Trumpets? Daniel pulled out his looker. First he
checked the king's marquee. Was he even there or was he fleeing
with his sons? He couldn't see the king but he could see the young
princes. He dropped the angle of the scope to scan the steep slopes
down to the flats. There were plenty of orange sashes on the slope,
but lower down. The strange thing was that now the all important
high ground of the ridge was theirs for the claiming, they had all
but stopped climbing the slope. One last push up the slop and the
red infantry would have surrendered. Yes the two sides were taking
pot shots at each other, but no one on either side seemed to be
organizing an attack. Meanwhile they were losing the light, and
then what?
What kind of insanity was this? Holding this edge would give Essex control of this entire region, including the roads to Banbury and the highways to Oxford and London. Why were they not forcing the surrender of the red infantry? It didn't make sense. Trumpets again. They were coming from Essex's side of the battlefield. Was Essex signaling a general recall? What was Essex thinking? He had won the battle so why wasn't he pressing the win? With the ridge as his, he would again be between the king's army and London. Hadn't that always been Essex's strategy? Worse still, why wasn't he sending Balfour and his cuirassiers to capture the king, which would end the war? Why a recall? It was sheer insanity.
Back and forth, over and over, he scanned the fields with the looker. From this vantage he could see the entire battlefield. There was damn little fighting going on anywhere any more. Clots of pikemen in red sashes were being allowed to walk off the field in almost every direction. Perhaps these were pressed men, like his clansmen, who had decided to go home while the going was good.
The red infantry and the orange infantry were staying away from each other and carrying the dead, the injured, and the prisoners back to their original lines. There were small pockets of cavalry from both sides moving back and forth but only to escort prisoners or their own injured men. Where were the rest of the cavalry? He could see neither the bulk of the red nor the orange cavalry.
Eventually he focused on the village of Kineton. There was a bloody hand to hand battle royal going on within the parliamentary camp that ringed that village. That was where Rupert's flying army were. Was that why Essex had recalled his men back from the ridge? Why? To save a baggage train rather than capture the king. It still made no sense.
An angry sound from Femke brought him back out of his looker and he spun around in her direction. He had been so involved in the surreal feeling and the surreal view, that he had been oblivious to what was happening on the ridge. The reds were returning, and he was the only orange near here. A group of red musketeers were near Femke and making ready to grab her so that Daniel couldn't use her to escape them. They must have thought him an officer worthy of capture, otherwise they would have shot him by now.
"Kick, kick, kick,” Daniel yelled out to her and that was exactly what she did. Suddenly the men around her were diving away from her hoofs. She trotted up to him and he swung himself aboard without slowing her ... another advantage of riding a short horse. She had been heading south along the traverse path, and that was good enough for him. Southward should be safe enough because most of the returning reds were headed towards the northern end of the ridge where the king was. A few of the musketeers now took shots at him, so he ducked a little in the saddle.
It was a good thing he didn't duck lower else whatever hit him in the back would have hit him in the neck. As it was, the power of the hit pushed him forward and sent pins and needles and pain shooting through his shoulders and shoulder blades. A musket ball must have hit him square in the back between the shoulder blades. He reached around to feel for the stickiness of blood, but he felt none. He did, however, finger a deep dent in his body armour.
The denting would cause an aching bruise that would pain him for a week but at least it was not serious. The thin Dutch steel of his chest armour had saved him yet again. He said a quiet thank you to the king's amateur musketeers who didn't have the sense or the training to know that the easiest way to stop a mounted man was to shoot the horse, not the man.
Once he was a quarter mile southward along the trail, the immense hurt of the hit forced him stop and dismount. It stung so much that he checked again to make sure that it wasn't bleeding. It wasn't, but it was every bit as painful as stubbing the same toe over and over again. The pain brought him out of surreal feeling and into the here and now of the very real. What the hell was he still doing on this slope? Why hadn't he joined the Freiston men in their march towards Banbury and then home? He could still catch them up, yes, but something was nagging at him, as if he had forgotten something.
The Earl of Lindsey. He had wounded Lindsey and had seen his son and his other officers carry him away from the skirmish at the field guns, but was he dead or soon to be dead, or would he live? If he didn't die then the next time he was anywhere near Boston with his army, he would avenge himself on those villagers yet again. He had to make certain that Lindsey was dead. That was why he was still on Edgehill and not marching home with his clansmen.
Through his looker he again scanned the battlefield, this time searching for Lindsey, or somewhere that Lindsey was likely to be. The last time he had seen him, he and his son had been surrounded by orange infantry, so they were sure to be captives. Where would captive officers be assembled and guarded? Rupert's flying army had now been beaten away from Kineton for they were riding in a mass just north of the battlefield on their way back to the ridge and the king. This was important to know, not just for his own safety, but because it meant that now Kineton and the camp would be safe again, and that was where all important prisoners would be taken.
That made sense, and it was about the only thing that did make sense in all of the insanity. Unfortunately Daniel was as diagonally opposite from Kineton as he could be, and between he and Kineton was a darkening battlefield strewn with the injured, the dying, and the dead, patrolled by cavalrymen, and every opportunistic cut throat in the service of two armies. He stretched out his shoulders and winced. His armour was likely bent inwards and rubbing his bruises. It would take too long to take it off and pound out the dent, for by that time that was done he would be making his way in the dark. Instead he bore the pain and willed Femke down the hill and took the shortest diagonal course towards Kineton.
Battlefields after a battle had always bothered him deep down in his soul. There was something uncaring and inhumane about the way that badly injured men were treated. Instead of them being carried off the field to be treated first by the surgeons, they were often the last. The first men surgeons would treat were nobles and officers no matter which side they were on. Next they would treat the badly injured who had the best chance of survival. Only then would they spare time for the badly injured who had little chance. The walking wounded were often left to fend for themselves.
Since that was the sequence of the surgeons, that was also the sequence that men were carried to the surgeons. In Holland he had too often seen that main cause of death on battlefields was not the clean kill of a weapon, but the slow painful death of neglect. He expected no different here and he wasn't disappointed, or rather, he was. He forced himself to keep riding and ignore the many men who called out to him for help. The Wyred Sisters had interwoven his fate with that of Lindsey and he must make sure that man was dead before he got sidetracked by any act of mercy or goodness.
When he was almost to Kineton a glow came from high on the ridge. Someone had started a giant bonfire. Though his looker was useless without good light, the light of this great fire was enough for him to see what was going on. The king, the princes and the generals were parading about the fire, not to keep warm, but to be seen so that their disorganized and spread out army could see where their camp was, and that the king was still with them. The orange army was certainly in complete control of the field and the lower slopes, and no one was stopping them from dragging all the cannons, both of the orange and the red, towards Kineton.
The first thing he noticed on entering Essex's camp was that it had been shredded. The next thing he noticed was that none of the soldiers were eating hot food or meat. This was yet another mystery because they would all be famished. This mystery lasted only until he reached the cart train that marked the kitchens. The slaughter was horrible to behold. These were not soldiers lying carved to pieces in the dust. They were carters and porters and cooks and kitchen lads, all of them unarmed and all of them hacked to pieces as if they had been animals in a slaughterhouse.
The stench of blood and offal was so strong that Femke complained about being there, so he turned her way to leave this place. That was when he heard his name called.
"Daniel,” the call came again. "Daniel how fare thee? You don't look well. Have you need of a physician?" It was Oliver, Captain Cromwell looking tired but not bloody.
"Oliver, well met. I am tired and wounded but not badly. Take me somewhere where I can breath fresh air again."
Oliver rode over to him and then pointed towards the east side of the village, to the windward where there was clean air and towards the river where there were clean wells. As they rode together he said, "I just arrived with my Cambridge men. Too late for today's battle but in good time to secure the camp."
Daniel couldn't ride anymore because his back was killing him, so he stepped gingerly down and led Femke. She too deserved a rest. Oliver dismounted so they could walk together. "We got here just in time to see Denzil Holles and his London mob put the run on Prince Rupert. In truth it may have been the arrival of my two hundred fresh horse that caused Rupert to retire. Have you seen Valentine? I've been looking all over for him."
"Not since Warwick castle,” Daniel replied. "He has fine men riding with him."
"Fine men, pah,” Oliver said in a hoarse whisper. "None of our troopers are fine men. If you want to see fine men you must look to Rupert's troopers. They are gentlemen and persons of quality."
Daniel stopped in his tracks partly because he could not believe his ears and partly because their way was blocked by the corpses of a half a dozen lads who were too young to carry weapons and so had joined up to carry water to the battle lines. None of the kills had been clean. Daniel grabbed Oliver by the collar and wrenched his head down so he could take a closer look at the trampled and cleaved bodies. "There is what your gentlemen, your person's of quality are all about. Take a good look. That is what fine breeding and noble blood brings to this land. I would rather fight alongside country louts and town tapsters than alongside the men who could do this to unarmed boys."
Oliver hit his hand away and scrambled back up and away from the corpses. "Still, the point has to be made to Hampden and Pym. Rupert's men are too good for us to take on without gentlemen taking to the saddle against them."
Daniel tried to tell himself that Oliver had not been here to see how well the orange troopers had kept Rupert's flying army away from the battlefield, and at great risk to their own lives. He tried to calm his temper but the word gentlemen brought back the memory of the young mum, Cerys, and the type of bruises that three 'gentlemen' had given her in her own cottage. Her words about gentlemen rang in his head. "Good, then write to them and make it official. What we need to do is to raise a troop of gentlemen the equal of Rupert’s and have them battle it out to the death once and for all. Half of the kingdom's gentlemen on one side and half on the other."
He was being sarcastic but Oliver never did do sarcasm very well. "All right, I will,” Oliver hissed and then turned on a heel and led his horse away.
Femke pulled Daniel towards clean water on the banks of the tiny river upstream from the camp and village. By doing so she also found the surgeons, physicians, injured men, and captives for Daniel. The last thing he needed was to see more suffering, but he couldn't leave this place until he found out if Lindsey was here. The first place he checked was a long shed, the largest building near the river.
It was filled with the wounded survivors of Rupert's brave attack on the army kitchen. Daniel walked about looking at the faces just to make sure that Lindsey wasn't here. There was a smell about the place that bothered him, a smell beyond that of wounded men. Fresh straw had been laid down to make beds for the men and he kicked some out of the way and stared at the bare ground in the stalls. Pigshit
There was someone who looked like a physician making the rounds and he walked over to him and pulled his arm and told him, "This is not the place for men with open wounds. This shed has been used for pigs."
"So what?" the man told him as he shrugged his arm free. "Half the kingdom is sleeping with their pigs to protect them from being stolen."
"But pig shit is what archers use to poison their arrows."
"Go away. I am busy."
What could Daniel do. What could he do to make these injured men understand the danger they were in from lock jaw, when even their physician wouldn't listen. Nothing, he could do nothing, so he walked back outside. There was a well just beyond the shed so he walked over and filled his water skin directly from the dipping bucket. The further water got from the dipping bucket the more suspect it was. When his skin was full he turned around and that was when he spotted Bertie, the Earl of Lindsey.
Or rather he saw Lindsey's son, the Lord Willoughby, a bastard equal to his mother's husband. When he stepped closer he saw Lindsey lying on the ground. The man still lived. Now Daniel had another problem. How could he kill a wounded officer with so many of the king's officers, now captives, standing so near. Perhaps he could pretend to be a physician and rub pig shit in his wound. The thought was a measure of his desperation, for how could he, dressed as a pistoleer, ever pass himself off as a physician.
Well, if a pretend physician couldn't kill him with pig shit then perhaps a real one could. Daniel yelled out in an authoritative voice. "Why are the king's officers being treated so shabbily? Here they are lying on the ground on a night which is promising frost, while commoners are comfortably bedded down in the shed."
There were nobles present, and the nobility were always ready and eager to claim their rights over everyone else’s, so they were quick to take up the sentiment, which was then chorused by the officers and gentlemen. Daniel leaned back against the shed wall while he treated the water in his newly filled skin with a goodly dose of foul scotch. The scotch made the water taste strange, but he had once been told by a Dutch physician that if you couldn't boil unknown water before you drank it, you should at least mix it with aqua vitae.
While the uproar over the shed grew, Daniel took the opportunity to remove his chest armour, the leather jerkin he wore under it, and the silk shirt he wore against his skin. He asked a friendly guard to inspect his back to make sure that the skin was not broken. This meant he was forced to swallow the ribbing he received from the guard for wearing ladies silk under his armour, because he wasn't about to let him explain why he was wearing it. The pounding of a smooth stone against the indented steel of the back plate soon smoothed it out, and when Daniel put it back on he found that most of his back pain had miraculously disappeared. Meanwhile the uproar amongst the king's officers caused their guards to clear all the injured kitchen men out of the long shed and have the king's officers take their place.
There, it was done. Between the darkness, the lack of cleanliness, and the ignorant physician, Lindsey would not survive the pig shit even if he did survive his wound. An added benefit was that now, hopefully, the kitchen men had some hope of surviving. The air out in the open was fresh and clean, and tonight's frost would help congeal their wounds even as it made them shiver.
One of the officer prisoners being moved into the shed stumbled and fell in front of Daniel and he reached forward to help him back to his feet. From the back the man was a king's officer but from the front he was a blackened charred mess. Such a mess that it took him a moment to realize that it was Colonel Lunsford. Daniel looked up to the sliver of a moon and said a silent thank you to Freyja, the goddess of the Freis folk.
Daniel had saved this Colonel's life three times. By Frisian tradition, saving a man's life made you responsible for all the good or bad the man did from then on. This colonel had done a lot of bad, an awful lot of bad, and now Freyja had given him over. Also by tradition, since he had saved the man's life, he had the right to take it for just cause. Never was a cause more just.
The colonel had no hair on the front of his head, no hair, no beard, no mustache, no eyebrows and no eyelashes. He must have lost it all in the explosion of the magazine. Daniel waved a hand in front of his face. The man was either in shock or not yet seeing well. "Come,” he told the colonel in a gentle voice, "the river is only steps away and we can use the cool water to wash all the black off you and cool your face."
With a helping arm, Daniel guided the charred colonel towards the river. They had almost reached the riverbank when a troop of horse came along the bank leading more prisoners. Balfour was leading it. When he recognized Daniel he dismounted and walked over to him and gave him a bear hug. "It worked Danny, it worked. What can I say. Now I know first hand why Alex Leslie gave you a king's pistol."
Daniel had been trying to shush the man but now it was out. Lunsford stepped back from his guide. Despite the blast he could still hear well enough to realize that the shadowy man who had been leading him to water was Captain Daniel Vanderus, a man who had shamed him in front of his wife, a man who had many times threatened to kill him. "Save me from this man. I am a king's officer and a prisoner." Lunsford pleaded to the mounted troopers.
Another of the troopers dismounted and came close and took a close look at Lunsford's clothing. Balfour was still staring at the blackened side of the man and he asked, "Lunsford is that you? It is me, William Balfour. You took my command at the Tower of London when I refused to hang the Scottish covenanters."
"Balfour, thank god,” Lunsford sighed. "Save me from this man. He means to kill me."
"I was taking him down the banks to the river to wash away the black and cool his skin,” Daniel lied.
The other trooper next to Lunsford turned and stared at Daniel. It was Oliver. "More like give him a fen's burial,” Oliver said. "Face down eating mud. Daniel you must not kill him. Valentine has been taken prisoner. If we offer Lunsford in exchange, the king will keep Valentine healthy until the trade can be made. If we don't, then Valentine is sure to be hung for stealing the silver that the colleges gave to the king."
"Lord Willoughby is in that shed over there,” Daniel told them. "Trade him instead. Lunsford's days of butchery finish today."
Balfour looked between the three men and made a decision. He wanted no part in this, no matter what the outcome. If any man deserved to breathe mud it was Lunsford, but he could not allow the killing of a valuable prisoner. He remounted and led his troopers and their prisoners around the three men standing on the bank of the river. He left Oliver and Daniel staring at each other, and Lunsford making pleading motions to the troopers as they rode by.
"Essex will not trade a lord for Valentine,” Oliver renewed his arguement. "Valentine was an MP but only a captain. The promise of a colonel, and especially the king's favourite, Lunsford, will keep Valentine safe no matter how long the trade takes to arrange."
"No!" Daniel was adamant. "This man is a demon walking the earth. A snake. He is a poser who shamelessly seduces women for their favours and nobles for their, umm, well, favours. He maims and kills without reason and without guilt. When I first met him he was shooting his own men in the back for deserting him. I watched him take sabers to protesters in London. If we let him live, then it could cost hundreds their lives, or even thousands. He is a demon I tell you."
Oliver felt that he was winning. Daniel had said 'if WE let him live'. "And is his death worth more than Valentine’s life? Valentine is a good man, an honorable man, and a family man. My sister and her children would mourn his loss for a lifetime."
The Wyred Sisters that interwove the fates of men must have been cackling at their looms. "There is another way to put that question. Will Valentine's life produce more good than Lunsford's life will produce evil. If you think so then get down on your knees and plead for Lunsford’s life. Plead for the life of the cannibal of the tower."
Oliver began to kneel, but Daniel caught him up by the arm and pulled him to his feet. "All right, take him. I wash my hands of him. Every life he destroys from now on is on your head, not mine." Daniel stared up at Freyja and yelled to her, "Did you hear that! Lunsford is no longer my burden to bear."
"Would you stand guard while I take him down to the river and wash him off?" Oliver asked.
"Cheeky sod,” Daniel said and then grinned at him.
It was a good thing that Daniel did agree to stand guard, though not because Lunsford made any attempt to escape. The cannibal had shot too many men while-attempting-to-escape to give Daniel any excuse for doing so. Down by the river Oliver flushed another prisoner, a prisoner attempting to make an escape along the course of the shallow river. If Oliver had been alone, the two prisoners would have surely overwhelmed him and escaped together. Instead Daniel tackled the new man and brought him down.
This new prisoner was wearing expensive clothes but no armour, so he had likely been one of the king's camp diplomats. One of the men who shuttled back and forth from headquarters to headquarters to discuss requests, agreements, and terms. Daniel stuck a pistol up his crotch and then asked him quite civilly, "Who are you?"
"Don't harm me. I am Henry Hastings, the Lord High Sheriff of Leicestershire."
"So what is a Sheriff doing in fancy dress down in the mud of a river bank?" Daniel asked skeptically. "Shouldn't you be leading your pressed men. Shouldn't you be dressed for battle?"
"It is a recent appointment. I haven't quite begun my duties yet,” Hastings replied. "I wasn't really a part of this battle. I was captured while on my way back to Leicester."
"To raise more men for the king, I suppose,” Daniel replied and then looked over to Oliver who was carefully and softly patting Lunsford's face with a damp scarf. "Oliver, come over here and tell me who this man is."
Oliver left Lunsford to clean his own neck and chest and scrambled over the river stones to come close enough to see. "That is Henry Hastings, the second son of the real Henry Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon. His father supports us. Let him go."
"But he told me he was just made the Sheriff of Leicestershire."
"Ah, that will be because of the castle,” said Oliver thoughtfully.
"What castle?"
"Ashby-del-la-Zouch,” Oliver and Henry said in unison.
"Then hold him for questioning,” Oliver said. "It's all the same to me."
"No, you must let me go,” Henry said, and then glanced over at Lunsford and continued in a hushed voice. "I am only pretending to be the king's man to spy on him. In truth my entire family wishes all the Stuarts a quick death. You see, it is we who should be the royal family, not the Stuarts."
"Yes, yes, yes,” Oliver replied. "So your father and mother have told me, but James Stuart was chosen over her claim because she was only fourth in line."
"She was only fourth in line, but my father has proof that he was first in line,” Hastings hissed.
"So why didn't he show his proof? That would have saved this kingdom from suffering the Stuarts."
"Because my father is a fool," Hastings replied. "At the time he was spending all of his effort putting off the collectors who were after the debts that my grandfather left. How can you bribe the courts if you are fleeing the bailiffs? But honestly, we do have indisputable documented proof that King Edward the fourth was illegitimate and sired by a one of the queen's guards. That means that his younger brother George should have been crowned rather than Edward. If George had been crowned then my father would now be king."
"Who the hell was Edward the fourth when he was alive?" Daniel asked. This whole blood right to the throne thing was such nonsense. Of all positions in the kingdom, the king should be chosen by merit and not by accident of inbreeding.
"He was part of the mash up of would-be-kings during the last Civil War,” Oliver told him. If George had been chosen over Edward then presumably we would never have had any Tudor kings and queens, never mind the Stuarts." Oliver looked into Hastings' eyes. The man was a weasel, and he was probably lying, but what if he wasn't? "Let him go."
"Let him go?" Daniel asked in wonder, but he did so.
When Hastings was gone, slopping along the river bank towards the north end of Edgehill, and presumably to the king's camp on the top of it, Oliver told him, "The man is a wastrel. Better that he be the king's sheriff than someone competent. Besides, if what he says even has a word of truth to it, parliament can question the right of any Stuart to sit on the throne. For that we need the old Earl to remain friendly with parliament, which means letting his son go as a favour to him."
"Why do I have this awful feeling in my stomach that we are all going to regret the decisions that you made today,” Daniel told Oliver.
"You're just hungry. Come on, let’s get Lunsford back to my skirmisher camp and see if they have something on the spit yet." Oliver had obviously decided to assign his own men to guard Lunsford until the trade for Valentine was agreed upon.
They helped Lunsford back up the bank and then strolled at his speed back towards the shed of prisoners to fetch Femke. There was a young lad standing beside Femke, and as Daniel approached he held up a long pole wrapped in sacking.
"Ensign Young asked me to give you this,” the lad said as he pushed the long sacking forward. Daniel took it with thanks, for it was his deer rifle. "I was too young to be fighting in the line, so he ordered me to stay behind with your rifle until you came to fetch it."
"Where is the Ensign? I'd like to thank him personally."
"Over there in that pile,” the lad said through a sob.
"But that is..." Daniel didn't say it. The lad had pointed to a heap of corpses waiting for a mass burial. "But he captured the royal standard. He was safely on his way to Essex with it."
"Essex sent him and some men to show it off in the camp. That was just when the camp was overrun by Prince Rupert's men. Some of the king's cavalry ran him down and took it back."
"I'm so sorry. Arthur was a good lad." The news stung him deeply because the lad had been killed over a worthless scrap of cloth on a pole. Worse, taking the standard had side tracked the ensign from capturing a far more valuable prize ... Prince Charles and Prince James.
"I'm sorry too. He was my brother,” at that the lad burst into abundant tears and Daniel swept him into his arms and let him cry it out.
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The Pistoleer - Edgehill by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14