Stryker went to the window. His legs felt weak, almost numb. He knew that Star Castle was built on rising ground a short distance back from the shore, and he could see the bleak, white-foaming grey of the waves through his window, a tiny vista of rock and ocean, framed in cold stone. Thus he realized his cell must be set into the outer wall, a chamber within one of the eight points of the great star for which the fortress had been named. Between the castle and the foreshore the terrain was a plain expanse of green heathland, interspersed by the occasional smudge of grey where rocks broke the surface. And yet as he stared out with a flourishing desperation to feel the grass between his toes, he noticed the dark patches that flanked one particular granite outcrop. At first he had assumed they were scorch marks from fires, perhaps set by members of the garrison on picket duty, but as his eye adjusted to the light, he realized that there was depth in the image. He stared hard, finally coming to understand that the dark smears were, in truth, pits: deep holes had been carved out of the headland on either side of the stones. They were too wide to be graves, but he could not imagine to what other use they might be put.
He was still peering out through the tiny hole when the door opened. He spun around quickly to see a slender man dressed in a suit of dark blue enter the room. He was perhaps an inch or two shorter than Stryker, with a tight-lipped expression that suggested the very notion of stepping on to the grimy rushes was anathema, and he squinted at the prisoner over the wire rim of thick spectacles that made his eyes appear far larger than they were.
Stryker thought the fellow looked more scholar than soldier, and he might have said so but for the trio of grim men who entered the cell in his wake. One face Stryker recognized as the man who had shown him off to the curious group of onlookers some days previously, for his intelligent eyes and copper-toned skin were difficult to forget. But the others were new. They were the kind of ruthless men Stryker had known all his life.
‘You bring your rooks to give me a beating?’ he said, backing nevertheless into the wall behind. ‘I shall show them a beating.’
The dark man did not move, but both his compatriots made to challenge Stryker. All were halted by the fellow in blue. ‘Wait, sirs. This is not the way.’
Stryker still stared at the two rougher figures. ‘Who are they?’
The bespectacled man pulled an expression of distaste. ‘Our guards.’
Stryker studied them. One was short and bearded, so pallid that he seemed almost choleric, with a dense thatch of auburn hair that had been sheared into a wedge above his collar bones. The other man was huge. Bigger still than Skellen, and powerfully built, his head was completely bald and framed by ears that were tiny and strangely thick. His eyes too were small, and so pale that Stryker had initially thought them entirely transparent. He kept his gaze flicking between the two. ‘Why have I been moved?’
The elegant man, clearly an officer, adjusted the clip that kept his spectacles fastened to his nose. ‘I would speak with you privately.’
Stryker finally looked directly at him. ‘Who are you?’
The man offered a twitch of a bow. ‘I am Captain William Balthazar.’
‘You command here?’
‘While Sir Thomas is away, aye.’
A stab of hope punctured Stryker’s thoughts. ‘Sir Thomas Bassett? Major-general with the Cornish army.’
Balthazar nodded. ‘That is he, sir.’
‘I am known to him!’ Stryker took a pace towards the blue-coated man and received growled threats from the two guards. Halting, he added, ‘Fought alongside him at Stratton Fight.’
To Stryker’s surprise, Balthazar turned to his dark-skinned companion. He gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
Captain Balthazar looked back to Stryker. ‘I doubt that.’
‘You doubt that?’ Stryker spluttered, astonished at the man’s bluff stupidity. ‘Why, Captain? What makes you doubt me? I am here on the orders of King Charles himself.’ He glanced beyond Balthazar to the man at the door. ‘He shakes his damned head and you dismiss me? Things will go badly for you when His Majesty discovers your treachery, sir.’
Balthazar took a step back, scandalized. ‘My treachery? Have a care, sir, for it is you who will struggle to survive this.’ He waved the broad hat at his prisoner as if it were a weapon. ‘You are Stryker; infamous mercenary, veteran of the Low Countries, and rebel officer. You are my captive, and you will refrain from accusations of treachery, lest I whip some respect into your knavish hide!’
This time, the swarthy man with the scarred face and bright eyes came to stand at the captain’s side. He stared hard at Stryker as he spoke, though his voice was incongruously calm. ‘Here to take the garrison by surprise. Here to slaughter the inhabitants of these loyal isles. Here to claim Star Castle for King Pym and his Satan-inspired Parliament.’
‘You,’ Stryker said in sudden understanding. He pointed at the man. ‘It is you who whisper this poison. You pull this puppet’s strings,’ he added, immediately rewarded by the casting of Balthazar’s eyes to the floor. ‘What have you against me, sir? What is the meaning of this?’ He stretched out a hand to the garrison’s senior officer. ‘Captain Balthazar, I beseech you. I am a mercenary. To some I dare say I am indeed infamous. But I am a servant of my king. My sword, the very sword your men took from me when first I was brought here, was gifted me by the very hand of Queen Henrietta Maria. You must believe me.’
William Balthazar lifted his chin. He put a spindly hand to his spectacles and fiddled unnecessarily at the clip. At his flank the scarred man muttered something and a look of renewed resolve crossed his features. ‘Where are your papers, sir? For what reason did you take ship here?’
‘My papers were lost with our vessel,’ Stryker replied.
Balthazar cleared his throat. ‘I put it to you, Captain Stryker, that you are – you were – part of a storming party, sent here to assault our loyal outpost.’
A voice in Stryker’s head screamed at him to tell the truth, but still he was reluctant. ‘I was not.’
‘Then what brings you here?’
‘I cannot say.’
The mulatto folded his arms. ‘You see, Captain Balthazar? A rebel mercenary, sent to wreak havoc and murder in this peaceful land.’
Before Stryker could repeat his protestations of innocence, Balthazar leaned in to whisper in his companion’s ear. There followed a short exchange, conducted in hushed tones, before Balthazar went for the door. He turned back briefly. ‘Castle business, Captain Stryker. Good day.’
‘There,’ spoke the voice that Stryker now understood carried the real power. It had the accent of London’s ramshackle slums and wharf-side tenements, and yet was rounded enough to be educated, and marked by a cool confidence that made Stryker shiver. ‘He has seen the beast. The notorious enemy of the Stuart dynasty.’
‘What did you say to him?’ Stryker asked, though he could guess the answer.
The man grinned, exposing only a few teeth in otherwise empty gums. ‘I told him to fuck off.’
‘You? The commander of the castle defers to you?’
The man nodded smugly, patting his breast. ‘I have a note from the highest authority, giving me permission to act here as I will.’ He winked. ‘Besides, I believe our dear Billy Balthazar is a tad nervous of me.’
‘I am not surprised,’ Stryker said. ‘The Scillies are peaceful in the main. The garrison unused to men such as you.’
‘Oh?’
Stryker nodded. This man might have been a merchant or shop-keep, had the tell-tale flash of yellow buff-hide not poked out from beneath the coat’s woollen hem. Moreover, the white scars engraved across his chin and cheeks spoke of a man who had survived many a scrap. ‘You are ravilliacs. Hired fighters. Throat-slitters. I know your kind.’
Even the giant and his choleric companion seemed to chuckle at that. Their leader pointed at Stryker. ‘You are our kind, sir!’
‘What have you done with my men?’ Stryker asked, ignoring th
e intimation.
‘They are well, Captain, have no fear.’
‘It is you who should be fearful, sir, not I,’ Stryker returned. ‘For I take unkindly to any who would do my company harm.’
The dark-skinned man and his confederates brayed at this, their laughter rolling like thunder in the small chamber. ‘Then truly we must quake, lads, for it is harm we intend.’ He winked again, though now the mirth was gone. ‘Oh yes, sir, it is harm we intend. But you first, Captain.’ He looked back at the two men at the door. They stepped forwards. ‘You first.’
Near Southampton, Hampshire, 5 October 1643
Colonel Richard Norton adjusted the high tops of his boots. They were unfolded to their full extent, the leather peeled back to protect his thighs, but still they chafed, the skin of his legs as raw and livid as the rest of him. It was only when the itch had been well and truly obliterated that he turned to look back at the bedraggled group who stumbled and slipped on foot. What a sight they made, the half-dozen beleaguered, mud-spattered wretches. He relished it. ‘They look like lepers, do they not? We should give them a bell.’
Captain Kovac was at his flank. He was bare-headed for this ride, and he tidied his long, white hair with a gloved hand, his pock-pitted face contorting in an expression of disdain. ‘We should have stretched their scrawny necks.’
‘Prattling Royalist priests,’ Norton said with an admonishing look. ‘Loud-mouthed malignants who should have kept their opinions to themselves.’ He glanced again at the prisoners. They had been discovered fishing in the river almost a mile west of Romsey Abbey. His scouts claimed they were overheard declaring their support for the king and condemning Parliament. Norton had decided a forced march to Southampton might be an apt cure for their ills. ‘It is punishment enough to make them trudge through this cold mud, I think. A lesson will be learnt.’
Kovac’s pale eyes glittered. ‘In my country we’d have dunked them in the very river they fished.’
‘In your country,’ said Norton, ‘it is good reformers such as yourself who are the persecuted faction, is it not? Therefore it is you who would take a dip in the river.’
Kovac shrugged. ‘I survived. Killed plenty Papists with these two hands.’
‘I’m certain you did, Captain. But then you fled.’
If Kovac noticed the barb, he chose to ignore it. ‘Skinned one once. Strangled his son and ploughed his wife.’
‘Very Christian of you, Wagner.’
The captain smoothed the tobacco-stained strands of his beard. ‘My father hailed from the south-east of the empire.’
Norton nodded. ‘Carniola, as you never tire of saying.’
‘He was a reformer,’ Kovac went on unabashed. ‘My mother was a Croat. Papist.’ He paused to suck something from a tooth, spitting it back towards the miserable priests who shied quickly away. ‘For their love, they were garrotted and burned. I was ten.’
‘How very delightful.’
‘The war in Europe is crueller than you English can imagine, sir. No man forgives. No man forgets.’
Norton shuddered. He was searching for something to say when he noticed the horizon was clawed by a hundred dark talons, rising skywards from as many hearths. ‘Here we are, then. Our billet for the time being.’
They entered Southampton through the East Gate. Norton felt like Alexander as he trotted into the sprawling port city at the head of three hundred veterans, the scars of Newbury Fight still worn on their iron-hard arms and leathery faces. His cornet of horse carried his colour aloft proudly and Norton felt a swell of content as he eyed the fluttering taffeta square of blue and black, with its white sword pointing towards the sun, a pair of laurel branches at the hilt. Around the sword was the inscription Omnis victoria a domino. ‘On, my boys!’ he exhorted.
The city was bustling: shop fronts open, wares arrayed on counters and tables for the folk to browse, the bellows of the shopkeepers ringing out in competition with one another. Hawkers and peddlers hovered about the groups of finely dressed ladies and their attendants, a ranting preacher battled to have his voice heard above the din, and somewhere further off the distant bells of a church wafted on the breeze. Norton’s troop moved slowly along the road. It did not, Norton believed, befit his status to be dictated to by common folk, and the traffic simply had to move out of the way if they did not wish to be trampled. Sure enough, the townsmen shifted to either side, many waving and bowing, others cheering. This was a Parliamentarian stronghold, after all, one of Hampshire’s most powerful cities, second only to Portsmouth. Both were under rebel control, but the latter had required conquest before it would bow to Westminster. Not so Southampton, and Norton was proud to accept the welcome from her like-minded citizens.
‘Be at your ease!’ Norton called to his men as he coaxed his mount past a pair of dogs squabbling over a discarded scrap of offal. ‘Rest up, water the horses, gather supplies. Southampton will be your new home.’ As the troopers disbursed, he looked at Kovac. ‘The taverns should bear up under our weight. Inform me if they do not.’
‘The taverns will be fine, sir,’ Kovac said, his eyes drifting beyond his colonel’s shoulder. ‘But the ’fficials?’
Norton was nonplussed. ‘Fish-oils?’
‘Aldermen?’ Kovac said with a shrug. ‘Elders?’
‘O-fficials!’ Norton exclaimed.
‘That is what I said.’ Kovac tugged his beard and grinned. ‘I’ll leave this one to you, sir.’
Norton followed the Croat’s amused gaze, turning his mount hard round to see a party of grim-looking men advancing upon him. There were eight or nine of them, most dressed in the fine clothes of gentlemen, though a couple were clearly soldiers. ‘Give me strength, Lord,’ Norton whispered, for he sensed trouble. He slipped quickly from the saddle, removing his helmet as they approached, and forced a smile. ‘Sirs!’
‘Colonel Norton!’ called the man who was evidently the group’s spearhead.
‘Ah, Peter Murford,’ Norton said, extending his hand. ‘Good to see you, Sergeant-Major. Fare you well?’
Murford, swathed in a fine suit of dark brown with a crisp white collar and tall black hat, was a short man with fleshy jowls and fair hair that was lank and greasy, falling across his eyes so that he was forced to push it aside. ‘Governor Murford since my men and I secured the town for the Parliament. You are here to bolster our defences?’
‘Here to take our ease,’ Norton said pointedly. ‘But we are at your disposal where there is threat.’
‘There is ever threat hereabouts, sir. The malignants busy themselves like bees at the hive. Their thought is bent on our destruction.’ Murford looked up and down the road furtively, as though a hidden assassin might come from the shadows at any moment. ‘I have recently had cause to round up a good many enemies of the Parliament, setting them aboard ship so as they might nevermore be thorns in our flesh.’
‘Setting them aboard ship?’
Murford nodded vigorously. ‘To New England, sir. The cause of the King is the cause of Lucifer. We must do all we can to destroy the Cavaliers, however harsh our measures may seem.’
Norton could not conceal his surprise. ‘You have had them transported to the New World?’ But even as he awaited the answer, he noticed the other officials casting their eyes to their boots, as if unwilling to be associated with the governor. Moreover, he could not help but catch the stares from passers-by. These were not the contented citizens he had taken them for, but men and women cowed into obedience. They might be Parliamentarians, but that did not necessarily guarantee loyalty to a man who ruled as tyrant.
‘Aye, Colonel,’ Murford said firmly. ‘And any who refuse the new oath will suffer the same fate.’
‘Oath?’
‘The Solemn League and Covenant,’ Murford said with more than a hint of surprise.
Norton felt annoyed at having to explain his lack of awareness. ‘I have been in the field, Governor.’
Murford smiled as if humouring a child. ‘Of course, Colo
nel. It is the pledge we all must take. The act has not yet passed, but the news from London is that Parliament will require every grown man to adhere to it.’
Norton frowned. ‘To what end?’
‘To uphold the reformed religion in accordance with the Kirk.’
‘The Scots?’ The implication hit Norton like a blast from a culverin. ‘In exchange for their army,’ he said in barely a whisper.
Murford gave a sly smile. ‘Aye.’ His own voice dropped a touch. ‘We take the oath, they give us their war machine, and the Royalists are crushed.’
Norton did not like the idea of any alliance with the Scots, much less adhering to their damnable Kirk and its dour clergy, and yet it seemed a small price to pay for the destruction of King Charles’s formidable forces. ‘It seems things move on apace. If the Scots march into England, we will provide a serious challenge to the malignants.’
‘But first we must ensure England is prepared,’ Murford said. ‘The likes of you and I will sweep the Royalists from our good county, eh?’
Norton agreed, but even as he spoke, he wondered what damage Murford’s harsh governance had caused this loyal city.
St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, 5 October 1643
‘You are too accustomed to trading on your name, sir.’
Stryker was standing before his trio of captors like a condemned felon. ‘What do you know of it?’
The mulatto picked at something in his ear, inspecting his nail with casual interest. ‘Trouble is, they do not know you in these parts. Out here in this wilderness.’ He evidently read the sudden understanding on Stryker’s face, for his lips turned slowly upwards at the corners. ‘Oh, we know you, Mister Stryker. The man with one eye and one name. Famous and feared. Prince Rupert’s ban-dog. Aye, we know all about you.’
Stryker struggled not to show his shock. ‘If that is true, then you know I am not for the Parliament.’
‘But yellow-belly Balthazar does not know, and that, my good captain, is all that matters.’
Stryker’s head was spinning now, his mind wrestling with the shards of information in a vain attempt to sculpt something whole. ‘What is the meaning of this? We sailed here at the King’s order. Took ship from Bristol, a Dutch fluyt called the Kestrel. But she was lost in a storm.’
Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 8
