darkness, gnawing on salt pork, sipping gritty water from the excavated chalk, and waiting for Sir William Waller to arrive.

CHAPTER 26

Basing House, Hampshire, 12 November 1643

The Parliamentarian army returned just before noon. It was Sunday, and Stryker’s men had joined the soldiers commanded by Rawdon, Peake and Johnson in the fan-shaped entrance-yard outside the Old House for a sermon delivered by a dark-browed preacher who seemed intent on describing hell’s torments in gratuitous detail. The men had formed up in ranks behind their colours, flanked by sergeants and officers, as a strong breeze buffeted them, and they had dutifully kept their silence as their mortal souls were harangued. In the panelled luxury of the New House, a similar but very distinct service was undertaken as Basing’s Catholic contingent reflected upon their own salvation, Sir John Paulet’s priests – the men with perhaps most to lose were they ever to be taken by the rebels – performing their tasks as God’s anointed conduits.

It was as both sides of the religious divide filed out into the daylight to become one again that the men on the precar­iously damaged towers of the Great Gatehouse began to ring their bells. The rooftops and walls, turrets and bastions were quickly lined with folk all staring northwards, searching the skyline as unit after unit of infantry, cavalry and dragoons swarmed over Cowdrey’s Down, along the River Loddon, and into Basing village.

Paulet himself was amongst his people, beseeching God for strength and calling orders that, though superfluous given Rawdon’s fastidious preparations, served to bolster the morale of the frightened population. The marchioness was there, too, skirts whirling as she swept through the nervous crowds with words of encouragement and fortitude. They looked to the sky, prayed for rain, but, though the sun was entirely cloaked in a murky grey miasma, no merciful droplets fell.

k

Sir William Waller rode his horse along the crest of Cowdrey’s Down, letting it follow the camber so that, when he was twenty yards off the summit, he drew up and dismounted. He could feel the earth tremble at his feet. All around, to the east, west and south, dense blocks of infantry were on the move. From up here, a little way along from where his ordnance were already being unhitched from their teams of horses, he could see the brigades shift in and out of formation as they found their places within the trio of divisions that would encircle the house. It was strange being back here, in almost the exact spot from which he had witnessed the crumbling of the first attack, and yet now, on this windswept Sabbath, with the words of morning sermons still fresh in their ears, his men would right the wrongs of five days ago. There was no option but to persist in the enterprise; Waller had a reputation to rebuild. He had been Parliament’s shining light in the early days, its dynamic alternative to the lethargic caution of the Earl of Essex. But Roundway Down had changed all that: Waller was no longer the rebellion’s star, his brilliance eclipsed by the man he despised most in the world. He badly needed a victory, and quickly, for Hopton’s new army was said to be on the move somewhere to the west.

‘Beef, Sir William?’ an aide was saying. Waller heard the words, but was not truly listening. Instead he laughed. ‘Sir William? Would you like beef or chicken?’

Waller looked at the aide. ‘I am sorry, Harold. A thought took my mind elsewhere.’

The aide looked nonplussed. ‘General?’

‘It is no secret that I do not share friendship with His Excellency.’

The aide’s eyelid fluttered gently. ‘No, General, it is not.’

‘And nor is my friendship with Lord Hopton a matter of concealment.’

‘No, sir, nor is it.’

Waller laughed again. ‘Does the irony not amuse you? I must defeat Hopton in order to regain my position at Westminster, a position begrudged by Lord Essex.’ He shook his head at the wonder of it. ‘I must thrash my friend to confound my enemy.’

The aide nodded sagely. ‘But you must reduce Basing Castle before you may engage your friend in battle.’

‘Aye,’ Waller said. It was not strictly true, for he could abandon Basing altogether and march directly upon Hopton, but his troops were raw, untried, and their only experience of warfare thus far had been the inept failure to hold the Grange, followed by days and days of rain-sodden inertia. Mutiny, he suspected, was not far from their minds, and he needed a resounding victory at Basing to bolster their resolve. ‘We will break the malignants this time, Harold. Are the siege items dispersed amongst the brigades?’

‘The supplies you requested from the capital have been sown like seeds, Sir William. Each of the three divisions possesses ladders to span ditches and scale walls; they have petards aplenty and certain units were given grenadoes. The reserve dragooners have also arrived.’ He held out a hand, palm flattened to the grey skies. ‘We are ready for the escalade, Sir William, so long as the weather holds.’

They watched from the escarpment for another hour as Waller’s cavalry deployed around the ruin of the Grange. They drew close to the long line of walls hemming New House and Old House, staying just out of musket range, and began hurling abuse at the defenders lining the works. If the threats served to dampen Royalist spirits, then God would surely forgive.

A man in civilian clothing, golden hair sprouting beneath a felt hat, came up from the direction of the ordnance, sweating atop a piebald pony that seemed to struggle with both the gradient and his vast weight. His jowls and midriff wobbled alarmingly as he reined in a dozen yards from Waller, sliding ungracefully out of the saddle, and waddled the last paces to his general. He bowed low. ‘Sir William.’

Waller touched a finger to his hat. ‘Larsson. What news?’

‘The big gatehouse, Sir William?’ Larsson asked in heavily accented English as he swept back an arm to point down at the fortress.

‘You are my chief gun captain, Mister Larsson,’ Waller replied, raking his gaze over the enemy earthworks and mentally gauging its weak points. ‘I did not bring you all the way from Stockholm to ignore your advice. What say you?’

Larsson rubbed his fleshy chin. Blue eyes, deep-set within puffy sockets, swivelled round to regard the Royalist target. ‘Took its lashes well the last time, did it not?’ He shrugged. ‘Still it stands.’

Waller nodded. ‘My thoughts, indeed. And it’ll be empty now, if Lord Paulet has a grain of sense.’

‘So?’

‘So the marquess and his Romish court will be in the New House, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Waller said. ‘Concentrate your fire there.’

Larsson’s many chins trembled in acknowledgement, and he fished in his pockets for a pair of woollen balls. He shot the general a wry smile, promptly inserting them into his ears. ‘As you wish, Sir William.’

k

‘Where’s your Hopton?’

‘I heard he had his eyeballs singed out at Bath Fight!’

‘God put ’em out for consortin’ with Papists!’

The cavalrymen down in the village erupted in furious laughter. They had come from the north-west, a poison-tongued vanguard to soften the resolve of Basing’s beleaguered inhabitants before the real business got underway, and they trotted out in groups from the protection of the timber-framed homes to within earshot of Garrison Gate, amusing themselves with ill-natured jibes and an assortment of colourful taunts.

Stryker stood with Skellen and Barkworth on the rampart to the east of the gateway. Below him, to his left, was the road from where the unfortunate forlorn hope had launched their abortive charge before the rain had come to interrupt the conflict, while to his right, protecting the corner of the New House, was Rawdon’s new ditch and staked earthen palisade, curving in the shape of a half-moon. The ongoing Parliamentarian manoeuvres made it difficult to know exactly where troops were best placed, and the defenders were spread ominously thin all around the walls and works.

‘Too scared to fight us, you lubberly gang o’ piss-a-breeches?’ a trooper on a speckled grey shouted through funnelled palms.

‘Prince Robber too busy swiving his poodle to help?’ another of the riders bellowed, causing a ripple of raucous jeers from his comrades.

The chest-rattling din of an artillery piece broke the taunting. Its booming report shattered the early afternoon, sending rooks and blackbirds skywards from an autumn-stripped copse at the side of the village, flapping and wheeling and squawking in terror. The inhabitants of Basing House collectively held their breath. Together with the horsemen outside and the infantry still shuffling around the fortress perimeter, they looked up at Cowdrey’s Down, to where a tell-tale pall of dirty vapour pulsed up and out. The shot, when its arc took it out of the murky ether to plummet on to the sprawling estate, did no damage at all. It screamed as it came down, slicing the air with cruel intent, but the aim was high, the trajectory off, and it slammed into the belly of the ditch on Basing’s south-eastern fringe. Waller had ten heavy guns on the hill, and now they all followed the leader; nine more guttural belches spewing racing smoke from the black barrels, nine more cacophonous eruptions. Two hit home, both thudding into roofs within the New House. Someone screamed. Dozens of unarmed individuals, corralled and put into teams by Marmaduke Rawdon during the rainy interlude, went immediately to work clearing rubble and seeking casualties, while the officers issued orders to their men, preparing them for what the day was sure to bring.

Stryker noticed that the shouts from down on the road had ceased with the opening of the bombardment. Indeed, it looked as though Waller’s cavalry were mustering further back, as if preparing to clear the way for something more meaningful. He caught Skellen’s eye. ‘They will storm.’

‘Made a swine’s ballocks of it last time, sir,’ Skellen said, staring up at the hill where the gun-crews scurried like so many ants as they reloaded their pieces.

‘He is nae treadin’ the same path,’ Barkworth’s croak answered for Stryker. He was pointing directly east, where, even as the artillery roared into life once more, a large body of musketeers were slowly marching, heading south. ‘They’re surroundin’ the place. Doin’ things properly.’

‘Sounds like you’re pleased,’ Skellen grumbled.

Barkworth shrugged. ‘If I’m gonnae fight someone, I want to respect him.’

The bulk of the Parliamentary force was still concentrated on the north flank, around the river and the village, but they had formed two distinct bodies of men. The third group, a thousand or thereabouts, were moving at pace towards the Park via the east. ‘He leaves two divisions on the north side,’ Stryker said, ‘The others circle to our rear. This is no dash across the Grange, but a planned advance.’

‘Jesu,’ Skellen muttered. ‘We ain’t got enough lads to cover the walls, sir.’

‘It’ll be a hard day’s work,’ Stryker agreed bluntly. ‘Unless Hopton appears on the horizon.’

‘Do not hold your breath,’ a woman’s voice cut in suddenly, making all three turn in surprise. ‘No,
mon amour
, do not hold your breath.’

k

A rider on a big mare, its head lashing irritably to the sides, cantered down from the top of the hill, past the rearguard troops, the grim pikemen in their dent-crumpled morions, and beyond a bank of artillery pieces that seethed gently as their crews reloaded. The wet ground splashed the beast’s straggly fetlocks, a stream of sodden soil clumps flinging out behind. He veered left, away from the booming pieces, and headed towards a group of horsemen who examined the outline of Basing House through perspective glasses, mutters and nods punctuating their study. The bay drew up a few feet from the party, lifting its tail and defecating hugely as it stooped to champ at the churned grass.