Traitor's Blood (Civil War Chronicles) (14 page)

‘Sorry, Captain?’ Skellen replied.

‘Death. I said it’s the great leveller. They hated one another, these fellows. Killed one another, or tried to. And now they’re dead and gone and will lie side by side in this pit for eternity. We’ll probably be joining them one fine day soon.’

Stryker shook his head. ‘Enough. We have work to do.’ He turned his back on the dark swell of soil and stalked back to the village.

The evening was spent making preparations for the march. And a march it would be, after the theft of their steeds. Weapons were sharpened, muskets cleaned and snapsacks crammed with provisions. Stryker had spent some time discussing Tainton’s surprise arrival with Marcus Gammy, the farm-hand who had dozed on watch. The young man was now up on the high ground, keeping a keen gaze on the southern hills, having been given a black eye and the chance to truly earn his shilling.

Stryker fully expected to see a troop of avenging Parliamentarian horsemen explode from the night’s depths, but the darkness remained still and peaceful. The men slept.

Stryker roused his company to action long before the first dawn rays appeared on the eastern horizon. Thomas Archer, the village elder, had scorned Stryker’s insistence that the villagers should abandon the settlement. Tainton would not have been pleased to be forced to gallop into the hills by a band of faceless men with stout hearts and a good aim. He had been humbled. ‘He’ll be angry,’ Stryker had said. ‘He’ll take his troop south and annihilate what’s left of that hapless cavalry. And then he might turn around and come back for a taste of revenge.’

‘If it is God’s will for us to meet the good Captain Tainton again, then so be it,’ Archer had said. ‘But we shall not leave. Not for the likes of him.’ He gave a small, bitter smile. ‘Where would you have us go? We are loyal to our king, yet we cannot say the next village shares our beliefs. The country is dangerous, Captain. We do not know who to trust or where to run, my friend. We’ll stay and take our chances.’

In the darkness just before dawn, Stryker’s men had said their farewells and plunged into the forest’s gloom, climbing the hill that would lead them south.

‘Hold!’

The sentry stepped out on to the path and levelled a glinting pole-arm at the hooded figure’s chest.

The newcomer’s shadowed eyes fixed on the weapon, its curved head, made from an agricultural scythe, appearing all the more fearsome in the grey dawn. He did as he was told, raising his hands. ‘Good-day to you, my son.’

The sentry’s gaze dropped briefly to the hooded man’s neck, where a small wooden crucifix dangled. ‘You are a priest?’ he asked dubiously.

Father Benjamin Laney slowly moved one of his open palms to the edge of the hood and pulled it down to his shoulders, smiling benignly. ‘I am . . . Sergeant?’

The sentry nodded. ‘Sergeant it is.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s your business up ’ere, Father? Ain’t kindly weather to be out a-strolling the hills.’

‘Father Ethelbert and I’, Benjamin said with a quick glance to his companion who stood, silent and hooded, behind him, ‘have come from the church of St John the Evangelist at West Meon.’

The sentry’s eyes, small and black against his full sandy beard and stocky body, darted rapidly between the two figures. ‘For what purpose?’

‘Is it not obvious, my son? Your salvation. And that of your colleagues, naturally.’

The sergeant frowned. ‘Salvation? We’re God-fearin’ folk to a man, Father.’

Benjamin nodded. ‘Of course, of course. But do you observe your duty of daily worship?’

‘Well . . . we . . .’

‘I fear not, Sergeant.’ Benjamin
knew
not, for he and Lisette had spent the entire previous day observing the comings and goings of the garrison.

Old Winchester Hill was an Iron Age fort. No stone and ordnance here, but deep ridges carved by hand into chalk slopes, forming imposing ramparts built to repel Celtic hordes and Roman legionaries. Even now, many centuries after its construction, the fort stood stark and proud atop the downlands.

The fortified hill formed a peninsula, jutting out from the southern tip of the range, challenging attackers that might come up from the coast. The land around Old Winchester Hill, its enduring ramparts and steep slopes, were cleared for livestock, but north of the peninsula, where it connected with the main range, the forest preserved its stranglehold. It was here, Lisette had surmised, that they might approach the fort undetected.

As soon as the blizzard had abated, they had ridden out from Petersfield on the Frenchwoman’s piebald mare. The beast had whinnied and snorted its complaint against the cold snow that sloshed around its hooves in the sinister sunken bridleways west of the town, sepulchre-dark eyes twitching and nervous, but its footing had held. They had tethered the animal further down the slope, towards the village of West Meon, and had trudged up the hill on foot until they could see the stark ramparts. Keeping within the dense tangles of the forest, they had watched, a task made easier by the fort’s original architects. The Celts had purged the crest in its entirety so that not a tree or shrub remained. That would change, since sharpened stakes were already being placed around the fort’s perimeter, but at this moment Lisette and Benjamin thanked God that they could see a good deal of the flattened summit. Among the white dots of tent awnings, they counted a small force of cavalry, and perhaps a half-company of brown-coated infantry; watched frequent patrols come and go, and saw carts enter carrying what would probably be victuals or weaponry. But at no time had they seen any clergy. A permanent garrison almost always had a resident priest, especially in time of war. Regiments of the line would have a man of the cloth drawing a staff officer’s pay. And yet here there was apparently none.

‘You are building a permanent garrison atop this hill, Sergeant?’ Benjamin was saying.

The sergeant nodded instinctively, before realizing his mistake. ‘I am not allowed to discuss—’ he began.

‘Then you will require spiritual guidance. Prayers. Sermons. The soul of a soldier must be as full as his powder flask.’

Before the sentry could reply, Benjamin pressed on. ‘We at St John the Evangelist have been expecting a summons from your commanding officer ever since you took position here.’

The sergeant grunted. ‘He ain’t ’ad time to arrange a priest.’

‘Ah!’ Benjamin twisted his head to glance at Lisette’s still form behind him. ‘There you have it, Ethelbert!’ He turned back to the sergeant. ‘Then our trip into the hills has not been wasted. Lead on, kind sir. Ethelbert and I can begin work with you right away.’

The sentry’s name was Sergeant Drake, and he quickly arranged for one of his subordinates to take up his post, so that he could take the visitors to camp. As Benjamin and Lisette followed him along the track that led towards the peninsula, they passed through the gap in the defences that served as Old Winchester Hill’s entrance. They could see the scale of the refortification. Among the off-white tents there were piles of timber and cartloads of rubble, while a large cache of muskets, ammunition and blades was being built up in a tent near one of the burial mounds at the hill’s centre.

‘You mentioned your commander was absent, Sergeant?’ Benjamin asked.

‘Aye, the fort’s commander, that is. He leads the cavalry troop. The infantry and engineers report directly to Sergeant-Major Hunter. Here he is now.’

Benjamin and Lisette followed Drake’s beady gaze to where a tall, powerfully built man of middle age was stood in quiet conversation with a pair of musketeers. Hunter was well dressed, his coat and breeches of a fine quality. A voluminous orange sash engulfed his torso from left shoulder to right hip, and the hilt of his sword carried an ornate guard.

He turned to them and began to stride across the damp turf. ‘Make your report, Sergeant Drake.’

Stryker set a relentless pace. He was angry about losing the horses. It was a foolish mistake, for which he and his men were now paying dear. And it hurt to have lost Vos, the horse that had been his companion through so many dangers.

‘I took him off a Dutch lieutenant in a game of dice,’ he explained to Burton as they trudged amid the boughs of a skeletal forest.

‘Quite a prize, sir!’

‘Only he didn’t exactly win, Ensign,’ Forrester said.

‘Lost every throw,’ Stryker nodded. ‘Worst night of the campaign, that was. But the bugger tried to rob me afterwards.’

Burton gasped. ‘You killed him, sir?’

‘No. He was on our side, after all. But I made it clear that he’d been unwise. And then I took his mount for good measure.’

Burton swallowed. ‘I see. I wondered at the name, I must admit. It is Dutch then?’

‘Aye,’ Stryker confirmed. ‘It’s their word for Fox. He was a fine horse. Mind you, right now any broken-down would suit me better than this.’

As they marched, the band of four kept away from the main roads wherever possible, preferring the camouflage afforded by weaving between ancient coppices and thick oaks.

At night, when the temperature plummeted and stars glittered across the clear black sky, great gouts of vapour spewed from between the soldiers’ cracked lips. They shivered in their waxy buff-coats while they gnawed on dried bread and hard cheese, then curled into tight foetal positions in front of smouldering embers and dreamed fitfully of home and death and battle.

Occasionally they sighted a patrol, invariably mounted, cantering up a sunken bridleway or across the horizon at the summit of a distant hill, but there were always places to hide themselves until the danger had passed. The troops might well be of a Royalist persuasion, but in a land where spies and treachery were commonplace, would even their allies believe
their story? They were almost as likely to be strung up from the nearest tree by their own side as by the enemy. Stryker had the prince’s letter, of course, but their captor might prefer to hang them first and leave the questions for later.

Their path ran alongside the southern road to Winchester. They bypassed several villages in one afternoon, eventually resting in the woods outside of a place called Frilford Heath, where they sighted a cart drawn by two bony oxen. Taking a chance, Stryker stepped into the road to block the cart’s path, and discovered its driver was headed for market with a large haul of apples. The men stuffed their snapsacks full. Stryker sunk his teeth in immediately, the sharp chalky tang of the fruit’s juices cascading down his throat.

Presently the company reached the fields beyond Marcham. The land was relatively level and they could see a streak of silver that shimmered on the horizon beneath the dying sun. ‘The Ock,’ Ensign Burton said cheerfully.

‘The what, sir?’ asked Skellen.

‘The River Ock, Sergeant. Beautiful place, this. I used to fish here when I was a stripling.’

‘You’re still a stripling,’ Forrester said with a wry smile, causing a chorus of chuckles. ‘We could have used you down at the Southwark Players. Why, you could have donned the dress and played Juliet like you were born to the role!’

Burton reddened, and Stryker reached across to jab at Forrester’s tubby midriff with the butt of his musket, ‘While you’re more of the Falstaff type, eh, Forry?’

Burton chuckled. ‘The huge hill of flesh,’ the ensign added, igniting a glare from Forrester that had him hurrying to explain. ‘Th-that is to say
Henry the Fifth
, I believe, sir.’

‘Ensign, I am insulted! Wounded!’

Burton looked stricken.

‘It is
Henry the Fourth
, of course! Part one, to be precise.’

All the men laughed. They bellowed into the evening air, happy to have something to be merry about.

‘In my young
er
days, then,’ Burton said after a time, returning to his original tale of the shimmering river. ‘My father would take me to a little place further up stream, where the Ock meets the Thames.’

‘Well, you’re not fishing today, Mister Burton,’ Stryker said seriously. ‘You’re finding a way to cross this bloody stream.’

As dusk settled, they reached the river. Stryker had intended to make the far bank before nightfall, but the light had faded too far and it was impossible to spot a ford in the gathering gloom. The four men scoured the bank for a moored boat, but none was visible in the thick of rushes that choked the shallows at the water’s edge. Since no signs of civilization were evident, Stryker was comfortable enough to spend the night, at least its darkest hours, on the north side of the Ock. They would have to make do with the shelter provided by the drooping canopy of a weeping willow.