Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles (15 page)

The giant waited for them amongst the dark trunks of the copse, only speaking when they were well within its dominion. ‘Treloar?’

The messenger plucked the Monmouth cap from his head, revealing lank mousy hair that had thinned so much on the top of his skull that it looked like a monk’s tonsure. ‘Aye, sir.’

‘Tell us again. You saw nothing?’

Treloar twisted the woollen cap in spidery hands. ‘Went into the village, like you told me, Mister Payne, sir.’ He shrugged, almost embarrassed. ‘Not a soul there. All tucked a’bed an’ not so much as a dog out sniffin’.’

‘You saw no one? Not a horseman, or pony and trap, perhaps?’

Treloar shook his head again. ‘Nothin’, sir.’

Payne exhaled through his nose. ‘Well done, regardless.’ He indicated that Treloar could take his leave and waited a few moments while the man crammed the Monmouth back atop his head and scrambled out of the copse. Then he looked down at Forrester, huge hand rubbing his lantern jaw. ‘We were due to meet a man this night, Captain. A man of vital importance to our cause here in the south-west. Indeed, of vital importance to the King’s armies up and down the land.’

‘His name?’

‘All I am at liberty to say,’ Payne replied, ‘is that we were to find him beneath the great elm, turn around, and take him back to Launceston. He has information only to be divulged to General Hopton.’

‘And now?’ Forrester asked after an awkwardly long silence. ‘Should we head home? Were you given leave to wait for this man? Perhaps he is merely delayed.’

Payne interrupted with a swift shake of his head. ‘There were no further orders.’

Forrester felt his eyes widen. ‘You mean to say there was no contingency? Nothing to direct us should this very circumstance arise?’

‘The order was singular, Captain Forrester,’ Payne replied in his thunder-roll tone. ‘We must find our man and see him safe to the general.’

Forrester spread his palms in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Where would you begin, Mister Payne? Do tell me, please, for I am at a loss. Searching for a vanished man on Dartmoor would be akin to sniffing out a ball of sotweed in a cartload of manure.’

Payne held Forrester’s stare, and not for the first time the captain wondered whether it had been a mistake to antagonize the gargantuan man. But there was no malice in those huge eyes, only a steely thread of determination.

‘We should wait another day,’ Payne said eventually.

‘This is your mission, my friend,’ Forrester replied, ‘and I am resigned to seeing it done.’

Payne nodded his thanks. ‘We’ll camp out here in the trees.’

Forrester’s gaze flickered across to the stream at the field’s far end. ‘We have water in abundance, I suppose. How long?’

‘Tonight,’ Payne replied, sucking in his cheeks as he mulled over their options. ‘Perhaps tomorrow night as well. We’ll remain here, watch the road and wait for him to arrive.’

‘That would take us into the new month. If there is still no sign by then?’

‘We continue eastward. Follow the road until we find him.’

‘Or until we run into Cropheads seeking trouble.’

Payne grinned at that, his small white teeth glowing in the blackness. ‘Aye, perhaps.’ He stole a rapid glance over his shoulder, instinctively wary of eavesdroppers however unlikely they might have been, and lowered his voice to a soft rumble.

‘I am sorry I cannot discuss this matter in more detail, Captain, sincerely I am. But it is of such great import that I am to trust no man with any more knowledge than he truly requires. Just know that our task is vital.’

‘You believe that?’ Forrester replied, hearing the incredulity in his own voice. ‘If I had a groat for every time a senior officer described a mission as vital, I’d be riding at the head of Colonel Lancelot Forrester’s Regiment of Extremely Well-Equipped Foot.’

Payne smiled again, but the seriousness had not left his gaze. ‘I believe it, Captain. Please trust me. The man we are to meet will change the very course of the war.’

Lancelot Forrester sighed. ‘Then so be it.’

CHAPTER 6

North-East of Two Bridges, Dartmoor,
30
April
1643

Progress as dawn carved its first chinks of light was better than Stryker could have hoped for. It had been a struggle to negotiate the last furlongs of Wistman’s Wood – it had not been easy to free themselves from the clawing branches and sucking mud – but after the best part of an hour they had emerged on to coarse, flat heathland that was a far more negotiable proposition. The bridleway, promised by the carter, Marcus Bailey, had proved to be little more than a narrow strip of land where the footfall of man and beast had made the tangled heather flatter than the rest of the heath, but it was still passable for their march.

Stryker had roused the men when it was still dark, ensuring kit was ready, weapons clean and fires fully doused. And as the sun had made its first cracks across the eastern horizon he had woken the company’s newest members, Otilwell Broom and Cecily Cade, shared with them what scarce victuals he could muster, and shown them to their horses. Broom had complained that, as guests, he and the girl should ride on the cart, but his griping ended abruptly when Stryker put a hand over the vehicle’s side and patted one of the small kegs. ‘Black powder, Mister Broom. Dry as a bone. You may ride in here, certainly, but should a spark somehow find its way on board,’ he whistled, ‘they’ll be scraping bits of you off the thatches in Plymouth.’

The ammunition cart again trundled at the head of the column. It was cumbersome, brimful of weaponry as it was, but the heath was simple enough terrain for its broad-rimmed wheels, fresh, regularly alternated horses, and experienced driver. Behind the cart rode Broom and Cecily, perched on a couple of the fine mounts captured from Colonel Wild, and beside them walked Stryker, Burton, and Chase, the captain’s big red-and-white standard propped on the stocky ensign’s shoulder. In the wake of the flag trudged Stryker’s two drummers, followed by the bulk of the company, divided into smaller squads of pikemen and musketeers. Before long they were well away from the dense woodland, with open plain stretching away before them and the forbidding outlines of several large hills rising in the distance.

‘Great Mis Tor,’ Bailey called back from the wagon. ‘And the Great Staple. Couple of others I ain’t sure of, but I’m thinkin’ it’ll be Roos Tor and Cox Tor beyond.’

Stryker studied the hills. At each summit rocky outcrops looked for all the world like small castles. He stared at those vast granite boulders, framed by white wisps of cloud, the soldier in him wondering whether such places were defensible.

After an hour the column reached a river meandering down from a flat-topped tor climbing out of the bleak terrain about two miles to the north. Mercifully the waterway was narrow and shallow enough to cross with ease, but Stryker ordered the company to rest a while so that they might water the horses and refill drinking flasks. The tight formation dissolved as soon as the word was given, pikes thrown down and bandoliers dumped in heaps on the heather like so many coiled serpents.

Stryker felt suddenly weary, as though the very wilderness of the moor had formed a weight on his shoulders, and he went to sit on a rotting log beside the gurgling water. He unhooked his scabbard, laying it on the grass at his feet, took the dagger from his belt, and began scraping at the stubborn layer of mud that had become ingrained on the sides of his boots.

‘I hope I am not intruding, sir.’

Stryker stood up, startled. The voice had been that of a woman. ‘Of course not, miss. How might I help?’

Cecily Cade fixed Stryker with her sad green eyes. ‘I wanted to thank you for saving us, sir.’ She glanced at the vacant end of Stryker’s makeshift bench. ‘May I?’

Stryker considered the wood’s damp, pitted surface. ‘It’ll ruin your dress.’

The corners of her mouth twitched as she instinctively smoothed down the folds of yellow material that covered her hips. ‘I think perhaps it is a little too late to worry about such things, Captain Stryker.’

He could not help running his eye over the garment, from the mud-darkened hem, up the pale yellow folds that hung about her legs, and past the trellis of lace struggling to hold the bodice together.
Christ
, he thought, what a vision she was. Part of him wanted to tell her, but he bit back the urge, feeling guilty as an image of Lisette assailed him. Suddenly feeling awkward, as if his thoughts were as etched on his face as his scars, he cleared his throat, nodded at the end of the mouldering log, and waited for her to sit. ‘I am sorry about your father, Miss Cade.’

‘Cecily, please,’ she replied gently.

‘Miss Cecily.’

She laughed for the first time since they had found the stricken coach. ‘Just Cecily.’

He laughed too, unable to break contact with her mesmerizing emerald eyes. ‘I am sorry about your father.’ His smile drooped suddenly. ‘It must have been a frightening experience.’

Cecily’s expression darkened to match his as the memory of the attack struck her. ‘They came out of nowhere,’ she said, staring at the river now, her eyes glazed and distant. ‘All swords and threats. They shouted at Father. Told him to empty his pockets.’

‘But he refused?’

‘Sheer folly,’ she muttered. A fat teardrop welled up like a sudden spring and tumbled down her cheek. ‘Foolish, foolish man.’ She looked up at Stryker. ‘He commanded the coachman to drive through them. He always was pig-headed.’

She smiled – a rueful, knowing smile – that told Stryker of her affection for Sir Alfred Cade, despite the harsh words.

‘And they shot at you?’ he prompted, though he knew the answer well enough.

She nodded. ‘At the driver first, then, after the coach had stopped, they aimed at us. Father and poor Richard.’

‘McCubbin?’ Stryker repeated the name Broom had previously mentioned.

‘Yes,’ Cecily confirmed. ‘Richard McCubbin was my father’s bodyguard for many years. His friend really.’

Stryker eased himself to his feet, taking a leather flask from his snapsack, and walked towards the riverbank. ‘And Broom?’ he asked as he knelt to dunk the flask beneath the icy flow.

‘Otilwell came to us a year or so ago,’ Cecily replied. ‘He was an old comrade of Richard’s, I think.’

Stryker stood, staring up at the tor with its strangely flat summit. A dark cluster of rock crowned the pinnacle like a black cloud. ‘Why did your father feel the need to keep another retainer?’

She shrugged. ‘Times are dangerous, Captain Stryker.’

It was a good enough answer, thought Stryker, and he strode back to the log. As he took his seat again he noticed Cecily regarding him closely. ‘What is it?’

She pursed her lips as if deciding whether to ask whatever question had entered her mind. After a few moments she spoke, ‘May I ask your Christian name, Captain?’

‘I answer to Stryker, Miss Cade.’ Stryker immediately regretted the hasty and rather taciturn response. Seeing her colour, he held up his water flask, wiped the rim with the hem of his coat, and offered it to her.

She smiled at the gesture, clumsy though it was, but waved the flask away. ‘I’m not thirsty, Captain, but thank you.’

They sat in awkward silence a while longer, Stryker’s abrasive answer to the girl’s perfectly reasonable question grating at him with every passing moment. She had taken the rebuff in good nature, but that had almost made his embarrassment worse. Lisette, he thought, would have bitten his head off. Then he remembered the previous night by the fire. The way Cecily had stared at the ruined part of his face, her intrigue obvious.

‘Some years ago,’ he said, hoping in some way to make up for refusing to discuss his name, ‘I was attacked by two men. Eli Makepeace and Malachi Bain. They put a bag of gunpowder to my face.’

Cecily’s jaw dropped. ‘My goodness, Captain. I—I am sorry.’

‘No matter,’ he said, waving her apologies away. ‘It is all dealt with now.’

‘Dealt with?’

Stryker stayed silent, not willing to discuss the demise of the two villains during Brentford Fight, for the wounds he had suffered there were not long healed. He pushed himself off the log and hooked on his scabbard. ‘I must be away. It is time to shake the men into life.’

Cecily nodded. ‘I hope they do as they’re told, Captain.’

He grinned. ‘They’d better.’

In half an hour the company were on the move again. They successfully forded the meandering river at a point where it was both narrow and shallow, and emerged on to the west bank amid cheerful chatter and a bright old Cornish ditty sung by Corporal Tresick. It was a windy day, vengeful gusts whipping down from the tors to scream across the open plain, but mercifully it remained dry.

Stryker stared at the empty horizon, wondering if the improved weather was responsible for the lifted spirits. Perhaps, he thought, it was the fact that with another waterway crossed, they had also surmounted an emotional barrier. They simply felt closer to home.

The column trundled past a small hillock, a gorse-blanketed knoll the size of a small house, and Stryker jogged up to its summit where a single picket, Harry Trowbridge, was standing.

‘Clear?’ he asked.