The Ravens’ Banquet Read online

  “You know of what I speak. We’re all here for what tomorrow may bring, aren’t we? The next baggage train to loot, the captured officer we can ransom. A rich whore to rob at the next halt. It is the Promise that keeps us all here, is it not Rikard? We all ride the Great Wheel.”

  My heart again felt very empty. “I had come for more than that, and from farther away.”

  “But now that you’re up to your boot tops in it, you have misplaced your Good Intentions, haven’t you? Pray listen, my friend, for I know of few old troopers that have either riches or good health. One can dice at this game for a good long while. But the risk increases with time. I know this, yet I play on. I have forgotten how to do anything else. So will you in time.”

  Even as he finished his dark words, there was a loud flapping and a black thing rushed into our faces from out the window. We both leapt backwards as a great raven reared up an arm’s length from the aperture and squawked before recovering itself and shooting upwards. Andreas and I stepped forward and peered out of the window once again. Five of the black creatures hovered about the tower, seemingly motionless as they flew into the wind. One or two regarded us with their shiny jet eyes and raucously jeered their contempt. These creatures, and their cousins the rooks, seemed to be all about the town, alighting upon near every rooftop. I was confounded by such a gathering.

  Andreas spoke quietly, visibly unnerved.

  “The ravens’ table is one that moves with conquering armies. And the raven always knows from whence the next banquet is coming.”

  Then, I saw his eyes settle and fix on something in the distance. And he quickly grasped my shoulder and thrust out his arm for me to sight down its length. There, still many leagues away and at the base of the hills, I spied the glint of pikes in the sun. Strung out mile upon mile along some road beyond sight, thousands of flashing points danced, a great serpent crawling upon the land.

  General Tilly had come to Göttingen.

  ALL THAT HAD happened to me in the year gone by, sixteen and twenty-five, all that I had seen, all that I had done, and all that I had considered Hell upon Earth; these would be as trivial as a swarm of horseflies compared to what was about to come to me. For as dark as my path had grown in this war, it was about to grow darker still. A narrow path. One the coldly beautiful Fortuna demanded that I tread alone.

  I was spared the siege of Göttingen, an event that I must confess I had little urge to witness. Our army was whisked away one and all out of the east gate and onto the road north, to the town of Northeim, a good five leagues distant. After a dozen marches and counter-marches, on the twenty-third day of August, the assembled Foot and Horse of King Christian of Denmark made their camp on a wide plain within sight of the spires of Duderstadt.

  What a miserable lot we had. Black clouds covered the sky and thunder rumbled, tumbling in from over the Harz mountains. The rain fell cold all morning as we set up our tents, but slackened off some in the afternoon. And even as we ate our daily ration, a great cry went through the camp, a burble that rippled and grew in intensity. A few of us hurriedly mounted our horses to get a better look at the cause of the uproar. Across the plain to the west, I watched a vast host enter the field. They bore many great standards of colour, and the sound of their drums carried all the way over to us in spite of the contrary wind. For two hours we watched them assemble, growing each minute and no more than two miles distant.

  So it would happen here, I thought to myself. There was little appetite for breaking bread after watching the enemy encamp so close, so I drank only some weak beer. The rains played again upon us as the sky darkened into night, lit only from time to time by the flash of lightning. I watched more than one trooper cross himself in fear as the elements made clear their displeasure.

  At the centre of our position stood an ancient stone watchtower where an old byway bisected our encampment. Someone had placed the King’s banner at its apex and I watched it lash wildly in the winds, fearful that it would rip from its staff and thus dismay the army it sought to embolden. In spite of the rain, fires began to spring up around the tower in the failing light. As full darkness descended, I stared on the fantastic sight of a great host in readiness: the great tower illuminated by thunder flashes, the gigantic standard of Christian the Fourth glimpsed for only a moment as it flapped loudly and the swarm of fires that surrounded the tower for as far as I could see.

  Who could sleep thus? The company’s two other Corporals were not to be seen in the tent when I finally entered late in the night. I had maybe a few hours of solitude to me before the inevitable sounding of the drum. I wiped down my carbine and pistols yet again and prayed my powder would remain dry in the numbing dampness. My little candle, which gave but meagre light, was threatened constantly by the flapping of the tent walls in the stiff breeze that hammered away on the other side of the canvas. I sat on the creaking rack of wood and stretched out, my arms up over my forehead. I could hear the dull rumble of hundreds of soldiers in conversation, punctuated by closer cries and shouts and the occasional laugh.

  As I lay there in the dim orange glow of my taper, I could see my breath roll out in a cloud. It had suddenly become unnaturally cold. So quickly, indeed, that I thought perhaps I had caught a chill. Others in the camp were dropping off in ones or twos from fever nearly each day. What protection had I? I wrapped my damp blanket closer about me and drew it up under my nose. I must have drifted off to sleep for a moment or two, and, feeling myself a-falling, awoke with a start.

  The tent flap moved but little now, twitching lazily, for it seemed that the winds had died some, and my candle struggled but yet burned. I lay still. Again, I began the drift downwards into sleep. Then someone spoke to me. It is strange, but I did not start or jump up, for the voice was but a soft whisper in my ear. Another comrade turning in. I turned my head to the opening of the tent and saw there a figure in shadow, half-in and half-outside my shelter. It was this figure who had spoken as if leaning into my very ear. But whoever it was must be six feet away. I could, in truth, almost feel the touch of his breath on the ear itself. The wrongness of it set my skin to tingle.

  The figure did not move yet I could see even in the poor light that the profile was his. And then, too, did I pick up the smell. It was a smell that had not entered our encampment before, and one distinct from the mud reek that my nostrils had grown accustomed. More a stench of mould, wood-rot and something sweet besides. The flap stirred again and I spied a worn pair of velvet breeches, stained and shorn of decoration and likewise a handsome pair of boots now covered in greenish hue. A head of long, fair hair, tangled with dead leaves and twigs was glimpsed for but a moment but long enough to shrink my bollocks.

  “Samuel,” I heard myself say aloud. “Why?” I breathed, unable to move.

  And the whisperer answered me. “Colonel Nells still draws my pay as a sutler’s man at muster time. He should let me go to my rest.”

  I could hardly form the words to speak. “What do you want?”

  “I have come to tell you something, Master Treadwell,” replied the whisperer.

  There was silence for a moment, and then, his strangely distant and strangled voice came again, “You did not treat me well, sir.”

  “Samuel,” I whispered, too frozen to utter anything further. But he didn’t wait to hear more of my reply.

  “And I did not treat you justly, either,” said the whisperer in my ear. “I know that now. And now I must speak in Truth. I have come to tell you that the Great Wheel is about to turn again. You had better find the mettle to see it through.”

  “What… what are you saying?” I asked, my voice barely a croak.

  “You must seize your chance when it shows itself, Master Treadwell. For but one chance will you have... You must rise now. Steel your heart. It does all begin this night.”

  And the whispers ceased. And just as Samuel was there, standing plain to see, suddenly he was not.

  Then another voice sounded from outside, a voice alive.


  “Treadwell, are you in there? Bestir yourself!” It was Cornet Krebs, our standard bearer.

  I jumped so fast that I rolled out and fell on the wet ground, the cot spinning down on top of me and landing on my back. Krebs threw back the tent flap and entered, wheezing in the thick mist and nearly out of breath.

  “For the love of the Virgin, get up! We’re beating quarters this very hour. We’re bloody running again. Back north!”

  VIII

  The Cornet

  August 1626

  The Tower

  Ninth of July 1645

  I HAD NOT heard his voice for many years, yet I knew it was he even as he climbed the steps to my cell, exchanging pleasantries with the warder. How long had he waited for such an opportunity to present itself? That he could visit his wayward brother and dangle deliverance before him like food before a starving man, that was a moment that dear William must have long dreamt of.

  I did not rise to greet him as he entered. I merely set down my sheaf of papers and regarded him without emotion. He approached, but did not offer his hand. He stood over me and folded his cloak slowly before setting it upon a corner of the table.

  “Brother,” he spoke, “It need not be said that our differences these many years have been deep ones. Yet believe me, sir, when I tell you that I am here to help you.”

  “William,” I replied, looking up at him dressed in his black satin and pearls, “I don’t doubt that you are. It’s the price that most concerns me.” I waved my arm expansively. “As you can see, I am a man of little means nowadays.”

  He shook his greying head and doffed his hat, adding it to the pile he was creating upon my only stick of furniture.

  “I would ask of you nothing more than to do what is right by our family.”

  I laughed a little. “Is that why you’ve taken my house and wife from me? That seems a heavy price and yet still I linger here in gaol.”

  William’s cheek twitched, but I could tell he endeavoured to hold back from my taunt.

  “Your wife asked for my protection, Richard. I have taken nothing from you but rather, have increased your chances of holding on to what you still possess. I’ve sent retainers down to Devon to guard the property and ensure no harm will fall when Parliament’s forces enter your lands.”

  “I think your generosity will count for little. Surely I will be attaindered and lose all regardless,” I said.

  “It is the chief purpose of my visit, brother, to ensure that such does not befall you. Will you hear me out?”

  Many years have gone by since that tall black-haired youth bullied me before I left to go soldiering in Germany. Though the lines of age have creased his face and white tinges his beard and head, he is still just as haughty and reeks of conceit. Even so, I deigned to listen to what he had to say.

  It was black news indeed. Though I have yet to hear formal charges read against me, William told me that the King’s correspondence captured at Naseby had clearly implicated me in entreaties to the prince of Denmark. That great fool Digby, the king’s secretary, in his impolitic correspondence with the King, mentioned the Danes and my own good services in attempting to convince them to come over and aid the Cause. It was more than enough to get me hanged by anyone so inclined.

  “You’re to be examined a few days hence, I am told,” said my brother as if he were talking to a schoolboy. “They will take your statement from you… or a confession. It is my advice that you tell all and strive most directly to show some remorse. Explain that you were cozened – or coerced into writing those letters because of your past service to the Danish crown.

  I will do my part to see that you’re offered pardon if you co-operate with the Committee of the Two Kingdoms. A full account of what you know and a denunciation of the King’s ministers will save you. You may also need to take a commission to serve Lord Fairfax.”

  “A denunciation,” I said to him quietly, my rage stoking.

  “It is infinitely preferable to the rope, Richard. Your wife begs that you consider this course of action to save yourself and your family’s fortune and honour.”

  I pushed my chair back and grasped the table edge. “Her words amaze me not and are of the same tune she so shrilly sings in her letter to me.”

  “That tender creature is possessed of wisdom beyond her years. Heed her.”

  “It would solve the matter neatly, wouldn’t it?” I replied. “You finally gain mastery over the family. How many years have you been waiting for me to fall into this pit that you may pluck me out at the cost of my soul?”

  William shook his head, disgust clearly spelled out on his face, and retrieved his hat and cloak.

  “A week in the Tower is enough to addle any man, I confess. But mark me, time is running out for you. Think well upon what I have told you. God knows why, but I will come back to you again on the morrow if I gain more intelligence of your situation.”

  And he bid me good-bye and banged on the door for the warder. I instantly felt shame for my venomous tongue but I could not bring myself to bid him goodbye as he left the cell.

  I know full well of matters concerning denunciation. I carry upon my head the dark memories of one such act, committed in the fullness of my youth when Courage once deserted me. In Germany.

  THE EVENTS THAT followed my spectral visitor came upon me so rapidly that I scarce had time to even reflect on what I had witnessed with my own eyes. After a few hours in the saddle and a few musket balls singing over my head, blessed distractions such as these drove Samuel’s ghost from my mind. It became the easier to regard his visit as nightmare and not a warning from the grave. Battle was fast upon us, a swift tide that rolled up from behind.

  As we rode out from the valley of Seesen on the twenty-sixth day of August 1626, and into the broad rising plain that led to the town of Lütter-am-Barenberge, I could not know that this two-mile-long reach of sodden pasture land would be the place of our undoing. Yet I did know, as did my comrades, that we could run no farther.

  Our regiment was not the first to reach Lütter, indeed much of the Army was spread out before us just north of a stream and a tiny hamlet that lay at the edge of the plain. Behind us to our right, the mist-shrouded Harz mountains rose up slowly, thick with pine. To the left, above the hamlet of Nauen, a steep ridge lay, beyond which was open ground once again and the road to Hanover. The town of Lütter rested due north, some two miles ahead, the twin spires of its church and its chateau all that we could see.

  What a woeful parade we made. All was topsy-turvy confusion. By Christ’s Blood, how could the King have cast the die to withdraw even as we camped for battle on the morn? The raging campfires that we left well-stoked did not fool the enemy across the plain. They knew we had struck the camp and fled.

  The Lieutenant kept up an endless stream of cursing as he and his mount were lashed by the rains, and he rode fore and rearwards to keep the company ordered in the dark. Pitch-fired torches sputtered on the creaking wagons to light the way while we in the van struggled along the road near half blind. The whole of the Danish host, 15,000 strong, strained to turn itself like a creeping caterpillar, in painful slowness, back the way that it had come. The rearguard came under attack even before the sky began to lighten with the dawn. Companies of harquebusiers were sent to relieve the rearguard at intervals. By sixof-the-clock the word went around that the dreaded Croats were snapping at our heels. And their reputation preceded them so well that they were as feared as the Devil incarnate.

  By midday, when the order came for us to wheel round and defend the baggage train, we had covered barely a few miles. Though near half the army was comprised of Horse, we could go no faster than a man could march lest the foot soldiers be left behind to the mercy of Tilly’s cavalry.

  When it came upon us to take our turn into action, we fought hard. The greater enemy was the damp. I watched two men get shot from their saddles as their carbines clicked and sputtered out cold leaving them to furiously reprime their pieces while the I
mperials gave fire in return. Our army held back, harrying the enemy with ordered firings, by troop, then wheeling back to reload and advance once again. Our only intent was to keep Tilly’s men off our tail as we clawed our way back North. But to where? Refuge there was none. We were as a blooded stag, still pounding, yet bleeding out nonetheless. We ate not the whole of that day nor slept much that night but what little we could manage we did in the saddle. It is a woeful kind of sleep that makes one feel as if to fall. There is no rest in it nor comfort.

  Over the next two days I only managed naps in the saddle. Grub was a few mouthfuls of cold salt ham that crunched as one chewed it thanks to the road grit ground into it. And then, as the third day grew light at about five of the clock, and clear for the first time in many a day, we spied this vast plain with Lütter-am-Barenberge at its crest. And when Tollhagen and I saw the regiments of pike and the red-coated musketeers being ordered into Battalia, we knew that this would be the day we had waited for nearly a year.

  “Hey, come with us,” shouted Andreas as he reined-in his horse. “Two companies of Colonel de Courville’s troopers have returned from the rearguard. Let’s find out what is happening back there.”

  I should have stayed with the company and joined with the other corporals in preparing for battle. But I was more eager to learn how close the enemy was. With a quick glance to make sure the Lieutenant had not spied us, I pulled myself up into the saddle and spurred my horse to follow Balthazar and Andreas down to the stream where the rearguard, pummelled and exhausted, was finally catching up the rest of the army.

  We splashed across and climbed the opposite bank then cantered toward what remained of de Courville’s harquebusiers.

  “What, ho!” cried out Balthazar as we joined up with the straggling mob. “What news of the enemy?”

  He was met with hard silence and a few foul gestures.

  I heard Andreas mutter, half to himself. “They’ve been cut to pieces. Christ, look at them.”