William Falkland 01 - The Royalist (22 page)

Carew must have sensed something for he paused before going on. ‘Her name, as I recall, was Beth. She was a dark little thing. I hear she’s been following us since long before Naseby but, as you’ll warrant, I had little interest in making her acquaintance. She was pleased to take Thomas in. We thought perhaps they would not do anything. Thomas Fletcher was certainly the sort of boy who would rather be cuddled than treated with a man’s proper respect. But he took to seeing her. He even had a little pay, now, to shower her with gifts.

‘It was our fault, Falkland. We took him to the wrong whore. She had her suitors among the soldiers and there was one who fancied her his property. We didn’t know it until after but he was the one who brought Fletcher to this spot. He was the one who struck a light against that granadoe. Thomas Fletcher was not a suicide. He was murdered.’

I let it sink in. The bitterness of the winter had grown up around me and I felt rooted to the spot. Not even the fire I felt at hearing this story could thaw me out. ‘Hotham?’

‘He tried to hang himself as penance.’ Carew nodded thoughtfully. ‘I think he thought it fitting.’

‘Yet you . . . you did not feel the same thing?’

‘I have a different way of looking at life than Jacob Hotham, Falkland. I was not the one to light the granadoe. I regret what we did but I will not burn in Hell for it.’

At last I lifted my boot from the snow. My left leg felt dead but I flexed it over and again until it screamed out – then, at least, I knew it was alive. Hotham hanged himself as a penance? I found it hard to countenance.

‘You look pained, Falkland.’

‘If all you say is true, why not come forward?’ I turned around and took two faltering steps away from the tree. As I turned I was drawn to the branch where the boys had hanged themselves. If it seemed unfair that Thomas Fletcher had come to such an ignoble but ordinary end, it seemed more unfair still that, at the end of everything, the deaths were not all tied together as I’d thought. I’d been sent here to investigate suicides, and suicides were all I’d found. There was nothing more remarkable in this camp than too many frightened, starving boys, plucked from every last corner of the kingdom, flung into one place and told to exist.

Then I saw the rope hanging from the branch. I’d climbed up that trunk only a few days ago. I’d nervously edged along the bough and inspected that rope. I’d lifted its severed end and run my hands up and down its length. I’d tried to imagine what it might have been like for those boys. I’d fingered the frayed end and wondered who had cut the last one down.

But now, when I looked at the rope, I saw no severed end. I saw a loop of rope tied in a slipknot. I saw a noose freshly ready.

My eyes fixed upon Carew; and as I did I saw a harsh resolve fix upon his face. I knew, then, how all this story was merely another lie. This story of some whore and a jealous boy was just that – a story – and a poor one too, and Carew knew from my look that I’d seen through it. The reason he’d called me here was suddenly clear. ‘Carew,’ I said, my voice quiet with condemnation, ‘Fletcher died
after
Hotham had been cut down.’

He seemed untroubled that I’d seen through him. ‘The other two,’ he whispered. ‘Those two papist boys? They were more . . . complicated. I’m sorry, Falkland, that it comes to this. I’d hoped to avoid it, truly I did.’

In his hands he held a dagger. In the darkness beyond the tree stood three other men. Suddenly I wasn’t cold any more.

CHAPTER 21

‘Carew,’ I said. The word came out strangled, ripped away from my lips by a sudden gust blowing past. ‘Think carefully about what you’re doing, Carew. Somebody finds me strung up here, they won’t think it’s suicide. They won’t think I was one of your royalist boys beaten and beaten until he couldn’t take it any more.’ I stepped back, spreading my legs to get a firmer grounding. It had been too long since I was in a fight. Even at Abingdon when they captured me there had been little of it left. I reached to the small of my back for the knife I’d hidden there but felt only my naked flesh. It had fallen away when I plunged into the crater the granadoe had left; I’d been too frozen to notice. I looked about for anything I might use to defend myself but all I saw was a second knife on Carew’s belt.

‘Beaten?’ He laughed. ‘Who has been beaten?’

‘You’ll bring Hell on this camp, Carew.’

He came a step closer, mirroring my every action. In a sudden reflection of snow I glimpsed his eyes. They didn’t have the calmness I’d seen in them before. Now they were wide.

‘You do know who sent me here?’ I asked. I didn’t like invoking the name but the three other figures were close to Carew now and I felt as if an unstoppable wave was about to pound me down. I’d never been to sea but I had the vivid idea that this was what it was like to be shipwrecked. ‘Cromwell isn’t the man to ignore it. He sent me as his investigator. Killing me is like . . .’

‘Perhaps,’ Carew said, his voice barely a whisper, ‘that is precisely the point.’

I didn’t have time to consider what he meant. They came forward together as if ordered by words I couldn’t hear. Two of the other figures broke away, vaulting through the deep snow to come at me from behind, while Carew and the last of them advanced from the front. I had only my fists to protect me but, nevertheless, I whirled, desperate to keep them at bay, stretching out as if my forearm itself was a sabre with which I might cut them in two. I cast an eye back for Lucas – I didn’t think he was a part of this – but he was gone or lost to the snow. There seemed little point in crying out.

Like a snake coiling around its prey, the others encircled me. All the while the face of Carew hung in front of me. ‘You would bring me out here,’ I said, ‘to tell me your tale, only to string me up anyway? Carew, you’re not thinking . . .’ I saw the way he held that dagger in his hand. Here was a man not used to trading blows. The men with him were more battle ready – I judged them second-rank pikemen; too strong and stocky to waste as fodder in the front row – but Carew was the one with the dagger. I could use that to my advantage.

‘Only when you would not believe it,’ said Carew.

As one they began to close. When they were only feet away I sprang and launched myself directly at Carew, coming up from underneath him so I could sweep his dagger arm out of the way. To his credit he hung on to the blade even as I forced his arms above his head and barrelled him backward. Together we plunged into the snow. Straddling him I had the better of it, but it wouldn’t last long before the other men were on me. The snow hampered them, though, and I risked bringing my fist back to smash into Carew’s face. As I hit him we sank further still into the drift. I drove a fistful of snow into his mouth. He bucked back, trying to throw me off, but now he was choking. I wrestled the dagger out of his hand. It dropped and vanished into the snow. I seized the blade from Carew’s belt and rolled away; even as I did, the first of his henchmen was on top of me. I kicked out with the flat of my boot and pushed him back. He didn’t topple over – he was no fool – but it gave me enough room to haul myself to my feet. Thankful that the tree was at my back, I used it to drag myself around. There was no way I could fight them off. I had one on either side while the third helped the choking Carew back to his feet. ‘Do you boys have any idea,’ I gasped, ‘of what you’re doing? You might as well put the rope around your own neck. Cromwell will see you hang.’

‘What does Oliver Cromwell care about a King’s servant?’ one of them spat.

‘Little enough, but I think he cares even less for soldiers who don’t obey orders,’ I said. ‘You’ve seen what he does to ravishers.’ I waved Carew’s knife at the closest of them. They shared a look.

‘We’re not going to ravish you,’ smirked one.

I fixed my eye on him. ‘You’re not going to get the chance.’ Before Carew and the other pikeman could join the fray, I lunged for the man on my right. He had a dagger of his own, a longer blade than mine, but I had the element of surprise. I swiped and then jabbed, cutting left as if to parry his own blade and then went for his chest. Twice his age, I was still too fast for him. My blade sank in. Yet, when I drew it back, no blood dripped from its end. There was no tear in his tunic, nothing but a faint wrinkle where I ought to have spilled his life. I marvelled at the dagger. For the first time I realised that it sat too lightly in my hand. I weighed it and something seemed to rattle in the handle, something I’d not understood before. With the fingers of my other hand I tested the blade. It retreated, as if by magic, into the hilt, disappearing until all but an inch of blade was hidden away.

Wordless, I dropped it at my feet.

‘Take a hold of him,’ Carew said hoarsely. ‘We’ve been out here too long.’

I swung my fists but they grappled me and held me fast to the trunk. At first I couldn’t feel their hands around me, so bitter was the cold, but they dragged me out and threw me to the ground. I landed hard, all the breath forced out of my chest. I gasped and heaved but all I took in were the mouthfuls of snow they fed me. Two of the men wrenched my wrists together behind my back and began to bind me. It took only a single blow after that for the world to fall out of focus. They hauled me upright and, hanging between two of them, heaved me into place beneath the great bough.

The noose hung some distance above my head but I heard awkward grunting in the tree above and understood that one of the men had scrambled up to ease my passage. While Carew looked on, the other two pushed me high. My legs were held fast so I couldn’t kick out and I would not scream – there was no point and I would not give them the satisfaction. I bucked and twisted and toppled us all into the snow but they soon had me up again. It would not, I noted grimly, be as easy as the last time I’d escaped a hanging.

They hauled me up a third time. The world came beautifully into focus. There were the rolling white fields. There was the encampment. There was Crediton and somewhere there was Miss Cain. Carew gazed at a point above my head. I didn’t look up – I knew he was looking at the noose. I looked, instead, at him. It had felt different on the morning they hauled me out of Newgate. I was ready for it then. If anything, though I might not have admitted it even to myself, it was what I wanted. All my desire had been bled out of me – by the King, by the wars, by roundheads and cavaliers. All of it was the same to me. But now I wasn’t ready any more. Now I didn’t want to die. Now there were people who needed me. Yes, my family, wherever they were and whatever they were doing. But more than that I meant the dead boys: Whitelock, Wildman, Fletcher; for I was certain now that everything Carew had said to me was a lie. I even thought, as they hoisted me higher and the noose brushed the top of my head, that I was beginning to understand. I had that pamphlet in my pocket. Somewhere beneath me there was the knife with the retractable blade. The images of both seemed to swirl in front of my eyes, tempting me to draw some conclusion, tempting me to shout it out loud. I knew it was Carew. I was certain I knew why. I almost knew how.

A light like a tiny orb of fire split the darkness. Riding on the back of it there came a sound – thunder, in miniature, the crack of a musket. I froze. The men underneath me froze too. They hadn’t yet got the noose around me.

The sound came again, this time from a different direction. Another flash of musket fire. Another noise like thunder harnessed and thrust out of a barrel. The second shot came too quickly for there to be only one person out there, filling his weapon back up before aiming and releasing fire.

I took my chance. I thrust myself left and toppled from the pikemen – no matter that I landed on the ground hard enough to shatter half my ribs. The snow cushioned my fall, betraying me only where one of the tree’s roots broke through the surface. I rolled away gasping for air. This time the pikemen did not grapple after me. They were too busy whirling around, trying to discern where the ambush was coming from.

Bound as I was, I squirmed away like a snake across the snow. Once I’d reached the trunk I used it to haul myself up.

‘Stop!’ Carew bellowed. He wasn’t shouting at me but at the pikemen who seemed about to scatter. ‘There can only be two of them or they’d have shot again. Let’s get this . . .’ Out of the gloom somebody grappled Carew from behind. A diminutive forearm curled around to constrict his throat and he began to buckle. I fancied there was a dagger – one with a real blade this time – pressed into the small of his back. As he went to ground, I marvelled at what I saw. Miss Kate Cain stood above him dressed in soldier’s clothes far too big for her slender frame, a kitchen knife in her hands.

One of the pikemen had run, vanished into the whiteness. Two still remained. They stopped as they saw who had forced Carew to the ground. From the snow he called out to them. There was only a second of hesitation before they shared a look and began to advance.

‘Falkland!’ Miss Cain exclaimed. ‘Falkland!’

My hands were still bound. I threw myself away from the trunk. I was between Miss Cain and the pikemen and I began to run. I saw the retractable dagger in the snow at my feet, still by the base of the tree. I couldn’t pick it up but kicked it high instead so that it landed beyond Carew. I charged on, reached Kate and hurried past her.

‘Leave him!’ I called. ‘Get away! Back to the camp! They can’t risk following us there . . .’

‘No,’ Miss Cain replied, her voice so calm she seemed not to care that the pikemen were rampaging towards us. ‘Not yet.’

Another pealing of thunder. Another flash of white muzzle light and one of the pikemen gasped and stumbled. He looked down at himself and sank to his knees. He’d been shot in the chest. Out of the gloom emerged Warbeck, dressed up in his red Venice coat with leather gauntlets and metal bracers on his wrists. He had a vicious look in his eye. As the other pikeman kept on, Warbeck threw away his musket and drew out a sabre.

‘Get him out of here,’ he said. All his foppish sweetness was gone. ‘I’ll hold these.’

The second pikeman stopped. Kate lifted her foot from the small of Carew’s back and rushed to my side. She took my hand and tried to lead me back across the field but I resisted. ‘Kate, the dagger! Carew’s dagger.’

Warbeck was backing away. ‘Go!’ he barked. ‘They won’t follow. I’ll see to that.’ Carew floundered in the snow until he found his feet. Kate scooped up the dagger with the false blade and began to run, hesitating only to help me along. Halfway across the field we stopped and she loosened the ties at my wrists. I could hardly feel my fingers. She cupped them to my mouth to breathe some warmth back into them. We stood there beneath the freshly falling ribbons of snow and listened out for what was happening down at the witching tree. All we heard was silence: long, unending and pure.

Back at the house, Kate dropped the latch and heaved a chair from the scullery to stop the handle from turning. She bade me sit and, in the light of the candle, reached for my neck as if to inspect me for bruises. As her fingers, ice cold, touched me, I took hold of her wrists and folded them back against her breast. I promised her the rope had not marked me.

‘Damn them, Falkland,’ she said. The light of the candle waned suddenly and I couldn’t tell if she was crying; but when the flame surged back into life I saw it wasn’t tears but pure rage that was making her shake. ‘You should not have gone!’

She was right. It had been foolish to follow the surgeon into the snow. Yet now I understood. Now I had the pieces of this shredded tapestry woven together. ‘How did you know where I was?’ I asked.

‘I watched you going down the lane . . .’ She stopped. ‘I was afraid . . . because who comes knocking at windows in the middle of a night like this, Falkland? Who? Not honest men, that’s for sure.’ She looked away. ‘I thought you were a fool.’

It seemed she was right.

‘I must have woken Master Warbeck. He wouldn’t let me follow you alone. And now he’s . . .’

I put my hand over hers. ‘We don’t know anything.’ I couldn’t bring myself to see her grieve over a man like Warbeck; although it occurred to me that he had perhaps saved me twice now from Carew and his gang.

‘I wouldn’t regret it.’ Miss Cain looked up. In the candlelight her eyes were alive. Some of the rage had seeped out of her and now she looked in control of what was left. The anger hardened inside her like a freshly cast sword plunged into a blacksmith’s well. ‘If he were not to come back tonight, I wouldn’t regret it for a second. Let the snow cover him up. Let wolves find him for all I would care. He’s never been welcome in my house.’

I stood. She had wine, red and watery in a jug, and I poured cups for both of us. It wasn’t until I gulped it back and felt its warmth that I realised how cold I’d been or how much my fingers trembled.

‘Who were they, Falkland?’

‘It was the surgeon took me there,’ I said. ‘To meet a man named Edmund Carew.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘They said they had news about Tom Fletcher. He spun me a story about some camp whore and a soldier who wanted revenge. I should have known it.’ My hand let go of the cup and it clattered to the tabletop, spilling its dregs. Instantly I was shaking again. ‘A sorrier story I’ve never heard. I should have seen through it at once but I didn’t. Only when I saw the fresh noose they’d made ready for me.’

‘Falkland,’ Miss Cain said, her voice even, ‘they may come for you again.’

‘I know it.’

‘They know where you live.’

I did not mean to but I snapped, ‘They may also come for you. I won’t put you through it. I’ll be gone.’