Pistoleer: Edgehill

by Smith, Skye

  There was someone who looked like a physician making the rounds and he walked over to him and pulled his arm and told him, "This is not the place for men with open wounds. This shed has been used for pigs."

  "So what?" the man told him as he shrugged his arm free. "Half the kingdom is sleeping with their pigs to protect them from being stolen."

  "But pig shit is what archers use to poison their arrows."

  "Go away. I am busy."

  What could Daniel do. What could he do to make these injured men understand the danger they were in from lock jaw, when even their physician wouldn't listen. Nothing, he could do nothing, so he walked back outside. There was a well just beyond the shed so he walked over and filled his water skin directly from the dipping bucket. The further water got from the dipping bucket the more suspect it was. When his skin was full he turned around and that was when he spotted Bertie, the Earl of Lindsey.

  Or rather he saw Lindsey's son, the Lord Willoughby, a bastard equal to his mother's husband. When he stepped closer he saw Lindsey lying on the ground. The man still lived. Now Daniel had another problem. How could he kill a wounded officer with so many of the king's officers, now captives, standing so near. Perhaps he could pretend to be a physician and rub pig shit in his wound. The thought was a measure of his desperation, for how could he, dressed as a pistoleer, ever pass himself off as a physician.

  Well, if a pretend physician couldn't kill him with pig shit then perhaps a real one could. Daniel yelled out in an authoritative voice. "Why are the king's officers being treated so shabbily? Here they are lying on the ground on a night which is promising frost, while commoners are comfortably bedded down in the shed."

  There were nobles present, and the nobility were always ready and eager to claim their rights over everyone else’s, so they were quick to take up the sentiment, which was then chorused by the officers and gentlemen. Daniel leaned back against the shed wall while he treated the water in his newly filled skin with a goodly dose of foul scotch. The scotch made the water taste strange, but he had once been told by a Dutch physician that if you couldn't boil unknown water before you drank it, you should at least mix it with aqua vitae.

  While the uproar over the shed grew, Daniel took the opportunity to remove his chest armour, the leather jerkin he wore under it, and the silk shirt he wore against his skin. He asked a friendly guard to inspect his back to make sure that the skin was not broken. This meant he was forced to swallow the ribbing he received from the guard for wearing ladies silk under his armour, because he wasn't about to let him explain why he was wearing it. The pounding of a smooth stone against the indented steel of the back plate soon smoothed it out, and when Daniel put it back on he found that most of his back pain had miraculously disappeared. Meanwhile the uproar amongst the king's officers caused their guards to clear all the injured kitchen men out of the long shed and have the king's officers take their place.

  There, it was done. Between the darkness, the lack of cleanliness, and the ignorant physician, Lindsey would not survive the pig shit even if he did survive his wound. An added benefit was that now, hopefully, the kitchen men had some hope of surviving. The air out in the open was fresh and clean, and tonight's frost would help congeal their wounds even as it made them shiver.

  One of the officer prisoners being moved into the shed stumbled and fell in front of Daniel and he reached forward to help him back to his feet. From the back the man was a king's officer but from the front he was a blackened charred mess. Such a mess that it took him a moment to realize that it was Colonel Lunsford. Daniel looked up to the sliver of a moon and said a silent thank you to Freyja, the goddess of the Freis folk.

  Daniel had saved this Colonel's life three times. By Frisian tradition, saving a man's life made you responsible for all the good or bad the man did from then on. This colonel had done a lot of bad, an awful lot of bad, and now Freyja had given him over. Also by tradition, since he had saved the man's life, he had the right to take it for just cause. Never was a cause more just.

  The colonel had no hair on the front of his head, no hair, no beard, no mustache, no eyebrows and no eyelashes. He must have lost it all in the explosion of the magazine. Daniel waved a hand in front of his face. The man was either in shock or not yet seeing well. "Come,” he told the colonel in a gentle voice, "the river is only steps away and we can use the cool water to wash all the black off you and cool your face."

  With a helping arm, Daniel guided the charred colonel towards the river. They had almost reached the riverbank when a troop of horse came along the bank leading more prisoners. Balfour was leading it. When he recognized Daniel he dismounted and walked over to him and gave him a bear hug. "It worked Danny, it worked. What can I say. Now I know first hand why Alex Leslie gave you a king's pistol."

  Daniel had been trying to shush the man but now it was out. Lunsford stepped back from his guide. Despite the blast he could still hear well enough to realize that the shadowy man who had been leading him to water was Captain Daniel Vanderus, a man who had shamed him in front of his wife, a man who had many times threatened to kill him. "Save me from this man. I am a king's officer and a prisoner." Lunsford pleaded to the mounted troopers.

  Another of the troopers dismounted and came close and took a close look at Lunsford's clothing. Balfour was still staring at the blackened side of the man and he asked, "Lunsford is that you? It is me, William Balfour. You took my command at the Tower of London when I refused to hang the Scottish covenanters."

  "Balfour, thank god,” Lunsford sighed. "Save me from this man. He means to kill me."

  "I was taking him down the banks to the river to wash away the black and cool his skin,” Daniel lied.

  The other trooper next to Lunsford turned and stared at Daniel. It was Oliver. "More like give him a fen's burial,” Oliver said. "Face down eating mud. Daniel you must not kill him. Valentine has been taken prisoner. If we offer Lunsford in exchange, the king will keep Valentine healthy until the trade can be made. If we don't, then Valentine is sure to be hung for stealing the silver that the colleges gave to the king."

  "Lord Willoughby is in that shed over there,” Daniel told them. "Trade him instead. Lunsford's days of butchery finish today."

  Balfour looked between the three men and made a decision. He wanted no part in this, no matter what the outcome. If any man deserved to breathe mud it was Lunsford, but he could not allow the killing of a valuable prisoner. He remounted and led his troopers and their prisoners around the three men standing on the bank of the river. He left Oliver and Daniel staring at each other, and Lunsford making pleading motions to the troopers as they rode by.

  "Essex will not trade a lord for Valentine,” Oliver renewed his arguement. "Valentine was an MP but only a captain. The promise of a colonel, and especially the king's favourite, Lunsford, will keep Valentine safe no matter how long the trade takes to arrange."

  "No!" Daniel was adamant. "This man is a demon walking the earth. A snake. He is a poser who shamelessly seduces women for their favours and nobles for their, umm, well, favours. He maims and kills without reason and without guilt. When I first met him he was shooting his own men in the back for deserting him. I watched him take sabers to protesters in London. If we let him live, then it could cost hundreds their lives, or even thousands. He is a demon I tell you."

  Oliver felt that he was winning. Daniel had said 'if WE let him live'. "And is his death worth more than Valentine’s life? Valentine is a good man, an honorable man, and a family man. My sister and her children would mourn his loss for a lifetime."

  The Wyred Sisters that interwove the fates of men must have been cackling at their looms. "There is another way to put that question. Will Valentine's life produce more good than Lunsford's life will produce evil. If you think so then get down on your knees and plead for Lunsford’s life. Plead for the life of the cannibal of the tower."

  Oliver began to kneel, but Daniel caught him up by the arm and pulled him to his feet. "All
right, take him. I wash my hands of him. Every life he destroys from now on is on your head, not mine." Daniel stared up at Freyja and yelled to her, "Did you hear that! Lunsford is no longer my burden to bear."

  "Would you stand guard while I take him down to the river and wash him off?" Oliver asked.

  "Cheeky sod,” Daniel said and then grinned at him.

  It was a good thing that Daniel did agree to stand guard, though not because Lunsford made any attempt to escape. The cannibal had shot too many men while-attempting-to-escape to give Daniel any excuse for doing so. Down by the river Oliver flushed another prisoner, a prisoner attempting to make an escape along the course of the shallow river. If Oliver had been alone, the two prisoners would have surely overwhelmed him and escaped together. Instead Daniel tackled the new man and brought him down.

  This new prisoner was wearing expensive clothes but no armour, so he had likely been one of the king's camp diplomats. One of the men who shuttled back and forth from headquarters to headquarters to discuss requests, agreements, and terms. Daniel stuck a pistol up his crotch and then asked him quite civilly, "Who are you?"

  "Don't harm me. I am Henry Hastings, the Lord High Sheriff of Leicestershire."

  "So what is a Sheriff doing in fancy dress down in the mud of a river bank?" Daniel asked skeptically. "Shouldn't you be leading your pressed men. Shouldn't you be dressed for battle?"

  "It is a recent appointment. I haven't quite begun my duties yet,” Hastings replied. "I wasn't really a part of this battle. I was captured while on my way back to Leicester."

  "To raise more men for the king, I suppose,” Daniel replied and then looked over to Oliver who was carefully and softly patting Lunsford's face with a damp scarf. "Oliver, come over here and tell me who this man is."

  Oliver left Lunsford to clean his own neck and chest and scrambled over the river stones to come close enough to see. "That is Henry Hastings, the second son of the real Henry Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon. His father supports us. Let him go."

  "But he told me he was just made the Sheriff of Leicestershire."

  "Ah, that will be because of the castle,” said Oliver thoughtfully.

  "What castle?"

  "Ashby-del-la-Zouch,” Oliver and Henry said in unison.

  "Then hold him for questioning,” Oliver said. "It's all the same to me."

  "No, you must let me go,” Henry said, and then glanced over at Lunsford and continued in a hushed voice. "I am only pretending to be the king's man to spy on him. In truth my entire family wishes all the Stuarts a quick death. You see, it is we who should be the royal family, not the Stuarts."

  "Yes, yes, yes,” Oliver replied. "So your father and mother have told me, but James Stuart was chosen over her claim because she was only fourth in line."

  "She was only fourth in line, but my father has proof that he was first in line,” Hastings hissed.

  "So why didn't he show his proof? That would have saved this kingdom from suffering the Stuarts."

  "Because my father is a fool," Hastings replied. "At the time he was spending all of his effort putting off the collectors who were after the debts that my grandfather left. How can you bribe the courts if you are fleeing the bailiffs? But honestly, we do have indisputable documented proof that King Edward the fourth was illegitimate and sired by a one of the queen's guards. That means that his younger brother George should have been crowned rather than Edward. If George had been crowned then my father would now be king."

  "Who the hell was Edward the fourth when he was alive?" Daniel asked. This whole blood right to the throne thing was such nonsense. Of all positions in the kingdom, the king should be chosen by merit and not by accident of inbreeding.

  "He was part of the mash up of would-be-kings during the last Civil War,” Oliver told him. If George had been chosen over Edward then presumably we would never have had any Tudor kings and queens, never mind the Stuarts." Oliver looked into Hastings' eyes. The man was a weasel, and he was probably lying, but what if he wasn't? "Let him go."

  "Let him go?" Daniel asked in wonder, but he did so.

  When Hastings was gone, slopping along the river bank towards the north end of Edgehill, and presumably to the king's camp on the top of it, Oliver told him, "The man is a wastrel. Better that he be the king's sheriff than someone competent. Besides, if what he says even has a word of truth to it, parliament can question the right of any Stuart to sit on the throne. For that we need the old Earl to remain friendly with parliament, which means letting his son go as a favour to him."

  "Why do I have this awful feeling in my stomach that we are all going to regret the decisions that you made today,” Daniel told Oliver.

  "You're just hungry. Come on, let’s get Lunsford back to my skirmisher camp and see if they have something on the spit yet." Oliver had obviously decided to assign his own men to guard Lunsford until the trade for Valentine was agreed upon.

  They helped Lunsford back up the bank and then strolled at his speed back towards the shed of prisoners to fetch Femke. There was a young lad standing beside Femke, and as Daniel approached he held up a long pole wrapped in sacking.

  "Ensign Young asked me to give you this,” the lad said as he pushed the long sacking forward. Daniel took it with thanks, for it was his deer rifle. "I was too young to be fighting in the line, so he ordered me to stay behind with your rifle until you came to fetch it."

  "Where is the Ensign? I'd like to thank him personally."

  "Over there in that pile,” the lad said through a sob.

  "But that is..." Daniel didn't say it. The lad had pointed to a heap of corpses waiting for a mass burial. "But he captured the royal standard. He was safely on his way to Essex with it."

  "Essex sent him and some men to show it off in the camp. That was just when the camp was overrun by Prince Rupert's men. Some of the king's cavalry ran him down and took it back."

  "I'm so sorry. Arthur was a good lad." The news stung him deeply because the lad had been killed over a worthless scrap of cloth on a pole. Worse, taking the standard had side tracked the ensign from capturing a far more valuable prize ... Prince Charles and Prince James.

  "I'm sorry too. He was my brother,” at that the lad burst into abundant tears and Daniel swept him into his arms and let him cry it out.

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  The Pistoleer - Edgehill by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 28 - Lions led by Donkeys at Kineton, November 1642

  That night Daniel stayed in Oliver's camp to the east of Kineton and therefore to the windward of the camp. No one got any sleep because of the constant noise of men in pain and men calling for help, but on such a cold black night there was nothing much that could be done to help them. Even within Oliver's camp there was a lot of noise because the relatively fresh Cambridge troopers had pulled sentry duty as a precaution against a surprise attack by Prince Rupert's flying army.

  Daniel must have slept a bit because he was woken up after the sun had crested Edgehill and had bathed the camp in light, if not warmth. Woken up by angry voices nearby. It took him a while to get to his feet because his back had frozen while sleeping, both frost wise and muscle wise. The best thing to stretch a back out was to walk about so he limped and hobbled over to where the angry voices were coming from.

  "You held back. You purposefully held back even though you could see that we needed your help against Rupert's sabres!" The speaker was Denzil Holles who was one of Pym's Reform Party, and one of the parliamentarians that Daniel had helped to keep safe from the king's grasp on the day that Charlie and his troops stormed the House of Commons. He was yelling, nay, spitting words at Oliver. The two men were almost nose to nose within a circle of men from both companies.

  Daniel tucked his shirt tail in and brushed his hair back out of his face with his fingers so that he wouldn't look so much like he had just gotten up, and then he pushed his way through some Cambridge men into the circle. He was probably the only man presen
t who was neutral in this squabble so he physically pulled the two men apart, stepped between them and said, "Oy, what's going on? You woke me up. You sound like two fishwives at the market." The two sets of men forming the circle shared a laugh at the expense of both parliamentarians.

  "He is calling me a coward,” Oliver told Daniel, and then to Denzil he said, "We had just finished eight hours fast ride to get here. We had no idea what was going on, and had no orders. Of course we stood back while we weighed our options and decided the best course of action."

  "Stood back! Stood back!" Denzil hissed. "You were frolicking up the bloody church tower while my men were dying." His anger got the better of him and he reached for his pistol and raised it to aim it at Oliver. There was the unmistakable click of a flint hammer being cocked against its spring.

  Oliver must have been washing himself when Denzil had arrived for he was stripped down to his under shirt and was unarmed. Daniel stepped between Oliver and the pistol and said calmly, "Denzil, I can't blame you for wanting to kill the man responsible for the loss of so many of your regiment. I will even help you to kill that man, but that man is not Oliver, but Rupert. I only saw one coward on this battlefield yesterday, and that was Rupert for ordering the massacre of unarmed carters and cooks."

  The men all around agreed loudly with his words, which encouraged him, so he continued. "During the confusion of battles mistakes are made and opportunities are missed, and men often die for no good reason. This battle hasn't ended yet. Rupert is still on that ridge. This is not the time to be spreading hatred amongst your allies. Go with your men back to your regiment and leave this arguement for when the battle is finished and you are not so stressed and tired and angry."