William Falkland 01 - The Royalist (6 page)

Fairfax studied me for a second too long, enough to make me think I’d spoken too forcefully. ‘Master Falkland,’ he said with a sudden weariness. ‘It is dark. It’s snowing.’

I looked behind me through the door. ‘The snow has stopped, sir.’ And yes, it was dark, but the clouds had parted and there was a moon to light our way.

‘We can see the camp as we pass through it, Master Falkland. I’ll send you a guide in the morning.’ He spoke with a finality that would brook no argument. Warbeck gave me a sour look. Fairfax, meanwhile, opened his arms and I was bustled out to wait in the cold while a boy was sent for our mounts. When they were brought I rode on Warbeck’s horse, though truth be known I preferred the pack animal; I’d grown accustomed to its disaffected wheeze.

We rode through the makeshift town that had grown up around Crediton and I realised how fortunate we’d been coming at it the way we had, which was as close to Fairfax’s farm as could be; or else it wasn’t luck at all but Warbeck had known the camp and chosen his approach deliberately. We came down a broad track and crossed a stone bridge over a freezing brook. In the fields on the other side, horses had been corralled. I hadn’t expected the cavalry would be wintering here as well. Cromwell was the New Model’s cavalry man and I had supposed they had all cantered back to London with him. Some of the animals looked better fed than the men we passed. It wouldn’t last long though. A few would be stewed before Christmas, I was sure.

Past the field we came back among tents and shelters. The closer we got to the stone cottages the more complete the camp seemed. Some of the new buildings were made of stone. Some were even thatched. It was a simple kind of thatching, without any art, but now that snow was piled high on top it was as good a roof as any. Outside one of the older cottages a soldier stood watch, shuffling from one foot to the other and blowing on his hands, trying to keep warm through this bitter night.

Crediton itself wasn’t as small as I’d reckoned. We approached from the south and part of the town was obscured by a great wall with posts like the turrets of a castle. Cauldrons of fire were stoked along the ramparts. Sometimes I could see the black outline of a man as he passed, walking his watch. Through a gap in the wall I saw the church. It dominated the town. I thought it an old church but I didn’t know if it was always with the King or against, or had changed hands back and forth as so many places had done. We passed through the gap and rode among the stone cottages. There were men walking the street here and there, a few busy about some errand or other, others in pairs with pikes over their shoulders, marking out their watches. Some passed in groups but I saw no drunken revellers. Most men simply moved aside to let us pass. Several recognised Fairfax and doffed their hats. I saw two whose eyes glanced nervously back and forth between us and lingered more on me than on their general; as we passed they ran quickly away. Less than a minute later a young soldier – so young he was scarcely more than a boy – came running past on some errand and stopped as he saw us. He looked at me long and hard and smiled as if deeply satisfied. When he ran on I could swear it was with a spring in his step.

We came presently into the shadow of the church. Deep drifts of snow grew up against it and the gravestones of the churchyard were topped with thick white hats. As we passed I saw a glimpse of movement in a narrow alley almost black with shadow. I turned to look and saw two men stare back at me from beside the graveyard. The moonlight revealed their faces, aghast, before they turned and ran as though I was the devil.

‘Stop!’ I drew my horse to a halt. One of the men, I was sure, had dropped something. As I dismounted, Warbeck glared at me with impatient disbelief. Fairfax merely frowned. I handed my reins to Warbeck as though he was my servant – I’ll admit to taking some pleasure in that – and walked into the alley. It was impenetrably dark and I immediately gave up any thought of pursuing these men. Why, though, had they been so afraid?

Perhaps the answer was in what I found, dropped in the snow. By fortune I had my back to Warbeck and Fairfax when I took it. It was a Catholic’s rosary. The New Model not only had the King’s men in its ranks, it harboured papists too. I wondered if Fairfax knew. I supposed he must. Perhaps these men had heard that some inquisitor from Cromwell was coming, then – had that been the root of their fear? If so then I would be quite a disappointment, for I’d long since lost any care as to how any man might worship his God.

I pocketed the rosary and determined to say nothing.

CHAPTER 6

A little way past the church we reached the town square. There were more tents here, formed in rings around a pyramid of steps where a market cross used to sit. I’d seen the same thing in my journeys before Newgate. Even a market cross was considered an icon by the most ardent of the Puritans. Wherever they roamed, whether with the New Model or one of the militias before it, they tore them down and smashed them up, revelling in the anguished looks of the people who watched. It had been a long time since I cared for gods and devils and heavens and hells. For me, a cross was just a cross, nothing more, nothing less, but I could never look at young men tearing up objects somebody else thought sacred and think it godly work.

Some of the tents we passed spilled light. There were soldiers inside, lounging or playing the games of stones I used to play. Most were young men. Many would never grow old and I felt a surge of pity for them. I’d shed my youth by the time I first started soldiering and age had better prepared me for its horrors. When they saw us trot past, some came out to watch. A few saw Fairfax and cheered but yet again I saw eyes fixed upon me with strangely mixed expressions: of awe and wonder and now and then of fear. ‘It is him?’ I heard one of them ask.

‘Who do they think I am?’ I asked Fairfax. ‘What have you told them?’

‘Nothing at all. You’re an intelligencer. One does not shout the arrival of an intelligencer. Though one can’t account for rumour . . .’ He seemed less perplexed than vexed. I fancied he knew the answer to my question but rather wished he didn’t.

We came around the square and into an older part of town. There was a high street, broad and cobbled, and up and down it lights in the houses. I wondered how many were the folk of Crediton and how many houses had been requisitioned for soldiers. I’d not heard it was a Cromwell tactic to drive people from their homes, but I didn’t know about Fairfax and I shuddered to guess. One thing was certain – there would barely be a house in Crediton that wasn’t bunking soldiers from floor to ceiling, whether the locals had stayed or not.

At the far end of this street loomed a tall horse chestnut, branches heavy with snow. Underneath was a scaffold. As we closed upon it I saw the shadow of a hanged man dangling from the biggest bough. He looked a wretched sight and I fancied he had been up there for weeks. Half of him was frozen and the birds would have difficulty taking what was left until he thawed, but the other half of him was gone. He had no eyes, and not even his mother would tell who he was.

We slowed as we came around the dead man and I gave him a wider berth than Fairfax, who seemed not even to notice. My fellows used to say it was a curious thing about me, that I’d killed so many men and still cringed from a dead body. In my own mind, the strange part was the killing, not the other.

Fairfax had trotted ahead of me. When he realised we were apart he slowed and looked round. ‘Is this it?’ I asked. ‘One of the boys?’ I could see my words as fog in front of my mouth.

‘In the middle of town, Master Falkland? I’d reckoned on you being cleverer than that.’

‘Then what?’

‘You’d be better asking Master Cromwell.’ He brought his horse back to mine. Together we peered up at the dangling man. ‘He was a pikeman. He ravished the daughter of one of the merchants here soon after we came in for the winter. What you see is the result . . .’

‘Cromwell did this?’ I asked, a little too brusquely.

‘Discipline is important in any army, Master Falkland. I dare say you know that. How does a soldier make his living?’

I cocked my head at him. ‘In your New Model he’s paid, is he not?’

‘So he is; but in any other army he makes his living from the aftermath of battle, from loot and plunder. I’ve always been of the mind that even in the New Model a little plunder must be overlooked, but Cromwell has other ideas, as is his wont. He makes examples of men.’ He tipped his chin up at the cadaver. The snow lit him from beneath and I could see the scar across his face picked out starkly. ‘You look faint, Master Falkland. Are you squeamish?’

He’d mistaken my expression in the moonlight. It was the first time I’d understood what Cromwell’s New Model could mean. It could mean an end to what came after a battle was done, an end to the sacking of towns and the ravishing of villages. I’d found myself struck by an unexpected moment of admiration, that was all. It bewildered me to think it, but maybe this New Model was worth saving after all. ‘Not squeamish, sir,’ I said. ‘I would have hanged the man myself.’

‘Were he one of your soldiers?’

‘You mistake me, sir. I’ve never commanded men, only been commanded by them.’

Fairfax trotted on. ‘Yet I have heard, just as we’ve
all
heard, what you did in Yorkshire.’

I hadn’t wanted him to bring it up. I hadn’t wanted Cromwell to do so either, but Yorkshire was Black Tom’s home. I didn’t think we’d clashed on the battlefields up there but the very idea was enough to bring terrible pictures flickering across the backs of my eyes. I could see myself in a ditch, grasping a dead man’s dagger. I could see myself drawing a friend over my head to hide my body from advancing dragoons, his entrails slipping out to make a bloody curtain.

‘Come now, Falkland, don’t be coy. A man doesn’t like to be teased! What was it like to stand up to your King like that?’

I dug my heels into my horse and spurred him on. ‘Tell me yourself,’ I said. ‘You’ve stood up to
yours
for long enough.’ I wondered if that might anger him but Fairfax only laughed, loud and long.

We reached the end of the street and there, beyond an inn where no lights were lit, he reined his horse in and bade me stop. When he climbed down, so did I. He marched across the snow and hammered twice at a door. Warbeck followed, silent and simmering. I heard footsteps from within the house and then the door drew back. The woman who stood in the threshold was young and comely. She had black hair cropped as short as a soldier’s and sparkling eyes that made her face come alive. She was dressed in a threadbare woollen cloak and, though the winter evening wind wailed, she didn’t meekly peep around the door but stood tall and brazen and looked Fairfax up and down.

‘I have guests for you, Miss Cain,’ said Fairfax.

As he spoke she looked past him. She spied me and Warbeck and her face turned ashen. It was the expression I’d seen on the man who’d just come out of his hut as we entered the camp. Dread, as if I was the devil. She looked back into the house and barked something. Then turned back. ‘I’ve too many already,’ she said. Her accent told me she was not a native of Crediton and I wondered if she was a follower. Every army I had marched with had its followers: whores, merchants, hunters and thieves making a living out of the soldiers. They could usually be found at an encampment separate from the rest but, I supposed, the rules of warfare had been changed to create the New Model, so perhaps other things had changed as well.

‘You have more than enough room after your family’s desertion,’ Fairfax began, ‘and your other guests can now be gone. This man is here at Master Cromwell’s bidding to look into the matter of the suicide tree. I beg you look after him.’ He nodded at Warbeck. ‘Warbeck here will see to emptying your house for you.’

Miss Cain blinked in surprise and looked me up and down anew. She was afraid but she was hiding it better now. I opened my hands and tried to show her I meant her no harm. ‘An intelligencer?’ she asked. I was fairly certain it was a London accent.

‘Of that ilk.’ I peered back at her. Her fear had changed on hearing that. Now I was little more than a nuisance, whereas before . . . before she had taken me for something else.

Fairfax stepped aside. He returned to his horse and looked down at me.

‘Falkland, Warbeck, Miss Cain will see your horse and mule stabled at the livery at the inn. There are none of the Model’s horses there so they’ll be quite safe. In the morning I’ll send a man to show you to the . . .’ Here he paused. ‘. . . the place those boys chose for their end. Master Falkland, Warbeck, I bid you goodnight.’

With that he was gone.

The snow started to fall again, big flakes that would smother the camp in another foot of white. Miss Cain only looked at me, frowning. Eventually she stepped back and indicated stiffly that I should enter. I waited in the hallway while she took care of my horse. Warbeck moved on into the house. I heard him rousing men from their cots, poking and kicking at them to gather their things and get out. I wondered where they would go with the sun already set and snow falling from the sky, but Warbeck seemed unconcerned. By the time Miss Cain returned from the stables the other men were mostly gone. The last two had taken it upon themselves to protest at such a sudden eviction. It was a small pleasure listening to Warbeck snarl.

Miss Cain’s teeth were chattering when she came inside. I made my apologies but she appeared disinclined to listen, bustling me brusquely out of the hallway and into her front room, where there was a table and chair as well as a cot. There was a hearth but no fire was burning tonight: nor, I guessed, had one burned in the past several months, for it was warmer inside than out but not by much. I could see the litter on the floor where other soldiers had bunked here in recent days. Miss Cain returned shortly with mulled wine spiced with cinnamon and the room suddenly and unexpectedly smelled of the childhood Christmases I’d always cherished. I felt my spirits lift. It didn’t matter a bit to me that I was in the heart of a camp that would have eradicated Christmas forever. I would take my pleasures where and when I could.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Falkland,’ she began. ‘I do not mean to appear rude.’

‘And I do not mean to intrude, Miss Cain.’

‘Nor do you. At least, no more than we have already been intruded upon by your army.’ She looked around her. ‘I suppose you and your man are a blessing. At least there’s only two of you.’

‘Miss Cain, you mistake me. This is not my army. I am . . . I am not a soldier.’

This she scoffed at. ‘Intelligence is just another sort of soldiering. My father taught me you could wage war with ideas every bit as well as you could wage war with cannons.’

‘Your father taught you well,’ I said. ‘This is a war of ideas as much as it’s a war of armies. But I’m not with the New Model, Miss Cain. I’m not here of my own accord.’

Once she understood this she seemed to soften. She took a sip of her drink. ‘A prisoner?’

‘Until recently. But I imagine no more a prisoner than you.’

‘And your man?’ Warbeck was still shouting at the two soldiers in the upstairs room.

‘Is not my man,’ I told her, although I thought she’d already guessed. She didn’t reply but rather shuffled her feet and left to get more wine. While she was gone I paced the edge of the room. There was little to look at but I had the feeling that this was a family home, that Miss Cain was not one of the camp followers I’d taken her to be. I recalled what Fairfax had said – that her family were deserters – but I couldn’t fathom what it meant, if this truly
was
her home.

From the top of the stairs came a scuffle. A moment after it ended I watched Warbeck march the last two pikemen out of the house at sabre-point. They left but not without a deal of oaths and cursing. Miss Cain looked weary. ‘I can’t offer much,’ she said. ‘But I can offer you some hospitality. Black Tom has all his favourites here when they come. A place they can have a proper bed and not some tent in the fields.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Crediton has become like a city of tents for the winter.’

‘I never liked the city.’

‘I’d thought to see some more of it tonight, Miss Cain, to begin my work. I’m eager to have it finished and be gone.’

Beside me Warbeck sighed and rolled his eyes but Miss Cain chose to ignore him. ‘Is it . . .’ She handed me more wine but I didn’t drink. It was already touching me and I didn’t want to sleep, not yet. ‘Is it those boys, Mr Falkland?’

It surprised me that she knew about them. I judged the New Model to be ten thousand strong, perhaps more, and though rumours spread through bored soldiers like the pox, as Fairfax had put it, it didn’t seem to me that the loss of a few men should stir such stories. I asked her what she’d heard.

‘Only that . . .’ She gulped at her wine. ‘They were sweet boys, Mr Falkland. Young boys. I had a brother their age. It’s not right that boys like them should be fighting. They do not choose it, do they, Mr Falkland?’

I
certainly had not. I shook my head.

‘Would you see where they were hanged?’ she ventured.

‘I’d wanted to see it from the start but
Black Tom
,’ I said with an emphasis that took her into my confidence, ‘would have me wait until the morning.’ I could feel Warbeck’s glare on my back. I’d learned the sense of it these last few days. ‘Still, I suppose it doesn’t matter. It’s already been several weeks.’

Miss Cain furrowed her eyes and took the cup away from her lips. In the gloom her green eyes glimmered.

‘Mr Falkland,’ she said, ‘it has indeed been several weeks since the first boy was discovered. But you’re mistaken! A fourth boy died at that tree only three nights ago.’

I was still. ‘A fourth?’

She nodded, trying to suppress a shiver.

‘I was on the road,’ I said. ‘The same as the last?’

Here she took a deep breath and straightened her cloak. ‘Oh no, Mr Falkland. Not the same at all. This boy . . . This boy blew himself to pieces with a granadoe.’