Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) Page 10

  And Tom cut the thief’s throat.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DE GOMBAUD WAS DEAD. The grey-haired thief with the blunderbuss had been quicker than he looked and turning on the Frenchman had given fire just as de Gombaud’s pickaxe spike had punched into his chest and out through his back. The thief had died instantly but at such close range his fearsome weapon had done for the stonemason, spewing a spray of lead that had exploded fully half of the Frenchman’s head away in a spatter of bone and gore. And yet somehow the man had lingered a while with his brains exposed to the night and his left eye, cheek and much of his jaw gone. His body had endured until just before dawn, clinging to life that was far beyond its ambition. Then, with them all gathered around, the dying man’s young companion Tristan weeping silently, de Gombaud’s chest had risen, fallen, and had not risen again.

  ‘He was a brave man,’ Trencher said to Scarron whose hands were slick with his friend’s blood. ‘Things would have gone worse for us if he had not stuck that old scab.’

  ‘On the up side you and the lad here will have his share,’ Dobson put in, the sentiment genuine, it seemed to Tom, though Scarron shot the trooper a glance of loathing that had Dobson shrugging his massive shoulders.

  To break up the ground they used the pick which de Gombaud had wielded to such effect and then they buried the mason in his own furrow. The outlaws they dumped in one shallow hole, covering the disturbed earth with a large bough cut from a nearby birch. Then they had cleaned the blood from their clubs and knives, broken their fast on bread, cheese and beer, and set off, with the sun spilling shafts of pale dawn light through the trees, guiding their way westward to Oxford.

  A mile from the walled city, above whose church spires and pinnacles, quadrangles and high-walled gardens hung a lazy pall of brown-grey smoke, they piqued the interest of a small troop of Royalist horse.

  ‘Dragoons,’ Weasel spat as the riders trotted towards them, the metal fittings of their arms and tack glinting in the light of the rising sun.

  ‘It’s about bloody time,’ Penn said. ‘I would not have liked to think this whole charade was for nothing.’ It was his turn pushing the handcart and he lacked the strength of Dobson or Trencher and was drenched with sweat despite the dawn chill.

  ‘We’d have been sniffed out before now if we weren’t dressed like this,’ Tom said, feeling sweat bead between his own shoulder blades and slicken his palms now that their ruse would be put to the test. The patrol coming towards them must have been one of many such roving the countryside, guarding the city that was now, for all intent and purpose, the King’s new capital and home of the royal court. ‘Just remember to leave all the talking to Scarron and Tristan.’ Tom felt horribly vulnerable without sword or poll-axe, firelock or armour, and knew that if things turned bad he and his companions would die too easily.

  ‘Aye, we’ve got one less French tongue to wag for us now,’ Trencher put in. ‘You’ll be all right, Weasel. One look at you and they’ll presume you’re a simpleton, a bloody numbskull, dumb as a stump. You too, Dobson, come to that, but the rest of us will have to do our best to look as French as our friends here.’

  ‘Now would be a good time to stop talking, Will,’ Tom growled under his breath as the dragoons covered the last hundred paces at an easy trot, their mounts steaming in the dawn air.

  ‘Who are you?’ a sergeant barked, reining in but not bothering to bring the carbine to bear which hung on a belt buckled over his right shoulder and under his left arm. ‘What’s your business here?’ The man’s bay mare looked a decent animal to Tom’s eyes, better than dragoons could normally expect, though its mouth was ill-used by the bridle, suggesting that the sergeant was either cruel or not a good horseman.

  Scarron stepped forward, presenting himself as spokesman for the company. ‘My name is Guillaume Scarron and I am a master stonemason.’ He spoke with a pride that was as genuine as the thick muscle layered on his right arm and shoulder. ‘I am the owner of many sought-after templates,’ he said, his accent smooth as dressed marble, ‘and drawings of both ancient and the very newest designs from France.’ He swept his bulky arm round to encompass Tom and the others. ‘These are my companions, skilled men all.’ He threw a thumb back towards Dobson. ‘Except for that bearded ox. But stone will not lift itself, hey?’ He smiled but the dragoon sergeant was in no mood for humour.

  ‘You all bloody French?’ he asked, deep-hooded eyes raking over each man before him. There were sixteen in his troop, armed with an assortment of matchlocks and carbines for which powder flasks hung from bandoliers. Fewer than half wore buff-coats.

  ‘Qu’est-ce qu’il dit, Guillaume?’ Tristan said, which was cleverly done, Tom thought, and Scarron snapped at the young man in French to hold his tongue at which Tristan made a good show of mumbling foreign oaths.

  ‘They don’t speak very good English, Captain,’ Scarron said.

  ‘I’m a sergeant not a bloody captain,’ the dragoon said as some of his men chuckled. Some of the dragoons were talking amongst themselves, allowing their mounts to empty their bladders of steaming piss or crop the grass either side of the mud track.

  ‘My apologies, Sergeant,’ Scarron said. ‘I can draw a plan as well as any Italian. I can fine carve a rose into a stone fireplace that you would believe smells as sweet as the rose in your lover’s hair. But I know little of soldiers and war.’

  ‘Why have you come to Oxford?’ the sergeant asked. Tom saw that most of the dragoons armed with muskets had not even bothered to light their match-cord, which gave him hope that their deception was at least well conceived. Indeed, glancing at his companions now he was quite taken aback, for they did in truth make for a coarse, almost feral sight.

  ‘Oxford has the King,’ Scarron replied with a shrug, ‘the King has enemies. The King needs walls.’ The sergeant gestured for one of his men to dismount and check the canvas-covered contents of the handcart behind which Penn stood picking his nose as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

  ‘A wall ain’t no fancy French fireplace,’ another dragoon said with an unkind smile, ‘so I wouldn’t be expecting your two shillings a day, master mason. You and your company will be lucky to make a shilling after a day on the walls.’

  ‘Nevertheless, we do need masons,’ the sergeant said, ‘and labourers,’ he added, glancing at Dobson who affected an air of dumb incomprehension with consummate ease.

  ‘Just tools, Sergeant,’ the dismounted dragoon called, pulling the drawstring to close the sacks. ‘Kevels, mauls, wedges and such.’

  The sergeant nodded. ‘Beden, Holt, escort these men to St Edmund’s Hall and make sure they report to Smithson on the east wall.’

  ‘Yes sir!’ a dragoon replied, and with that the sergeant yanked his reins for no good reason, the bit savaging the mare’s mouth – proving he was both cruel and a fool – and the column rode off in the direction from which Tom’s company had come, leaving two dragoons, seven masons and a sorry-looking ass in their wake.

  ‘And tell Smithson he owes me a quart of Adkinson’s wettest for sending him proper masons for his section of the wall instead of the usual dregs,’ the sergeant called behind him. ‘Of the first water, mind! Or I’ll send them to Harding up at the New College wall. Tell the old muckworm I’ll be along with my thirst this evening and shall expect settlement.’

  ‘Yes sir!’ the older of the two dragoons called again. ‘Come on then, Frenchies,’ he said, turning his piebald gelding back towards the city, ‘let’s have you and that fine beast of yours earning an honest crust sweating for the King of bloody England.’

  ‘Guillaume Scarron and his masons are at His Majesty’s service,’ the stonemason said with a nod of his rough head.

  Dobson shouldered Penn aside and lifted the handcart’s handles and Tristan pulled the ass’s halter at which the beast brayed in protest, and the ragged bunch of men with their lopsided bulk, their skin and hair ingrained with stone dust and rough hands wrapped in leather or linen strips, walked
on over the plain towards the imposing Magdalen Tower, with its thrusting pinnacles, that had clearly become the city’s eastern watch-post. They would pass the earthworks that had been thrown up along the divided stream of the River Cherwell, which were guarded by the King’s musketeers and patrolling troops of dragoons and harquebusiers. Then on across the Magdalen Bridge. That would take them into Oxford.

  ‘You’ve brought your own tools, Frenchy, that’s what I like to see. And good tools, too, by the looks. Take my advice and always leave one eye fixed on ’em or some thieving scoundrel will be limping off with a mallet-shaped cock filling ’is breeches. I’ve seen it more times than I can remember. If your men are as good as you say, they can spare one eye for your tools.’ Smithson spat into the mud. ‘We lucky sods are repairing an old wall here, not carving laurels in some earl’s window jamb or a bishop’s bloody ceiling boss.’ He held up a thick, gnarly finger. ‘But no fighting or I’ll have the guards down on you quicker than it takes to shell a snail. They’ll get tenpence a day,’ he added, nodding towards Tom and the rest, ‘you’ll get a shilling, maybe more if I use you on some of the other jobs I’ve got on and you prove you know your business.’

  ‘You will get no trouble from my men, monsieur,’ Scarron said, ‘and I can assure you that I know my business.’

  ‘Aye, well, we’ll see. You can start today, there’s plenty to be done.’ And this was evident enough from the looks and sound of men carting stones here and there and of others up on scaffolding set against the long stretch of wall that extended north for two hundred paces before angling west.

  ‘We’ll start tomorrow,’ Scarron said, to Smithson’s surprise. ‘I have promised them a day to enjoy this fairest of cities.’

  Smithson narrowed his eyes and folded his arms tight against his broad chest. ‘You won’t get a better offer anywhere else in the city,’ he said.

  Scarron smiled and made a show of looking up at the east gate which spanned the road by which they had come into Oxford. ‘They just want to look around, I assure you. Tristan, tell Smithson the rhyme.’

  The dark young Frenchman, who had been watching two pretty, well-dressed young women walking towards St Peter’s, beamed white teeth.

  ‘At North-Gate and at South-Gate too

  St Michael guards the way,

  While o’er the East and o’er the West

  St Peter holds his sway.’

  Smithson looked about as impressed as a man could who had heard the same poesy as many times as he had woken piss-proud and hungry.

  ‘He can’t speak much English but for some reason he likes that rhyme,’ Scarron explained with a shrug of his stout shoulders. Tom had heard the verse before and knew it spoke of the four churches, one on each of the four roads that passed through their own gates into Oxford and met at Carfax in the shadow of St Martin’s church. ‘So I promised them they could see the city before unwrapping their tools,’ the stonemason said with a matter-of-fact air.

  Smithson looked up at the sun which had risen above the old east wall to wash the city and the King’s loyal subjects in clean spring light. ‘If you’re happy to give up a day’s pay for half a day’s work that’s your loss,’ he said, shaking his head and walking off to bark at a group of hapless-looking labourers who had spilled a dressed stone from its handcart.

  That had been that. And Tom was in Oxford.

  Being French stonemasons had got them in but now that they were in they would be assumed to be loyal to King Charles and as such could move about the city freely. Tom was relieved now to see the rough gravelled streets thronged with traders, labourers, soldiers and whores. With liveried servants on errands and water-bearers and children chasing each other through the crowds or playing Scotch Hoppers in the mud. For he and his company would be no more conspicuous than any others of those taking refuge, earning silver any of a hundred ways, in the King’s new capital. Of course none of them, not even the two real masons, would show up at the east wall ready to work for Smithson on the city’s defences. Scarron and Tristan had done their jobs and were free to go, to head back to Captain Crafte to collect what they were owed: each their reward plus an equal share of de Gombaud’s, whose saving of the tools had likely saved the whole mission but who had paid for it with his life.

  The Frenchmen had said their goodbyes and taken the ass and the cart and by now would be wending their way to the heart of the city where the four roads met. Then they would take Cornmarket Street and leave Oxford via the north gate and Tom suspected he would never see them again. Perhaps they would be attacked again by outlaws who saw a cart full of opportunity and an ass laden with knapsacks and only two men guarding them, but that was their own affair now. For Tom the real work must begin and he must not fail.

  ‘So what now?’ Trencher asked, turning towards the sudden roar flooding out of a tavern whose door had banged open. A young soldier stumbled out onto the refuse-strewn mire of Tresham’s Lane and bent double to spew his guts into the filth. A woman’s high-pitched cackle cut through the bawdy laughter pouring out into the day, and Tom was struck by the thought that perhaps the revellers had been at The Fighting Cocks all night and that if so the soldiers and folk of Oxford seemed little concerned about Parliament’s rebel army or the war that yet gripped the country.

  ‘Now we need black powder and ale,’ Tom said.

  ‘Not a good combination, lad, didn’t anyone ever tell you?’ Trencher replied, swiping off his filthy cap to scratch the side of his bald head where a few grey bristles sprouted.

  ‘Any black powder will be stashed somewhere tighter than an ant’s arsehole and guarded like the King’s damn crown,’ Weasel blurted.

  ‘Keep your voice down, you paper-skulled idiot,’ Trencher growled, at which Weasel pulled his head down into his shoulders and glanced nervously around, which was more conspicuous than his original offence.

  ‘The munitions are kept in New College Tower. That way,’ Tom said with a nod behind them towards the north-east.

  ‘And you think we can walk in there, steal a few casks of black powder from under the bastards’ noses and walk out again?’ Dobson joined in, his great beard jutting belligerently as he spoke.

  Tom shook his head. ‘I think you can steal ale. Or better still, buy it,’ he added, handing Trencher a small scrip bulging with Captain Crafte’s coin. ‘Three of you, three barrels. If they’re scrawled with the maker’s mark or some tavern’s name so much the better. If not we can see to that later. Leave the powder to me and Matt.’

  ‘You want the barrels empty?’ Dobson asked hopefully.

  ‘In your bloody dreams, Dobson,’ Trencher said.

  ‘Stash the ale somewhere near the chapel of All Souls, where Mousecatchers’ Lane meets The High. Then meet us at sunset by the south porch of the church of St Mary the Virgin.’ Tom shot Trencher a warning look. ‘Keep them out of trouble till then, Will,’ he said.

  ‘So where are you two going?’ Weasel asked, his close-set eyes narrowed as though keen to confirm that he, Trencher and Dobson had got the best of the jobs, for surely procuring black powder could not be as gratifying as procuring ale.

  ‘We’re going to a hostelry to find a whore,’ Tom said.

  Tom sensed Penn’s head snap round and even Trencher’s eyes were round as shillings at that, for like the others Trencher was in the dark regarding the finer points of Captain Crafte’s plan.

  ‘You mutton-mongers!’ Dobson blurted. ‘You get to bang Cupid’s kettledrums while we’re working? How is that fair?’

  ‘Just stay out of trouble,’ Tom said, ‘and meet us at sunset.’

  ‘Aye, well, you two enjoy your notch,’ Dobson growled as Tom and Penn turned to make their way back north up Alfred Street. ‘And save some for the rest of us!’

  The Spotted Cow had not been easy to find. Tom and Penn had followed several winding lanes then a dark, narrow alley on whose dank walls someone had scrawled, long ago by the looks of the faded white paint, Hell’s Passage. But rather t
han leading to Hell it had led to a grubby, noisome hostelry which was thronged with patrons despite the stench, which told Tom that either the ale was good or the whores were.

  When at last he had been able to gain the landlord’s attention, Tom had asked for two cups of beer and a whore named Hester. A plump, red-faced, scowling man, the landlord had nodded purposefully, thrown two drunks off a table in a dark dingy corner (because they weren’t buying flesh) and told Tom he would have to wait because the girl was busy upstairs. And so they had waited, ears full of the incessant burble of the congregation, eyes on their mugs or a pretty girl but otherwise oblivious to the soldiers and students, idlers and drunks, as though they were regulars of the Cow. And now Tom watched a wild-haired, wide-hipped girl descend the stairs opposite, lacing up her stays with nimble ease as she came, and he knew from Captain Crafte’s description that it was Hester. Evidently the whore had been well informed too by the landlord’s boy, for she came directly up to their table and looked both men up and down.

  ‘Which one of you two handsome gentlemen wants his quim first?’ she asked. ‘Or are you the sort that’ll share a dish?’

  Feeling Penn grinning beside him Tom asked the girl if she had any cards. ‘I’m fond of Ruff and Trump,’ he said.

  ‘I prefer Laugh and Lie Down,’ Hester replied, completing the pre-arranged protocol, and Tom nodded and leant forward. ‘I’m here to see The Scot.’

  Hester straightened the front of her full skirts, fingers brushing at a drying stain on the woollen cloth.

  ‘I know where I might find him,’ she said, lifting Tom’s cup and taking a draught. She dragged a bare arm across plump, wet lips. ‘Do you gentlemen want some company whilst you wait? I can get you two of the other girls.’ She smiled, handing the beer back to Tom. ‘They ain’t got what I’ve got but they’re good girls and clean.’

  ‘We have all we need,’ Tom said, taking the cup, and Hester nodded, turned and threaded her way through the throng towards the door. And one hour and three cups of beer later they met The Scot.