The dragoon nodded.
“Right you are sir. But he’s not one of theirs. It’s our captain. Holed up with some tart.”
The shouting reached a new pitch, and Sparrow realised he could hear a woman’s voice challenging the drunk’s harebrained accusations.
One of theirs?
“Put it down, it’s too late for that!”
Sparrow and Muffet exchanged glances.
“There, that’s her. Ammunition whore most likely, in all her damned finery,” the fugitive dragoon commented.
“Armed? We heard a shot?” The soldier shook his head.
“That was Rondo. Don’t know what he was aiming at, but she knocked his arm and spoiled his aim. There’s four or five of ‘em, jabbering like crows.”
Butcher gave him a gap-toothed leer.
“Tried to drill you a new eyeball did he?”
“Not me. Himself.”
“You reckon that’s your officer in there?” Sparrow inquired. “What’s his name? How many men’s he got with him?”
“Rondo. Captain Rondo, Okey’s dragoons. As was. He’s lost his mind I tell yer,” the soldier insisted. “Tried to blow his own brains out all over his cups! It was she as saved him, if you take my meaning.”
“What were the men doing while all this was going on?”
“It’s not men in there,” the dragoon snapped. “I told yer. Whores. Bloody waggon load of ‘em most like. Those tarts as got cut up after the battle. They’d brought ‘em in from all over.”
“We’re stormin’ the cathouse boys,” Butcher exclaimed over his shoulder.
“Shut your noise,” Sparrow snapped, trying to imagine what on earth was going on in there.
Okey’s dragoons certainly got about. He’d left his horse back with the baggage, intending to raise the question of his transfer as soon as they had finished here.
Another bloody delay was all he needed.
“How long as he been in there for God’s sake? We were ordered in as soon as the articles were signed.” Not that the buggers hung around to see it. They had ridden off towards Ashby-de-la-Zouch before the bloody ink was dry. Caused a bit of a stink, seeing as they’d run off without observing all the niceties.
The dragoon shrugged.
“We were in before the clodhoppers…that is…the foot. Sir. We were told to get to the High Cross, make sure they didn’t blow the magazine.”
“And your officer…”
“Just fuck off out of it will you? Who asked your opinion?”
Sparrow shook his head, losing patience with the domestic tear up. “Your officer got himself in and helped himself?”
“No sir no sir. We lost him at Naseby, that is, thought we’d lost him. Never came back after we mounted up and charged.”
Sparrow pondered this. Was it possible those cocky horse thieves he’d met in Harborough were anything to do with the drunk indoors?
“Rondo you say, a captain?”
“That’s him. Tried to blow his brains out he did. Said it was all his fault.”
“What was?”
“The whores, all cut up.” Sparrow shook his head.
“He deserted then? Is that it?”
“Deserted…aye, maybe. Took up with fancy drawers in there. Bloody Lady Horsemuck more like. Took all the whores with ‘em I suppose.”
Muffet held his musket higher, blew on his match. It glowed like a spy-hole on hell.
“Are we going in or what?”
“To arrest some drunken deserter?” Sparrow snorted. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry here.”
“We’re never going to leave him in there?”
Sparrow cursed under his breath, looked back up and down the street. Half the regiment was packed into the grim alley, wondering what was going on.
The big nobs would be along soon, seeing what the hold up was.
“Billy, you take a couple of those bloody heroes and get around the side. We’ll go in through the front door. You,” he prodded the dragoon in the chest, “Can go first, seeing as you know the man.”
“Me? He’s lost his mind I tell you. Cryin’ and pissing over his own boots.”
“We’re right with you,” Sparrow encouraged, prodding the dragoon forward with his halberd.
Butcher and his squad slipped down the side street.
“For the sake of God, John, put it down!” the woman wailed. Upstairs, sounded like.
“Here we go,” he instructed, pushing the dragoon through the splintered doorway.
“Friend, Corporal Coucher sir. Freddie Coucher. Don’t shoot!”
Sparrow crouched behind him, Muffet alongside with his musket readied. Three or four others followed them into the abandoned snug, aye, at a safe distance.
Well the place had been looted but the inn had been doing a fair bit of business, judging by the smashed and scattered bottles, tankards and shattered pipes. Pools of ale, mouldy cheese, nibbled crusts.
A Royalist musketeer was slumped on a settle, snoring hard with his head thrown back against the wall. Oblivious to all.
Muffet pointed the barrel at the stairs.
“Captain Rondo sir, don’t shoot sir. It’s me, Coucher.”
“Damn you for a robbing bastard Coucher, leave me be!”
Clumsy footfalls, heavy boots on bare boards. Crunching broken glass. The dragoon pointed.
“He’s coming down!”
The curly-locked captain stumbled onto the landing, crashed sideways into the peeling plasterwork. He was waving two pistols – at them or himself Sparrow couldn’t say.
“Shoot the bastard,” he shouted as the officer tried to get his bearings.
Muffet levelled his musket, ran a bead over the staggering captain.
A woman darted down the steps, brought a stool down on the drunken fool’s head. The pistol went off – sparks and smoke and a ball clipping splinters from the low-beamed ceiling.
The captain toppled half a dozen steps and measured his length on the flags.
Muffet kicked the remaining pistol from his fingers.
Sparrow peered up the stairs at their saviour – a well dressed but rather dishevelled woman – middle aged and handsome despite the flushed features. More women packed in behind her, indistinct in the shadows.
“Come on down here, keep your hands where we can see ‘em,” he ordered. Muffet levelled the musket at her.
“Don’t shoot. He’s fired both his pistols. We’re not armed!”
“Come on down,” Sparrow repeated.
The woman collected her skirts and tried the steps, trying to avoid the spilled wine and beer.
She blinked at the unexpected invasion, eyes flicking from the distracted musketeers to the frightened dragoon and the hulking officer in the grey suit. She nodded encouragingly.
“He wasn’t shooting at you sir. He’d taken too much wine, become somewhat, morbid.”
Sparrow looked down at the groaning drunk, spread-eagled in the dross and debris.
“You mustn’t think bad of him…he was trying to protect me, us,” the woman went on, tucking escaped tendrils of hair behind her ears and straightening her bodice. Sparrow blinked, forcing himself to look at her face.
“This man says he deserted...after the battle,” Sparrow growled. He raised his chin, nodding the musketeers forward into the shambles. They turned the captain over, hauled him upright.
“He was trying to protect me. The men…the camp. They were running wild.”
The musketeers were cackling to one another now, offering their own interpretation of events. Sparrow peered up the staircase at the other women. They seemed reluctant to join the happy gathering.
The woman smiled shortly, concentrating her bright blue eyes on Sparrow as if he alone could decide their destinies.
“Get him outside. And make sure he’s no more pistols,” Sparrow ordered.
The woman raised her skirts, stepped carefully between the debris as the Roundheads dragged her protector out into the street.
> Sparrow studied her, at bay in all the filth and disorder, but still beguiling enough. He glanced at her bodice, followed the strings, her winding fingers.
“Sir, I am Lady Caroline Winter. I am your prisoner.”
Muffet sniggered. Butcher and his cronies had appeared behind her, crowding out of the pantry to see what was going on.
“Prisoner?”
“Assuredly so,” she replied innocently. “My husband is Sir George Winter. Colonel of horse. The Newark horse.”
Royalist. Sparrow scratched his nose, somewhat at a loss.
“And this man, was protecting you during the pursuit?” Her winning smile slipped a notch.
“Pursuit? Aye. If you mean wolves let loose in the fold.”
Sparrow had heard enough of the whispered details and could well understand why the army command was keen on keeping the outrage quiet. Not that many of the rank and file seemed overly bothered by their crimes.
Didn’t they have womenfolk of their own? How would they have liked a brigade or two of Royalists slashing and pawing their wives and sweethearts?
Two hundred women dead, twice as many marked with a slashed nose or cheek.
He realised why the women upstairs weren’t too keen on renewing their acquaintance with the men in red. He couldn’t blame them.
Heat of the moment. He knew where that could land you. That god-damned witch in Penmethock, cleaver in one hand, knife in the other.
He blinked, studied the older woman carefully.
Lady Winter appeared to have escaped the ungodly punishment.
“You’d best come along with us, for now,” Sparrow said. “There will be no more of that around here. Not while I‘m in charge.”
She fixed him with that damned stare.
So the big lad with the wandering eye was in charge was he? A lout, but a rather well-dressed lout. For a Roundhead, at least.
“I would hope so sir. We are in your care,” she said, cool and casual as you like.
Sparrow frowned.
*************************
They were resting around the High Cross now, most of the regiment sprawled in doorways or squatting on the assortment of chests, drawers and crates the Royalists hadn’t managed to carry off.
Pikes piled against walls, muskets cradled in laps. Most of them were grabbing some sleep while they could. Troops of horse going to and fro as usual. Didn’t the bastards ever rest?
A pack of senior officers, Cromwell, Fairfax and the others, buff coated and lacquered armour. All well worn too. Come to survey the damage.
Commissariat waggons and cartloads of provisions were being driven in to support the half- starved population.
And behind them the clerks and secretaries, commissioners and quartermasters who followed the army, hurrying to find a decent billet while they could.
Sparrow held his ground, glad of the rest. He finally spotted his quarry - Master Eagleton -striding along with a chest of papers cradled under his arm. A couple of youngsters hauling a trunk behind him.
“Headquarters is along the way there sir,” Sparrow pointed helpfully down the street. Eagleton paused, recognising the heavyset sergeant.
“Sparrow. Right glad to see you and your men in such good heart.”
Sparrow fell in beside him. He wasn’t going to stop and pass the time of day, that was clear enough.
“What is it you want now Sparrow?” he asked wearily.
“News of Miss Morrison. Mistress Telling as was. Alive, at least, in a farm near here.”
“Yes I heard from Master Telling. He has made a full report, thank you Sparrow. I am satisfied Mistress Telling is in the best place, until further arrangements can be made.”
Typical. The trussed-up turkeycock had outmanoeuvred him while he had been busy disarming the Royalist malingerers.
Sparrow nodded, taking off his hat and wiping his brow.
“I am delighted to hear it sir. And to have been of assistance to your good self. With so much to take up your time and all.”
Eagelton sighed.
“I told you the matter was closed. Captain Gillingfeather’s appointment has been ratified by the committee of…”
Sparrow was shaking his head.
“Yes sir, I realise that now sir,” Sparrow interjected, “And I can only apologise once again for the time and trouble I have put you through trying to defend the indefensible.
““You undertook to marry the girl as soon as you may…”
“And I will. I will sir. But there is another, more pressing issue I would appreciate your opinion on, before I go to the Provost Marshal.”
Eagleton winced, waved the youngsters on after the battalion of black-suited clerks.
“The Provost Marshal?” he inquired. Sparrow ignored the pained look on his rat-trap features.
“Another matter, again of some delicacy. That I would appreciate your guidance on, before matters are taken out of our hands.”
Eagleton rolled his eyes.
“Is it possible this could wait until we have put this poor benighted city back into a posture of defence?”
Defence against what? Sparrow wondered.
“A few moments of your time will suffice to put the matter to rights. Or thereabouts,” Sparrow added. The attempt at levity wasted on a flint-hearted gnome like Eagleton.
The commissioner sighed, set the chest down on a splintered dresser and nodded Sparrow to continue.
“We have located Captain Rondo, late of Okey’s dragoons, within the town. It appears he left his post after the battle.”
Eagleton snorted.
“I haven’t time to arrest every deserter Sparrow, God knows half the army has taken to their heels.”
“He attempted to prevent some of the incidents involving the Royalist camp followers.”
Eagleton paused, eyes flickering over Sparrow’s familiar features, seeking intentions in the sergeant’s carefully blank expression. He clearly wasn’t going to let the scabrous business alone. Running about the camp on ridiculous mercy missions.
“An unfortunate business. As I have already made clear. Regrettable but perhaps understandable in the circumstances.”
Sparrow had seen the women cowering in the garret. Cowering from the New Model’s Christian soldiers. Cat gut stitching holding their split nostrils together. Cat gut stitching holding cheeks together, ragged needlework over exposed teeth.
The sight of those poor lost girls had made him shudder. And he was no stranger to blood and wounds. Women, children and all. The Brewer’s Tipple had become something of a sanctuary in the town.
“I am informed the captain became, somewhat overwrought at the plight of the women.”
Eagleton pursed his lips.
“Ammunition whores, common sluts, Irish,” he growled. “Just the sort of…”
“And Lady Caroline Winter, wife of Sir George Winter, late of the Newark Horse. A personal friend of Prince Rupert, so she tells me.”
Ah. More complications.
“I am sorry the honourable lady was also caught up in the unpleasantness,” Eagleton said distractedly. He glanced up at the sergeant.
“Was she harmed? Cut about the nose?” he inquired, realising there might be consequences.
“Manhandled, struck about the face. Otherwise unharmed. But she saw all. I am informed she helped restore some kind of order. Eventually.”
Eagleton considered this.
“I fail to see what you expect me to do now Sparrow. What, you want me to apologise to every woman on the field in person?” Eagleton demanded. “For the fault of some small rogue element amongst our troops, in the midst of a pitched battle?”
“She says hundreds. She says the commanders lost control of their troops.” Eagleton shook his head.
“The poor woman has clearly been through a dreadful and regrettable incident…”
“Lady Winter possesses considerable persuasive powers,” Sparrow insisted. “And is rather more forceful in expressing her opini
on than poor Bella…than Mistress Telling. She makes a particularly powerful case. It appears she persuaded this Rondo fellow to stay his hand.”
“I am delighted he saw the light,” Eagleton snapped.
“It appears the experience, broke his spirit in some way. He appears to have quite lost his mind.”
Little surprise, witnessing those damned piggeries amongst the Royalist baggage.
The commissioner recovered his chest, in a hurry to get on.
“Really Sparrow, I haven’t time,” he said shortly.
“She took pity on the captain, prevented him from doing harm to himself.”
Eagleton closed his eyes.
“We’re at war Sparrow,” he said wearily.
“Even so. Lady Caroline is a powerful personality and could prove troublesome. Ammunition whores are one thing, captain’s wives quite another. But a Colonel’s wife might expect a degree more courtesy from Parliament’s Army New Modelled,” Sparrow countered. “And from Sir Thomas Fairfax.”
Eagleton considered this for a moment.
“True enough, I suppose. Have her brought in to headquarters. I will have letters drawn up.”
“Thank you sir. And Captain Rondo. He is not yet recovered his wits.”
“Hand him over to the Provost Marshal.”
“I imagine the Provost Marshal has more pressing matters to attend to. I was rather hoping we could settle the matter without depriving Okey’s regiment of an experienced officer.”
“You want the rogue reinstated?” Eagleton narrowed his eyes, gave the sergeant an exasperated smile.
“No you don’t want him reinstated.” He gave a sort of sneering bark, the closest the pen- pushing bastard might come to laughter.
“You know Sparrow,” he observed, “you could end up a colonel yourself, if you conducted yourself with a little more decorum. This army has no time for jokers and chancers sir.”
“I understand that sir. But caution’s never been a strong suit of mine. Allow me to take the matter in hand, reassure my Lady Winter we have taken the issue with all due seriousness. I am informed Rondo was a sound enough soldier, before this, breakdown,” he said, unable to think of a more suitable expression.
Eagleton chuckled.
“And you, of course, would undertake to supervise his speedy recovery.”
Black Tom's Red Army Page 19
