John Saturnall's Feast (36 page)

The third charge broke them. A loose horse scythed through the ranks and rose before John and Philip, rearing and snorting, its huge hooves pawing the air above their heads. A pikeman drove his weapon into its flank but the beast knocked him down. All around John men were turning and running, melting before the onslaught. Then he was running too with Philip, Pandar and Phineas. Ahead, a horseless cuirassier was making his escape through a hedge towards the copse of trees beyond. They scrambled after the man, Phineas trying to drag his pike behind him. Pandar turned on him.

‘Drop it, you fool!’

Phineas stared back, his face blank. Pandar shouted again, furious.

‘He can't hear you!’ shouted Philip. He took the boy's fingers off the shaft and threw it aside. They forced a way through the hedge and ran. The cuirassier was part-way across the next field, limping towards the stand of trees. As they reached the trunks, the cavalry-man turned and pulled off his helmet.

‘Back to the field! I order you!’

Piers Callock's lank hair was matted with sweat. He had discarded his armour, all save the breastplate and helmet. His unfired flintlocks sat in their holsters and a dark bloodstain ran down one of his legs. He stared wildly at the cooks. But Pandar's eyes followed the blood to its source, which was Piers's left buttock. The cook bared his yellow teeth in a grin.

‘A knife in the arse? A telling wound, Lord Piers.’

Piers scowled and Pandar's grin broadened. An instant later Philip shouted ‘Down!’ as a volley of musket-fire sounded. John heard a bullet crack against the tree beside him. He pulled Phineas to the ground, the youth grunting with pain. Together they scrambled away through the trees.

They emerged in a field. A ditch ran along the side. Piers limped out behind them.

‘Help me!’ he gasped.

‘Wound stiffening up?’ asked Pandar. John and Philip exchanged glances. Each took an arm. John nodded to the ditch.

‘Over there.’

They part slid, part rolled down the muddy slope and lay on their backs. Phineas clutched his groin, dark red blood welling up through his fingers. John prised the youth's hands away.

A thick flap of flesh hung open. The youth's intestines bulged out, glistening grey and pink. John remembered the pigs they had gutted in Underley's jointing room.

‘Caught a good scratch there, Phin,’ he said jovially.

‘We'll bind it up,’ Philip said quickly. He glanced anxiously back at the trees then pulled off his jacket and shirt and started tearing the latter into strips. John peeled back Phineas's hose.

‘Doesn't hurt too bad,’ Phineas said. ‘Just my legs are cold.’

Across the field the musketeers emerged from the trees.

‘We must fall back to a defensive position,’ Piers said in a commanding tone.

‘Phineas can't fall back anywhere,’ Philip answered shortly.

‘Leave him here. They will bring him to a surgeon,’ Piers said.

‘They'll slit his throat,’ Pandar said bluntly.

The musketeers were walking across the field.

‘Come, Pandar,’ Piers urged. ‘I need your help.’ He clutched at his buttock. ‘Think of my father's generosity.’

Your father is dead, thought John. Crouched down in the ditch, he rose to eye the gate across the field. ‘Stay here,’ he whispered to Philip. ‘Don't move, you hear me?’ Then he turned to Piers. ‘To me
,
Lord Piers. I'll get you away.’

The youth did not hesitate. ‘My father will reward you for your service,’ Piers said breathlessly, taking his arm. ‘For your courage, I should say. I will reward you myself . . .’

Ignoring the others, John got an arm under Piers. He cast an eye over the fine breastplate and the slashed silk sleeves of Piers's shirt. He glanced again at the flintlocks, primed in their finely worked leather holsters.

‘What do you say to being Master Cook at Buckland?’ Piers went on as they limped, crouching, along the ditch. ‘When I marry Lucretia, naturally . . .’

They were almost at the gate. Suddenly John grasped Piers by the arm and hauled him up the side of the ditch. They arrived at the top in full view of the musketeers. An astonished Piers was too startled to resist as John pulled a flintlock from his holster. He pointed it towards the group and shouted at the top of his voice.

‘For God and Queen Mary!’

John fired, the flintlock kicking high into the air.

‘You madman!’ gasped Piers.

Across the field, the musketeers swivelled and ran forwards. As John pulled Piers through the gate, a volley of shots crackled. Cursing and wincing, clutching his injured buttock, Piers limped after John.

‘How dare you! To use me as a decoy . . .’

‘Us,’ grunted John. On the other side they faced a great wall of brambles. He pulled Piers to the side, his eyes probing the thicket. ‘This way.’

They crawled in, Piers wincing.

‘God curse you, kitchen boy.’

‘Cook.’

John crawled forward, imagining musket balls piercing the protective thorns, piercing him like Phineas or Henry Palewick. But beneath his fear, a grim hilarity rippled. He was in a bramble bush again, except now he was with Lucretia's bridegroom. Wincing and hissing, Piers followed his wriggling progress. Soon they were deep in the thicket, the sunlight prickling through the thorns and glowing off the lush grass outside. Then a shadow fell. Abruptly, John clapped a hand over Piers's mouth. The outline of a musketeer was visible through the thorns. The two youths watched the soldier halt, his weapon swinging lazily. Another joined him. They began to circle the thicket.

‘We'll die in here,’ Piers whispered.

‘Be quiet,’ John whispered back.

The dragoons circled, three or four at least. Their dark outlines appeared and disappeared. Long minutes would pass then another shadow would reappear. But they did not fire their weapons as John had feared. At last they gave up the silent hunt.

‘It's because of her.’ Piers's voice startled John after the long silence. The youth eyed him resentfully. ‘Isn't it? Dragging me in here. It's not for your little troop of kitchen boys. You courted her and you want me gone . . .’

‘I cooked for her,’ John interrupted. ‘That's all.’ But now he wondered if Piers spoke the truth. What if a musket ball had burst Piers's head as it had Henry Palewick's?

‘You cooked and I courted,’ Piers mused. ‘And now we're here.’

‘Think of all the Callocks will gain,’ John said drily. ‘The Manor. All the lands of the Vale. All those rents and deeds . . .’

‘Better to think of what we lost,’ Piers broke in bitterly. ‘We were all Callocks once. Did you know that? Before half of us called themselves Fremantles like they were Normans. The whole Vale was Callock lands. We've been trying to get it back ever since.’ Piers shifted his leg, prodding gingerly at his buttock. ‘You know who gave me this wound?’

John shrugged, thinking of Philip and the others left behind in the field. He had heard no shots except distant reports.

‘My father,’ announced Piers. ‘I could not hold the line. I turned my horse and he tried to hold me. He always said I would prove a coward.’

John remembered the struggling horseman glimpsed tussling with Sir Hector. ‘But you captured seven dragoons,’ he said, puzzled. ‘You led a charge.’

‘They surrendered,’ Piers said. ‘And I led no charge. I was drunk and my horse bolted. Montagu was too stupid to notice. But my father will trumpet my failings, as always . . .’

‘He will trumpet nothing,’ said John.

‘You do not know him,’ Piers muttered.

‘I know he is dead.’

‘Dead?’ Piers looked incredulous. ‘Truly dead? Are you sure?’

John nodded and a smile spread over Piers's face. ‘He lived to regain the Vale. That and the King's favour.’ Piers looked out of the thorns as if he could see the battlefield. ‘Who'd give a farthing for it now?’

‘The King will gather his forces,’ said John. ‘He will fight on.’

Piers gave a snort. ‘The cause is lost.’

They lay down beneath the brambles and waited for darkness. Several times, groups of soldiers passed by. In the distance they heard musket-fire. John drank the last of his water and thought again of Phineas, Philip and Pandar, left behind in the field. What of the others? The last he had seen of Adam Lockyer the youth was running from the line. Ben Martin the same, and Peter Pears, and Colin and Luke . . . In his mind's eye, John summoned the Buckland Kitchen, not knowing if its members were among the living or the dead. Beside him, Piers shifted and groaned. Then, as the light began to fade, John heard a low snort.

‘A horse!’ Piers hissed beside him. ‘Look!’

They could see its outline, saddled but riderless, head bent to the grass.

‘Slowly,’ said John as Piers wriggled out. ‘Don't scare it off.’

‘Scare it?’ whispered Piers. ‘He's our ride out of here, kitchen boy.’

The horse was a brown gelding, big enough for two. It looked up placidly as they emerged.

‘Not even winded,’ said Piers. ‘There's room for a whole troop on that saddle.’

The animal bent its head, its reins trailing in the grass. This would be easy, John thought. But as he approached, the horse skipped away.

‘Use a stick,’ Piers urged. He handed one over. ‘Hook the reins . . .’

The horse side-stepped again. John looked anxiously back towards the battlefield. Through the gate, the field stretched back to the stand of trees and the double hedge beyond. There was no sign of Philip and the others. As the horse bent its head, John reached out. A moment later the reins were in his hands.

‘Careful,’ Piers warned. ‘Help me up.’

John put the youth's booted foot in a stirrup. Piers winced as he swung his leg over. At that moment John saw a movement in the distant hedge. Across the field, a soldier wearing a slouch hat emerged.

‘Quick,’ John urged, reaching up a hand.

‘Let me settle the beast first.’

Piers sat gingerly in the saddle. Beyond the stand of trees, the man was joined by half a dozen others. These wore helmets. Piers took up the reins. As John reached up for the pommel of the saddle, Piers drew his remaining pistol.

‘Cook for her, would you, kitchen boy?’

John stared up into the gun's black barrel. Piers filled his lungs.

‘God and Queen Mary!’

His shout resounded over the field. John saw the musketeers raise their weapons. Then the youth dug his heels into the horse's sides. The animal started forward and Piers galloped away.

He was running again. Heart pumping, feet thudding, his lungs heaving in great burning breaths. Once the musketeers fell back, John crept along the lines of hedgerows and ditches. As darkness fell, he found shelter in the lee of a bank.

A bright moon rose, casting a wan light over the turf. Crouched beneath the hedge, John cursed Piers Callock for the hundredth time and tried to work out where he was. Sulby lay to one side of the battlefield. To the other was Naseby. He smelt woodsmoke but saw no fires. From time to time horses’ hooves thundered somewhere ahead of him.

He could make ten miles before dawn, John told himself. Hide again at daybreak. Then another ten, and another. All the way back to the Vale.

A broken-down well stood on the far side of the field. John remembered how thirsty he was. But he had not taken a dozen paces towards it before a great crack seemed to split his head in two. He fell.

‘Over here!’ shouted a voice. He was lying on the ground. Two Roundhead troopers stood over him. A little way off, four others were hauling a two-wheel cart. The nearest one drew a flintlock. Two reddened eyes stared out of a mask of dirt. The cart, John saw now, was loaded with corpses.

‘What's the word?’

‘God alone,’ said John.

‘Papist liar.’

The man aimed his flintlock, bringing it closer until John felt the metal of the barrel touch his scalp. He saw the man's hand tighten. Then a soundless white flash exploded in his head. John smelt burning hair and felt something hot run down his cheek. He was falling.

But strange sensation overcame him. He fell slower and slower, as if unable to reach the ground, and when his eyes opened again, it seemed the moonlight had drained all colour from the scene. To his surprise, he felt no pain.

The dragoon with the pistol was staggering away. He must have missed, thought John. As he watched, a sharp clang rang out and the dragoon stumbled sideways. His comrades looked about, one pulling out his own flintlock. A moment later he clutched his face. Another reached for his sword then dropped it as if stung on the hand. John looked about for their attacker and saw the soldier in the slouch hat standing alone on the bank.

He wore a heavy leather coat and his face was hidden beneath the brim of his hat. Stones rattled in the bag slung over his shoulder and a short sword dangled in its scabbard. As John watched, he reached into the bag, weighed a stone and let fly. The trooper nearest John cried out and clutched his knee.

‘Damn you,’ he grunted.

‘Too late for that,’ said the lone figure. ‘I was damned long ago.’

The accent was familiar. But the voice sounded strange, as if John were hearing it from the bottom of a well.

‘Who're you with?’ a dragoon demanded as the man jumped down from the bank.

‘Me?’ the soldier answered. ‘I ain't with anyone.’

John felt blood from his head drip down his neck. The ball must have grazed his scalp. The dragoons began muttering.

‘Throw him on the cart,’ said one, sounding far away.

But there was no cart. And John could no longer see the soldiers. He tried to rise but a great weight pressed on his chest. The wet winding-sheet smell filled his nostrils and the ground seemed to harden beneath him . . . Suddenly the stone-thrower loomed over him.

‘You run fast, John. Just like in the old days.’

Then John knew the voice. The slouch hat cast a shadow over the figure's face but its owner pulled off the headgear.

Abel Starling looked hardly changed from the boy John had last seen on the green at Buckland. Only the moonlight lent him an awful pallor.

‘Thought the fever took me, did you?’

John nodded, too surprised to answer.

‘Thought I was dead myself once or twice.’ Abel reached down a hand. ‘Come on.’