The Ravens’ Banquet (6 page)

Behind me there was a sound and I turned. There stood the gipsy wench. She came forward and stood close by me, her face in shadow.

“Take this,” she said. And she pressed in my hand what appeared to be a small cloth pouch.

“What is this, then?”

“Hearken well to me. This is a charm that I have made. Keep it upon your person always and it will preserve you from harm.”

“A talisman? What is it?” I asked, straining to look at the little object.

“I do not give you this or say these words to you lightly. This charm will
preserve
you. What it is made of does not matter. Do not take it off. I pray that it will take you home someday.”

“What is your name?” I asked her.

“I am called Anya.”

She did not ask me mine, but rather, turned quickly and walked away.

W
E WERE NOT
, as it chanced, murdered in our sleep. I awoke to the sound and sight of Samuel standing over me crunching a pork rind in his mouth.

“Did my lord rest well?” he asked, pushing a stray end back into his maw with a finger.

I threw back my blanket and stood up, my head thundering away. “Fetch me some water. Better yet some beer, if there is any to be had.”

Samuel wiped his hands on his breeches and wandered off. I had slept late and the camp was fast breaking up. I ran my hand through my hair, my ringlets more the rat’s nest than usual, and watched the two wagons being loaded by the gipsies, the children rushing around its wheels and shouting.

Making my way to where our animals stood tied, I began to rummage under the oilcloth, trying mightily to lay my hand on a shirt without having to untie the whole bundle. The ass snorted and stepped on my toe; I shouted out in pain and cuffed it on the flank.

I cursed myself for oversleeping and I grew angry, for my sleep had not been a good one. My dreams had been filled with shadows and apprehensions, foggy visions of Anya’s foretelling, twisted into phantasms of my own design and embellished by an overindulgence of wine. How could she have known of what dreadful sights I had glimpsed as a boy? At the thought of her and that strange night, my hand settled on the charm that now hung at my chest. I had not seen it well in the firelight and so I took it off and prised open the little cloth sack, which was no larger than a powder cartridge. It was closed up with a drawstring of red thread, and a stout lace of leather around that, for slinging round the neck.

I peered inside the gipsy’s talisman. All I could spy was crushed leaves and tiny flowers – lavender or what else I could not guess. With the tip of my little finger I pushed the mixture around, but it revealed little more. I sniffed cautiously at the pouch yet only the faintest scent arose from it. There was nothing more or nothing less to this charm than crushed herbs, it seemed.

I twiddled it about my fingers for a time and was near on tossing it away when something stayed my hand. What held me back I do not know. I cared not a whit for such foolishness. What God-fearing Christian need cling to unholy charms? Yet somehow, I could not bring myself to part with it and, more the matter, found myself slipping it about my neck once again.

By the time Samuel and I had made ready to depart, I had succeeded in pushing all these unsettling thoughts away. I drank some beer and managed to find some bread as well. I had to buy some salted beef from one of the gipsies for I could not bring myself to pick at the stinking remains of the pig in the fire. I left that feast to the beggared soldiers. The work at hand was to reach the Danish camp, and we stood a fair chance of getting there that very day, though we had wasted near half of it. As I tightened my horse’s cinch strap, I had a sudden feeling that eyes were upon me. And I turned.

At first, I saw nothing, but then my gaze fell upon a woman climbing up into one of the wagons. Anya stood one hand at the canvas cover of the wagon’s tilt, a red scarf about her head. She looked straight at me and even at a distance I could feel her eyes settle upon me and hold me fast. She lingered there but a moment, giving neither sign nor call, then pulled down the canvas and disappeared from view.

The talisman at my chest felt heavy and I was seized with the urge to go to her. But why? To demand more of her Knowing? To kiss her lips? I muttered an oath and threw myself up into the saddle. She had been right. I didn’t want to know any more that she could tell. Without waiting for Samuel to mount, I kicked in my spurs and started off out of the copse. My only thought was to put a league between me and her and pray to God that the distance grew no closer.

After a short time I heard hooves coming up fast behind: Samuel with the complaining ass in tow. As he came alongside I heard him muttering to himself.

I called over to him. “God willing, we will make Verden this day. I feel it in my bones.”

We came to the town from the north, the low wooded hillocks giving way to flat green pastures fed by the great Aller River: a wide lazy ribbon of brown. As we drew closer to the town, which lay half shadowed by the sun on the horizon, the road ran more closely to the riverside, offering us a breeze to soothe our sweaty brows. Then too, less than comforting, a stink wafted its way to us from the south and the town itself. It was both pungent and sweet – a mixture of rotting food, excrement, and unwashed flesh, sometimes strong, sometimes weak. And less noticeable, but there too, the smell of cooking fires and roasting meat. It was the stink of an army in camp.

Before us stood a sea of white tents – at least some five score – covering the trammelled grass and breaking upon the walls of the town. Here and there one could spy racks of pikes and standards raised upon high poles and everywhere the shouts of men and the echoing ring of axe upon wood. And nearer still we drew. More tents rose up like the white crests of an ocean swell, accompanied by the cries of half-naked soldiers. Others came from out of the woods half a league from the walls stumbling and laughing, their backs bent under towering bundles of firewood.

On the bank of the river a hundred women laboured at clothes washing; the sharp sound of their linen slapping upon the stones reverberated from Verden’s walls and across the fields. Surely this was great Exodus itself, the camp of the Israelites making ready to enter the kingdom of Canaan!

Samuel cursed as he drew alongside me. “My nose may take some time in becoming accustomed to this stink.”

“You won’t notice it after another day,” I replied.

“Even so, it cannot be good for the health of any man to live with such vapours.”

“By my reckoning, this is the camp for the Foot. The Horse must be billeted elsewhere in the town.”

“Just as well,” sniffed Samuel, “I can suffer the smell of horseshit in my nostrils far better than this.”

Verden was a filthy place; any street not cobbled was awash with mud and even these so very narrow that one could spit across to the house on the other side. The inhabitants seemed a sullen lot, which was not unreasonable given the number of soldiers infesting their town: incomprehensible Danish musketeers, oafish troopers from the Principalities of Hesse-Kassel and Brandenburg, swaggering artillery men from the Low Countries in their cups at midday. It was Verden’s misfortune that it lay peacefully in the embrace of those two great rivers Weser and Aller. For in time of war it became a town that had to be taken and held fast so to seize the road south and thus the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. And now, Verden was a garrison seething with the implements of War.

At last we passed underneath the south gate and out to a collection of houses under the town walls. And from one of these a great blue standard waved in the breeze from out of an upstairs window. All around me troopers milled, some carrying arms and armour, others food and drink to the little houses in the row. I decided that this was just as like the regimental headquarters, and I told Samuel to stay outside and look to the baggage while I ventured into the house.

The place looked to be an inn, but one requisitioned by the Danes for billeting as there were no townsmen present. I stepped into the main room, a hearth at one end and a few mean pieces of furniture. A large table barred my way any further, at which sat a man scribbling away. Standing over him another soldier grasped a handful of papers. I reached into my doublet and felt for the letter secreted there for so long. Pulling it out, I strode forward, shoulders back, and up to the table.

“What’s your business?” asked the scribe.

“I have a letter here for Colonel Nells,” I replied.

“Are you a messenger? Give it here and I’ll see that he gets it.”

I held the letter back. “My name is Richard Treadwell and I am an English volunteer. This letter is my recommendation to your Colonel.”

The two men looked at each other. The one standing, a finely dressed officer in a grey suit with a bright blue sash across his breast, scratched his beard and grinned. The scribe, who looked much older, put down his pen and pushed back his chair. His mouth opened to address me, but at the same instant booted feet came pounding down the staircase accompanied by the jangle of spurs and booming Danish voices.

The first cavalier into my view was a huge man with black hair and a full beard, dressed in a green doublet that was showered in golden trimmings. His band was decorated in fine lace, indeed I had seen few collars so bedecked, and down his breeches golden buttons from waist to knee. As he came down the narrow stairs, his scabbard scored the wall loudly and I saw his left hand brush the hilt back, flicking the sword behind him in one well-accustomed flourish. Behind him came two others, not nearly so well accoutred but laughing and jabbering away with the ease of equals in station.

“What have we here?” bellowed the green man in German as he reached the bottom stair.

“It would seem… a recruit, Colonel,” answered the scribe.

Colonel Nells fixed me with a sharp eye. He stepped closer and I could see pockmarked cheeks and a large nose. His hair was short in the older fashion and he seemed to me to be in his years some forty and five. I didn’t wait for him to address me but took a half step back and doffed my hat with a bow.

“Your servant, Colonel. I am Richard Treadwell, son of Sir William Treadwell and I have a petition for you from a friend, the Earl of Pembroke.” I stepped forward and held out the letter in my hand.

His face was expressionless as he took it from my grasp. He cracked open the seal and unfolded the parchment. And then he read, aloud and in French, half mumbled. No one else spoke as Nells read on, harrumphing at one point, an eye brow raised at another. I could comprehend a few words here and there, in the main the letter being what I had hoped for: the begging of a favour to grant me a commission.

Nells finished and looked at me again, brandishing the letter in my direction. “And what experience of soldiering have you, sir?”

I should have anticipated such a question but I had not. “In truth, sir, none. But I am an excellent rider and have hunted greatly and with much success. And my swordsmanship –”

Nells raised his hand. “And what do you hunt, Master Treadwell? Please tell me that it’s mainly Spaniards and Jesuits but that you have also skewered a few Imperials with boar spears on several occasions.”

The officers roared and the Colonel’s lips curled in a half smile.

I could only stutter. “Colonel... I would beg the opportunity of a commission that I may prove my worth to you.”

Nells’s German was precise and withering “Master Treadwell, in several of His Majesty’s regiments of Horse there are gentlemen of worth such as you and these are proud to give service as mere troopers. Those who have seen service are granted commissions; those who have not may take to the ranks or else go home. If you would serve me and the King then you must earn an officer’s billet.”

I could offer no reply. Nells turned to the scribe.

“Johan, read him the Articles and if he is willing to take the oath find him a company whose complement is still under strength.”

He turned to me and folded the letter, before handing it to the scribe. “Good service will find its reward, Master Treadwell. And fear not, after a few battles there are always gaps to be filled.”

I was so pole-axed I was barely able to move aside as he walked past, followed by his comrades. I nodded dumbly as I was asked if I wished to enlist and I could feel my face grow hot and flushed as I was read the Articles of the army and then requested to sign or make my mark on the page of the muster book.

The officer in grey shuffled through his papers and pulled out one. “You are to be assigned to Captain Tischler’s company; his is yet in need of a few troopers.”

The scribe pulled out a leather pouch and dug out a few silver coins, which he placed on the table and pushed toward me. “There is your enlistment bounty.”

The other handed me a scribbled note after I had scooped up the coins with a shaking hand. “You will find the captain and his staff quartered at the end of this row. Give one of them this.”

And thus ended the transaction, in all but a moment. One that would mark me for life. I walked out of the house on feet of wood, and like one pixie-struck, stumbled towards the horses. Samuel stood with his arms over the saddle of his mount, a piece of straw dangling from his mouth.

“Are you an officer yet?”

I would rather have faced the guns of General Tilly than have told Samuel of my predicament more than once. And, the Devil take him, when I told him the truth, his mirth was ill-concealed.