The bluecoat’s broad neck convulsed as though he had swallowed a hedgehog. ‘I—I do not know anything, sir, truly. Just a soldier is all. Here for conscience, not blood.’
Stryker offered his most saccharine smile. ‘I am merely a soldier myself, sir. I’d set you free in a trice if things were different.’ He leaned closer, the acrid stench of sweat and horse flesh filling his nostrils. ‘But your friends carried someone away with them. Someone important to me. You will help me get her back.’
Evidently deciding to call Stryker’s bluff, the bluecoat set his jaw. ‘And if I refuse, sir?’
A rasping hiss came from behind Stryker, and both men looked back to see Forrester sucking air through his teeth in a dramatic wince, as though the Parliament man’s defiance was a chilling faux pas. Beside the plump officer stood Anthony Payne, who shook his head slowly, empathizing with the captive amid his impending fate.
Stryker turned back to the seated cavalryman, casually inspecting the tip of the dirk he had quietly slipped from his belt. ‘If you refuse, sir, then I will cut off your ears and feed them to Prince Rupert’s hound. You have heard of the beast? Boye is its name. It will want your nose after that, and then your tongue and your fingers and your stones.’
The prisoner’s face immediately drained of colour, becoming starkly ashen against the copper colouring of his hair. He looked from the dirk, up to Forrester, and back to Stryker. ‘You would not, sir,’ he muttered, though the challenge was weak at best.
A man’s scream rent the air, shrill and piercing, lashing out from one of the buildings fronting on to the road. That did it. ‘I did not know who the girl was,’ the Roundhead blurted in sudden terror, ‘or why she was taken.’
Stryker heard Lancelot Forrester sigh with relief. ‘You have made a good choice, sir.’
The captive met Stryker’s eye. ‘That vile popinjay commanded.’
‘Richardson?’
‘Aye. He ordered the attack, sir. We had not expected so large a force.’
Stryker considered this information. Of course they had not expected to encounter Stryker’s company and Forrester’s as well. It must have come as quite a shock to Richardson and his troop. ‘That is why your comrades retreated as soon as the girl was taken?’
The Roundhead nodded. ‘We were under orders to leave none alive, sir.’ He held up flat palms, gripped by the sudden need to placate the narrow-faced Royalist. ‘We are a simple troop, sir, I swear. Part of Lord Stamford’s army, and not commanded by Richardson until this task.’
Stryker twisted to glance at Forrester. ‘You were right. An intelligencer.’
Forrester dipped his head. ‘He’d have killed the lot of us to conceal his face.’
‘We were not privy to his reasoning, sir,’ the captive continued, the words tumbling earnestly from his trembling mouth. ‘Only that he wanted you dead and the girl captured. When we discovered that your strength was far greater than expected, he ordered us to pick out the girl.’
Stryker scratched the tattered remnants of his left eye, the swirling, mottled flesh always felt irritatingly tight when he was frustrated. ‘What I wish to know is Richardson’s destination. Where has he taken Miss Cade?’
The Roundhead grimaced. ‘I cannot say, sir—’
Another abrupt cry seemed to reverberate inside their skulls as the man concealed within Beaworthy’s timber-framed buildings was consumed by agony. The bluecoat shivered. ‘Please, sir—’
The scream cut the morning air again, this time making his body visibly jolt. ‘Christ!’ he exclaimed, ‘I yield, I yield. Lord forgive me. He rides for Stratton.’
‘Richardson?’ Stryker prompted.
The bluecoat nodded rapidly, like a starling searching for worms. ‘Aye, sir. Richardson, aye.’
Stryker instinctively shot Payne a glance before addressing his petrified prisoner. ‘Stratton? Why?’
The Roundhead’s blue eyes were desolate, racked by the knowledge that he betrayed his own side. His shoulders sagged. ‘Because Lord Stamford marches thither.’
Stryker frowned, mind spinning. He stood, paced out through the ring of watchful redcoats, and went to stand with Forrester and Payne. ‘That is where the enemy attacks.’
‘Would Hopton know by now?’ Forrester asked.
Stryker shook his head. ‘Not if he’s still in Launceston.’ He looked back at the Parliamentarian, still hemmed by guards, knees drawn up to his chest. ‘Trooper. Have you heard tell of king’s men moving against you?’ When the bluecoat failed to respond, he took a step closer. ‘I promise you, brave sir, that if you hold your tongue, you will soon lose it altogether.’
The disconsolate captive lifted his chin from its kneecap perch. ‘I have heard nothing, sir. When we left Torrington, your army were none the wiser, and we have heard no more.’
Stryker turned back to Forrester. ‘Then we must assume Hopton has no knowledge of this, and, moreover, that he remains at Launceston awaiting just such news.’
‘I believe you’re in the right of it, old man,’ Forrester agreed sombrely.
‘Sergeant Skellen!’ Stryker bellowed in the direction of the nearest houses.
A tall man in a filthy brown buff-coat emerged from the nearest building, a halberd propped in casual fashion across his right shoulder. ‘Sir.’ He sidled on to the road, darkly hooded eyes betraying an air of amusement as he caught sight of Forrester. ‘Hope you appreciated me actin’, Cap’n Forrester, sir.’
Forrester smiled wryly. ‘I did indeed, William. You could play the leading man for my old Candlewick Troupe.’
Skellen brandished his amber teeth. ‘Kind in you to say, sir.’
‘If you weren’t such an ill-spoken troglodyte, naturally,’ the captain added, face set firm.
‘Troggy who, sir?’
‘Wait.’ It was the Parliamentarian who had spoken. He peered wide-eyed through the gap between his guards at the sinewy sergeant, before glaring at Stryker. ‘You played me false?’
‘I do not enjoy meting out torture,’ Stryker replied levelly, ‘any more than I enjoy suffering it.’ He pointed a gloved hand down at the captive. ‘But do not be mistook, sir. Things would have gone very badly for you had you remained stubborn.’
He left the dumbfounded bluecoat to stare at the ground and addressed Forrester. ‘Let us raise the alarm, Forry. Hopton must be warned of the enemy’s move.’
Payne stepped forward, surprising Stryker with the unexpected movement. ‘We must to Stratton, Captain. Cecily Cade cannot be brought before Lord Stamford.’
‘Where’s Heel?’ Stryker raised his voice.
‘Here, sir!’ Sergeant Moses Heel had been leaning against one of the nearby doors. He approached briskly.
Stryker pointed at Heel and Skellen. ‘You two get the men ready. We march immediately. Forry?’
‘Aye?’
‘Do you have a decent rider amongst you?’
Forrester pursed his lips briefly. ‘Thornton, I’d guess. Where must he ride?’
‘Launceston. Direct to General Hopton.’ He indicated the bluecoat. ‘Give him this fellow’s mount.’
‘I will go.’
Stryker turned to see Andrew Burton. The lieutenant had evidently been watching proceedings from one of the buildings to Stryker’s compromised left side. Stryker walked across to him. Even now, Burton gazed straight at his captain’s hat feathers, gaze blank as a fresh corpse. ‘I need you here,’ Stryker said as calmly as he could, though he could hear the new tension inflect his tone.
Burton’s stare did not falter. ‘Let me go, sir.’
Stryker wanted to throttle his second-in-command, but he could not allow himself to damage the relationship further. He paused for a moment, although he could see well enough the determination in the younger man’s face. ‘So be it,’ he muttered eventually. ‘Find Sir Ralph. Tell him of Stamford’s plans.’
Burton nodded brusquely, spun on his heels, and was gone.
Anthony Payne loomed into view. ‘And
the rest of us, sir?’
Stryker craned his neck to look up at the Cornishman. ‘Us, Mister Payne? We go to Stratton.’
Stibb Cross, Devon, 10 May 1643
Witch-finder Osmyn Hogg watched the surly soldier spit a wad of tobacco juice into the fire that had been lit at the back of the small cemetery. A short-lived tempest of orange sparks blew up, blasted from the red logs by the sudden disturbance, only to vanish in the chill breeze. They had found the Parliamentarian army spread out on the road running westward out of Torrington, and it had taken two whole days to locate the man to whom they knew they must explain recent events. Here, at this tiny hamlet, they had taken rest, lit fires, spread out for the night. But other regiments had taken the few buildings that were available and the tiny chapel was given over to the horses, so, much to Hogg’s indignation, they had been forced to spend the night in amongst the undulating burials of the graveyard. Hogg instinctively drew his black cloak tighter around his shoulders, though at least, he thought, it was not raining.
‘I am regarded unfairly, sir,’ the soldier grunted when the mad sizzling had died. He had always been a gruff man in Hogg’s opinion, but tonight Colonel Gabriel Wild was positively bad-tempered. It was no surprise, he supposed, for seated beside the cavalry commander, and dressed in a suit of fine reds and blues that made him seem like a giant kingfisher, was Major-General Erasmus Collings. The small eyes, fishlike in their blank stare, seemed to bore straight through any to fall beneath their gaze.
‘Unfairly, Colonel?’ Collings replied in a voice that seemed at once both soft and razor-edged. ‘Not only did you fail to dispose of Stryker, but you did not even manage to retrieve my ammunition.’
Hogg noticed Wild’s neck quiver as he swallowed. ‘Sir.’
‘And in the process of this abject humiliation,’ Collings continued, hairless scalp wrinkling with each word, ‘you lost several of your best men and several of the dragoons I sent you. You are a disgrace, man. An utter disgrace. Not fit to command a party of tipplers.’ Without changing his empty expression, the general’s eyes flicked across the fire to where Hogg sat. ‘And you?’
Hogg frowned. ‘Sir?’
‘What have you to say for yourself?’
Beside him, Hogg felt José Ventura shift his rump, unable to resist the bait. ‘We not ’holden to you, señor,’ he levelled a fat finger at Collings, ‘but to God.’
‘José—’ Hogg muttered in warning.
Collings startled them both by breaking into a sudden bout of shrill laughter. It was not a happy sound. ‘José Ventura,’ he said after a time. ‘God’s Toad, they call you, did you know?’ He smirked, though the movement did not reach his cheeks. ‘I cannot fathom why.’ The hard gaze darted to the witch-finder. ‘The Hogg and the Toad,’ he announced, relishing each word.
‘I not—’ Ventura began his riposte, but the words snagged in his throat as Collings’s straw-thin forearm shot up to point at him.
‘Hold that viperous tongue, señor,’ Collings rasped coldly, ‘or I will have it out before you can say no!’
That last word was inflected with an exaggerated Spanish accent, and Ventura instantly leaned forward, unable to resist biting back. Hogg quickly placed a firm hand on his assistant’s shoulder. The gesture seemed to stay whatever verbal assault Ventura had been brewing, for he simply stared across the tremulous flames, regarding Collings with simmering hostility. Eventually he muttered something in his native language.
To Hogg’s surprise, Collings grinned, small white teeth appearing sharklike in the hellish glow. ‘Spain will do what, señor?’ He chuckled as he had before, revelling in Ventura’s own astonished expression. ‘Shall I tell you? Spain will do absolutely nothing. Not to help you, leastwise.’
It was Collings’s turn to lean close, the bright colours of his coat shimmering against the firelight. ‘You are a convert to Puritanism, Ventura. An abomination in Spanish eyes. A heretic. I could burn you at Torrington market, señor, and Madrid would celebrate. The emperor’s fire-workers would illuminate the skies above the Manzanares, even as your ashes settled on Devon soil.’
Ventura remained stone still for a second, licked huge lips with his glistening slug tongue, then sat back. Collings’s thin mouth twitched and he turned to Hogg. ‘You, sir, were sent on to the moor on the proviso that you aided this brainless router,’ he jerked his fragile chin at the crestfallen Colonel Wild, ‘in his hapless attempts to liberate my wagon.’ The black eyes became slits. ‘You assured me, Mister Hogg.’
Hogg was not a man easily cowed, but he felt instantly uncomfortable under the general’s drilling attention. ‘I did my best, Major-General, believe me. They saw one of their own swing.’
‘And?’
Hogg thought back to the death of Otilwell Broom, Stryker’s unfortunate messenger. He remembered the torture to which Broom had been subjected, and the condemned man’s final thrashing, piss-drenched moments. ‘And nothing, sir. Stryker’s men remained loyal. It was—’
‘Was what?’ Collings prompted impatiently.
Hogg could only shrug. What more could he say? That, for the first time, he had found a man people feared more than the peril of being charged with witchcraft? More than the silent, swaying threat of a waiting noose? ‘Remarkable.’
The breeze turned briefly into a strong gust, lifting the smoke towards the stars and stirring the phalanx of beech and oak that rimmed the cemetery. Then all became still again. A chorus of guffaws ruptured the silence from another of the small fires: some bawdy jest had animated a group of Wild’s men. Hogg peered across at them. He noticed one stand, stretching out his back like a newly woken cat, pushing balled fists into the base of his spine. Hogg felt his own back aching in empathy. The frantic retreat in the face of Stryker’s unexpected reinforcements had taken a heavy toll on his body. His backside hurt too. It always hurt. The pistol ball was still there, still lodged deep in his rump, jabbing at him, searing his leg, reminding him of the man who had pulled the trigger.
‘What now, sir?’ Colonel Wild said, running a hand through his long hair, the grey stripe turned to quicksilver by the moon.
Major-General Collings looked at Wild with an expression of utter disdain. ‘Now that you have failed me, Colonel, we will march to Stratton. We have more men than Hopton could muster in another month, perhaps two, so our victory is not in question. We will find a defensible position,’ he went on, marking each event on his fingers, ‘wait for the malignant horde to come a-knocking, hold it firm until General Chudleigh’s father returns from Bodmin with the bulk of our horse, and crush Hopton betwixt our combined forces.’
Wild nodded as he imagined the events so confidently relayed by Collings. ‘Aye, sir. I will lead my troopers to glorious—’
Collings tutted lightly, fixing him with those dead eyes. ‘You will lead no one, sir. As I said, you have proved yourself unfit for command.’
Wild’s mouth lolled open. ‘Sir, you cannot—’
Collings wagged a finger in Wild’s face as though he was admonishing an errant schoolboy. ‘Oh, but I can, Gabriel. Your regiment will ride for Bodmin on the morrow. They will join with the rest of the horse and aid in the suppression of the enemy militia.’
Hogg glanced from Wild to Collings and back again, wondering if the new glint in the colonel’s eyes was the beginning of tears. Wild ground his teeth together, eventually asking in a tiny voice, ‘And me, sir?’
Collings sighed. ‘Stryker has made you – and, therefore, me – look unforgivably foolish, and for that you have lost your command.’ He let his gaze fall to the smouldering logs, his voice becoming distant. ‘But there will soon be battle.’
Hogg leaned in a touch. ‘You are certain, sir?’
Collings did not look at him. ‘Without doubt. The barbaric Cornish will not stand blithely by as we burn Truro and stroll to Land’s End.’ His head lifted then, but the eyes fixed on Wild. ‘And when there is a fight, Colonel, you become undeniably useful. I, on the other hand, despise
such base pursuits. My war is of a more,’ he tapped lightly at his temple, ‘cerebral nature. You are to be my personal aide, Colonel Wild. My guard.’
‘Is there nothing I can say?’ the colonel said, voice pitched higher than usual. He spread his big palms. ‘Do?’
‘Pray Stryker is with Hopton,’ Collings replied bluntly. ‘When the king’s men are broken, I will release you as I would release a hound. And you will hunt him down. I am greatly displeased with you, Colonel, but things may go better should that bastard perish on the field.’ His attention turned abruptly to the men across from him. ‘You will remain with the army, Master Hogg.’
Hogg was aware of his mouth falling open, but felt unable to prevent it. ‘But, sir—’
‘Enough!’ The major-general cut him off with a wave of his hand and a look of pure iron. ‘You have failed me too, Witch-finder. I pay you well for your dubious service, and I expect a return on my investment. Instead you run before Stryker like a scolded infant.’ He rose to his feet, stooping briefly to rearrange the bucket-shaped leather folds at the tops of his boots. ‘You will remain with the army, Master Hogg, for we shall require your powers of coercion when the enemy is defeated. Kernow,’ he said the word as if his mouth had filled with poison, ‘will be in dire need of subjugation.’
Collings turned and stalked into the night, leaving the three forlorn men to stare at the flames in silence. Osmyn Hogg’s heart battered against his ribcage. Battle. He had seen it before. Indeed, he had witnessed indescribable massacres in the Low Countries, but there, as first a priest and later a witch-hunter, he had not been unfortunate enough to become embroiled in the blood and death. Now, all for the hatred of a single man, he was utterly entangled within the web of this brutal war. He shut his eyes and began to pray softly.
‘We will kill him,’ a deep, hard voice broke across his entreaty.
Hogg’s eyes sprung open. ‘Colonel?’
‘Stryker. This is all Stryker.’ Wild placed another plug of dark sotweed on his tongue and began to chew. ‘He is a fighter, Master Hogg.’
‘Your point?’
Wild sent a jet of brown liquid between his front teeth to bubble on a brightly glowing log. ‘He will be with Hopton. And Hopton will come to us.’ He jabbed a finger against his own sternum. ‘And I will be watching. Watching and waiting. You and your goddamned diego—’
Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 32
