Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  "Now to your problem," Rob changed the subject to something more immediate. "How to get you safely from Bristol to Lyme when there are royalists patrolling every road in Somerset and Devon. They are in Chard too you know. My sister Bridget got a message to me that she and her husband have fled to Lyme. Have you thought of traveling by ship?"

  "How many ships leave Bristol for Lyme?" Daniel asked. When there was no answer he answered it himself, "Damn few. Besides which, that may take a week. I may not have a week."

  "A week is better than the rest of your life," Rob jested, but it fell flat. "Was it dangerous coming here from Reading."

  "We had to be very careful near to Marlborough. Support for Hopton in Wells is coming from Oxford by way of Marlborough. Everyone told us fearful stories of roving bands of deserters turned footpads but we saw no such bands. I suppose such bands would stay clear of well armed dispatch riders, and with me there were seven of us."

  "By the sounds of it, the route you took to get here sounds safer than the direct routes to Lyme," Rob pointed out. "Easier than trying to sneak past Wells, or Glastonbury, or Bridgwater, or Taunton, or even Chard. If you ride east from Bath along the Avon until you are across the Marlborough supply route, then you can ride straight south over the downs to the coast, and then west along the coast road to Lyme."

  "Bloody hell, that's a long way," Daniel moaned thinking of two or three more hard days in the saddle. Just what he needed with his iffy back.

  "Tell me about it. Most of the lads that ride with me have family either in Bridgwater or in Lyme, and they are hearing damn little about how their families are faring. All of mine are now in Lyme, because my reputation made Bridgwater too dangerous for them."

  "They are in Lyme, not Bristol?" Daniel asked in true wonder.

  "Bristol is a gem that the royalists sorely want for themselves, whereas Lyme is nothing to them. Even their siege of Gloucester is just a first step in an attempt on Bristol. Now that Hopton has broken through from Cornwall, they no longer even need to take Gloucester. I expect Bristol to be under siege within weeks."

  "Does Waller know this?" Daniel asked. Although his own mind was keen when working out the tactics of a fight, Rob's was keen when working out the strategy of a battle or a war.

  "Why do you think his army is in Bath and not Bristol. The cities are so close to each other that with both cities garrisoned they protect each other from sieges."

  With a shake of his head at the flawed logic, Daniel pointed out, "But if both places are safe from siege, then why do you expect Bristol to be under siege within weeks?"

  "Because Waller can't just stay put in Bath. He can't allow the royalists to keep Somerset, or to block the road to Gloucester. Bloody Essex," Rob ranted. "If he would just attack Oxford, Maurice would be recalled, and then Waller could trounce Hopton and chase him back into Cornwall. The longer that Essex waits, the more the villages of Somerset and Devon will be looted by the royalists." Rob stopped his rant and softened his voice to say, "I shudder when I think of what will happen to the young women."

  "So what will you do? Join with Waller to fight Hopton?"

  "Nay! Waller has become careless with men's lives," Rob replied. "His strategies have cost a thousand live since he rode into Wales two months ago. No, I will gather my own men here and help Governor Fiennes to hold Bristol. Here I may lose a man here, or a man there, but with Waller I could well lose my entire company. They aren't strangers you know, my company. They are friends and relatives. Here in Bristol they will have food and a bed, but away with Waller's army, who knows. And then there is the ship, of course."

  "What ship?"

  "The Dragon of Bristol. Oh Danny, she's a beauty. As tough a ship as anyone could want. She was built for breaking through ice and finding the Northwest Passage to the Japans, and her double thick hull built for ice is stout enough to defeat cannon balls. I captured her last month, on Waller's behalf of course. Did I mention that she has sixteen guns." Rob's voice was filled with pride. "Anyway, I captured her and so I am her master until parliament says otherwise."

  "Where is she?"

  "Right here in the inner port, idle, unmanned, but under guard. When I am in Bristol I sleep aboard her, you know, just to strengthen my claim as her master. Would you like to see her before you leave for Lyme?"

  "I would," Daniel said thoughtfully. The possibility of using Rob's ship to reach Lyme had flittered through his mind, but just for a moment. To sail a ship he would need a crew and supplies and even then it may take a week to sail all the way around Devon and Cornwall. He smiled back at his friend. "In truth I would prefer to sleep on her bare decks tonight rather than risk the vermin in the beds of this castle."

  * * * * *

  The round-about ride to Lyme had taken Daniel three days, three long, hard days in the saddle. Still that wasn't bad considering he had ridden so far to the east to stay clear of any towns or villages that may be garrisoned by the royalists. His route had been to go back through Bath and then south east between Melksham and Devizes but staying clear of both. That put him onto the emptier spaces of the Salisbury Plain, which he crossed to reach the even emptier spaces of Blackmoor, which he crossed to Bridport on the coast, and then followed the coast into Lyme.

  He was still a mile from Lyme when he could contain his curiosity no longer and so he rode up to the very edge of the cliff to look down on Lyme Bay. His heart soared, for there were ships in the tiny port and he immediately recognized one of them as his clan's largest ship, the Swift.

  The joy that Daniel felt in knowing his clansfolk were waiting for him in Lyme was nothing compared to their joy at seeing him canter out of the narrows streets and onto the quay. Anso, giant Anso the other elected clan warlord, wrapped him in a bear hug and laughed in great gulps. "Danny, yer a sight to lift a man's heart. Where have you been? We've had no word. We sorted and packed and made ready and still no word. We put in at Portsmouth to ask after the admiral, and still no word. When you weren't waiting in Lyme, we were at a loss at what to do next."

  "You seem to have done very well, very well indeed," Daniel told him as he looked around and enjoyed the smiles back from his clanfolk. "I didn't expect this many young families to sign on for the voyage to Bermuda."

  "The Campdener raiders decided them," Anso replied. "Everyone suddenly realized that Wellenhay was hardly more safe a place to raise a family than Crowland, not when there were such vicious flying squads riding about in the Fens. In Bermuda they hope to escape both the harsh winters and the flying squads so they can raise their children in peace.

  All this time Teesa, lithe and lovely Teesa, had been running down a steep hill path towards the quay and following her was a handful of children. The children threw themselves all over Daniel, but not Teesa. She made straight for Femke and gave her pony a hug that would make any man envious. "She's safe. You've kept her safe and brought her to me. Oh thank you Daniel. I can't think of a better horse to take to a rugged island. Small and tough and easy on food and water. Thank you so much."

  "I, err, well, err," Daniel tried to say, but others were now crowding around him and he was fully busy being hugged. He couldn't argue with Teesa's logic. Femke would be the perfect horse to take to Bermuda. He put it out of his mind and just enjoyed the hug from Anso's wife and others he had known for all of his life or all of theirs. The goddess was strong in his clanswomen, and they were generous in sharing that goodness.

  Eventually he broke away and went to give Teesa a hug. It was short lived. "Phew," Teesa said pushing him away. "You don't half pong. What have you been rolling in?" She looked him square in the face. "And what happened to your long and lovely golden hair. Women coveted your hair and now you have gone and cut it short."

  Daniel gave her a quick explanation of typhos and vermin and the purpose of shaved heads and sulphur ointment. The healer in her listened intently, but the woman in her would still not go back to hugging him. "So there is just we two going to Bermuda?" he eventually asked her,
meaning of their immediate family. "Sarah did not come with you just to be reunited with Rob Blake?"

  "She seriously thought about it for a while, but no, she still had duties in the Fens."

  "And Britta?"

  "Britta?" Teesa asked and then gave him a sly look, or perhaps it was a jealous look. "Why ever would Britta leave her lavish life in London?" The tone was definitely sarcastic. She well knew that her elder sister used to pine after Daniel, and dream of a life with him.

  "I was just asking," he said trying to draw her back into his arms, if only so she would stop searching his face with her 'seer' eyes. "So no then. You did not see her in Portsmouth?"

  "We didn't even see Robert in Portsmouth." She meant Admiral Robert Rich. "He was attending an important meeting in London."

  * * * * *

  That night Daniel slept soundly for the first time in two months. He was clean, for the women had scrubbed him clean of the sulphurous odor of the ointment he used against the crawlies. His mind was at rest, for here his clan was at last, ready with tools and animals and seed ready to embark on their own ships to an island where they will not freeze in these ever harsher winters. He was completely safe, for he was surrounded by those he trusted the most in this world.

  It was his intention to rest and gossip for but one day before setting out again back to Bristol to confirm with Captain Sayle that the Wellenhay ships would indeed rendezvous with him thirty miles west of the toe of Cornwall at St Mary's Bay in the Scilly Isles. The single day of his rest extended into most of the week after Anso suggested a better alternative. That once he had carried the message back to Sayle in Bristol, that he should sail with Sayle rather than returning to Lyme. In part this was so he did not need to cross again through a Somerset crawling with patrols of royalist foragers and raiders, and in part to make sure the Sayle kept to the agreement and did keep the rendezvous in the Scilly Isles.

  It was a week of peace and joy compared to the bleakness of two months of army camp life or of living rough while crossing the moors. Not that he was idle. Teesa put him to work writing down her memories of what she had been taught during the last year by the clan's ancient crone of a healer. It was the continuation of a manuscript that she had begun without the old healer's knowledge by dictating what she had learned each day to her aunt Sarah, who was the only woman in the clan who had been formally schooled.

  When Daniel wasn't writing in the manuscript, he was reading it, for it contained not just the healer's arts, but the history of the clan. A history hitherto kept only on bracelets of carved runes in the crone's cottage. For almost a week he forgot about the war between the richest men in the kingdom and regained his health and his weight. His excitement and anticipation of the venture they were undertaking was re-awakened, while thoughts of armies and fighting and viciousness became distant memories - very bad memories.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Roundway Down by Skye Smith Copyright 2014-15

  Chapter 27 - The Battle of Lansdown Hill near Bath in July 1643

  With a heavy heart Daniel watched from the Dorset cliffs east of Lyme until all of his clan's ships were away. Six small single masted ships sailed rafted together in pairs because rafted they were stable in a chop and the decks sailed flat, which simplified the transport of animals. If they did not run afoul of a storm, then they would sail rafted all the way to Bermuda. Trailing them was the graceful twin masted Swift, carrying all that was most precious, including the women and children.

  Daniel said a prayer to the goddess to keep them clear of storms, and then he turned his new nag, Millie, away from the cliff's edge and towards the bridle path that would take him east along the coast until he found the road leading north east towards Blackmoor. It was maddening to have to use such a long detour around Somerset, and even more maddening now that he wasn't riding Femke.

  Like most country horses, Millie had spent more time pulling ploughs and carts than she had under saddle. This meant that she wanted you to guide her every step along the way, and guide was the right word for it, because she was not trained to words or to one handed reins, but to two handed reins in the way of cart horses. Worse, she was a normal horse so her walk was a slow clomp, and her trot was spine jarring, and she could not do Femke's quick-stride walk. Without that quick stride, his back would ache and his balls would be bruised within five miles.

  If he hadn't been in such a hurry to get back to Captain Sayle in Bristol, he would have been tempted to walk all the way on his own two feet. Once safely away from the cliff, he put her through her paces, which quickly showed him that she was no athlete. Oh well, it hadn't been worth buying a better horse because Millie would be left in Bristol when he boarded Sayle's ship for Bermuda. Besides, due to the war the prices of horses had soared, even the price of nags such as Millie.

  Each time they took a rest for water or food, he tried to train her in the one trick that was so vital to any pistoleer. The fast u-turn with the 'stop-still' at mid turn. She was a slow study, but with practice she would learn what was expected of her. He eventually had a breakthrough by charging her at a high hedge, and then to her great relief stopping and turning her at the last moment. For that moment her back was still enough for him to aim a pistol, and yet she was already turned and pointing towards a quick retreat once the clap of his pistols frightened her back up to speed.

  He remembered the trails and paths from his trip south earlier in the week, so it went faster going north than it had coming south. After two nights of sleeping rough and nervous on Blackmoor and on the Salisbury downs, he was once again faced with the problem of how to slip around Devizes without being caught by the royalist patrols along the supply route through Marlborough to Oxford. This time there were more patrols than last time, so he kept moving north hoping to find land to the west of him that was rough enough to hide him as he rode.

  It wasn't until he found an escarpment between Devizes and Marlborough that he turned west, but then was almost caught while trying to cross a road leading north into Marlborough by one of the royalist foraging parties who were thieving every animal from the local farmers and herdsmen. He escaped them by going to earth until after dark, which was near enough to midnight on these long days. In the dark he stumbled along on foot while leading Millie the length of an ancient earthenwork dyke that ran for miles and miles.

  The place where the main London-Bath road cut through the ancient dyke was dark despite there being a few buildings. He needed to keep to the dyke, which meant crossing the road, but because of the buildings he was cautious and patient. After an hour of watching not a light was shown, so he crossed the road up hill from the buildings and then continued to follow the ancient dyke until he was a good two miles from the road.

  Frustrated by walking blind, and foot weary from stubbed toes and twisted ankles, he found a copse of woods dense enough to hide Millie. There he rested and dozed the light sleep of the wary. Millie was no Femke in another way. Femke knew how to stand guard so he could sleep, whereas Millie snored.

  Morning found him lost in the sense of not knowing the name of the place, or the hill, or the dyke, or the ancient and disused paved highway that crossed the dyke near where he had spent the night. It seemed an empty haunted land, which was good for him and so he rode west until he was beyond Chippenham and Corsham. He decided not to drop south into Bath and risk being put to work by General Waller, but to stay north of Bath and keep to the higher lands all the way into Bristol.

  To do this he first needed to cross a deep valley, and then climb up out of it again to the ridge village of Colerne. At least that was what was printed on the road sign at the fork in the road, for there was no one in the village to ask. How many times had he seen this scene during this war? A village abandoned out of fear of the royalist foragers. Far too many times. The royalist army thieved what they needed from local villages, and there was never enough armed village men to stop them from taking what ever they wanted in the nam
e of the king. Colerne had been ransacked, and recently, for the villagers had yet to emerge from their hiding places.

  One man had obviously taken exception to the foragers, for he was lying in a pool of blood outside an animal shed with the summer flies buzzing around his open guts. Daniel's mind blackened, not because of the senseless killing, but at the thought that there must be a royalist regiment close by. When last he visited Bath, but a week ago, Waller's army controlled all of the roads and hills around Bath. For a royalist force to be north of Bath meant that the situation must have radically changed. Could he trust that there were no royalists ahead blocking him from reaching Bristol. A cry broke him out of his thoughts.

  "Was that a lamb or a baby?" he whispered to Millie. Millie was not Femke, so she did not understand the question, and did not move to help him locate the cry. He dismounted and waited impatiently for another cry. It came from the direction of the cottage behind the animal shed. He tied Millie to a rail, which annoyed him because there had never been the need to tie Femke up, and then he walked through the open door. There was a woman lying on a straw mat on the floor with her homespun dress torn wide open. He stepped to one side out of the doorway light while his eyes got used to the gloom.

  There was no one else inside, just the woman, and as he approached her he could tell by her bruises what had happened to her. Bruises on the wrists and throat, so she had been held down. Bruises and bite marks around her nipples. Heavy bruising on her inner thighs. The man outside had died trying to protect his woman. He shuddered despite himself. It was an evil act when many men held down and took turns raping a women, but these accursed royalists regularly took it beyond evil. After taking their evil pleasure, they would often crown it off with the unspeakable evil of killing the woman they had just abused. It was as if they were fearful of being punished for committing rape so they silenced the victim by committing murder.