Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles Read online

  Forrester thought again of the warrant, how gleeful Norton had been to have it in his possession. ‘If Parliament had no design upon Basing before, they will surely come now. The marquess cannot be left to rouse the local Royalists.’

  ‘I am ready for the fight,’ Lawrence declared, rubbing his hands at the prospect.

  ‘Good luck to you, Major,’ Forrester said.

  ‘You think the Roundheads will come?’

  Forrester nodded, again reflecting upon the fire that he had seen blaze in Richard Norton’s eyes. ‘I’m certain of it.’

  CHAPTER 15

  The English Channel, 15 October 1643

  The rugged shore climbed out to port, a grey crescent above the evening sea like the spine of an unfathomably vast whale. It was the Sussex coast, the cliffs of the Isle of Wight having been left behind them. Hope swelled like a tide in Roger Tainton’s breast as he dipped his shoulder into the northerly wind. He knew they could not reach London if matters went on unchecked, but Sussex was, at least, a Parliamentarian county, its towns and ports generally declared for the rebellion, and the prospect of overreaching themselves must, he felt certain, soon become a genuine concern for the bold Cavalier crews. They were not a real navy, he told himself, but a rag-tag fleet of privateers. He prayed they would abandon the chase. Either way, the crew of the Silver Swan had performed admirably, plying their trade amid the thunder of cannon fire, adjusting canvas fraction by fraction as the wind changed direction and strength. The chase had worn them to red-eyed ghouls as the afternoon dragged, the need for rest overtaking their innate instinct for survival, but still they would battle on. God would compel them.

  Tainton watched the undulating coastline, the dark mass pocked white where villages hugged the cliffs. More explosions made him flinch, and he was thankful his cowl concealed his timidity.

  ‘It is over, Mister Tainton, sir,’ the ship’s captain, Trouting, called above a rumbling volley from one of the frigates. Expert seamanship had dragged out some distance between predators and prey, and they were just out of range, but the shots were still too close for comfort as they smashed the surface of the sea. ‘We must put in.’

  Tainton felt as though he had been hit by one of the whistling iron shots. He stepped back to brace himself. ‘We agreed—’

  ‘You agreed.’

  ‘I asked you to have more courage!’

  Trouting shook his narrow head. ‘You commanded me to run east, and I have done so, but the men have had enough. They are worked to the bone! You claimed the enemy would disengage, but they have not!’

  Tainton drew breath to launch a stinging tirade, but the captain’s watery eyes were full of determination. ‘Where?’

  Trouting scratched roughly at his salt-stiffened bristles. ‘Selsey Haven.’

  ‘Selsey?’ Tainton blurted. ‘Might we not choose Chichester? Is it not for the Parliament?’ In truth, he was already forming a strategy in his mind, a tactic for dealing with the local author­ities wherever they landed. Chichester’s Roman walls would offer the best protection for his precious hoard, and protection was what was needed, regardless of the political leaning of a town. So much gold could capture a man’s heart, twist his allegiance and disintegrate his scruples, and Tainton needed to be sure that he could get the treasure behind the thickest walls he could find.

  The captain shrugged. ‘I could not give a goat’s ballock, Mister Tainton. Who’s to say it ain’t gone back to Cavalier hands?’

  ‘It has not,’ Tainton rasped through gritted teeth. ‘I am sure.’

  ‘Not sure enough. Towns change colours from one moon to the next, and I ain’t of a mind to brave the harbour guns if they’ve turned their coats.’

  Tainton could see that he was beaten. He pulled his cloak tighter about his chest and stared out at the rugged coastline. ‘Selsey Haven.’

  ‘Pagham, to be more exact. The harbour offers good shelter.’

  ‘Will not the men-o’-war follow us?’

  Trouting licked cracked lips. ‘Too treacherous for them what don’t knows the tides, sir. Specially for those big bastards. Besides, we’re far enough east for ’em to think twice afore they risk trappin’ theyselves in harbour.’

  Tainton rubbed cold fingers over the dull skin of his jaw. His mind whirled with the difficulties of removing the treasure from the ship and having it stranded in a little provincial town miles from any rebel stronghold. Mercifully, a thought struck him. ‘Can we not wait, then? Sit in harbour for the malignants to lose interest, turn back?’

  Trouting nodded. ‘You may wait, sir, aye, but you’ll be waiting a goodly while.’ He glanced up at the tattered topsail and the dangling strands of rigging. ‘We’ve repairs to make.’

  Tainton could not believe his ears. He felt the fury bubble up inside his throat. ‘How do you know you are safe in Pagham? What about their guns? Or their men, for that matter?’

  ‘I’ve kin there, sir,’ Trouting replied brightly. ‘The Silver Swan is welcome in its waters, whichever way the tide of war might turn. I should like to stay a while.’

  ‘What am I to do?’ Tainton spluttered, aghast. He thought of the gold stored below decks. ‘I cannot very well remain aboard ship. Eventually someone will discover our cargo, and things will go awry.’

  The grizzled seaman pushed thick fingertips into the dense thicket of an eyebrow, pulling at errant hairs, just as the Silver Swan began to tack about, making for land. ‘Do what you will, sir.’

  Tainton wanted to choke the stubborn old man with his bare hands. ‘You’ll see no payment, you mutton-headed palliard.’

  William Trouting cackled and spit at Tainton’s feet. ‘You have three men wi’you, sir. I have thirty. You’ll cough up some golden nuggets or I shall tell the crew what really sits in our hold.’ He pointed back at the tailing warships. ‘Then you’ll wish those sons of whores had caught us after all.’

  Roger Tainton chewed on the inside of his mouth, seeing his avenues of opportunity blocked suddenly with high walls. ‘Very well.’ He jabbed the captain’s chest with his forefinger. ‘God will judge you, sir.’

  Trouting beamed and spun away with an agility that belied his advancing years. ‘Sounds good and well to me, Mister Tainton!’

  The waters off Sussex were inky as the light dimmed. They made for a choppy fastness that made Stryker’s insides dance as he stared out of the boat. The oarsmen hauled on their paddles, water droplets leaping up to spatter his face, but he cared nothing for the cold spray, his mind in turmoil. The Stag had followed the four frigates as soon as they had sighted them off Plymouth. They had watched as the men-o’-war belched bitter fury from their bristling flanks, topmen shouting down from the most precarious sections of rigging, calling the action as they saw it. But the fight was spread across the eastern horizon, rendering it difficult to discern until the sun had pushed further overhead on its perpetual arc, and by then the focus of the warships’ ire was well hidden by smoke, by the coast of the Isle of Wight and the hulking bodies of its pursuers.

  In due course the floating fortresses had tacked about, a quartet of ocean-borne monsters falling silent as abruptly as they had opened fire. The Stag’s range was such that it was impossible to tell precisely what had transpired. Gibbons had blankly refused to come too close to the frigates while their collective blood was up, lest their rows of black-mouthed killers be turned upon the privateer, so they had been forced to amble in the rear, wagering on the chance that the Royalists’ ships were tailing Tainton’s vessel.

  ‘Worry not, Stryker!’ Titus Gibbons had exclaimed happily as they cut through the writhing waves. ‘The men-o’-war will make short shrift of their quarry and we, like a ravenous red kite, will swoop down and pick at the pieces.’

  But even Gibbons’s seemingly indefatigable ebullience had withered as the frigates struggled to keep up with their prize, all the while coughing broadsides into the sea with no obvious joy. No flotsam bobbed past the Stag, no bodies drifted on the roiling water, toss
ed and battered in the angry meeting place of Solent and Channel. Instead, and to everyone’s surprise, the day’s end was signalled by the abrupt cessation of fire and the slow turn of the masted behemoths. Gibbons had quickly run up every Royalist colour he could lay his hands upon and, with Stryker’s hopes fading with the light, ordered one of the Stag’s boats made ready.

  An hour later, accompanied by one of Gibbons’s officers, captain on sea and captain on land were skidding over the darkening depths, the vast shape of a first-rate warship looming like a storm cloud above them.

  They hove to, coming close to the ship’s hull but careful to keep an oar’s length away until strictly necessary. The coarse bellows of seamen rang out above, a ladder of thick ropes dropped, unfurling along the barnacle-speckled keel, and they let the boat slide in, bumping worryingly off the huge hull. Then they were up, scuttling over the side of the frigate, more harsh voices sounding above their heads in gruff encouragement. Stryker had wondered at first whether he would manage the climb, but the fresh air and sense of renewed hope had invigorated him more than he dared expect, and he felt some of his old strength as his fingers curled around each rung of twisted hemp.

  Big, calloused hands manhandled them over the rail. They stood and waited like a trio of lambs in a slaughterhouse, utterly at the mercy of the crew of the warship, who stared at them unabashed. Calls sounded further along the walkway, and all heads turned to see a man in a crusty coat emerge from below deck. He looked like an old fisherman to Stryker’s eye, for he was grizzled by the wind and sun, with one blue eye peering brightly over a wedge of ash-coloured beard, the other eye milky and sightless. His nose was bulbous and pulpy, his gait marked by a severe limp, and his teeth dark brown and strangely out of kilter with his mouth, as though his lips did not quite stretch round them. He offered a brief bow, a motion that made the cloak flap open a touch to reveal an elegant green doublet and breeches beneath. ‘Captain Nehemiah Walsh; Eagle.’

  Stryker’s companion returned the gesture. ‘Captain Titus Gibbons; Stag.’

  ‘Well met, sir, and I have the pleasure of introducing Lieutenant Rowland.’ Walsh nodded to the lieutenant, a young man barely out of his teens, with wide, terrified eyes and a thin moustache of fluff. He moved to the rail, dragging his left foot behind, and studied the Stag as it rose and fell with the restless swells some quarter of a mile to the west.

  ‘A fine little bitch, my man,’ he said, his words slurred so that at first Stryker thought him in his cups. ‘Apologies, my man,’ the sailor added, evidently noting Stryker’s expression. With a wink, he opened his mouth and slid out what seemed to be his entire upper jaw. Stryker realized the teeth were false. Walsh sucked them back in wetly. ‘Made o’ wood, and too damned big!’

  Gibbons tapped a heel on the deck. ‘Much like your ship, sir.’

  Walsh seemed taken aback for a moment, then he slapped his thigh and brayed like a donkey. ‘Good, my man, good, good! I like you already!’ His lone eye slid over to Stryker. ‘A kindred spirit.’

  ‘Sir,’ Stryker mumbled, uncomfortable, acutely aware of his disfigurement.

  ‘This is Stryker, sir,’ Gibbons said. ‘Captain of Foot.’

  ‘A plodder?’ Walsh said in surprise. ‘Lost your breakfast yet?’

  ‘Almost, sir,’ Stryker answered.

  ‘Must have iron guts,’ Walsh said. ‘This ain’t no millpond.’

  Stryker merely smiled, considering the damage Sterne Fassett’s seawater brew had done to his insides. Perhaps they were worn leathery by the salty concoction.

  Walsh looked back to Gibbons. ‘Now, my man, may I ask you your business this far east?’ He gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Compelled to pry, you understand.’

  ‘We hunt a prize, Captain Walsh,’ Gibbons said. ‘A merchantman. Square-rigger, out of Tresco. We heard your cannon fire and—’

  ‘And thought we might have done you a favour, eh?’

  Gibbons nodded. ‘About the size of it, sir.’

  ‘We ran into him,’ Walsh confirmed. ‘Sent a warning shot or three, and the cove bolted. We gave chase, naturally.’

  ‘Where is he now, sir?’ asked Gibbons.

  Walsh looked suddenly awkward. He dislodged his teeth, taking them clean out of his mouth, a long tendril of saliva hanging off his beard, and rubbed them on his sleeve. Eventually he replaced them, the noise sounding like raw meat slapping on a butcher’s block. ‘Lost him.’

  Stryker could not defer to Gibbons any longer. He spoke earnestly now. ‘Lost him?’

  ‘To my shame, my man, aye,’ Walsh said. ‘The wind changed its mind more often than my wife, and was twice as cunning as my mistress! We could not command the weather gage.’ He stared up at the figures in the shrouds, draped amongst the rigging like a troop of monkeys in a forest. ‘Moreover, the hands are raw recruits in the main. Wind, weather, tide and current,’ he announced, counting each point on a rough-skinned finger. ‘The four temptresses of my profession and, I am sorry to say, ones whose ways are yet mysterious to a great many of my crew. The experienced seamen went over to the Parliament, d’you see?’

  ‘I do.’ Titus Gibbons looked at Stryker. ‘Seasoned crews are like raven’s teeth, old friend.’

  ‘Oh, our side have the Cornish, that I do not deny,’ Walsh went on, ‘but they are not aboard my ship, more’s the pity. I am left with what I am given.’

  ‘We must be after him, then,’ Stryker said, unwilling to give up after coming so far.

  Gibbons shook his head. ‘The Stag is fast, Stryker, but if Tainton’s ship could shake off these frigates, then she is good indeed. I fear they pass into rebel waters with every hour.’

  ‘But—’ Stryker began. His protest was cut short by the privateer’s raised palm.

  ‘No argument, old friend. We’ll not catch her till Dover, and I shan’t chase her that far, not even for you. The Downs contains half the rebel fleet.’

  ‘Well, that will not be necessary!’ Nehemiah Walsh barked in amusement. He offered a conspiratorial smirk. ‘I said we lost her, not that she outran us.’

  ‘Sir?’ Gibbons prompted.

  Walsh pointed north, to the black rise of the coast. ‘Pagham, my man. I will not risk the harbour waters, for my charts do not illuminate it to my satisfaction. And, in all honesty, the place lies all too close to Chichester, which was in Roundhead hands, last I heard. That little merchantman was not worth the trouble. But that is where you’ll find her, gentlemen. She went to Pagham.’

  North of Selsey Haven, Sussex, 15th October 1643

  ‘The lookout spied sail,’ Clay Cordell muttered as they hauled the stolen cart up the wet sandbank. It had been the possession of a local fisherman, left on shore with its underfed nag while its owner had gone to sea. Tainton had commandeered it, ordered the men to discard the piled netting, and set about loading the treasure. He had not trusted the crew of the Silver Swan to help, for the glittering cargo was more than poor men could bear to ignore, but he had donated a handful of coin to the captain for distribution on the proviso that his gruff seamen found themselves elsewhere for the evening. For his part, William Trouting had obliged readily enough, dispatching his men to Pagham’s taverns and pocketing a goodly number of heavy coins for his trouble. Now, as the day grew old, Tainton’s party were making their way inland, weaving though the expanse of dunes that fringed the harbour in search of somewhere to rest for the night.

  ‘There were more sails out there than gulls,’ Sterne Fassett responded from the back of the vehicle, lending his lithe strength to the effort of reaching the higher ground above the salty dunes.

  ‘But the men-o’-war did not give chase,’ Cordell persisted, glancing back, though a large hillock of sand blocked his view of the darkening sea. ‘They pissed off back to Cornwall or wherever the whoresons have their nest.’

  ‘Your point?’ Fassett asked.

  ‘There was one sail,’ Cordell said, his sickly face more pallid than ever. ‘He saw one, lone ship, separate from them frig
ates, heading right for us.’

  Fassett laughed scornfully. ‘You think it was Stryker?’

  ‘Crossed my mind.’

  ‘On what ship?’ Roger Tainton cut in.

  ‘The one that took him to Tresco.’

  Tainton scoffed. ‘Some paltry fishing vessel? I doubt that would be enough to get him all the way to England.’

  Cordell grimaced. ‘A seaworthy ship, then.’

  ‘He cannot simply have conjured one from thin air. His vessel was wrecked. It lies on the seabed even now. God has seen us prevail, Mister Cordell, have no fear.’

  ‘You’re letting your mind run you dizzy, Clay,’ Fassett chided. ‘We have the gold yet. Stryker’s on Scilly, the malignants are all out west.’

  They reached the summit of the bank and looked north. The land flattened out into a patchwork of arable enclosures and patches of woodland. In truth, Tainton was not a happy man. They were stuck on shore miles from London. But Sussex was not nearly as hotly contested as Hampshire, and he felt confident that God would lead them to safety with the rising sun. Chichester was to the west and Arundel Castle was to the east, both held by rebel forces for the whole of the year, and neither was blockaded to the landward by malignants. Danger lurked like noon-time shadows after men carrying such a quantity of riches, but the plan was simple. They would head north at first light, making direct for the capital.

  Locke Squires left his position at the rear of the cart and pointed to a little copse about a mile to the north-west that was bisected by a deep gully along which flowed a glistening stream. At the edge of the copse was a little hut. It looked uninhabited, for, even from this distance, they could see that the area around was overgrown and no smoke trail streaked the sky above.

  Tainton nodded. ‘Aye, that will suffice.’

  ‘Should we not make immediately inland?’ Fassett said. ‘The captain said there is a road to the east of here, near a village.’

  ‘Sidlesham,’ said Tainton.