Highwayman: Ironside (6 page)

"All
that fencin', I bet," said Bella. "Them hours an' hours with that glum-guts Besnard."

Lyle
could not help but laugh at that. "Actually, I threw my hammer at his horse. Now come along. I need ale."

The three of them sat at the taproom's rearmost table, lit by fat beeswax candles and wreathed in smoke from Grumm's pipe. There was one other patron, slumped in a far corner cradling a pot of strong beer, but they recognised him from the village and knew he posed no threat. Grumm had fetched victuals while Bella had seen to the horses. There were some hard-edged offerings from the cheese cratch, thin strips of bacon, and good bread, cooked in the ovens on the premises, and the trio were soon enjoying a well-earned meal. If the bell jangled at the door, they would shift into well practised action. Lyle would be gone, vanished into the shadows and out through the small rear door that would take him to the woods beyond, while the others would inhabit their roles of tapster and stable-hand like a pair of players in the long-defunct theatres that had hugged the southern bank of the Thames. Eustace Grumm ran the tavern, going by the name of John Brown, while Bella was his great-niece, Lucy. It had worked for a year, ever since Lyle had returned from France with his two rather incongruous companions and a tidy fortune made at the sharp end of a duellist's blade. The charade had given them a business, a place of relative safety from the wolves of the road, and it had become the home none of them had thought ever to find. A secure bolthole away from their life of crime, and yet all the while funded by it.

Lyle
took out his prized pistol and placed it on the table. He began to pick at the flaky mud with his fingernails, scraping away the road's grime to reveal the magnificent weapon beneath. When the larger lumps were scoured clear, he took up a cloth and worked at the more intricate parts of the lock.

"You
threw your war-hammer at him," Grumm muttered in amusement, bits of half-chewed bread flecking his beard as he spoke. "What would Master Besnard think?"

"He
would congratulate me on staying alive. And he'd tell you not to stare down that beak of yours so sanctimoniously."

Grumm
crammed a chunk of cheese into the side of his mouth. "He'd advise you to pick your fights more carefully."

Lyle
looked up from the pistol. "I won, didn't I?"

"Barely."

As she worked her way through a plate of bacon that was scorched crisp, Bella leafed through the pile of papers she had taken from Sir Frederick Mason's strongbox. She glanced at Lyle, her expression sour. "Like I said, Samson. Piss-all in this lot."

Lyle
gnawed a grubby fingernail. "Keep looking. Sir Frederick must have been carrying something of significance for Maddocks to be shadowing him."

"Fat
lot o' good he did," Grumm said happily.

"Yet
the fact remains," Lyle said. "He had Walmsley in the carriage for close protection, but Maddocks was already out on the road. He tracked us so quickly, he can't have been far behind Mason."

"Lucky
we jumped him when we did," Bella said.

Grumm
cackled. "They was to rendezvous before they hit the Combe, I'd wager."

"You
may be right," said Lyle, for it seemed reasonable. Between the villages of Hill Brow and Rake, the London Road climbed above a deep, wooded vale known as Harting Combe. In the summer months, when the going was firm, travellers could gaze down upon the Combe as they thundered along, enjoying the clean air and the stunning view. But the road south of Rake was very steep as it plunged off the high ground, becoming almost impassable during autumn and winter when the terrain was water-logged and filthy. Those on foot might still risk the shorter route, or even skilled riders if they possessed a good mount, but no heavy vehicle could begin to negotiate so sharp a gradient in such precarious conditions. They would be forced, then, to risk the low, forest-choked bridleway that curved along the foot of Harting Combe, meeting the main highway again at a point beyond London Road's steep drop. It avoided that difficult section of road, which was a blessing, but it forced pilgrims to take their chances in the dense woodland of the isolated vale, compelling those travellers of a wealthier nature to ensure they were well protected. Mason, Lyle had guessed, would be one such person, and he had decided to strike the lawyer at the Combe's southern edge, for many a coach had met with an armed escort before taking the road down into the forest’s infamous embrace. Evidently it had been a good gamble to make, for Colonel Maddocks and his troopers were almost certainly due to link up with Mason at Hill Brow. They had intercepted their quarry in the nick of time. He gnawed his lip as he considered the implication. "Why Maddocks?"

"That
Mason's one o' Goffe's big wheels," Bella answered. "You said so yourself."

"But
so is Maddocks." He shook his head. "Why set his best man to protecting a lawyer? No, it was not Mason himself that was significant. Rather what he was carrying. We must reflect upon our takings."

Bella
shrugged. "Not much. Just a few trinkets."

"Which
means," Lyle persisted, "it was the strongbox."

The
girl sighed theatrically as she delved into the scraps of paper again. "How many bushels o' corn they got in store. A letter from the Major-General askin' Mason to settle a dispute 'tween farmers down at Rowlands Castle." She waved one crumpled sheet. "Message informing Sir Blubber-Belly that a prisoner's to be moved from Newbury to Portsmouth."

"What
prisoner?" Lyle asked.

She
shrugged. "Don't say." She looked through the papers again, pausing at one. "Now this'n is an invitation from Sir John Hippisley for Mason to attend a masquerade, whatever that is."

"A
masquerade ball," Lyle explained. "A grand dance. Very popular in France. The people will wear disguises."

"Surprised
Goffe would allow such a decadent thing," Grumm grunted. "Smacks of Cavalier to me."

"He
probably doesn't know," replied Lyle. "Hippisley's out at Hinton Ampner, is he not? On the Winchester Road."

Bella
scanned the paper and nodded. "The manor house, aye."

Grumm
looked up with a mocking sneer, a trail of fat wending its way down his beard from the corner of his thin mouth. "Surprised you don't attend, Major, given your apparent lust for death." He shook his head in exasperation. "Congratulate you for staying alive, would he? Besnard would have you whipped through the streets for such recklessness."

That
was true, thought Lyle. When he had enlisted with Besnard after a couple of months of listless wandering, he had been an angry, desperate, grief-stricken youth. He had sold his armour to buy food, leaving only the grimy clothes on his back, a big, wounded horse, and his much dented sword. Charles Besnard had seen him fight an ill-judged duel over an unpaid debt - one he had been lucky to survive - and had seen some spark of promise in the way Lyle had handled his blade. He had taken the Englishman on, given him and Bella lodgings, and taught him the ways of the great fencing masters. Besnard had saved Lyle, without a doubt, but he could still be a strict disciplinarian who would not have entertained or condoned the rekindling of Lyle's thirst for danger. "Come now, Eustace," he said calmly, "you know more than most about staying alive. For a righteous man, you've done your fair share of unrighteous acts in the name of saving your skin."

Grumm
sat back and took a drag on his pipe. "We are not discussing me, Major."

"How
many ships did your false light guide onto Clovelly rocks so that you might eat?"

That
hit a nerve, for the old man lurched forwards to jab the clay stem at Lyle's face. "I was never a wrecker, damn your forked tongue!"

Lyle
smiled, holding up placating palms. "A smuggler then."

"Aye,
a smuggler," Grumm conceded, aware that Lyle was goading him and at pains to cool his ire, "and proud to say it. But a wrecker never. If you were any other man, Major Lyle, I'd stick my boot in your behind for such slander."

"Easy,
Eustace, easy. My point is that we play the hand life deals us, and do what we must to survive."

Grumm
eased back again, half disappearing in the billowing smoke. "Amen to that."

"And
next time I shall open Maddocks from chest to ballock."

Grumm
chuckled. "No you won't. You enjoy the chase as much as he."

Lyle
offered a shrug, for he could not argue with so observant a man. He held up the pistol instead. "Look at her. Such beauty." It had been made by a gunsmith in Rotterdam, though Lyle had picked it up after a tavern brawl on the outskirts of Rennes not long after his flight from England. It had been there that he had bade his time after his world had collapsed, and there that he had learnt a modicum of French and a great deal of swordsmanship. He lifted the pistol with both hands, for, though barely heavier than a typical English flintlock, it was longer by the length of his hand, from wrist to fingertips. He blew gently over the lock to make sure no loose powder or debris from the ride had lingered amongst the mechanism. Satisfied, he checked the strikers. There were two, which was what made this weapon so special - and so lethal. Double-barrelled handguns were rare enough, but one with only one lock was almost unheard of. This pistol had two barrels, one set above the other. When Lyle fired the piece, he need only depress the barrel release, twist the twin muzzles round, and fire again. The same lock, cock and flint would be employed, making the process swift and simple.

Grumm
stared at it. "Just don't drop the damned thing next time, Major. She's your talisman. That extra shot will save your life one day."

The
sound of Bella chuckling excitedly made both men look down at her. She had a heavily creased square of vellum in her pale hand, which she thrust under Lyle's nose. "Finally the cull cackles!"

"What
is it?" Lyle asked.

"That
prisoner, Samson. Goes by the name of James Wren."

"Sir
James Wren was a lieutenant-colonel of harquebusiers. Rivalled Prince Robber in the saddle. I fought him once."

It
was late. The last patron had staggered out into the crisp night air, and the Red Lion's heavy studded door had been locked and barred. The candles guttered, throwing eerie shapes on the whitewashed walls, while the last remnants of flame danced in the hearth. Bella had cleared away the detritus of the meal, replacing their ale with steaming pots of spiced wine, and now the three outlaws sat together at the age-scarred elm table, a strangely concocted family who knew that each night together could be their last.

"Fought
with
him?" Eustace Grumm asked, staring at Lyle over the rim of his wooden pot.

"Fought
him," Lyle repeated. "A skirmish in the days before Worcester." He took a swig of wine as he remembered those frantic times when the son of the deposed king had returned to lay claim to the crown. The young king had been smashed by Cromwell's far superior New Modelled Army, a battle that had effectively put an end to the wars that had stolen a decade from the people of the British Isles. Cromwell had called Worcester a
crowning
mercy
, but all Lyle remembered was bloodshed and panic, and a populace worn to wraiths by plague, starvation and fear. "Lucky to get out of it with my hide in one piece."

"A
king's man?" said Grumm.

"None
more so."

Grumm
raised his pot. "May he rot, then." He took a long draught, belching when he was done, and wiped his glistening beard with a grubby sleeve. His eyes narrowed as they searched Lyle's face. "And yet?"

"And
yet it would seem he now languishes in Goffe's clink," Lyle replied. "If he's to be moved down to Portsmouth, then perhaps transportation awaits."

"Why
would you care? An old enemy imprisoned by a new one."

Lyle
shrugged. "Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Eustace. Wren was an honourable fellow, for all his malignant allegiance, and I would see him free if it hurt the Protectorate."

Grumm
still stared hard at his friend, his blue eyes alive with suspicion. "I do not like that look."

"You
mentioned a masquerade?" Lyle said, snapping his head round to address Bella. "Hippisley's place at Hinton Ampner?"

"Aye,"
Bella nodded. She clutched her pot in both hands, cradling the warm vessel against her chest as though it were full of precious gems.

Lyle
drank slowly, luxuriating in the spices that fought away the autumn eve. "Not far from here. Out to the west above the Winchester road. When was this event to take place?"

"On
the morrow," replied the girl. She gathered up a handful of the long, mousy hair that fell to her shoulders, running it through her fingers, her face wistful. "Wish I could be a great lady at a dance."