The parchment Makepeace had handed over to Captain Tainton had contained nothing but a blob of dried red wax and a simple piece of text. But that text had been an order from Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, beseeching any God-fearing Parliamentarian to offer help and assistance to the parchment’s bearer. The wax contained an imprint of the earl’s personal seal. Tainton spent half an hour listening to Makepeace’s story, shook him and Bain by the hand, and returned their horses.
Stryker had listened too. He had heard, with anger and astonishment, the story of Makepeace’s journey to Langrish. His stomach had churned as Makepeace explained the ‘despatches’ bound for the fictional Gideon Harding. And he was convulsed with fury when Moxcroft had verified the whole sordid tale in a tone that dripped with relish.
‘We’ll see if he’s clever enough to avoid my sword running through him,’ Stryker said to Tainton in barely a whisper. ‘And when I’ve dealt with him, then I’m coming after you.’
Tainton laughed again. He tilted back his head and brayed to the stars. ‘I admire your courage, sir. It is truly inspiring!’
Stryker might have laughed at his own ridiculous bravado, had the situation not been so dire. He was the cuckold to Makepeace’s treachery.
Tainton cocked his head to where Makepeace and Bain rode alongside his own men. ‘Makepeace and his sergeant are good Parliamentarians, sir. Honest, pious men who have listened to their conscience, as you all should. Captain Makepeace took a great risk in abandoning the king’s flawed cause, and an even greater one in rescuing Sir Randolph. I only thank the Lord I had the magnanimity to offer quarter, and that you showed the good sense to accept. My men might have skewered him!’
‘Nothing wrong with that. Skewering would improve ’im,’ Skellen growled to himself.
Tainton grinned. ‘Well, fortunately he was able to convince you of his loyalty to the crown. Clever fellow.’
‘And now?’ asked Stryker.
Tainton shrugged matter-of-factly. ‘Now you’re to be taken to Westminster. Moxcroft will transfer his knowledge to Parliament, while you and your men will be questioned. You’ll inevitably swing, I’m sure, but not at my order, though the good Captain Makepeace is keen for me to pursue such a course.’
‘I’m sure he is.’
‘Perhaps a stay in the capital will clear your mind. Enlighten you.’
‘You think I’ll turn my coat?’
Tainton seemed to study his captive as he thought. ‘Perhaps not. But you’ll share information, I’m sure. Troop movements, regimental strengths and the like.’
‘You’re mistook, Captain.’
‘No, sir. You are.’ The cavalryman’s eyes were grave. ‘Every man talks, given the right persuasion. Not sure what your poison will be . . . blunt, sharp, hot, cold . . . but whichever it is, you will talk in the end.’
‘And my men?’
‘Your men shall be interrogated along with you. And I’m certain the execution of a man of your renown will be a tonic for public morale.’ Tainton kicked, and his powerful mount surged forward. As he plunged along the road ahead, he called back, ‘May I know your name, sir?’
‘You have it.’
‘No, Captain Stryker. Your Christian name!’
‘No. It’s just Stryker to you.’
‘Makepeace warned me you’d say that!’ Tainton called. His laughter lingered as he evaporated into the mass of men and horses.
CHAPTER 15
‘Pray God the winter will be mild,’ Lisette Gaillard said quietly.
The man she addressed was a short, morbidly fat fellow with sagging, wine-red eyelids and yellowish skin. He had been perched at the river’s edge, cleaning the muck from his boots with a small blade, but hauled himself to his feet upon hearing her words.
The man waddled away down the bank, Lisette in pursuit. They strode past long and short vessels, those with high sides and those that seemed so shallow that they would not survive more than a brisk breeze. At length, the fat man stopped at the prow of a stout barge and turned to grin at Lisette. ‘Come aboard.’
The Cormorant was a flat-bottomed transport barge that carried goods the length of the Thames, from the arable lands of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire to the towns of Surrey and Middlesex and to the North Sea beyond.
The fat man introduced himself as the Cormorant’s skipper, Horace Crumb. He apologized for the clandestine arrangement. ‘I’m for the king, see?’ Crumb said. ‘But there’s plenty here about, ’specially as you sail further east, what’ll see your neck wrung for expressin’ such.’ He tapped his yellowing nose with a grubby finger. ‘So we keeps things quiet.’
He started making busy with the ropes. ‘Mind you, war’s got its silver lining, same as everything,’ he huffed. ‘Industry, that’s the key. The rebels are busy forging weapons and building armies. For that they need ’orses. Troops to carry, wagons to draw, messages to pass. You needs ’orses for all that, and more. And that’s where I come in.’
Lisette had pushed her unflappable mare hard during the night, and as dawn cracked the dark sky she had arrived at Richmond. The wharf had been where Father Benjamin said it would be, and she had easily identified Crumb from the priest’s detailed description.
‘So you gather hay in the shires and sail it into London?’ Lisette asked.
‘Indeed. Or we shall in the summer months. We’ll load up with hay and ship it in. At a good price, of course.’
‘And until the hay season?’
‘Wool, m’ dear. There’s always a need for wool on the Continent. Always.’
So Lisette Gaillard crawled between the great bales of wool and curled up. She would wait patiently for the barge to wend its way past Kew and Westminster, Lambeth and Greenwich, and she would pray. After reassurances that his men, five in all, valued their jobs too highly to betray him, Crumb had told her that the Dutch trading ship was anchored out towards Tilbury, so she prayed that their passage would be swift and that the ship would not have sailed by the time they reached it.
At first it seemed as though her prayers would be answered. They made reasonable progress northwards from Richmond, passing the great curve in the river that signalled their arrival near Hounslow. Crumb’s men leapt from the barge’s flanks with practised ease, landing with agile feet on the bank to moor the Cormorant so that she might take on more goods. From her hiding place, Lisette could hear the men calling to friends on the shore or other moored vessels.
As Crumb shuffled past, Lisette grabbed him by a fat ankle. ‘You didn’t say we would be stopping,’ she hissed.
Crumb looked down. ‘Patience, mamzell. We shall be away soon. But I must collect an extra shipment. Manure.’
She stared up at him. ‘Manure?’
He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Dung! There’s gold in dung. We shall load a few sacks and be on our way.’
After an hour or so at rest, the barge drifted away from the bank and began to build up pace once more. She was completely full now, her flat hull packed tight with cargo, and Lisette’s private thoughts were interrupted by the smell of dung and the merry singing of the Cormorant’s plump skipper. He had a strong and surprisingly melodic voice, and she began to let her mind wander with the infectious tune. Despite being curled amongst piles of dirty wool and stinking manure, Lisette felt her spirits begin to lift.
‘Hold there!’ A voice, sharp with authority, cut through the air, shattering the jaunty song.
Lisette could not see the approaching vessel, but she heard Crumb protesting that he was due to connect with a Dutch trader toward the coast, and that any delay would be fatal to his business.
It was to no avail. ‘Corporal Grimes!’ An authoritative voice barked the order. ‘Take a dozen lads and board her immediately!’
Lieutenant Ross was in command of a small passenger ferry that had been commandeered by Parliament for the express purpose of searching London-bound vessels. He and his men had been empowered to stop, board and, if necessary, seize any suspicious river traffic.
It was a nebulous remit, but then Ross’s superiors did not know exactly what dangers might come via the Thames. The people of London were only too aware of the proximity of a large Royalist army, and they feared the possibility of ferryloads of musketeers sailing down the great river and into Westminster while Essex and his army marched west. They foresaw gunboats loaded with ordnance mooring at Southwark and pulverizing the rebel heartland, or troop upon troop of sabre-wielding Cavaliers unloading at one of the numerous wharfs and galloping through the city’s streets, plundering and burning all in their path.
‘We must all play our part in the defence of this great town,’ Crumb said, but there was a tremor in his voice.
‘Quite so,’ Ross replied. ‘And Parliament is leading the way. They raise more regiments daily.’
‘Well, God bless Mister Pym!’
Ross nodded. ‘London will be a veritable fortress, man. It’ll be a hell of a thing to break us, should that time come.’
‘And the Trained Bands have been mobilized, I’ll be bound,’ Crumb said.
‘Of course, sir. Mobilized and itching for a fight.’
‘How many does that add, Lieutenant Ross?’
Ross paused, presumably in thought. ‘Seven or eight thousand, I believe.’
Crumb whistled. ‘An impressive number, sir. Pray God they’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with the full regiments such as your own.’
‘The London Bands are no common breed of scrappers,’ Ross replied seriously. ‘They are better drilled, better organized, more professionally led than any other militia. And a militiaman’s sole loyalty is to his family. The London Bands will be defending their very homes if Charles attacks.’
‘I feel safer already,’ Crumb said.
Down below, Lisette was curled tight, cloak drawn over her body, breath held as still as blazing lungs could tolerate. Instinctively she moved a hand to where the strongbox was bound at her midriff, letting her fingertips brush the reassuring angles of the wood. Her mind ran with curses. Using the Thames to reach the coast was risky, but neither Lisette nor Father Benjamin had foreseen wholesale searches of vessels.
A pair of boots came startlingly close. Quality boots, clomping heavily across the flat timbers. Crumb and his men did not wear this kind of shoe. Lisette gritted her teeth, snaking a hand to a secret hook in the cloak where her trusty dirk rested.
‘Nothing, sir!’ the soldier called back to his commanding officer. ‘Just wool and shit.’
‘Then we’ll bid you a good voyage,’ the lieutenant called out. ‘My apologies for waylaying you, sir, but we cannot allow the river to prove our Achilles heel.’
The soldier who had come so close to Lisette began to move away, and she almost sobbed with relief. But his pacing abruptly ceased. With a plummeting heart, she realized he was coming back.
‘Wait, sir,’ she heard the soldier say. ‘I’m sorry sir, but there’s one more sack down here I haven’t checked.’
Eli Makepeace was in ebullient mood. The master’s promise of wealth and glory was now within touching distance.
Moxcroft was secure and Stryker detained, no doubt destined for torture and execution. Makepeace would be lauded as a hero of the new regime. Perhaps they would even be presented to John Pym himself?
Luck had smiled upon him. There had been the constant risk that Moxcroft would turn on Makepeace, and decide it was more advantageous to spill his guts to Stryker about the captain’s real purpose at Langrish. But lured by the promise of riches, he had kept his word and his silence.
Until the Parliamentarian cavalry exploded from the depths of Shinfield forest, Makepeace had had no plan for escaping Stryker’s party, let alone with Moxcroft in tow. Now the solution had been handed to him. Stryker was a reckless warrior, a cavalier in the classic mould, and, on any other day, might have been tempted to fight to the death, but Makepeace knew him to be conscientious enough not to waste his men’s lives in a fruitless skirmish. As the icy wind whipped at ears and numbed noses, and the party was finally able to see the dark haze of the innumerable fires clouding the horizon of the metropolis, Eli Makepeace knew that his star was truly rising.
Rumours that Charles and his army had marched south and east to wrest London from Parliament’s grip had been circling with every traveller they had encountered. Those rumours had been confirmed yesterday, the tenth day of November, when the troop had intercepted a messenger bound for Farnham Castle. The rider told them that the Royalists had indeed closed upon London and were now camped in the area around Windsor and Colnbrook. It was said that a delegation had ridden out from Parliament to talk of truce, but neither Tainton nor Makepeace expected much to come of such negotiations. Charles believed in his divine right to rule, and he would surely not deal squarely with low-born subjects now; subjects that had chased him from his capital with such humiliating impudence. No, the time to avoid further bloodshed had long since passed.
So there would be a reckoning, and soon. Makepeace did not welcome fighting another battle, but he recognized its inevitability. If it came to conflict, he would stay close to Bain. Some skins, Makepeace reflected, were too precious to be risked, and some were not.
He scratched himself. He could do with a bath, some good wine and a woman.
‘Morden is behind us.’ Roger Tainton’s voice rang like a bell in Makepeace’s ear as he reined in on his right. ‘Only ten or so miles more to travel.’
‘Praise the Lord, Captain,’ Makepeace said, the pious rhetoric sliding easily off his tongue. He had promised the young officer a share of the glory in rescuing Moxcroft, if Tainton agreed to convey them to London. It irked Makepeace a little that another man would deliver the legendary Stryker for execution, but the pay-off was well worth it. He had made a powerful new ally.
As the front ranks of the troop rounded the road’s gentle bend, they saw the halberd first, hovering above a deep hedge like some silver bird. Presently the soldiers themselves came into view.
There were eight, a half-dozen musketeers with mud-caked latchets and flat montero hats, led by a long-faced, feral-looking corporal and a squat, heavily bearded sergeant. The hook, axe and blade of the latter’s pole-arm gleamed in the wintry sun, heralding the soldiers’ purpose like a martial banner. The soldiers wore orange sashes about their waists and Makepeace breathed a private sigh of relief. They had reached the Parliamentarian lines.
Tainton spurred his horse forward. He cantered the last thirty or so paces between the troop and the small picket, followed by Makepeace and two other officers.
Tainton had donned his sash as the first of London’s smoking columns had risen from the horizon and the sergeant stepped out from his small group to greet them. ‘Good-day, sir,’ he said, long teeth jutting crookedly between cracked lips.
Tainton nodded curtly. ‘Captain Tainton, Sir Edward Tainton’s Horse.’
The sergeant let his eyes – small, black and suspicious – wander beyond the mounted officer to where the long troop trotted round the muddy road’s curve. ‘Name’s Howling, sir. Sergeant-at-Arms; Tower ’amlets Trained Band. Beg pardon, Captain, sir, but may I ask your purpose?’
Tainton shifted irritably in his saddle. ‘We’re bound for Westminster, Sergeant. I carry prisoners.’ He indicated the cart with a rearward jerk of his head.
The sergeant scanned the cart’s bounty with interest, black eyes lingering on the captives for a second, and he licked his lips with a fat, wet tongue. ‘Hang ’em, I say. Hang ’em all.’
‘Spare me your opinions, Sergeant,’ Tainton barked.
Howling tore his baleful gaze away, meeting Tainton’s once again. ‘Sorry, sir, but I’ve orders that says you’re not coming through ’ere.’
‘Orders, you say?’ Tainton asked, his tone level, though his brow had darkened.
The sergeant nodded and produced a wad of tightly folded parchment from within his doublet. ‘King’s at Windsor, sir. Peace talks, it is said.’
‘Your point, Sergeant?’ Tainton said, his voice
sharpened by irritation. ‘Come on man, spit it out!’
The soldier ambled up to Tainton’s horse and handed the parchment to the officer. ‘You’d better take a look, sir, for I do not have me letters. You’re to be redirected though, sir, right enough.’
They left Sergeant Howling and his picket behind, and, as the road forked east and west, took the left-hand route that would lead them west of the capital. Tainton had yearned to canter into London’s teeming streets resplendent in his fine armour and glorious after his capture of one of the Royalist army’s most talismanic figures. But the orders had been clear. The instructions were for any Parliamentarian units the picket might encounter. All troops were to make haste to the fields between Chiswick and Brentford. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and commander of the Roundhead armies, was not inclined to leave the west of the city open to surprise attack. A vast Royalist force was camped on their doorstep and he was not about to grant it leave to simply stroll along the Thames unhindered. To that end, he had ordered any newly arriving units to divert towards the fields and villages that hugged the ancient river from the metropolis as far as Brentford. They could not raise a full army, for any such move might be misconstrued as an act of provocation and Parliament were anxious to pursue a peaceful solution after the bloodletting at Kineton. They had therefore elected to post units towards the city’s western fringes, but nothing large enough to be construed as hostile intent.
Evening crept across the country and most of the cart’s human cargo slept. It was not an easy slumber, for they felt every lump in the road as the vehicle tossed and jolted them, but it had been an exhausting time since they left Langrish House and all were weary.
Stryker did not sleep. He sat against the cart’s raised side and watched. Watched the mounted troopers, his beleaguered men, Makepeace, Tainton, Bain and the countryside. Studying for weaknesses to exploit. But none presented itself. They would be carried to the Parliamentarian command and interrogated, probably tortured, and almost certainly executed.
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