The Ravens’ Banquet

  The Ravens’ Banquet

  By Clifford Beal

  First published 2014 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: (epub) 978-1-84997-756-2

  ISBN: (mobi) 978-1-84997-756-9

  Copyright © Clifford Beal 2014

  Cover Art by Pye Parr

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of he copyright owners.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  “You cannot take War across the countryside in a Sack”

  – old German proverb

  Table of Contents

  The Ravens’ Banquet Chapter I: Cold Porridge July 1645

  Chapter II: Arrangements June 1625

  Chapter III: Tellings June 1625

  Chapter IV: First Blood September 1625

  Chapter V: Fortune’s Hand February 1626

  Chapter VI: Veritas May 1626

  Chapter VII: Whispers July 1626

  Chapter VIII: The Cornet August 1626

  Chapter IX: Dark Earth and Ivy August 1626

  Chapter X: The Sisters August 1626

  Chapter XI: The Furnace September 1626

  Chapter XII: Fortuna Smiles September 1626

  Chapter XIII: The Green King October 1626

  Chapter XIV: White Goddess October 1626

  Chapter XV: Betrayal October 1626

  Chapter XVI: Goslar October 1626

  Chapter XVII: Pearls of Silver October 1626

  Chapter XVIII: Redemption July 1645

  About the Author

  I

  Cold Porridge

  July 1645

  Northampton

  First of July 1645

  YESTERDAY THEY CAME for me.

  Five horsemen pounded up the lane at a fast trot, scattering the squealing pigs that rooted by the roadside. All in buff and blackened harness, they reined in and dismounted right in front of me. I had seen their likes before: troopers of generals Cromwell and Ireton. And it was their New Model army that had wreaked havoc among us only days gone by upon the field at Naseby. It was also plain to me that I was the object of their intent.

  They looked at me like I was some base rogue, smugness in their thin half-smiles. The one who was their sergeant stepped forward, spurs a-jingle and hand on sword hilt, the visor of his pot thrown open, revealing to me the face of a man who had seen much war. His right cheek was fiercely scarred, the skin seared red and raw. And the stink of sweat, wood smoke, and gunpowder preceded him.

  “Be you Richard Treadwell?” he demanded.

  I tried to straighten up and put weight on my crutch, the green wood of the spindly thing bending precariously under my arm.

  “I am Colonel Richard Treadwell, of His Majesty's Army of Horse. What business do you have with me?”

  The sergeant reached into his snapsack without taking his sunken grey eyes from me and drew out a letter. As he did so, I saw out of the corner of my eye one of his fellows barge into the house.

  “Richard Treadwell,” he said, rasping in the halting tongue of a rustic newly acquainted with the written word, “You are hereby taken into the custody of Sir Thomas Fairfax and... by his authority... thou art to be transported to London, arraigned on the charge of Treason, and detained at the pleasure of Crown and Parliament.”

  He handed me the warrant, which I read rapidly even as my ears began to ring. It said little more.

  “I offered my surrender to Sir John Havers at Naseby. It’s at his pleasure that I’m held here,” I protested. “I see no order relinquishing that right, and it will take more than this paper to get me to accompany you.”

  The Sergeant’s eyes remained locked onto mine. His reply, when it came, was delivered in quiet firmness. It was my first taste of the New Order of things in this world.

  “I am under orders to bring you out whether say you yea or nay. Or would you have me break the other leg to convince you?”

  The cold throb deep in my right thigh was no gentle reminder that I could hardly walk let alone make a run for it. I lowered my head in recognition that I had now a new warder.

  His comrade emerged from the cottage and undid the strap of his pot helm.

  “None but a woman and her boy inside. Looks like she’s got a full larder. What do you say we stay here for the night and make our return on the morrow?”

  The sergeant looked to his companion, then shot me a sideways glance. He cocked the visor of his pot, turned on his heels, and removed his gauntlets.

  “Listen, Bill,” spoke up the other again, “a good bed lies in the hall – the first bed I have laid eyes upon in near two month.”

  I saw the sergeant look up to spy where the sun hung in the sky and so calculate the time. That he had even to think about such a choice when a soldier’s feast awaited, was testament to the discipline of this enemy. If it were me, I would not have hesitated.

  “Aye, well,” he said, tempted by his friend, “we would not make it back to camp before nightfall even if we left straight away.” He turned again and looked at me, measuring me up, reckoning whether I would be a handful or not. He then swung around to his comrade.

  “We’ll stay here the night but start all the sooner come morning.” He called to the remaining three troopers who stood by, holding the reins of their bedraggled mounts. “Fetch the leg irons!”

  When we six entered the cottage; poor Mistress Hayton was choked full with dread. She had not expected such company when she had hurriedly accepted to be my warder the week before. Then, Sir John had given her kind words and silver coin, bidding her to treat me civilly and to dress my wounds until his return. Her own husband was off with the same victorious army that now gathered up the remnants of the King’s shattered host.

  It is no natural thing to make war on one’s own countrymen. But, alas, we all were driven to it. After four stinking years in this hellish fight I confess I still find it a hard thing to put a sword into another Englishman. Yet not even me, jaded and corrupted as I am, had expected things to go on this long.

  We had danced a grisly reel these past months; the King’s forces winning a few, Parliament’s rebels winning a few more. Now, I fear, after Naseby’s dreadful harvest, my Cause is at an end. Leastways, my own part in it is now done.

  The goodwife scuttled about the house as the rebels tracked in a week’s worth of grime. She said not a word, but cooked them a meal and brought them beer and lit a taper for their pipes. As for me, I was evicted from the bed in the loft and shackled near the cool stone of the hearth. One cuff around my good ankle, the other end set and clamped upon an iron ring in the fireplace. And so we spent the evening: the three troopers well fed upon the settle and chair, laughing and cussing; the sergeant and his corporal at the table; Mistress Hayton perched upon the four-poster bed next to her boy and awaiting every barked command; and me, sitting in the dust of the hearth like a dog, far too close to the fire for a summer’s night and slurping cold porridge.

  Sometime after the sole tallow candle had burned down to just a thumb-length, the corporal took his leave up the stairs for the bed he had long dreamt of. The three troopers, no doubt deprived of good sleep for more days than they could remember, had by
now succumbed to the comfort of their surroundings and all snorted, snored and gurgled in their slumbers. The sergeant too, his head full of drink and chin upon chest, drifted off even as he sat in his chair, elbows propped.

  The mistress had barely moved or spoken for some time. I could just see her white cap and neckcloth in the gloom as she stroked her son upon the bed. Then I heard her quiet voice speak. And she was speaking to me.

  “It’s not of my doing, sir.”

  “I know,” I replied. “Don’t reproach yourself, goodwife. It was my choice to live to see this fate.”

  She was silent for a moment, looking at me where I lay.

  “How did they take you?” she whispered.

  I wondered why it had taken her a week to ask me. I stared into the glowing coals at my side.

  “It was my choice to live. I think my decision was hastened by the pistol muzzle pressed against my skull and the sound of the lock as the owner pulled back the hammer.” “So then, you had no choice, sir. I sorrow for you.”

  I shook my head and wagged a finger at her from the floor. “Nay, goodwife, I could have chosen at that instant to be Transported, delivered from all of my misery. Just one word to that trooper. I could have dared him to blow my brains out. It would have ended right there. But I didn’t say a word and I dropped my sword instead.”

  “Any a man would have done the same, sir,” she whispered, quickly looking over to the sleeping sergeant, fearful that her words would bring down his wrath. Her face was pale in the fire glow. “There’s no shame in it. To have done otherwise would have been a sin in the eyes of God.”

  “I remain of two minds on that score, mistress,” I replied.

  There was silence between us for a moment or two, and then she spoke up again.

  “Tell me, sir, what is it that you’re writing upon those sheaves these past few days? Are these letters to gain your liberty?”

  Her question took me aback. In truth, I wasn’t even sure myself why I was scribbling my thoughts down upon paper. “Letters? Nay goodwife, not letters as such...more like a journal of what has befallen me.”

  But they were letters: Letters to myself. Thoughts that bubbled up like a high-fired cauldron; hissing, spitting, and random. The contradictions of my uneasy life and recent circumstances could be contained inside my head no longer.

  “But who is it for, sir? Your wife?” she asked.

  I blinked in the gloom a few times as her question reached my ears. My dear wife, poor thing, this would go down hard, I knew.

  “It is for no one, no one but me. And it is an idle and desperate exercise.”

  I realised that I had confounded the poor woman for she didn’t reply. Finally, after a long silence, she ventured to speak again. The whisper that she hissed was near enough swallowed by the heavy linen curtains of the bed. “What should I tell Sir John when he returns to claim you?”

  And in spite of my sorry condition I found myself laughing.

  “Tell him, madam, that I fear he has lost his ransom prize.”

  THEY WOKE ME early, stiff as a corpse and in agony of my wound as the heavy boots of the troopers stamped upon the floorboards. They unchained me and led me out back for my morning necessary. I had barely time to lace up my breeches whereupon the sergeant said we were setting out. Mistress Hayton just looked on, saying nothing about this hasty change of custody. Full glad of the fact that they had not raped or beaten her, she was just happy to be rid of all of us. Without protest she put together a sack with some fresh linen, my paper, pen and ink, and two loaves of bread. It is all the baggage I now possess. I pulled off one of my rings and pressed it into the woman's hand just before I limped out the door of the cottage that had been my gentle prison.

  “For your trouble, goodwife,” I said.

  She nodded in response, “God keep you, sir.”

  “Fear not, woman,” grinned the sergeant as he untied the reins of his horse, “we’ll make sure that he’s safely delivered to the Lord or the Devil soon enough.”

  Her lad and another trooper helped lift me into the saddle of the spare mount and I must say in shame that I cried out with the pain. Thank Jesus they were of a mind to ride slowly that day. Even so, we made Northampton by evening, and I as sick as a dog. My thigh wound was nearly split open wide again, the heat was strong enough to make one swoon, and the flies a plague the whole of the way.

  St. Albans

  Second of July 1645

  IT HAS BEEN a hellish journey thus far; we’re to spend the night here at the garrison and on the morrow to continue for London, a destination I have no reason to be thankful for. The remnants of the King’s army have been marched on the same road as I, only a week before. Like Caesar, General Fairfax has paraded his four thousand prisoners in chains through London to make a Triumph for himself and to prove to that rabble of his Senate that the New Model Army stands to protect the Republic.

  This morning, as I was escorted back into the guardroom from the privy, I was set upon with taunts from some troopers. My appearance, by now, is like some harum-scarum fellow: torn breeches, bloodstained coat, mud-specked and matted hair.

  “Poor cavvy!” cried one.

  “Papist lickspittle!” said another.

  One, a beanpole of a Roundhead, all arms and legs, barred my passage, stabbing at my chest with a long bony finger. “Romish bastard! You’re no better than dog shit. Plotting to bring an army of Catholics to rape and murder our womenfolk and this in your own country! By Christ, it will be a length of hemp for you!”

  I, who had campaigned against the Roman Antichrist himself – the Hapsburg Emperor! I, who had shed more blood in the Protestant Cause than this rogue had pissed in his miserable life!

  I drove the knee of my good leg into his balls with all my might and the knave bent over and cast up his accounts on the floor. Two others were on me in an instant and I lashed out at them both. I heard one’s nose crack as my fist struck him, then the second hurdled into me and we both went to the floor. The whole pack of curs was soon at me, raining blows down. I felt a boot on my neck and was full expecting a knife in the guts when an officer came in and began beating the louts back with the flat of his sword. The sergeant of the guard was right behind him and I was hauled up to my feet again.

  “By whose leave do you abuse the prisoner?” demanded the officer, spitting with rage. He was met with silence.

  “Arrest the lot!” he said to the sergeant. Then he cast a cold eye on the troopers. “This man is under protection of Parliament and is entrusted to my care. I’ll not lose my commission because of your bear-baiting.”

  And I was led out into the street and over to the officer’s chambers.

  “I am a gentleman and a Colonel-of-Horse,” I told him as I wiped blood from my lip. “Those ill-disciplined dog-apes dared call me a papist. I’ll not suffer such handling by any man.”

  A trooper pushed me into a chair.

  “I know who you are,” said the officer. “There won’t be any cakes and ale for you in my custody, sirrah. I’ve undertaken to deliver you to London in one piece and that I will do. I don’t care a fig whether you’re a goddamned Catholic or not. Your judgement is not in my hands.”

  “What did they mean by that rimble-ramble about Catholic plotting?” I asked.

  “There have been some revelations since your capture, Colonel. Ill tidings from the pen of Charles Stuart, that fool who thinks he’s still king.” And he handed me a newly printed tract just arrived from London.

  “‘The King’s Cabinet Open’d’,” I read aloud.

  “Read on,” said the officer, “It makes for good instruction.”

  And so I learned that even as I was offering up my sword to the enemy, the King had fled the field of Naseby and the entire Royal Baggage was taken. Also taken was the coach of State and with it a silken rope to hang our cause for good. All the papers of State had fallen into Parliament’s hands: the King’s personal correspondence with his agents abroad and with foreign p
otentates. And most damning, described in full, a letter wherein his plans to invade England with an army of Irish Catholics.

  Then it struck me why I had been taken and charged. Like some loyal Fool, I had given to the King a small service with my pen a few months earlier. I had written to Duke Frederick of Denmark (whom I had served with against the Swedes), asking him to convince his father, King Christian, to come to the aid of Charles, his blood relative. Other letters followed. Any one of these would serve as my death warrant.

  At least I know now what I’m up against. And with what time I have left, I shall write about the path that has led me to this grim crossroads. I swear that all I have written here is God’s Truth, even though some may say it is the stuff of lies or the ramblings of a confused mind. The words that follow tell of what befell me in Germany when I was a youth. You may call it a confessional.

  It was of my own free will that I made Fortune my mistress and followed her, a captive of her charms. I was given good instruction in the art of bloodletting many leagues from these shores in rolling green fields and in shadow-laden forests, grown tall on the dust of Roman bones. A place where I came to witness things no man ever should and to do things that no man ought to be asked. A place where the Devil stood at my side.

  So then, you ask, how did I become a soldier? And how did I end my days in defeat following a losing cause led by an unwise king? Well, that is the heart of my tale, a tale that I pray I have the time to tell in full, before Judgement comes. A tale that begins twenty years ago.

  II

  Arrangements

  June 1625

  LIKE TWO KNOCKED-out teeth, the dice capered across the pitted table-top and bounced off the mate's jack of beer. A great cry went up all around as the master of the Artemis won another throw and marked the slate in his favour. I reached forward to retrieve the dice – a bit too hastily – and the captain's hand lashed out and gripped my wrist like a serpent.