A Queen's Mercenary Read online

  A QUEEN’S MERCENARY

  by Sam Burnell

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  First published in eBook and paperback 2018

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  © Sam Burnell 2018

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

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the writer. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Please note, this book is written in British English, so some spellings will vary from US English.

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  DEDICATED TO

  Clive Andy Lomas

  and

  Nickelback

  CHARACTER LIST

  Fitzwarren Household

  William Fitzwarren – father of Richard, Robert and Jack

  Eleanor Fitzwarren – William Fitzwarren’s wife

  Robert Fitzwarren – William’s son

  Jack Fitzwarren – William’s son

  Richard Fitzwarren – William’s son

  Harry – Cousin to the Fitzwarren brothers

  Ronan – William’s steward

  Edwin – Servant

  Charles – Servant

  Jon – Servant

  Master Juris – William Fitzwarren’s physician

  The English Court

  Stephen Gardiner – Bishop of Winchester

  Wriothsley – Privy Councillor

  Kate Ashley – Elizabeth’s governess

  Travers – Controller of Elizabeth’s household

  William Cecil – Secretary of State

  Christopher Morley – Cecil’s man

  London Law Firm

  Geoffrey Clement – Lawyer

  Marcus Drover – Employee of Clement

  Richard’s mercenary band

  Dan – Also a family servant

  Mat

  Froggy Tate

  Marc

  Pierre

  Andrew Kineer

  Thomas

  Master Scranton

  Other characters

  Lizbet – A London prostitute

  Hugo Drego – Captain of the Dutch Flower

  Christian Carter – Richard’s friend

  Catherine De Bernay – Daughter of Peter De Bernay

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One – The Crossing

  Chapter Two – An Error of Judgment is Addressed

  Chapter Three – A Lawyer’s Trial

  Chapter Four – A Knight’s Entrance

  Chapter Five – The Future of War

  Chapter Six – Shaping Destiny

  Chapter Eight – The Forgotten Lady

  Chapter Nine – A Fools Regret

  Chapter Ten – Forged in Fire

  Chapter Eleven – A Warning Ignored

  Chapter Twelve – The Unavoidable Trap

  Chapter Thirteen – A Hunter’s Folly

  Chapter Fourteen – The Alaunt

  Chapter Fifteen – A Narrow Escape

  Chapter Sixteen – The Bond is Cut

  Chapter Seventeen – An Inevitable Ending

  Chapter Eighteen – A New Master

  Chapter Nineteen – The Day Of the Innocents

  Chapter Twenty – A Reckoning Welcomed

  Chapter Twenty-One – The Payment

  Chapter Twenty-Two – A Search For A Knave

  Chapter Twenty-Three – The Fallen Knight

  Epilogue – Introduction to A Queen’s Knight

  Chapter One

  The Crossing

  Of every kinnë tre,

  Of every kinnë tre,

  The hawthorn blowëth swetest,

  Of every kinnë tre.

  My lemman she shal be,

  My lemman she shal be,

  The fairest of every kinnë,

  †

  In April, the church bells in London rang out with news of the birth of Mary’s child. Londoners, ever tuned to the mood of their monarch, took to the streets in celebration. A preacher proclaimed loudly that he had seen the babe and it had the fairest countenance of any child ever born. The news did not stop at London; soon it spread to the continent, letters of congratulation making their way to the shores of England. It seemed that the political map had changed once again. For the child Mary had been delivered of was a son, a new prince for the realm

  Whoever had released the news could not have known the devastation and damage this would cause; Mary’s humiliation was complete. There wasn’t a child. Her attempts to bolster her rocky position by proclaiming that the babe was still unborn and would arrive later in the year were believed by very few. By July, the Queen, with a flattened belly, was back at Court preparing for Phillip’s imminent departure. She had lost a child and a husband in a few scant months.

  †

  “They’re going to kill it! Jack, they’re going to kill the horse! Jack, where are you?”

  Both men heard Lizbet before she’d even made it up the stairs to the cabin. They all met in a jam on the steps. Lizbet flattened herself against the wood panelling, letting them press past her, Richard in the lead with Jack hard on his heels.

  Corracha, Richard’s horse, was housed in a makeshift stable on the Dutch Flower, a trading ship in the Fluyt design The crossing to Holland was to take only three days and, for a fee, the Captain had agreed to take the animal. A makeshift stable had been rigged between two lots of packing cases. With the passage being so short, only a minimal amount of feed was needed. So far, the Arab had been happy with the stall and with the journey, but not anymore, it seemed.

  They heard the constant pounding before they arrived. Corracha was kicking out wildly, sometimes with both rear hooves and sometimes with one. The wooden partition was being opened and the ship’s cook, a burly Dutchman with a hatchet in one hand, was being goaded on by his shipmates standing at a safe distance behind him.

  A meaty hand flexed round the wooden shaft of the weapon. He was watching the horse closely and gauging when he could safely take a swing at the animal with his blade.

  “Stop!” Richard commanded. “You touch that animal and I’ll put that blade between your eyes!”

  The Dutchman hefted the axe in his hand. “Then you put a stop to it! Leave it much longer and the damned thing will have holed the hull.”

  Corracha continued with his incessant kicking. Iron-clad hooves were indeed splintering the wood.

  “That hull is a hand’s width thick. A horse isn’t going to kick it through.” Richard moved himself between Corracha and the axe.

  Jack was even quicker and slipped between them. Richard heard him talking calmly to the stallion behind him.

  “Donny,” the Dutchman called over his shoulder at the group of men, “get Captain Drego now. He’ll settle this. I’m not waking up in the night to find myself up to my bloody armpits in water.”

  One of them ducked reluctantly away and went in search of Drego.

  The horse’s eyes were wide his coat slick with sweat as he continued to kick blindly at the wall behind it. Jack, his head against the horse’s cheek, smoothed his hand down the smooth neck as he spoke quietly to the animal, his voice level and calm.

  Twice Corracha pushed him away, the first time hard into the wooden partition and the second backwards out of the stall, sending him reeling into Richard. When he went back the third time, he wound his hand round the animal’s halter, fir
mly pulling Corracha’s head down to meet his own. All the time he kept talking in a level voice. The hooves finally missed a beat.

  The arguing outside the stable stopped as the deafening crashing halted. The horse kicked out again, just once more but with less conviction. Jack’s hand hard on his halter, he allowed Jack to turn him in a tight circle in the stall. He neighed and stamped but the kicking, the furious insistant kicking, had stopped.

  The Dutchman dropped the hatchet to his side and a cheer went up from the men standing behind him. Lizbet, watching from the top of the steps, felt the tension subside. Drego had arrived and was talking with Richard, but Lizbet was watching Jack. His whole attention was given to the animal. Wearing only a linen shirt, it was soaked with the horse’s sweat where he had pressed against it. His voice still spoke quietly to the horse. She couldn’t make out the words, but Corracha was listening and let Jack lead him in another circle around the stable as she watched.

  The situation had been defused and Lizbet silently made her way down the steps, the crew slinking away as Drego harshly berated them. Richard closed the partition that acted as the stable door, though Jack remained with Corracha, an arm around the horse’s neck and his body leaning against him.

  When he spoke to Richard, it still sounded as if he was addressing the horse. “He’s got a bad cut on his hind quarters. It’ll need stitching. I should have seen the row of nails sticking through the wood at the back. I’m cursing myself for not noticing them.” Jack continued to run his hands firmly down the horse’s neck. “I’m not leaving him, get me some rope and a broom handle and send Lizbet. I’ll tell her what else I need.”

  Jack told her what he wanted, finishing his instructions with, “…the thickest needle you’ve got, and make sure it’s sharp.”

  When Lizbet returned, Corracha, snorting and stamping, was agitated again. Richard motioned Lizbet to be quiet and she sank down onto the bottom step to watch.

  Jack, holding the horse’s halter, was trying to slip a loop of rope over his nose. Corracha, his ears back and eyes wide, seemed to sense what Jack was trying to do and repeatedly pulled his head back just as the loop started to tighten. Lizbet realised she was watching a battle of wills. Jack, calm, his movements economical and voice quiet yet commanding, was giving the Arab a clear message. Corracha was, by degrees, accepting it, and finally Jack got the loop of hemp rope over his soft nose.

  Three rapid turns fastened it tightly in place. The shaft from the wooden handle was twisted in the rope. Jack, turning it, forced the rope to tighten into a hold that the horse could not pull away from. Corracha took a faltering step backward. Jack held fast to the rope. Man and horse eyed each other for what seemed an age. Neither Richard nor Lizbet saw a change in the horse, but Jack felt it and twisted the rope quickly, pinching the Arab’s upper lip in the rope loop.

  “What’s he doing to it?” Lizbet’s eyes were wide; surely the horse was going to kick out against the vicious knot held round his nose.

  “Shh, just watch,” Richard warned, quietening her.

  The horse’s muzzle, by degrees, lowered. The ears that had been laid flat back against his head in an attitude of aggression twitched forwards. As she watched, the tension left the taut body and the sleek neck, corded with muscle, relaxed. Lizbet was sure she even saw it sway a little on unsteady legs.

  “Richard, hold this.” Jack, his fist still tightly gripping the wood, held it out for his brother to take. “Lizbet, bring everything over here.” Jack spoke quietly, but loud enough for them both to hear.

  Richard took the wooden shaft, careful not to let the rope loop slacken. Standing close to Corracha, he spoke in level tones and ran his hands down the horse’s neck as Jack had done.

  “Right lass, you can give me a hand.” Jack pushed open the stall door to make space for her to enter.

  “I’m not coming in there with that mad beast!” Lizbet held out the box with the needles and thread but made no move to step into the stall. “Get him to help you.” She nodded in Richard’s direction, and then added, “It’s his horse.”

  “I’ve got my hands full,” came the silken reply and a boot was swiftly planted on her bottom, propelling her into the stall.

  Lizbet flattened herself against the partition wall, as far from the horse’s heaving sides as she could get. So close was she to the animal, she could smell the acid tang of sweat and feel the heat coming from the lathered flanks. Lizbet swallowed hard, her heart hammering in her chest.

  “Come here, you can’t help me from there.” Jack reached out and pulled her by the arm to the back end of the horse. Lizbet stared nervously at Corracha’s rear legs but they were stilled now, one even pointed, as if he was standing on his tiptoes.

  “He’s asleep. He’ll be fine as long as Richard keeps a tight hold on him,” Jack reassured her.

  The cut was clean and straight and, with Lizbet holding the torn edges together, Jack slowly stitched it back together. Under his breath he complained endlessly about the needles Lizbet had brought him. Meant for clothing repairs, they were too short for stitching the animal’s hide back together, and forcing the needle through Corracha’s skin was making holes in his own hands. Finally, Jack cut off the end of the thread with his teeth and nodded with satisfaction, his hands covered in a sticky mixture of his own blood and that of the horse’s.

  “Hold him tight,” Jack said to Richard, and then to Lizbet, “give me your shoe.”

  Lizbet gawked at him as if he were mad.

  “For God’s sake woman, give it here. I need something to bang these nails flat.”

  Lizbet complied. Unhooking a wooden clog from her foot, she passed it to Jack and was forced to hop from the stable. Richard tried, and failed, to hide a smile.

  Jack banged the nails in with the heel of the clog. Each sharp, staccato sound twitched the horse’s ears, but the noise didn’t startle him. Jack swapped places with Richard, taking the wooden shaft with the twisted rope from him.

  “I’ll stay with him,” said Jack, beginning to slacken the rope and talking in a low, calm voice all the time to the horse.

  Richard pushed the partition back in place, fastening Jack in with Corracha.

  “Give me my bloody shoe back,” Lizbet hissed.

  A moment later the wooden clog sailed over the partition to be neatly caught by Richard. He hefted the wooden shoe in his hand before offering it back to Lizbet. “Well, at least we know that if you fall overboard you’ll float!”

  Scowling, Lizbet snatched the clog back from his outstretched hand and rammed it back on her foot.

  †

  They left Jack with Corracha and returned to Drego’s cabin, and Richard arranged for a quantity of aqua vitae to be delivered to Jack in Corracha’s stall. He knew Jack’s intention would be to get drunk for the remainder of the journey; his brother had no love for boats, a fact that always amused Richard.

  Lizbet stood on the deck, the air chilled and her clothes invaded with a feeling of damp that never seemed to leave them. Unlike Jack, Lizbet did not dislike the Fluyt. When she was on deck standing next to Richard and gazing out across the sea, she knew that she had never looked so far before. There wasn’t a house, a tree, or a wall obscuring her view and she felt she could see right to the very edge of the ocean.

  She’d heard from men who’d been to sea, of course, but had always just imagined it to be very much like a wide river, with the land visible on the other side. That the waves rolled on and on, she had not been prepared for. She didn’t mean to, but her hand reached out and squeezed Richard’s arm as she stood and found herself, for once, at a loss for words.

  Richard didn’t pull from her hold. Instead, sensing her wonder at the sea before her, he asked, “Did you ever imagine it would look like that?”

  Lizbet just shook her head and, loosening her hand from his arm, placed it on the wooden gunwale as the ship heaved beneath her, lifted by the swell of the waves.

  “It’s so…” Lizbet paused, “… I ca
n see so far. I wonder if I can see right into Heaven.”

  His reply was not one she expected. “If there was a window into Heaven then it would be here.”

  “I didn’t know it was possible to see so far. I can see to the very edge of the world, and, if there is an end to the world, then what is it that I can see after that? What it must be to get so close to God.”

  Richard was about to reply but stopped himself. He wanted to tell her he’d known a good few sailors and none of them had been touched by the grace of God. It seemed unfair to steal her sense of awe simply because it was not a feeling he shared.

  “Why does the horse let him do that?” Lizbet asked, changing the subject.

  “In truth, I don’t know,” Richard replied. “It sends them to sleep.”

  “It’s a useful trick,” Lizbet remarked. “Shame it doesn’t work on men.”

  Richard laughed. “Well, it might. You’ll have to try it and let me know. If you could do that, there would be no need for dwale.”

  The memory of Colan and the poisoned wine she had given him was one that still disturbed her sleep; not particularly because of his slobbering and drooling demise, his face flat against the table, but more for the death Richard had delivered when he had ripped Colan’s cousin’s throat out without even hesitating. The image of the man, standing for a brief second before his body collapsed. On his face an expression of stricken terror as air whistled from the gaping wound. Blood splattered across the wall as he bled like a stuck pig, it was an image she was trying to bury.

  †

  The Dutch Flower completed her voyage without further incident. Jack remained with Corracha, mostly in a drunken stupor, which was his preferred state when travelling at sea. Before he left England, Richard had sent a final message to Dan’s sister. In it he told Dan that there was a crossing on the Fluyt, paid for in advance, if he wished to join his former Master in Holland.