Traitor's Blood (Civil War Chronicles) (18 page)

The white-haired man was immediately joined by two younger fellows. They were darker in complexion, but carried the leader’s thick brow and sturdy build.

The three advanced, slowing to a canter now that their quarry had finally turned to face them. The odds were not good for the lone soldier, but, despite facing three blades, he was confident. After all, three was better than six. The others must have gone after Bain.

The sharp report of a pistol cracked the crisp air. The shot had not come from any of the men on this side of the southern road, but it threw Makepeace’s confidence. He had not bargained on firearms.

Kicking his mount forward, he raised his tuck high, challenging the trio of yokels to close with him. They duly obliged, and, as their own beasts surged forward, Makepeace caught the glint of light bouncing against the dark grey of pistol barrels. He kicked forward suddenly, compelling his horse to charge, clamping eyes tight shut as his body was jolted back by the animal’s motion.

The clubmen fired. Three high-pitched coughs making his guts twist. But the aims were not true.

Slash. The old man went down, Makepeace’s blade sliding along his opponent’s own weapon, glancing up off the hilt and into the jowl-fringed jaw.

Makepeace galloped past while the body rocked back from the saddle, the wails of his victim’s sons ringing as he wheeled his horse round for the next assault.

It came quickly and viciously. One of the sons, round-faced, with bushy black eyebrows and teeth that jutted from his mouth like tusks, came surging forward, swinging what looked like a partizan high above his head. As Makepeace engaged him, he wondered distractedly at the presence of such a weapon here, of all places, but almost laughed when he realized it was nothing more than a scythe.

The clubman’s blow was heavy, but Makepeace knew how to counter such force with the correct stroke and an even balance. He parried the makeshift weapon, slewing round again for the next attack. This time the second son joined his brother, a meaty cudgel lofted in a huge fist.

‘Well I say!’ Makepeace cackled wildly. ‘This one’s an even uglier brute than his father and brother combined! My commiserations!’

The man screamed an obscenity at him and powered forward, spittle foaming at fat, purple lips. Makepeace let his body sway beyond the cudgel’s short range, easily evading the blunt shaft, and lashed out with a venomous back-handed stroke. It did not penetrate the hide coat deep enough to kill, but the force was such that the cutting edge connected with flesh all the same, making the clubman cry out, arching his back against the fiery pain.

Makepeace did not stay long enough to carry out the killing stroke, for the second clubman was there again, swiping the air near the captain’s head with the curved scythe. The weapon was unwieldy and, though fearsome to look at, required a great deal of skill to be made effective. Makepeace found little trouble in parrying the advances, yet he could not come close enough to ply a decisive stroke of his own, such was the length of the scythe.

Makepeace’s horse stumbled. It did not threaten to throw him from the saddle, but the beast’s rhythm had gone, its
comfortable footing momentarily lost. Makepeace rounded the cudgel-bearer again and blocked the scythe, and as the animals passed one another to turn again like a group of medieval jousters, he glanced down to the horse’s right flank. There it was. A patch of crimson against the beast’s light-brown coat. Small and round, as if someone had ground a raspberry into the short, bristly hairs, it seemed innocuous, but Makepeace knew well that in a short time the horse’s strength would fail and its balance would wane still further. One of the three clubmen had not been entirely ineffective when aiming his pistol.

Makepeace decided that the skirmish would need to be brought to an abrupt end.

He chose the spittle-faced man with the cudgel as his target. Closing quickly, while his steed still had the strength to carry the fight to the enemy, he stabbed forward with a series of short, sharp thrusts. The clubman dodged the blade admirably, avoiding all but one of the strokes, but the last caught him in the flesh of his shoulder. It was not deep, but the steel had penetrated nerves and muscle, and his hand jerked in involuntary spasm, releasing the cudgel meekly to bounce along the churned mud. A look of horror swept across the man’s face, and he raised his arm to block the next attack.

Makepeace lowered his sword marginally and jammed it into the reeling clubman’s midriff. It met with stiff resistance at first, the keen tip driving through the thick layers of the man’s coat, but enough of the force remained to carry it beyond the tough hide and into the softness beyond.

The clubman screamed. Makepeace twisted the blade, feeling it slicing at his victim’s guts, before wrenching it free. The wounded man pitched back as the weapon jerked loose. His frightened horse bolted, leaving the stricken clubman to flail haphazardly, bent backwards across its hindquarters, a spray of bright blood staining the air in his wake.

Makepeace turned to the man carrying the scythe. ‘Your turn, lad.’

The clubman threw down his weapon, pulled savagely on his mount’s reins, and galloped away. Eli Makepeace threw down his sword and laughed to the heavens with triumph and exhaustion.

‘
S
-skewered one,’ Sergeant Malachi Bain said as he greeted Makepeace back at the junction, ‘and the other two skulked off without a fight. Weren’t up to much, were they, sir?’

‘I don’t know so much,’ Makepeace said ruefully. He stood holding his own horse by its bridle. ‘My goddamned mare’s lame.’

Bain cocked his head to the side, studying the animal’s wound. ‘Pistol.’

‘Of course it was a bloody pistol. They didn’t have cannon, did they?’

Bain ignored him. ‘Shoot her, sir.’

Makepeace nodded. ‘It’ll be damnably slow going for yours with two to carry though.’ He turned away, muttering angrily as he unfastened the buckles and straps that attached the tack to his ailing horse.

He hefted the saddle on to his shoulder and staggered over to the dense tangle of thorns at the road’s edge. ‘Bloody Roundheads can reimburse me for this,’ he said, before hurling the heavy leather seat over the hedge, followed by the bridle and reins.

‘Throw me the saddlebag, sir,’ Bain said. ‘Hercules, here, is strong. H-he’ll manage.’ Bain hooked the extra bag to his saddle, while the officer fiddled with his carbine’s firing mechanism.

Makepeace strode up to the limping mare and shot it between the eyes. ‘Now let’s waste no more time.’

The light-cavalry commander was Frederick Lawrence, recently promoted to the rank of major by his current master, Sir John Paulet, the Marquis of Winchester. He laughed aloud at Stryker’s revelation, and jumped down from his expensive saddle. Feet squelching in the sodden, ice-crusted soil, Lawrence had stridden confidently over to the trees to offer Stryker his hand. He did not ask the small company to prove their allegiance, for he knew Stryker’s name from countless Royalist despatches. He had naturally been shocked to find the group so far from home, but a glance at Prince Rupert’s seal on Stryker’s precious letter of introduction had been explanation enough.

‘I am Sir John’s bodyguard,’ the major announced cheerfully, glancing around at Stryker and his men, who had squeezed on to the horses behind his own troopers. The group, now nine strong, made their way south to Basing House. It was a grand home, a palace in all but name, rising from the lush fields of north Hampshire. Paulet maintained a small but elite garrison within his walls, part of it, he now learned, being a cavalry force commanded by Major Lawrence. ‘His attack dog, he calls me! Though I don’t attack much at present. Our eastern flank, Sussex and Kent, is almost entirely for Parliament. There’s fair support for our cause in Hampshire, but the buggers are spreading their pestilence further west all the time. We’re on the defensive, Captain. Ever on the defensive.’

Frederick Lawrence was clean-shaven, big-nosed, thin-lipped and afflicted by an involuntary tick that made his eyelids flicker as he spoke. He might have been an exceptionally tall man – taller, even, than Prince Rupert – had it not been for his unusually hunched and rounded shoulders. His spindly frame curved forward midway up the spine, so that he stooped like a willow.

‘Had to get this plate fashioned ’specially,’ he said, wrapping knuckles against the polished steel at his chest. ‘Damn this cursed hump. Set me back a mort, I don’t mind telling you. Still, I’m mighty glad I could afford the trappings. Wouldn’t have lasted a moment in the infantry! Besides, I like horses. They’re loyal, they’re fast, and they don’t answer back.’ He paused. ‘Surprised you’re out here on foot, if I’m honest, Captain Stryker.’

Stryker described the skirmish at Archer’s village and the loss of their horses. Lawrence grimaced. ‘My sympathies, sir. A good steed is hard to come by in times such as these. Stone me if they weren’t all snaffled up by the armies in quick time.’

‘Aye, that’s right enough,’ Stryker agreed. ‘My own, Vos, was with me for many a year. Never found another like him.’

‘Vos?’ Lawrence considered the unusual name. ‘He was red then?’

Stryker grinned. ‘Aye, sir. Sorrell. Had a chestnut hide that shines red in the sun.’ He was not a sentimental man, but Vos had been a constant since his Flanders days. He had galloped through gunfire and taken many a wound, even saving Stryker’s life on occasion with his rapid hooves.

‘He?’ Lawrence said. ‘Not a gelding, I’d wager.’

‘No, sir.’

Lawrence’s eyes twitched busily. ‘Stallion’s a grand beast if you can tame him. Not for the faint of heart. Ordinarily I’d advise against ’em for battle. Too blasted skittish. But if you win their trust there’s no animal finer.’ He leaned forward, stroking a gloved hand along his steed’s auburn mane. ‘Samson has his stones. I considered chopping them off when I purchased him, but I didn’t want to douse your fire, did I, boy?’ He straightened up. ‘Yes indeed. Just don’t get yourself a pale one, grey or white, or the like.’

‘Why’s that, sir?’ Burton asked.

‘Because you’ll shine like a bloody beacon when the moon’s out,’ Stryker replied.

‘You have it, Captain,’ Lawrence agreed, nodding vigorously. ‘Mark my words. A white horse’ll get you killed quicker than dropping a match in a powder magazine!’

Lawrence had been on patrol when he’d bumped into Stryker’s group. His orders were simple: scout for the enemy. If the opposing force was small, make all haste to engage them in battle. If, however, the force was too big to handle, and therefore a genuine threat to Basing, he was to retreat smartly and report to his superiors.

Sir John Paulet, Lawrence told them, was nervous. Not exactly frightened, for he was not a man to be easily cowed. ‘But he knows the sons of rancid whores’ll be at him soon if he ain’t careful,’ the major had said. Paulet was sending out as many patrols as he could muster without leaving the palace dangerously weakened.

‘You’re a fair trek from home, though, sir,’ Forrester said.

‘Perhaps for you plodders, but it’s less than a couple of days in the saddle.’

Lawrence led the way, his helmet tethered to the bright leather saddle that had been polished to a keen shine by hours of contact with his rump. He held the reins in one hand, and ran the other through auburn hair that fell about his shoulders in tightly packed curls. A look of embarrassment crept across his face. ‘I thought you the vanguard of some greater pack. When we galloped after you, you took flight. It settled the matter in my mind.’

‘Well I’m just glad your carbines failed to catch any of my lads before we resolved the error,’ Stryker said dryly.

‘As am I, Captain. Your reputation precedes you. I’d have been a dead man. Still, no harm done, eh?’ the major said, his mood brightening. ‘And I’m devilish glad to make your acquaintance.’

‘Reputation?’

Lawrence grinned, displaying an impressively complete set of small white teeth. ‘Come now, Captain, don’t be coy. Your
service on the Continent is almost the stuff of legend. To those of us of a martial persuasion, anyway.’

Stryker nodded briefly at the compliment. ‘Kind of you to say, Major.’

The cavalry officer eased himself straight suddenly, wincing as his spine protested. ‘God punishes me for something,’ he said with a long groan, before slouching again. ‘And what of Kineton Fight?’

‘We all four played our part,’ Stryker said.

‘Then I must congratulate you all, gentlemen,’ Lawrence exclaimed.

‘We were there to fight these hard-nosed Puritan arseholes, sir,’ Skellen growled. ‘We did what we had to.’

The major turned to look at him. ‘It may surprise you to learn, Sergeant,’ Lawrence said, in an almost sheepish tone, ‘that I am a reformer.’

‘A Puritan?’ Skellen replied, unable to hide his surprise and discomfort.

‘Your words, not mine,’ the major replied. ‘I prefer reformer. And “Sir”, for that matter, Sergeant, when you address me.’

‘Perhaps you fight for the wrong side, sir?’ Ensign Burton broke in.

Lawrence rounded on him, twisting rapidly in the saddle to thrust an accusatory finger toward the young man’s chest. ‘Curb your impertinence, boy,’ he snarled, eyelids flickering maniacally, his former affability vanishing like a shadow at dusk, ‘or I’ll have it flogged from you.’