Grimes’s tall frame leaned over the desk like a willow in a breeze. “1531.”
“1531,” Maddocks echoed. “1531. The very beginning.”
“Beginning, sir?” Grimes said.
“When the heathen Americas began to bleed their vast wealth.” He ran his finger over the faint note, silently rereading the words to himself. He looked up at captain and lieutenant in turn. “This bible was owned by a Spaniard. A sailor. He took it across the ocean with Pizarro. I had a suspicion, when first I set eyes on it. But to know the provenance of such a piece is truly breathtaking.” Closing and lifting the bible, he rapped his knuckles on the metal bindings. “This is Inca gold, gentlemen. Captured by the conquistadors as they destroyed an entire empire. Some would say it is damned. Cursed, for the blood spilt in its taking. The Spaniards claim it is holy, given them by God for their conquest of a pagan land. Who can tell, truly? But sailors, ever a superstitious breed, revere such baubles as you or I revere scripture itself. In short, Marek Nowak wants his book back and he'd walk through hell itself to get it. Oh, this really is a blessed day.” He laughed when the others simply stared, slack-jawed and lost. “Not only do I have in my possession a priceless treasure but the most ruthless man in the Commonwealth Navy believes the Ironside Highwayman has stolen it. Nowak is not the kind of man to be duped. He and his gun crew are unrepentant papists in a ship full of God-fearing Protestants. They are an aberration in a fleet commanded by reformers. Blake owes his victories at sea to the certain fact that the Almighty is on his side. Yet there Nowak stands, beside his gun, firing hot iron at England's enemies while he counts his rosary and crosses his chest. Nowak is not liked, he is not wanted but he is tolerated. Firstly, because he is good – very good – at the business of killing. Secondly, because he is a man that other men fear. He is not one to be crossed. He is not one to be contradicted. He is not one to be made a fool of. And he believes Samson Lyle has made a fool of him.”
Maddocks set the bible down and took another drink as he waited for his words to percolate through his officers’ skulls. Captain Beck said, “If we keep the book, sir, this Marek will murder the Chalton fellow.”
“An unfortunate consequence, to be certain,” Maddocks acknowledged, “but a small sacrifice for the greater good, wouldn’t you say?” When he saw Beck was unconvinced, he continued, “Lyle is the worst kind of hypocrite, Captain. A brigand and a traitor, yet brim-full with his own sense of righteousness. He has pledged to retrieve this book. Well, he cannot, for it is here, praise God! But he will yet try to rescue the Chalton man. He won't be able to resist.” He looked at Grimes. “And what shall we do, Lieutenant?”
“Nothing, sir?”
“Nothing,” Maddocks repeated, satisfied that at least one of his protégés understood the way real life worked. “You and I and Captain Beck, here and all our men will go about our business. We shall return to Petersfield. To Rowlands Castle and to East Meon.” He picked up the bible again and opened the little chest. “We shall ride the bridleways, inspect the villages and keep law, order and public morality on behalf of Major-General William Goffe, God bless him. And we shall let Marek Nowak kill the Ironside Highwayman.” He placed the bible in the chest and closed the lid. “A fine thing indeed.”
#
Portsmouth Point, Portsmouth
The men circled one another like bulldogs in a pit, the fiddler played a jaunty reel, the crowd bayed for blood. The air was thick, hot, infused with spittle and blood, fuggy with the acrid stench of bodies and breath and ale and unadulterated excitement.
Marek Nowak blinked stinging sweat from his eyes, the blurry drape swept quickly away. Across the stained sawdust, panting hard, the twisted features of the leering Turk resolved before him. Like Marek, he was naked from the waist up, broad chest gleaming, the tuft of black hair at his sternum smeared with blood that dripped from his severely buckled nose. There were dark patches at his collarbones and biceps where Marek’s attacks had been blocked, leaving bruises that would, God willing, take their own toll as the contest wore on. The Turk’s eyes were puffing too, each cut deeply, one at the corner, one right across the lid but within the folds of livid, distended skin the glittering jet stare persisted.
The Jolly Sailor was located to the south of Portsmouth Point, adjacent to the gate that separated the lawless crescent of land from the rest of the town. It was slanted and timber-framed, squeezed in on both sides by hovels and bawdy houses, the epicentre of a rampart of debauchery and vice that glowered over the Solent's crashing grey waves. It hummed with the sounds of humanity; and Marek Nowak embraced it like a lover.
It had all started with a game of Ruff wherein the Turk, boatswain of a Portuguese slaver up from Senegambia, had won a deal of money at Marek’s expense. That, of course, had all been by the Polish gunner’s design, culminating in an escalation of stakes and coin that had climaxed with a final, lucrative challenge. Fists in place of cards. Give me the chance to win it back, my friend. Double or nothing!
Now, the better part of twenty minutes later, as the grimacing Turk spat a crimson gobbet onto the clotted shavings, Marek decided that enough was enough. It was time to collect his winnings. He squinted through the pungent pall of sot weed smoke. The sky outside had been pale grey when he had stepped over the Jolly Sailor’s foot-worn threshold but now he could see only the room's glowing reflection in the black windows. Somewhere in the background the fiddle played on. The attack was low when it came. A lunge for Marek’s midriff, the intention to hoist him bodily into the air and slam him to earth but Marek sidestepped, giving his opponent a shove so that he staggered past. The pair spun together, joined once again. Marek evaded a hammering right, the air pulsing at his ear and planted one of his own on the end of the boatswain’s chin, snapping back the sinewy neck. The Turk, the taller of the two, rocked rearward to keep his feet and shook his head like a rain-drenched dog, dark droplets scattering from the matted ends of his long hair. The crowd yowled their appreciation. He put a knuckle to his chin as if checking it had not shattered, grinned crookedly from behind black stubble and spat a globule of tainted spittle onto the sawdust between them.
Marek snuck a downward glance, catching the bright wink of a couple of teeth and slid his tongue around his mouth to confirm they were not his own. Satisfied, he twisted his torso to present the smallest target for the Turk’s superior reach, thrust his left foot out in front and bounced gently on his toes, ignoring the exhausted pleas of his aching thighs. His heart raced, his limbs felt white-hot, his swollen fists numb.
The Turk came again, his muscular frame gliding like a ghoul in the hellish torchlight, the crowd roaring him on. Marek dodged a left jab but could not avoid the heavy straight right that followed. He juddered back, stamping his feet to make sure he still controlled them. He could feel a patch at the corner of his mouth already beginning to swell, spat thickly as the Turk had spat and then they came together again. The Turk swayed around Marek’s punch, came inside the range of his fists and grasped Marek’s head, grappling at his ears, holding, twisting, forcing him down as if trying to drown him in an invisible pool. Marek could smell the Turk, taste the bloody sweat that showered them both and the pain at the base of his neck told him he would soon crumple. He lashed twice at the taller man's wire-haired midriff to little effect and launched upwards, clubbing the back of his skull into the Turk’s face. Bone crunched, skin split, new blood fountained. Only when Marek pushed away did he see that the blood was the Turk’s, the man's nose and mouth smashed to a gnarled mess, his bulbous fists clawing ineffectually as he reeled away.
The mob shrieked. Marek gave chase, hands locking at the Turk's arm and waist as his opponent floundered unsighted, mewing like a wounded calf. Marek dipped, twisted at the hips, wrenching hard and the Turk lurched off his feet, barrelling over Marek's dropped shoulder. Marek went with him, letting the bigger man's momentum take him and he left the ground too, tumbling onto the hapless boatswain so that he landed with an elbow driven hard
into the dazed fighter's windpipe. The mob bellowed their delight and chagrin and from the corner of his eye Marek could see the glint of metal as coins slipped between avaricious palms. He rolled away, gasping. The Turk was clutching his neck, a drainpipe gargle easing between split lips.
Marek hauled himself to his feet. A grossly corpulent man – the local butcher if Marek recalled correctly – waddled into the makeshift ring and began the count. His was the role of fight custodian, employed to keep decorum when all around lusted for blood and violence. Steadily and with the echo of every witness's voice, the numbers climbed.
The Turk did not.
Then came a torrent of noise as the half-minute mark was reached. The Turk's second crouched over the prone form, pleading with him to stand but to no avail.
Hands came then, grasping Marek's drenched arms and holding them aloft. The pain descended, as it always did, fast at the heels of a fight finished. Marek was vaguely aware of his opponent beginning to stir, rocking to the side to vomit. He felt himself sway a little and a trio of barely pubescent pot-boys gathered around to bolster his bulk like snot-nosed buttresses. He waved them away in irritation, totting up his teeth again, just to be sure and made his way over to one of the tables his men had commandeered. They cheered him as ever and Louis, his oldest comrade, pushed a slopping pot of ale into his distended hand.
After slaking his thirst, his gaze fell upon the one member of the group manifestly not enjoying himself. “What did you think?”
The stocky but sallow adolescent stared, eyes wide as plates, around the smoky room. “You won.”
“Good money to be made at the prize play, boy.” Marek grinned as he followed the dour youth’s gaze. “An education, yes?”
“It is a vile place,” Botolph Spendlove said with revulsion. He rubbed a hand over eyes as bruised as Marek’s, as if he might wipe away the sinful scenes. “A lewd place.”
“That it is, boy,” Marek said. “One of my favourite places on God’s earth.”
“Why are we here?”
“Spice Island lies outside the town boundary. Law extends only as far as the wall and gate, yonder. To lodge in the town invites the tentacles of your Puritan Parliament to entwine us, constrict us. But here? Here we are kings.”
“Spice Island? They store spice here?”
Marek guffawed. “It is so named for its...” he pursed his lips as he sought the apt word, “flavoursome ways.”
Botolph screwed up his mouth as if he tasted something putrid. “Drink, cards and pugilism.”
“More than that, boy,” Marek answered with relish. “So much more.”
Botolph looked up at the balcony, where a party of wide-skirted women loitered. One appeared to catch his eye, waving. He cast his gaze hurriedly to the table’s ale-rings.
“Ha!” Marek exclaimed, raising his jar to the ladies, who chirped vulgar remarks in response, making him think of budgies at the bars of a cage. “You’re going to die soon, boy. I do not wish it but I have made a pledge. Get up there and become a man before it is too late.”
Botolph’s frame stiffened, the vein at his neck pulsing visibly. “You’ll not get away with this.”
“Is that so?” Marek answered contemptuously. “Have you any inkling as to my value aboard ship? Laws of the land do not apply. All the while I can bring my gun to bear with accuracy and speed, I am General Blake’s man and none may touch me.” He leaned in, jabbing a finger into the youth’s chest. “I want my property returned. You stole it, your master has it. If he elects to deprive me of what is mine, I will kill you dead. Make no mistake.”
Botolph’s eyes glistened with a wellspring of tears. “I have no knowledge of this property, sir. None at all. I’m a God fearing man, not a thief.”
Marek almost hit the boy for that but he wished no more burning pain for knuckles that had already served him so well. He glanced at Botolph’s crippled hand, resting at the table’s edge. “Your affliction is my proof. Christ but I should let Duncan take his whip to you again.” He was gratified to see the boy wince at the prospect, for his back was well-striped already. “You are in the employ of this renegade; this Ironside Highwayman.”
“I’d never clapped eyes on him till moments before you stepped into the Lion,” Botolph bleated.
Marek drank deeply, quaffing the ale and belching. He inspected his fists, opening and closing the damaged fingers tentatively. “It is the same tired protest you have bored me with a hundred times, boy. I am no longer listening. The highwayman will bring my property, or I will bring him a corpse. There can be no other way.”
THURSDAY
Warblington Castle, Hampshire
It was still dark when Hobb took Whistler from his cell. He was cajoled across the potholed yard, as he had been the previous day but this time there was no rendezvous with great men in the slighted castle’s lonesome tower. This time he was shown through one of the breaches in the crumbled walls, with only a single lamp, a scattering of stars and a sliver of moon to illuminate the way and everything obscured by the billowing fog of his own breath. His feet crunched on frost-hardened ground and his chest rasped with trepidation.
“You’re for Petersfield,” Hobb, as pungent as ever, explained as they walked. “God have mercy on you.”
Before Whistler could reply, they were out in the clearing beyond the wall. Here, where the foot of the fortress’s old boundary was banked by a deep drift of rubble, the land had been transformed into a place of construction; or, rather, demolition. Planks criss-crossed like miniature roads, so that barrow wheels might traverse the worst of the mud, while workbenches could be seen in the gloom alongside earth-filled gabions and half-a-dozen wagons. They were removing the stone and flint from the ancient fortification, he realised. Bringing down the curtain walls, breaking up the largest sections and carting it away for works elsewhere. The nearby village, presumably, though that was anyone’s guess.
Horses whickered out in the darkness. Whistler squinted after the sounds. Hobb gestured with a chubby hand towards the treeline, some thirty paces distant. Before the trees there was a black shape, blotting out the trunks, its outline – a regular square with a domed roof – similar to a house but smaller than he would expect. As they drew closer, the sounds of the horses grew louder and the detail of the place gradually began to resolve. It was a dilapidated old pug mill house, once used in constructing the castle and now, he thought wryly, most likely a shelter for the men who tore the place down. It was also a shelter for the soldiers who would escort him to his death, for he could see the four big destriers now, tethered to stakes at the side of the pug mill. There was a thick coil of rope attached to one of their saddles and Whistler’s guts lurched as he understood that that was surely intended for him.
“Over there, fellow,” the voice of a man came suddenly from the murk, putting Whistler’s heart in his mouth. He looked round, searching for the speaker. The man growled, “I said over there.”
Whistler saw his outline, tall and lean but, before he could respond, he noticed it was Hobb that was hurrying to remove himself. All at once, he noticed the speaker’s outstretched arm and the unmistakable shape of the pistol at its extent and he saw, too, that the weapon was indeed trained upon his erstwhile gaoler.
As Hobb moved, the glow of his lantern briefly snaked across the scene. Before it was extinguished, Whistler saw a face he had seen before. Green eyes, glinting like a prowling tomcat’s behind that poised pistol. He glimpsed the interior of the pugmill beyond. The men crouching, huddled together in fear, wrists bound between knees.
He gaped at the man he had encountered outside the rain-lashed chapel at Idsworth. “You.”
“Where is the bible? Come, Master Whistler, do not play the fool with me.”
“A soldier has it,” Whistler replied. “A black-haired bastard with a yellow scarf.”
“Maddocks?”
Whistler shrugged. “Might have been.”
The man with the pistol advanced a pace. “I h
ave no particular desire to turn you loose. If you would have your freedom, you must earn it.”
Whistler felt the bravado leak away. He nodded quickly. “Maddocks, aye. A colonel. He has it. The soldiers took it from my snapsack and that bastard had it when he questioned me. That's the last I saw of it, I swear.”
“Used it to wipe their arses by now,” another voice, crackling with age and coloured by the vowels of the westernmost counties, came from within the pugmill house. “Like as bliddy not.”
Whistler laughed scornfully at that, despite his fear. “You think he’s tossed a solid gold book into his fire?”
There was a pause, pregnant with realisation. “Gold?” Yet another new speaker from inside the shelter. This time a girl. Whistler wondered how many had come to affect this strangest of rescues. If a rescue was even what it was.
“You did not know?” he asked. “It is a bible. A popish one. All in Latin. Means nothing to me. But the bindings are covered in gold. Tis a very fine thing.”
“Little wonder you pinched it,” the old man’s disembodied voice echoed in the dark.
“Aye, well, Jesu knows I wish I hadn't now.”
The man with the green eyes said, “Is he there? Maddocks, is he still in the castle?”
#
“Jeremy?” Colonel Francis Maddocks called in response to the knock at his door. He was still in bed, the watery rays of a new dawn casting his chamber in dim grey.
“Sally, sir,” came the reply from outside.
Startled to hear a female voice, Maddocks heaved his body up, tiredness counterbalanced by the relief of removing himself from the rudimentary straw palliasse that had made him itch most of the night. For the sake of decorum, he went to the wardrobe in which Jeremy, his usual servant, had hung his breeches and coat and quickly dressed before giving the order to enter. When the girl, who was about twelve at a guess, pushed open the door, he curtly demanded an explanation.
Highwayman- The Complete Campaigns Page 24
