They had spent the days watching New Inn Hall, the site of the mint and Denton’s quarters, and Joseph was there even now for Bess guessed that he preferred that to being in Dane’s company. Besides which, Dane had refused to take the evening watch, saying that his job was to keep Bess safe and he could not do that from a mile away.
‘You know Tom, Dane does not,’ Bess had said to Joseph, ‘so it makes more sense that you should be there, anyway.’
‘And the last time I left you to protect Bess the only thing you managed was to bleed,’ Dane had added unhelpfully, at which Joseph had stared down at his own hands in shame. That conversation had been the previous day around noon and they had not seen Joseph since. He had not returned to his room that night and Bess was worried.
‘He’s young,’ Dane said now in answer to the concern that Bess was clearly doing a bad job of hiding. ‘He’s young and he’s in Oxford. You really think he’s likely to tell you that he’s found some crusty wench who pities him enough to let him share her bed for a night or two? Christ, but the lad might be enjoying himself for once, rather than tending you like some mopsey wet-nurse.’
‘Or perhaps it’s your company that he finds intolerable,’ Bess said.
‘Perhaps,’ Dane said, reaching inside his doublet and producing a pipe into whose bowl he stuck his little finger to clean out the dregs of his last smoke. His mention of a wet-nurse turned Bess’s thoughts to little Francis, her stomach souring with the wrench of their separation.
‘You know, it’s not much of a plan,’ Dane said after a while, breaking the silence between them and reaching for the wine jug. ‘It could be weeks or months before your brother turns up here, if he comes at all.’
But Bess did not have the chance to answer that, because two men had walked into the snug. And one of them was holding Joseph’s threadbare broad-brimmed hat.
‘We have young Joseph,’ the narrow-faced, heavy-browed man said, tossing the tattered hat onto the table before them. His companion was broad, toothless and ugly.
Bess’s limbs tensed. She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘Have you hurt him?’ she asked. Beside her Dane placed his pipe next to Joseph’s hat and slowly stood, though Bess knew his firelocks would be in his room upstairs. The heavy-browed man hitched his cloak back over the hilt of the sword at his left hip and his companion took a step back, his hand reaching down to clasp the grip of the wheellock thrust into the red sash round his waist. Two men and three women at the next table got up, gathered their drinks and pipes and hurried out of the snug.
‘Lord Denton requests the pleasure of your company, Mistress Rivers.’ The man glanced at Dane. ‘Your friend here is welcome, too, though we insist he hands over his weapons.’ With that he moved towards Dane.
‘Another step and I’ll gut you both,’ Dane said, and Bess believed him.
The man stopped, dipped his head and raised his hand, the palm of which was callused from sword use. ‘My lord Denton means you no harm, my lady. He knows you are no traitor like your brother. Indeed he assumes you wish to speak with him, for why else would your young friend be sniffing around New Inn Hall?’
‘And if we decline your master’s offer?’ Dane asked.
The man shrugged and looked back to Bess. ‘Then young Joe will not be needing his hat back.’
‘How do we know you haven’t cut the lad’s throat already?’ Dane asked. ‘He might be a callow cub but he’s no coward and would not have told you where to find us without considerable persuasion.’
Bess’s stomach rolled at that, for she knew Dane was right and that they must have hurt Joseph for him to have revealed that they were lodging at The Glove and The Cross.
‘I’ll admit he is a stubborn young man,’ the heavy-browed man said, ‘but in the end he saw that we all want the same thing.’
‘Which is?’ Dane said.
The man smiled but it had all the warmth of a rapier’s hilt. ‘Please, come with us,’ he said. ‘My lord is an influential man. He could have a party of dragoons escort you if you would prefer.’
Bess glanced at Dane and then back to Denton’s man, feeling herself nod.
‘Your weapons, sir,’ the narrow-faced man said.
‘You think I’m a damned halfwit?’ Dane asked.
‘We have no choice,’ Bess muttered. ‘Think of Joseph.’
Dane muttered a curse. ‘You should have left him in Lancashire,’ he said. Then he unbuckled his baldrick and handed his scabbarded sword over.
‘Looks like the sort that’ll have a ballock dagger too,’ the ugly man growled.
‘And you, my friend, look like the north end of a southbound bullock,’ Dane said, conjuring a long knife from somewhere within his cloak. He flipped the knife, caught it by the blade and offered it up. ‘Can I at least bring my wine?’
‘Leave that goat’s piss here,’ the other man said. ‘My lord has taken the liberty of having a dinner prepared and he is known for his wine cellar.’ The smile now was real enough and then he turned to walk out of the snug and Bess and Dane followed.
The evening was warm and Oxford’s stinking streets bustled with merry-makers: soldiers, whores, men and women drinking, dancing and singing, and boys and girls up to mischief when they should have been home in their beds. No one paid the small party any notice as they made their way west along High Street and onto Butcher Row, the tang of blood heavy in the air, before turning north into New Inn Hall Street. Bess’s heart pounded in her chest. An invisible weight pressed down on her, growing heavier with every step that brought her nearer to that devil Lord Denton. She wondered if William’s son Henry would be there too and she did not know how seeing them would affect her, both men having had a hand in her family’s ruin. For Tom’s joining the rebels was not for any political or religious conviction, nor any other reason Bess could see, but that he sought bloody vengeance on the Dentons, who were firmly for the King, for their treatment of his lost love Martha Green. It was because of the Dentons’ viciousness and their machinations that her brother had brought shame upon his family. And yet Bess knew she might now have to bridle her hatred of them for Joseph’s sake.
When they got to New Inn Hall Bess barely had a chance to appraise the impressive stone-built, slate-roofed building before Denton’s men ushered them past the buff-coated sentries and up the steps to the main entrance. As soon as they entered the candle-lit interior the smell of rich food filled her nose and slickened her mouth which had been dry with nerves but a moment before, and a fat servant in Denton’s blue livery received them cordially, leading them into a grand dining room which blazed with candle flame.
Before them stood an oak table bestrewn with plates of roast meats, pies, tarts and custards. There were radishes and hard-boiled eggs, figs, dried apricots, dates and small pots containing ground ginger, cinnamon and sugar. There was wheat bread, several types of cheese and pickles. There were jugs of wine, cider and beer.
And at the head of the table, his grey hair falling in long oiled curls around the golden hoops in his ears, stood William, Lord Denton. Dressed in a fine purple doublet, snow-white breeches and purple silk stockings, Denton looked every inch the sort of Cavalier so reviled by many who had taken up arms against the King. And yet Bess could not help but stare at him, even though the sight of the man disgusted her, made her skin tighten on her flesh. Made her feel somehow unclean.
‘Elizabeth Rivers,’ he said, more to himself, it seemed, than to her. His cold blue eyes held as fast to her own as a dead man’s grip and white teeth dug away at his bottom lip as though he were repressing some base predatory instinct. ‘Please take your ease,’ he said, gesturing to the chair at the opposite end of the table from where he stood. ‘I must apologize for the tableware,’ he went on, frowning at the pewter plates, wooden trenchers and ceramic bowls. ‘Bit of a hodgepodge I’m afraid, as most of the silverware has been melted down to finance the war.’ He blinked but his gaze still leeched to her, those eyes at once consuming and yet somehow di
stant. Numb.
‘Where is Joseph? What have you done with him?’ Bess asked. Lord Denton sighed and gave a slight shake of his head.
‘What is it with the Rivers children and your impetuosity? I struggle to believe you were brought up without learning the manners befitting your status and yet you are all so graceless. You didn’t get it from your father, I’ll warrant.’
‘Were you civil to Martha Green?’ Bess heard herself ask. ‘Or her father?’ Her throat was tight as a fist on a dagger’s grip. ‘Were you civil to my brother Tom, my lord?’
‘Ah, Thomas,’ he all but spat, his lips curling as though it pained his mouth to say the name. ‘But let us not get to that yet. I would not ruin my appetite when my cook has gone to so much trouble. Mr Dane, is it?’
Dane nodded. ‘Yes, my lord.’
‘I hope you are hungry, Mr Dane. I can heartily recommend the broad bean and ox tongue pie.’
‘My lady would see Joseph first, my lord,’ Dane said, his eyes flicking over to the two other men who were still standing just inside the room, cloaks hitched back, pistols within easy reach. Watchful.
Lord Denton nodded at his men. ‘If that’s what it will take for you to do me the courtesy of enjoying this table,’ he said, ‘then so be it.’ He held out an arm towards the hallway beyond his two men and the door, wafting ringed fingers.
‘Thank you,’ Bess said, and she and Dane fell in behind the ugly broad-shouldered man, with the other man and Denton behind them, and made their way back out of the dining room. They passed portraits of scholars and benefactors and several marble busts of unknown men, all strategically lit by beeswax candles. They passed the kitchen, whose door only muffled the clanging and banging of pots and dishes and the conversation of cooks and servants, and came to a wine-cellar door beneath whose arch a man of Lord Denton’s height would have to stoop awkwardly to pass.
‘I warn you, though,’ Lord Denton said, taking up a candle lamp from the table beside him, ‘your friend did not help himself at all and has only himself to blame for his current … condition.’ Bess’s stomach tightened at that as the door creaked open and she descended the steps slowly, her eyes adjusting to the dark. But it was her nose that warned her of what she was about to witness. She smelt faeces and the same iron tang of blood that had thickened the air on Butcher Row.
And there in a pool of shadow, his ruined face and gore-streaked naked body strung up by the arms from an old meat hook, was Joseph.
‘Bastards!’ Dane snarled, turning in a blur, hand down to his boot and then up into the ugly man’s belly, and the man grunted, his shoulders rolling over his chest. Dane hauled the knife out and spun, a devil in the gloom, teeth flashing. And saw that the other man had an arm around Bess’s neck and his wheellock’s muzzle pressed against her temple.
‘Don’t be a bloody fool!’ Lord Denton growled, his own sword raised towards Dane, his candle on the floor beside him. ‘I’ve killed more men than I care to remember and I’d kill you without a second thought. But I’d rather not kill Miss Rivers and I believe you would rather I didn’t. I suspect Lord Heylyn would consider your agreement null and void if her brains ended up splattered on that wall.’
Bess was gasping for breath, clawing at the arm crushing her throat, but Denton’s man was much too strong and she knew she had no choice but to yield. Either that or be strangled.
‘If you harm her I swear I’ll kill you,’ Dane said, locking eyes with Denton in the nearly dark. Then he dropped his knife to the stone floor and the ugly man, groaning and holding his torn belly, bent and picked it up.
‘Tie him,’ Denton said to the man holding Bess, coming up and putting his blade against her throat so that the other man could deal with Dane. ‘Do it properly.’ The man who was gut-stabbed was bleeding but still able to point his pistol at Dane while his companion found rope and began to bind Dane’s hands and legs.
Bess looked past them to Joseph, trying to catch sight of his naked stomach rising or sinking, any sign that proved he still lived. Then the knots were done and Dane was helpless, his neck corded with sinew, lips hitched back from teeth, and nostrils flaring as though venting pure rage.
Denton lowered his sword and stepped closer to Bess. ‘Your devil brother killed Henry,’ he said, and even in the flame-licked murk Bess saw excruciating pain in his eyes. ‘He came here and murdered my son. In the street like some common cut-throat villain.’
Bess shuddered. Tom was no murderer. ‘I do not trust your account of it,’ she said.
Lord Denton stared at her and Bess truly believed he was going to plunge his sword into her flesh. That she would die there in that dank cellar and never see her son again.
‘Secure him down here,’ Denton ordered his men. ‘I’ll have the surgeon brought here for you,’ he said to the big man who was clasping his belly and grimacing. Then Lord Denton bent and picked up the candle lamp. Slowly he turned back to Bess, took a deep breath. Held it. Exhaled.
‘Now then, Mistress Rivers. Do you think we might go and eat?’
CHAPTER TWENTY
23 July 1643, Bristol
‘ONE OF THE lads said it stands in a hole,’ O’Brien remarked, dragging a hand across his mouth and handing the flask to Mun. ‘He wasn’t bloody fibbing.’
Mun did not answer for he was thinking of all that they had achieved since they had chased the rebel horse from Chalgrove Field. Since then they had all but destroyed Parliament’s Western Association army at Roundway Down and the King’s Council of War now pressed the importance of securing the routes between Wales, the West Country and Oxford by laying hold of the rebel strongholds of Bristol and Gloucester. Bristol, England’s second city and the most important port on the west coast, was to be the first prize and now Mun and O’Brien stood facing east, the sun on their backs as they looked down across the River Frome and into the city. Bristol’s houses and churches, its shops, inns, alehouses, streets, alleys and yards were dominated by three hills to the north-west and Redcliffe Hill to the south. To the south the River Avon, around which Bristol had been built, flowed like molten metal, reflecting the July sun. The Parliamentarians had thus decided to fortify the eminences to the north to prevent the Royalists from using them to bombard the city, but this series of forts, connected by lines of earthwork ditches and redans, would not keep Prince Rupert out.
‘You can see why the rascals didn’t put up much of a fight.’ O’Brien nodded down at the city. ‘Why they hotfooted it back to their den.’
Mun could. ‘I dare say we’d have done the same,’ he said, looking along the ditch and rampart running north and south which the rebels had abandoned, though they yet manned several redoubts along its length. ‘It would take too many men to hold all this.’
That afternoon they had ridden with the Prince and several others up to the high ground around Clifton church to get a bird’s-eye view of the prize. Opposite them now stood Brandon Hill Fort, which would present a serious challenge. An imposing square structure mounting four guns, its defences were eighteen feet high including the palisade.
‘The ditch is shallow due to the rockiness of the ground,’ Prince Rupert had observed earlier, trying to steel his men to the task.
Now, the cracks of muskets carried to them on the early evening breeze announced that at least some of the rebel outposts fought on, though Mun knew they could not last much longer. One by one they were being overrun and the Prince’s soldiers were closing in. ‘Must be four miles of wall,’ O’Brien said, pointing the stem of his pipe south towards Water Fort on the banks of the Avon. They had left their helmets and back-and-breasts with their horses which stood tethered amongst the abandoned ditches and earthworks, lazily cropping the grass. ‘Some respectable fortifications here and there but too many approaches to cover. Too much dead ground.’ The Irishman’s face was flushed and glistening, rivulets of sweat running into his beard. He shook his head. ‘A bugger of a place to defend.’
‘It’ll be no joy assaulting it, either,
’ Mun said. For though the Prince had brought eight guns, including two demi-cannon, they had not enough shot: only forty-two for the big siege guns, a woefully inadequate provision for a prolonged bombardment. Neither had they brought Lord Lidford’s cannon, for they lacked sufficient draught animals to haul it across the country. The feeding of the army had taken precedence over the pulling of cannon, and Mun wished he could have seen Lord Lidford’s face when they had served up his beloved beasts to the wretched rank and file.
So Mun knew they would have to storm the city. But not today. The Prince had ridden off to speak with another officer and so Mun and O’Brien had taken the opportunity to enjoy a smoke and the sun on their faces. A little way off, in a position to threaten Brandon Hill Fort, an officer was barking orders at three dozen bare-chested, sweat-drenched gunners, conductors and pioneers who were setting up a battery of two culverins. Some were hauling stubborn draught animals off to pasture, the beasts lowing indignantly. Others were hefting the fifteen-pound shot up the hill to the platform, piling it up by the guns, and still others were throwing up a protective earthwork, so that Mun was just glad it was they and not he working in that heat.
It was hot and dry, the sky a clean blue interspersed with lambswool clouds. Every scrubby bush, boundary hedge, green tree and grassy rampart was lit by the sun, so that Mun was almost able to put out of his mind visions of butchery and death, his eyes feasting on verdant, unsullied ground and new growth.
‘What does their garrison muster, do you reckon? Two thousand?’ O’Brien exhaled a ring of smoke and watched it rise. As always Mun was struck by the Irishman’s ability to take everything in his great stride, as though the coming fight was to be just another adventure.
Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) Page 29
