Highwayman: Ironside

by Michael Arnold

  And someone stepped out from the choir.

  Maddocks and Lyle both turned to look at the masked child who had walked into the blood-streaked ring.

  "Enough play, Samson," the girl's voice announced. It was a surreal and incongruous sight. A girl clothed all in white, her appearance and tone angelic, yet when she drew her hands from behind her back, they bore objects synonymous with death. She raised both pistols, ugly and black in her grasp. One was pointed at Maddocks, the other swept perpetually back and forth, threatening every soul in the room. "'Bout time we went home, I reckon."

  Lyle went to her, feeling Maddocks' gaze like a dagger in his spine. He took one of the pistols, checked that it was cocked, and stretched out his arm. "It has been a wonderful evening," he announced, "and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. But now it is sadly time to take our leave." A murmur of impotent discontent rustled through the room, like a stinging breeze heralding a storm. He noticed the crowd at the doorway, faces still clamouring for a view of the incident, bodies pushing through to the small chamber from the great hall beyond. Foremost in that pack was the stocky form of Kit Walmsley, his nose a ragged mess. Lyle winked at him, causing the older man to step into the temporary circle as he took the bait like a crazed animal, but a shake of Lyle's pistol halted him just as quickly.

  Silence followed. Tension. People were still moving at the entrance to the hall, and Lyle knew that the armed guards must surely be moving through the throng. He glanced over his shoulder. "Ready?"

  Eustace Grumm, still masked in green, was standing beneath the lintel of the rear door. "As I'll ever be, you mad fool."

  Lyle laughed. He and Bella edged backwards, pistols still poised. The circle of onlookers seemed to contract as they moved, terror at witnessing the fight turning rapidly to rage. A pair of soldiers broke through the crowd, as Lyle had predicted. They each brandished muskets, the wheel-locks wound and ready to fire. Still, though, the risk seemed to deter them. The range was nothing, a matter of yards, but a misfire would kill innocents and they were too timid to take the chance.

  "Shoot!" a voice barked suddenly, making the soldiers - and consequently everyone else in the room - flinch violently. "I said shoot the villains, you spineless women!"

  Sir Frederick Mason's rotund form waddled into view. He was ruddy faced and furious, spluttering indignantly as he spoke, the veins in his nose raised and livid like a blood-spun cobweb.

  At his shoulder another, taller man appeared. He had discarded the salmon-hued beak to reveal a handsome face that was lantern-jawed, with a wide mouth and deep-set eyes. "Hold!" he ordered.

  "Why thank you, Sir John," Lyle addressed Hippisley.

  The master of the house ignored him, turning instead to Mason. "I'll not have muskets fired in my damned house, Sir Frederick. No, sir, I will not. The safety of my guests is paramount."

  "Now, Sir John," Lyle said, "I would ask these men to leave." He nodded at the guards. "Both of you. Back into the hall. Have a dance, perhaps."

  The soldiers looked bewildered, uncertain, but Hippisley raised a staying palm. "You will remain." He swung his gaze upon Lyle. "You are trapped, Major Lyle. You cannot possibly hope to make it out of Hinton alive. There are guards everywhere, you fool. Not only these, but at the door. Out in the grounds. You think me a dullard?"

  "No, Sir John, not a bit of it. Indeed, that very fact is what has made this night so utterly thrilling."

  "Then admit when the game is up. Hand yourself in. No one else need be harmed."

  Grumm and Bella were with him, which meant he had no further need to linger, and Lyle took a step rearward, ready to make for the door. The musketeers might shoot when they were out in the open, but he wagered they would not discharge their weapons inside the house. He drew breath to call to his companions. It was worth the gamble. But at the corner of his eye he caught movement. A woman with long, dark hair, dressed in green and silver. She had discarded the mask, and he saw the corners of her mouth twitch upwards as, he had come to learn, they often did when she regarded Samson Lyle. He knew he should just flee while he had the chance, but something in her eyes made him act. He lunged for her. She resisted, screamed. He kissed her hard on the lips, their teeth clinking. She struggled, screamed again.

  Sir Frederick Mason stepped forward, his face taut. "Touch her again, you evil filth, and I shall have the skin flayed from your bones!"

  "Unhand me, sir!" Felicity Mumford shrieked. The crowd echoed her anguish.

  "I'm afraid you're a tad late for that, Sir Freddy," Lyle grinned, and he kissed her again, more softly this time, before spinning her about, pinning her against him with one arm, and lifting the gun to her throat with the other. She twisted as if to resist, but it was not a concerted effort. "Now, if you'd be so gracious, please remove those ghastly muzzles from such a well-appointed room."

  "Sir John," Mason bleated at the renewed threat, his bluster punctured.

  "You'll die a criminal's death!" Sir John Hippisley bellowed, but he waved the musketeers away. They melted back into the crowd.

  Lyle put his lips to his captive's ear. "Well? What is it?"

  "A traitor's death!" Colonel Maddocks, sword still in hand, snarled over the thrum of the guests who were in equal parts appalled and enthralled.

  Lyle dragged Felicity away from her uncle, and from Hippisley and Walmsley and Maddocks. Her heels scraped as she lost her footing on the tiles, but he took her weight easily. The crowd shifted to let them through, Grumm holding the doorway, Bella swinging her pistol in warning against any who might think themselves courageous.

  Felicity tilted back her head as they moved. Her breath was warm as she whispered. "Three days, Major. At dawn."

  "I would kiss you again," Lyle hissed.

  "Please do not. I fear it would rather compromise my position."

  "Thank you. I will come for you, Miss Mumford. I swear it."

  "Do not bother, sir. The life of a brigand is hardly something to which I aspire."

  “In time, they will know you’ve told me,” Lyle said as they reached the doorway. “What will happen to…?”

  “Me?” she cut in. “I can deal with Uncle Frederick, do not worry.”

  Lyle stared at their pursuers. "Have the dowdy wench, Sir Freddy!" He released her, slapping her rump hard as she bolted back into the room. She yelped in exaggerated outrage. He laughed. "I grow tired of her already!"

  Lyle, Bella and Grumm raced along the passageway through which they had earlier been conveyed, the small flames of candles guttering madly as they rushed past. There were a couple of footmen in their way, shimmering in their red and blue suits, but they did nothing in the face of the armed fugitives, instead pressing themselves tight against the timber clad walls to allow the trio through. Bella was laughing, high-pitched and giddy with excitement. Grumm was cursing their collective stupidity, though Lyle wagered he would be grinning behind his mask. They knew a pursuit would already be underway, Maddocks and his men charging out of the mirrored chamber like a herd of stampeding heifers, but they were already at the large porch, the door open, stars pricking the black sky beyond.

  "Took your time," Lyle called as they burst out into the fresh night.

  Grumm ripped off his mask, tossing it into one of the shrubs that lined the path along which they ran. "There were eight, Major. Eight o' the buggers to gather. Not easy, I can tell you."

  "But you succeeded?"

  "I'd have told you by now if I hadn't, you beef-witted lump."

  Lyle eased his pistol's pan cover closed, thrust it into his belt, and clapped Grumm between the shoulders. "You're a grand fellow, Eustace!"

  Shouts rang out behind. Lyle glanced back to see a score of men pour out from the manor house. "How far?"

  "See for yourself," Grumm rasped.

  Sure enough, as they passed a stand of ancient elms, the three came to a small clearing. The main high road lay just beyond, but before that, tethered loosely beneath the branches of a soaring ash, were Star, Tyrann
ous and Newt. The horses looked up from their grazing, whickering gently as they recognised their respective keepers.

  Star snorted irritably when Lyle untied the reins and leapt into the saddle. The big grey evidently sensed the urgency in his master's actions, and Lyle stroked the beast's thick neck, praying there would be no panic this time.

  Shots split the night. The trio flinched, ducked down, though the musketeers would be too far away for the range to be effective. "Calm, boy, calm," Lyle murmured softly into Star's sharp ear. He straightened, looked across at Grumm. "What did you do with them?"

  Grumm grinned, his face a rictus of wolfish pride and sharp, crooked teeth, as he pointed away to his left. "There. Took an age to get 'em comfy enough to share my wine."

  Eustace Grumm had been chief of a complex ring of smugglers in his native Cornwall. He had used intimidation, poison, steel and guile to outwit his rivals and the Customs men alike. But after a rival had tipped them off as to his whereabouts one balmy night a year after the First Civil War had reached its bloody conclusion, he had barely escaped England with his life. He spent the following years living as a vagrant on the Continent, frightened and destitute. Surviving off scraps discarded by the kitchens of the great town houses of Calais, stealing when he could, and spending much of his time existing in the shadows, evading the thief-takers who lurked in his wake. And then, on the road south to Paris, the lawmen had caught up with him. They found him in a busy coaching inn, beat him and dragged him outside, the noose already slung over the bough of a stooped tree.

  But a man named Samson Lyle had been in that same tavern. He had watched quietly from the within the fug of tobacco smoke as questions had become quarrel, and quarrel had become arrest. And as the five thief-takers had laughed their way out to the place of summary execution, that silent, watchful man had appeared in the night air, double-barrelled pistol in one hand, blade in the other, and he had prized Eustace Grumm from their clutches. The old man had latched onto him like a limpet after that. Riding with him through northern France, providing the former cavalry officer and his young ward with companionship and laughter, while his expertise in the ways of the outlaw had often proved invaluable. Indeed, thought Lyle as he squinted into the inky darkness to discern the row of eight prone bodies that had been left at the foot of one of Sir John Hippisley's trees, the irascible old criminal possessed knowledge that extended far beyond contraband. He looked up from the row of saffron-scarfed soldiers as more guns spat their fury from the direction of the house. "Just wine?"

  Grumm's face twisted in its ugly tick. "And a sprinkle o' certain mushrooms."

  "You are a marvel, Mister Grumm."

  "Thank you, Major Lyle," Grumm replied as they kicked hard at the mounts.

  "They ain't dead, are they?" Bella asked.

  "No, lass," Grumm replied, loudly now above the crash of hooves and crackle of musketry. "But they'll have sore skulls in the mornin', I promise you that!"

  PART THREE: THE BRIDGE

  Near Liphook, Hampshire, December 1655

  The driver's name was Tomkin Dome. He was not yet fifty, but he knew his days were numbered. He could feel it, feel the burn in his chest with every breath, the innate brittleness in his bones. He could taste the acrid mucus he hawked clear of his throat each morning, certain it had become tainted. And his skin. God, but it itched. Gnawed at him during the night like an army of rats, pus-filled boils forming on his forearms and face, livid and moist. The jangling of the cart did not help matters. Every judder and jerk made a patch of corrupt skin sear with pain, or burst, soaking his clothes with stinking moisture. Christ, but he hated his life.

  He took a flask of wine from a small bag beside him on the seat and pulled out the stopper with his teeth. When the liquid burned his throat, he closed his eyes, finding happiness only in its richness. He had tasted better, of course. Back before the rebellion, in the good times, when his trade in Lymington and Hayling sea salt had thrived and he could afford the very best that life had to offer. But then the wars had come, and Tomkin Dome had pinned his colours to the wrong mast. Now he had nothing but a waggon to his name, bitterness in his heart, and relentless, grinding agony.

  Dome thrust the flask home and squinted into the murky dawn. It was close upon eight o'clock. A thin mist crept up off the River Wey to extend white fingers between ancient boughs and over the wide road. Grey clouds, pregnant and vast, loomed ominously overhead. The air smelled of rain. There was no breeze so the trees were still, darkening the land either side of the highway, their branches, mostly stripped of leaves, straining for the sky like so many talons. A boil smarted on his rump and Dome shifted his skinny frame irritably, spewing a savage oath as he did so. One of the riders out in front turned back to admonish him in clipped tones. Dome's seething retort was lost, he hoped, amongst the sound of hooves, and he turned his attention back to the job at hand.

  The cart was small in size. Not the massive, gilt coaches of the rich and powerful, but an unprepossessing vehicle, plain and functional. It was drawn by a pair of strong horses, a chestnut and a grey, the traces jangling behind as wheels creaked and bounced noisily. The cart had been agrarian in nature at one time, flat and open for grain or hay, but now it was a perfect box, for a metal frame had been placed upon its rear platform, like a giant aviary, with a small door against which a heavy lock clanged. Within the cage, slumped against the bars and swaying with the motion of the vehicle, was a figure. His hair was long, unkempt, framing a face that was bowed from view, as though dipped in prayer. Occasionally the horsemen would call to him. There were ten of them; five out front, five at the rear, and they would make sport of taunting the captive, sneering when he ignored them, laughing when the gaunt, stubble-shaded face deigned to look up.

  "Steady!" Tomkin Dome snarled as the horses rounded a kink in the road and approached a small stone bridge. "I said steady, you flea-bit buggers!" He received a host of withering glances from the pious troopers for his trouble.

  The cart slowed to walking speed. The vanguard of horsemen - heavily armed harquebusiers - trotted forth first, clattering onto the stone slabs that spanned the Wey. Below them the water meandered lazily. The river was deep here, clear as crystal so that the grey silhouettes of fish could be seen darting in the shadows cast by the grassy banks and amongst the gauntlet of smooth rocks and straggly weeds.

  Dome scratched at an ulcer beneath his armpit as he waited for the troopers to wave him on. He was a frail man, given to feeling the cold more than most, but his brow prickled with sweat nevertheless. He drew a cloth from his sleeve, mopping his face. "Well?"

  The troopers had gathered at the centre of the bridge. One of them was speaking, but not to the driver. Dome looked past him to see a lone man on the far bank. He looked, to Dome's poor eyes at least, like a scarecrow. A thin, gaunt, crook-backed bag of bones, white-bearded and deeply wrinkled, a filthy bandage wrapped round his skull to cover what was left of an eye lost long ago. The scarecrow seemed to whisper to himself, admonish himself. He would suddenly bellow a scrap of scripture, arguing with some unseen spectre. Occasionally he would twitch, his neck convulsing, one cheek jerking hard as though tugged by an invisible rope.

  Tomkin Dome stood. "Long way to go yet, Lieutenant Chickering!"

  The most advanced rider twisted in his saddle, his face taut behind the trio if vertical bars that hung from the hinged visor of his helmet. "I am aware of that, Master Dome," he replied testily. "I shall move this doltish beggar off the bridge and we'll be on our way."

  The scarecrow shuffled forward a couple of paces. "Doltish, sirrah? No, sirrah! Not I! Not ever!"

  Lieutenant Chickering drew his sword, leaned to the side so that his saddle creaked. "No further, old man, I'm warning you. Move off the bridge or I'll move you myself."

  Tomkin Dome sniffed hard, feeling mucus bubble into his throat. He hawked it up and spat onto the grass at the road's verge. "Enough o' this, Lieutenant. Run the bastard through, or trample him or boot him into the
river. I care not, sir, but we must be off." He lashed his horses with the reins and they lurched forth, clattering up onto the bridge. Behind him he could hear the five troopers follow. But Chickering could not move for the scarecrow remained steadfast, gibbering at the dark clouds and dancing a mad little jig, and the young lieutenant seemed unwilling to follow Dome's ruthless advice.

  Tomkin Dome laughed heartily, despite his various pains, because he knew Chickering was a kind man at heart, too pious for his own good, and that meant he was stuck for at least the time it would take to dismount and forcibly remove the old vagrant from their path. He did so just as Dome steered his cart up to the apex of the bridge, the rear-guard trotting blithely in his wake, so that the vehicle and all ten of its escort were crammed on the smooth stones above the gargling water.

  A pistol appeared in each of the scarecrow's hands.

  Chickering seemed to be half dozing, for he did not react for several moments. Eventually he stepped back a pace, jaw lolling, as he absorbed the implication. "Wh... what the devil?"

  The scarecrow straightened, losing the curvature in his hunched spine as though a miracle had been performed. He brandished a crooked grin. "Don't do anythin' silly now, me old cuffin. Ground your arms, get your men off their nags, and point to those angry-looking clouds, if you please."

  Chickering was a young man, and rolled his shoulders to affect a bluff courage, but the delicate whiskers of his upper lip quivered ever so slightly. "We are ten men, sir."

  The scarecrow's blue gaze flickered between the officer and the men mounted at his back. "Ten finely appointed fellows, sir. Shiny armour and pretty weapons. Which of you thinks he might prime his pistol before I stick a bullet twixt his eyes?" No one moved. The scarecrow spat bubbling saliva through the gap in his front teeth. He trained one of the pistols on the lieutenant's crotch. "No plate there, I'd imagine. Now ground arms, you ballock-brained maggot, less'n I turn your cock to a cunny."