Whilst the spitted buck roasted and dripped, glistening above the cookfire, Tom led Trencher, Penn and Dobson out of the camp, Dobson complaining as they left that mouth-watering smell behind. They backtracked along their route into the woods, doing what they could to cover the convoy’s tracks, treading-in the more obvious hoof prints and pulling deadfall across the trail, until at last they could do no more in the waning light.
‘I’d find us without breaking stride,’ Trencher had said, dissatisfied.
‘Those arrogant dandy prats ain’t you, Trencher,’ Dobson had remarked into his beard. ‘Bastards can’t see past their royal fart-catching noses.’
When night proper fell Haggett was lying in his own filth, holding the right side of his abdomen and groaning. His second in command, a Corporal Laney, seemed all but paralysed by the fear that whatever disease was afflicting his fellows would do for him next. So Tom set the watches, placing four men in a perimeter around the camp, fifty paces out and all armed with two firelocks each so that they would be sure to make themselves heard if the enemy was upon them.
Then, as owls announced the night and the rich green canopy above them rustled in the breeze, Tom and his companions lay down under blankets and oiled skins, their heads on knapsacks, and waited.
Tom had taken the last watch, for if The Scot was coming he would come at the first flush of dawn when he could see and Haggett’s men would still be half asleep. He had barely slept, his ears sifting the many sounds of woodland at night, all of which were somehow raised to a higher degree so that one could even hear such as a mouse turning over a leaf. He had recalled his childhood and the summers spent in Gerard’s Wood, and that thread had led to the last time he had been there. When he had been freezing to death until his brother Mun had found him and taken him down into Shear House where, despite the fire burning in the parlour, his blood had run even colder, for he had learned of his father’s death. And of Emmanuel’s. Ever since that night he had steered his thoughts from them, from them all, because the wound was so deep and there was not a surgeon alive who could stitch it.
Now the scent of the woods and the silence had summoned thoughts of his old life. His old home. What had become of his family, of Bess and her new child, Francis, and of Tom’s mother? What had become of Mun? All this squirmed in Tom’s guts, gnawing away as he sat alone and bone-tired, listening to the night creatures and the moans of dying men.
But not so tired that he did not hear the echoing snap of twigs under foot.
He eased himself up from the old stump and took cover behind an ivy-covered ash, wincing at the clicks he made pulling his two pistols to the half cock. Chaffinches and robins were noisily greeting the day. In the distance a cock pheasant called out. Somewhere in the rich green above him pigeons were fighting, their wings beating madly, but he didn’t look up, his eyes instead scouring the misty woodland before him.
Another deer perhaps.
Or men with firelocks and cold steel.
Tom cursed himself for not having emptied his bladder before now. Sweat was rising on the skin between his shoulder blades and his mouth was dry. His heart quickened and he felt the great organ thumping in his chest, the blood in his limbs beginning to tremble, raising the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck.
‘Where are you?’ he whispered into the dawn.
The pistol butts felt good in his hands, though they were poor weapons compared with the pair he had lost on the field below Edgehill: those twenty-six-inch-long man-killers with their octagonal barrels, which had belonged to his father.
Two hundred paces away, beyond the lowest branches of a young oak that were being pushed up and down by the breeze, he glimpsed a flash of red – a tunic perhaps – but then it was gone. Immediately in front of his face two hoverflies held still, inspecting him, their humming loud in his ears, and Tom found he was holding his own breath as he looked past the little creatures for confirmation of what his eyes thought they had seen.
And yet he knew well enough. The Scot was back and he had come for the silver. A crack of twig behind him brought him round to see Trencher creeping towards him, hunched like an old jakes farmer, though no jakes farmer would be gripping a carbine in one hand and a wicked sharp hanger in the other.
Tom put a finger to his lips and shook his head, then nodded back towards the camp, and Trencher understood for he began to step backwards the way he had come, his eyes fixed on a point beyond Tom and the ivy-covered ash. Perhaps one of the other sentries had also seen the soldiers coming through the trees and had already warned the colonel and his men. But perhaps not, and Tom decided the risk of his being seen moving was worth it to inform the troop of the danger, to have them ready to fight if needs be, but preferably to have them stay as quiet as the dead. For this way they might avoid having to fight at all. And so like Trencher he crept back towards the waking men, now and then taking cover behind a trunk or crouching behind a thicket, listening mostly for movement or voices or any indication that either of them had been seen.
When they were at the camp’s perimeter he told Trencher to position himself in the thorn and keep watch, and then he slipped through the bramble where they had found the roe buck.
‘They are here,’ he hissed at the nearest men, one of whom was doing his morning necessary into a patch of bluebells. The yellow stream stopped mid flow and the man looked up into the woods, his pale, dirty face a sudden rictus of fear. Tom strode over to Colonel Haggett who was lying in his blankets staring up at the sky through the gaps in the canopy. ‘Colonel Haggett, sir,’ he growled, crouching beside the man and shaking his shoulder, ‘they are here. Cavaliers more than likely.’
Haggett frowned, his bloodshot eyes glaring at Tom accusingly, but then he seemed to come round and with a quivering hand threw off the damp wool and rose on unsteady legs. The stink of the man’s befouled breeches hit Tom’s nose.
‘Then we must surrender,’ Haggett said, the cracks in his lips oozing blood. ‘’Tis the only course.’
‘As yet they do not know we are here,’ Tom said, gesturing at Penn and Dobson to spread word through the troop that they were to prepare for a fight. In truth he did not know what he had seen through the trees. Whoever it was could be friendly. But he did not think so. ‘There is every chance they will go past. Or turn back,’ he said. ‘If we just keep our heads down.’
Colonel Haggett shook his head. ‘We cannot risk it. We must surrender and let them have the silver. That is what they have come for.’ Corporal Laney hurried up, doing up his helmet’s thongs as he came, his armour clanking so that Tom cursed under his breath.
‘Sir, your orders?’ Laney said, at last seeming to find his backbone. Others too, some of them struck with the disease, yet busied themselves with wheellocks and back-and-breasts, jaws set in grim determination to discharge their duty in protecting the carts’ precious cargo.
For a moment Haggett watched them, a flash of pride in his sunken eyes. ‘I will not let my men die here,’ he said, finding his own resolve albeit a resolve not to fight. ‘I will not see my command cut down, these brave men murdered.’ He turned those eyes back on Tom, trembling with rage or fever. ‘I am no Varus,’ he spat. ‘My bones will not lie here to be picked clean by birds.’ He looked up into the canopy through which dawn light was beginning to filter and then put his hands before his face as though he expected rooks or crows to dive down and savage him with their beaks.
‘You would give up the coin without a fight?’ Tom said, the accusation of cowardice running like a cold current through the words.
The colonel stared a while longer at the foliage above, then seemed to shudder as though he had been struck. ‘Look around you, boy!’ He pointed a skeletal hand at three of his men who had not risen but still lay shivering in their blankets, their own night soil gleaming wetly beside them. ‘You expect them to fight?’
Tom did not, but there were at least thirty men who could fight and if each fired two pistols at the right moment, such a v
olley might be enough to see off the enemy.
‘The Earl of Essex will expect us to fight,’ he said, ‘and so will the men to whom this silver is owed.’
‘Who are you, boy?’ the colonel snarled, cracked lips pulled back from his teeth. ‘Who are you to tell me what I must do?’ He shut his eyes tight against some pain in his head and turned to Corporal Laney who was glancing nervously over Tom’s shoulder as though he expected Prince Rupert to gallop into their camp followed by his monstrous hunting poodle, Boy. Instead it was Trencher who forced a way through the blackthorn, grimacing as a barb gouged his right hand.
‘They’re close,’ he hissed, thumbing back the way he had come. ‘But they haven’t seen us yet. Might go straight by.’ He sucked the blood from his hand. ‘Might not,’ he added.
‘I will offer our surrender … seek terms,’ Colonel Haggett said, bending to pick up his sword, but Tom kicked the weapon away and the colonel stumbled and fell onto all fours, arms trembling and elbows threatening to give way.
Round-mouthed, Corporal Laney raised his pistol but Trencher snatched it off him and shook his head, wagging his finger.
‘How dare you?’ Haggett said, still looking at the floor, his voice as weak and tremulous as his body.
‘You can barely walk, sir,’ Tom said, ‘and you are not fit to command.’ Tom sensed Haggett’s men drawing in, armed now and likely to kill him for his insubordination, and he almost smiled at that thought, of his defying this Parliament colonel. Of his being a rebel amongst rebels.
‘Take your positions to defend the carts,’ he snarled at the troopers, eyes raking them, daring them to defy him. Trencher, Dobson and Penn bristled, weapons raised. Despite their hodgepodge war gear they had all the aura of seasoned killers, something not lost on the nearest of Haggett’s men, Tom saw by their conflicted expressions.
‘You will hang, boy,’ the colonel muttered, then attempted to rise but fell again. Corporal Laney tried to help him but Haggett shrugged him off and lay back on the forest litter shaking, grimacing like an old skull.
‘Do your damned work, Corporal,’ Tom hissed, ‘and get these men into their positions. No one is to give fire unless I give the order, is that clear?’ Tom eyeballed the young corporal, who, to Tom’s surprise, nodded and turned to his fellows.
‘Our charge remains the same,’ Laney whispered to the troop, ‘to see this coin safely delivered to Thame. I am in command now, and you will not give fire until my order.’ He glanced at Tom then and Tom nodded in acceptance, knowing, or at least hoping, that the young corporal would still look to him when the time came. Then Haggett’s men hid themselves as best they could, crouching behind brambles and thickets and the thick trunks of oak and beech. Some, including those too sick to fight, positioned themselves behind the carts which were covered with foliage and at first glance seemed nothing more than a part of the woodland. Corporal Laney all but carried Colonel Haggett, who was barely conscious now, over to one of the carts, and then joined Tom and the others amongst the blackthorn and hazel. Lying on their bellies, carbines, wheellocks and firelocks loaded and cocked, swords unsheathed ready beside them, they peered through mean gaps in the briars at the thick woods beyond, their breathing slowed but their senses keen. Shafts of dawn light cut through a haze of mist rising amongst the trees.
Somewhere a nuthatch’s eeen, eeen, eeen raised the alarm, the nasal, rising notes warning of new intruders. Then a horse whinnied out there and a man growled at it to be quiet. Tom saw riders. Saw buff-coats against chestnut hide, sword scabbards, helmets and bridle fittings catching the new light. He sensed the men around him tense, sensed fingers exert a little more pressure on triggers. Knew breath was being held captive in stretched lungs.
Hold, his mind told Haggett’s troopers, as though they might somehow hear it. Hold, damn it! Do not fire.
And then an invisible fist punched him in the gut. The blood in his veins turned to ice.
Mun! His brother, mounted on Hector, was a stone’s throw away leading mounted harquebusiers through the woods. The troopers were spread out in loose order, passing almost silently through the trees with carbines and pistols at the ready, heads turning this way and that. Mun!
The last days had been dry, so that the carts and horses had made barely an impression on the hard woodland floor, but even so Tom and his companions had done what they could to cover their tracks. And yet here were the enemy, close enough that Tom could recognize his brother and the stallion beneath him. All it would take was a whinny from one of their own beasts and they would be hurled into a storm of fire and lead.
Somewhere on Tom’s left a firelock’s cock clicked as it was pulled fully back.
‘Hold your fire,’ he hissed.
‘We could savage them,’ Trencher growled under his breath and perhaps he was right. They could open fire and some men and horses would die. But the range was still too far for pistols. Besides which, there were not enough of them to unleash a deadly volley. It was more likely that they would simply alert other enemy troopers to their position and eventually, because they could not move the carts quickly, they would die where they stood.
‘Hold your fire,’ Tom whispered to Trencher, his heart aching as though clutched by a cold hand, because his brother was there: Mun who had likely saved his life when last they met, first by finding him snow-whipped and freezing in Gerard’s Wood and carrying him down to Shear House, and then by stopping Major Radcliffe’s garrison men beating him to death.
There had also been the time when Mun had killed that big, ugly corporal – a man in his own troop – and soon after that, when he and Emmanuel had risked everything to break Tom out of a gaol, cheating the noose of Tom and his companions.
You are a fool, brother, Tom thought now. And yet a part of him wanted desperately to call out to Mun, wished, for the first time since the war had begun, he realized, that they could be true brothers again. That they could talk of past times and be somehow removed from their situation. But still another part of Tom knew how ashamed Mun would be to see him with the rebels, could almost see the cold scorn that would harden his brother’s eyes were they to meet face to face.
Hold your fire, his mind hissed in response to feeling those around him bristle and tense. Then he saw the reason for their unease. The Scot was there too, a little further away than Mun, his men glancing round nervously because they knew Haggett’s men could not have gone far with their burden of silver.
‘Slippery bastard,’ Trencher whispered, his weathered, pugnacious face half obscured by the thicket’s new leaves, and Tom wanted to tell him to hold his tongue but dared not speak the words and risk even the dance of his lips giving them away. Thus he kept his body and head dead still, moving only his eyes. As the riders passed their position and carried on west deeper into the woods.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MUN MUTTERED A profanity. The sound of the jangling tack and hooves scuffing the forest litter was loud enough to wake the dead and he twisted round in the saddle to see one of The Scot’s men coming up behind them, pushing his mount through the trees as fast as he dared.
‘So much for stealth,’ O’Brien murmured, eyeing the forest around them in case the hidden enemy, prompted by the sudden disturbance, should launch an attack. Mun watched as the newcomer rode up to The Scot and conveyed his message, his horse lathered from hard riding and his own chest rising and falling like bellows. ‘Bad news by the looks,’ O’Brien said, for he too had read the blasphemy on The Scot’s lips, and Mun walked Hector over to them as the rest of the troop, seeing their officers in discussion, stopped where they were, pistols and carbines at the ready, eyes scouring the wind-stirred woods.
The Scot turned to Mun, eyes blazing. ‘Essex is coming,’ he said. ‘Haggett must hae had the wit eventually to send a rider to Thame.’
‘How many?’ Mun asked.
‘At least a regiment and more on their heels most likely,’ The Scot said. ‘Damn it but that coin was ripe for the taking. Hagg
ett was all but shitting through his teeth the last I saw o’ him.’
‘That silver’s hereabouts all right,’ O’Brien put in, ‘I can smell it. We can’t give up now.’
‘Lord Essex is coming up fast, sir,’ The Scot’s messenger reminded them, pressing an arm against his sweating forehead.
‘Keep the heid, man!’ The Scot snarled, then turned back to Mun. ‘Within the hour these woods will be thicker with men than trees, and all o’ them in Parliament’s employ. Even if we found the silver and Haggett’s lot lying dead beside it we’d still nae get the carts oot and away in time.’ He shook his head. ‘We cannae bide here.’
As much as he hated it, Mun knew the man was right. To stay amongst the trees was to invite chaos and disaster, and so they would have to give up the silver as lost.
‘So we’ve come all this way, my arse screaming murder, for nothing?’ O’Brien growled at Mun, teeth dragging red bristles across his bottom lip as though stopping himself from saying more. Behind him Jonathan Lidford looked crestfallen that the chance of glory was slipping from their grasp.
‘Maybe not for nothing,’ Mun said. ‘We may give up on the silver but in doing so seize the greater prize.’ He felt the blood in his veins beginning to simmer now as the scheme wove itself in his head.
‘Go on,’ The Scot said with a frown, one eyebrow curving suspiciously.
‘If your man is right then we have drawn the fox out of his den. Let us draw him further still, out into the open where the hounds may get a proper look at him.’
‘Sir Edmund, I’m beginning to suspect yer aff yer heid,’ The Scot said, yet there was a spark of curiosity against the flint of his gaze. ‘If anyone is the fox it is us, for we are shy of one hundred and twenty men. They are a damned regiment.’
Mun acknowledged this with a wry smile. ‘Then let us play the fox well and give the hounds a good run. Is it not a fine day for it?’ In his peripheral vision he saw that O’Brien and Jonathan were grinning at each other.
Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) Page 25
