Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles (7 page)

They left Launceston at noon. Forrester’s forty men – half musket, half pike – and seven Cornishmen, including the gigantic Anthony Payne.

Technically Forrester commanded the company, for the bulk of the troops were his and Payne held no commission or rank to speak of, but knowledge of the local terrain, not to mention the mission’s detail, effectively made the giant de facto leader. Forrester did not mind the fact, for he was simply happy to be busy. Mowbray was right when he had told Hopton of the captain’s restless nature, and he was only too pleased to be on the road, rather than stagnating in camp. Perhaps, he wondered as he stared at the forest-patched horizon, that was the reason he and Stryker had remained friends for so many years. The pair shared little in common, and Forrester’s great love of the arts was something of a mystery to the plain-living Stryker, but they both relished risk. Both preferred challenging danger to languishing in some disease-ridden billet awaiting the next order.

‘A happy thought is a precious thing in these dark days, sir,’ Payne’s deep voice growled like a warship’s broadside across Forrester’s reverie.

Realizing he must have been smiling, Forrester craned his neck to look up at Sir Bevil Grenville’s famed manservant, whose enormous stride made his own appear like that of a child. ‘Your master described the Cornish as reckless, Mister Payne. I was simply reflecting that employing me for this task might not have been a deal safer.’

‘Oh?’

Forrester could not help but let out a rueful chuckle. ‘Since the turning of the year, I have been embroiled in more quarrels than I care to count, many of which might have been avoided had I been a man of cooler temper.’

Payne’s expression was one of incredulity. ‘Sir?’

Forrester laughed at that, understanding that the big man would be gazing down at a fellow of average height, round, fleshy face and ample midriff. He patted his belly with a gloved hand. ‘I may appreciate the finer aspects of life, Mister Payne, but you can be certain that I am not the tardy-gaited coxcomb you presume me to be.’

‘I did not presume so, sir.’

‘
Pah
! I have seen your current expression on many a face, sir.’

‘Then I am sorry,’ Payne said.

Forrester shook his head vigorously. ‘It is of no concern, Payne. None at all. I would be lying if I claimed not to have thought you a beef-witted oaf when first I laid eyes upon you.’

It was Payne’s turn to laugh, and the sound seemed to reverberate up and down Forrester’s spine. ‘So you are a reckless Cornishman at heart, Captain?’

‘Aye, I think perhaps I am. Why, a mere month ago I was fighting for my life on a cursed field outside Stafford.’

Payne’s oval eyes widened. ‘You were at Hopton Fight?’

Forrester nodded. ‘I was. While you were enjoying your genteel peace accord, I was traipsing around the Midlands dodging rebel musket-balls.’

Payne pursed his lips in thought. ‘I did not know Mowbray’s were with Northampton’s army, sir.’

‘They weren’t!’ Forrester exclaimed. ‘That is precisely my point, Mister Payne. I travelled there as a favour to a friend, and events rather overtook us.’ He remembered that day. The terrified braying of the horses, the ear-splitting cannon fire, the thundering cavalry charges. A picture of the killing field resolved before him, and the ridge at its summit that was filled with grey-coated Parliamentarians. Aye, he thought, he had gone there for Stryker. And Stryker had gone there for Lisette Gaillard. And she had left him again.

‘The difference, of course,’ Payne now spoke, and Forrester wondered if the big man could sense the shadow that had fallen across his mood, ‘is that my lads aren’t over fond o’ leavin’ Kernow.’

‘Oh?’ Forrester replied absently.

‘Between you and the Cornish, sir. The difference is that your recklessness takes you to wherever the fight happens to be. The Cornish are grand brawlers, make no mistake, but they fight for their county.’

Forrester looked up, a thought dawning. ‘That’s why I’ve been chosen for this, isn’t it?’

‘Sir?’

‘It was easier to order me into Devon than any of Grenville’s troops.’

Payne’s huge head bobbed. ‘The Cornish regiments will go where they’re told, sir. They will for Grenville, leastwise, for he has their trust. But it is true to say that they would take some persuasion to cross the Tamar.’

‘And you?’

‘I am not your average soldier, sir,’ Payne said bluntly. ‘I have served Sir Bevil since we were children.’

‘You grew up in his household?’ Forrester asked.

‘You have it, Captain. He may be my master, but he is also my family. I go where he tells me to go.’

‘And where is that, exactly?’ Forrester ventured.

Payne’s wide mouth stretched in a wry smile. ‘Merrivale, sir. We must meet someone there in three days’ time.’

‘Finally!’ Forrester sighed sarcastically.

Payne shook his head. ‘But no more detail than that, sir.’

‘But—’

‘I am sorry, sir,’ said Payne, cutting off Forrester’s protest, ‘but the matter is sensitive. I cannot speak of it further. I trust you understand my position, Captain?’

Forrester sighed again, this time in resignation. ‘Do I have a choice?’

CHAPTER 3

Okehampton, Devon,
28
April
1643

Almost any other day, the view from the White Hart was an unremarkable affair. Fore Street, running through the centre of Okehampton, was ever busy; populated by horses and carts, children scuttling this way and that, farmers driving livestock to market, peddlers hawking their wares. The everyday rhythm of life. But not today.

The two men at the inn’s large, upper-floor window, its shutters thrown open to the grey dawn, gazed down upon a scene of chaos. Of swirling, bawling, shoving, bustling humanity.

A crowd, large and excitable, had gathered on the road, a roiling dust cloud smudging the air around their ankles, all faced in the direction of a newly erected wooden platform. Men, women and children were there, representatives from all walks of life, from Okehampton’s highest ranks to its scrawniest guttersnipes. An army of carrion birds circled above; cawing crows, darting sparrows and majestic red kites.

‘Not a real man,’ muttered one of the men at the window. He was tall, athletically built, and dressed in a black coat fringed with blue lace. He scratched at his head, ruffling the streak of silver that ran like a badger’s stripe through the middle of his otherwise light-brown hair. ‘We are at war. We do not need ghoulish killers who hide behind the Scriptures to slake their blood lust.’ He stalked back to the empty hearth at the room’s opposite side, tall cavalry boots clomping loudly on the floorboards.

The second man remained at the sill, staring down at the jostling throng below. ‘Pray, Wild,’ he said, without turning round. ‘What
do
we need?’

Colonel Gabriel Wild leant against the cold mantelpiece. ‘Soldiers, sir. Weapons.’

This time the man looked back from his vantage point. ‘You preach to me, Colonel?’

Wild was not easily cowed, but he found he could not meet the challenging gaze of the man before him. Those eyes – small, coal-black, and set deep into a head that carried not a single hair – seemed utterly mesmerizing. He focussed instead on the shining silver lace that snaked its way down the front of his companion’s fine green doublet. ‘I—’

‘When it was you, Colonel Wild,’ the green-uniformed man, who might have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty-five years of age, went on. ‘You who lost one good trooper, all your kit, all your weapons, a dozen horses,’ his tone grew as dark as his eyes, ‘and my goddamned arms cache.’

Wild coloured. ‘General, I have already explained myself.’

‘Then explain again, by Christ!’ the general exploded, his hitherto pale face turning the colour of ripe strawberries. ‘Or you’ll be next on to that scaffold!’

Gabriel Wild gritted his teeth, for it was all he could do not to launch himself at the man in green. To smash his fist into that fragile-looking chin and teach the gutter-born upstart how to address his betters. But he could not, for, despite being of lower birth, Major-General Erasmus Collings was a formidable man. Not only did he enjoy far higher rank – militarily, at least – but it was said that he held the ear of Pym himself. Wild stood rigidly beside the big stone hearth, fists balled, straining to keep his rage-filled body in check.

The corners of Collings’s thin-lipped mouth rose to a nasty smirk. ‘Do not push me, sir,’ he said, and Wild detected no hint of mirth in that icy voice. ‘You may hide behind your family’s wealth all you like, Colonel, but it is folly indeed to think you might puff up your chest like some pride-swollen peacock and intimidate me.’

Wild did not know if it was the major-general’s confident tone, the cutting words, or those lifeless eyes, but he felt the bluster cascade from him like water through a cracked dam. He took a deep, steadying breath. ‘We were ambushed, General. By a much larger force.’

‘Where did they come from?’ Collings said, his tone more moderate now, thoughtful.

‘I know not, sir,’ Wild said, utterly embarrassed, for he knew his words must appear pathetic in the extreme. ‘That is to say, I did not see or hear their approach.’

‘But you believe they had marched out of Bovey Tracey?’

‘Aye, sir, of that I’m certain.’ Wild thought back to his humiliating entrance into the town. It had taken them several hours to trudge down from the hills and into civilization, only to be greeted by a barrage of laughter and abuse. Dressed only in their undergarments, he and his ten horseless troopers must have appeared a hilarious sight for townsman and soldier alike. ‘Our people were there,’ he said simply, still smarting from the experience.

Collings nodded. ‘We have been moving units ever westward since Sourton Fight. Deeper and deeper into the moor. Now that Hopton is forced back into Cornwall, everything east of the Tamar can be ours.’

‘Their colonel told me of a Cavalier company that had been in the area for the best part of a week.’

‘He saw them?’ Collings asked.

Wild shook his head. ‘They had fled long before his men reached the town. But the locals described them well enough. Redcoats, near one hundred strong.’

‘You’re certain they were your assailants?’

‘Quite certain, sir,’ Wild said, finding the words suddenly difficult to say, for an image of one man in particular had come into his mind. ‘The townsfolk described their leader as a hideous creature. A one-eyed monster,’ he ran his fingers across the left side of his face, ‘with a mass of ugly scars across here.’

‘Not a man easily forgotten.’

‘Never forgotten,’ replied Wild. ‘It was he who led the ambush against me, General. Captain Stryker was his name.’

Collings sucked at his hairless bottom lip. ‘I have heard of him.’

‘You have?’ Wild was unable to keep the surprise from his voice.

Collings offered a cold smile. ‘How is a mere enemy captain known to a man such as I?’ He paused as a great cacophony of excited chatter rose up from below the window.

Wild frowned and paced across the room to retake his position. Three figures moved through the still growing crowd. Two – the foremost and rearmost – were shoving and pushing their way past the bodies, clearing a path to the platform. The man at the front was short, morbidly corpulent, and swarthy-skinned. His hair was long, black as jet, and carried an oily sheen. The man at the rear was taller, of slimmer build, and had marginally lighter skin. His face was cleanly shaven, tapering to a sharp chin and framed with shoulder-length auburn hair that was flecked with shards of grey. He walked with a pronounced limp, leaning heavily on a long, knotted stick. The figure in between, smaller and hooded, seemed a reluctant companion; head bowed, feet shuffling.

‘I am a man of intrigue, Colonel,’ Collings said when the shouts and jeers began to subside. ‘My weapon is not the sword, but the quill.’

Wild looked up from the scene on the street to meet the major-general’s beady, almost reptilian gaze. He believed that well enough. Collings was a slight figure. Sallow-skinned, thin-limbed, with bones that looked as delicate as glass. ‘Aye, sir.’

‘In such a capacity,’ the major-general went on, ‘I have made it my business to know our enemy. Anyone of significance, at the very least. Stryker is a hard man. Not unlike yourself, I suppose. Experienced, brutal, vengeful. A real devil. And favourite of Prince Robber.’

Wild’s eyes widened involuntarily. ‘I had not realized.’

Collings stared down at the road. ‘A dangerous knave to have encountered, Colonel, make no mistake. The question is: where did he go with my damned wagon?’

Wild made to reply, but found his throat clogged. He cleared it awkwardly. ‘Again, sir, I am not certain. Across Dartmoor, I presume, for he must surely wish to convey it to his superiors.’

‘Then you had better get it back,’ Collings said matter-of-factly, though Wild sensed the threat beneath the plain tone.

Down on Fore Street, the crowd was beginning to stir again. A murmur of voices gradually rose to a great cry as the three figures mounted the wooden platform. At the centre of the structure stood a thick-beamed frame, the shape of an inverted ‘L’. From the frame dangled a noose, swaying gently in the breeze.