Pistoleer: HellBurner Page 5

  "Aye, it's a problem. Usually he stays in Holland, and I assure the safety of cargo and payment because all of the ship's crew are dangerous men. This time is very different. Robert must go overland to Somerset and the roads and inns are swarming with thieves of opportunity. Meanwhile, my crew are anxious to get to their villages, their homes, and their women's beds. The winter rains are almost upon us, so they have urgent work waiting for them at home, such as putting weaving fresh reeds into their roofs."

  There was a long pause, "But,” Oliver said. "There must be a but. You were about to tell me how Robert would make the journey in safety, but then you stopped. Ah, of course. He would be much safer if no one knew his plans or his route, including me." He should have saved his breath for Daniel wasn't paying attention. Instead the tall man was giving hand signals to the crew on the dock who were busy loading casks onto mules and into carts. Oliver looked around to spot the men that Daniel was signaling to.

  Two of the crew suddenly pounced upon a man, caught him by both arms, lifted him from the ground and hurried him toward the ship and to Daniel. Oliver was awed by the strength of these men. It was as if the man weighed nothing though his feet were off the ground and kicking. A lifetime of pulling oars would tend to turn muscles into iron.

  Daniel stared down at the held man, and said to the two oarsmen, "The man is dipping pockets. Strip him of everything and then chuck him in the river. We'll throw his clothes to him once we've searched them."

  The dipper did not protest. A cold swim was kinder treatment than he would have received from any of his victims. He voluntarily stripped and left his clothes in a pile and then leaped naked into the foul and odorous waters of the Cam. The search of his things produced three purses, a jeweled cloak clasp, and a silver dagger, all of which had been stuffed into some inside pockets of his cloak. There were some small copper coins in another pocket, but they left them for the dipper, who was now treading water down below the dock to keep his feet from sinking into the muddy bottom.

  "My point exactly,” Oliver said as he watched the dipper catch the clothes that were thrown to him and then make for a ladder with his sodden clothes and boots held under one arm. "Thieves of opportunity are everywhere."

  "This is not the place to speak of it," Daniel told him. "Once the cargo is paid for and delivered, the ship will put about and row back down river to Wellenhay. Robert and I will be getting off at the George Inn where my clan keeps some horses. You can stay with the ship back to Ely, or you are welcome to stay with Robert and I at The George for the night. It's your choice."

  Oliver scanned the November clouds to measure the height of the sun they hid. Three hours to make a decision. Time enough for a short walk through the city. He said as much to Daniel, and then stepped ashore to go and explore Cambridge. He wasn't a hundred yards from the ship before two doxies showing deep cleavage and bare ankles hooked onto an arm on each side and began to offer him things that quickly reminded him that Puritan morality controlled the farming villages, but not the towns.

  No sooner had he sent the two doxies away by mumbling his apologies, than another one hooked onto his arm. A prosperous man was never wanting for company in Cambridge, especially female company. Willing female company. It made him wonder all the more why Edward Heath had bothered to accost Teesa. A good stare at this new doxy answered the question. Teesa was fresh and young and clean.

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  THE PISTOLEER - HellBurner by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 3 - A room at the George in Cambridge in November 1638

  The innkeeper of the George Inn at Midsommer Common was boundlessly attentative to the three men, Daniel, Robert, and Oliver. They shared one of his quieter rooms on a slow and misty November night. The clan always held back a cask of Genever for the George, and charged him not much more than their Dutch cost for it. In return for this and for other favours from the Wellenhay clan, the innkeeper provided the occasional room and board, and grazed a few of the clan's horses in his field with the saddles safely stashed in his stable.

  The George was a meeting place of the country gentry and nobility. A place where plans were made and deals were sealed over good sipping Genever. The three men did not enter the public rooms of the inn, but took their meals in their upper room at the rough table with the window view down the River Cam. This table was also a place were plans were being made over good sipping Genever.

  Daniel had bid farewell to Cleff and the crew, who were now on their way home to their Fens island villages. He had not gone with them because he was determined to accompany and guard his friend Robert all the way to Bridgwater, Somerset, to make sure he arrived safely with the small fortune that he had brought from Schiedam. Just as Daniel had been the 'factor' in Rotterdam for his clan's trade there, so had Robert been the factor for his family's trade there.

  In the morning Oliver would ask a ride on any boat heading back towards Ely. He would offer to pay passage, but the offer would be refused. No one would charge passage to the Abbey's titheman, the man who decided the tolls for ships to tie up beside Abbey land. Over the meal of lamb's leg, peppered turnips and apple pie, Oliver encouraged the two Pistoleers to tell him all about the politics of the United Dutch Republic, and about the Dutch trading companies, the armies and the navy.

  It was as if Oliver was in grammar school again, though he was pushing forty. His mind was filled with a new thirst to learn. His reading in Cambridge had once quenched this thirst, or rather, drowned it. These two vital men, however, had answers to questions, important questions, real questions that before today he had never thought to ask, and every answer spawned a new question.

  "So, it sounds like you would rather live in the Dutch Republics than in England, so why do you come back?" Oliver eventually asked the two of them. They both answered, "Family," almost at the same time. "So do you think England would be a better place to live if it copied the Dutch Republics?"

  "Yes, of course,” Robert was quick to answer. "In Holland all the talented, trained, and educated men are admired and the fruit earned from their ideas goes to them. Here in England the profits of such men go to men who by sheer accident of birth, are considered their betters. It means that the wealth of Holland is shared more equally amongst the folk."

  "Absolutely not,” Daniel interrupted his friend. "Not if it means seventy years of war against the kingdoms of the rest of Europe. If we could snap our fingers and be where Holland is now, then I would agree with Robert. Unfortunately, our own aristocrats will maim and rape and ravage and kill to keep their inherited and undeserved honors. They have brutally put down peasant rebellions in the past, and they know well how to do it. First, they create a famine to starve us into desperation, and then they will watch us fight amongst ourselves for the scraps from their tables."

  "But if the working folk don't rise against them,” Oliver said, "things will never change. We will always be controlled by our parasitic ruling class." He regretted using the technical word 'parasitic', because although Robert was college educated, Daniel was not.

  "And you think it is so different in Holland?" Robert replied. "They have simply traded the aristocrat parasites for the banker parasites. In England you must pay rent to work the land of an aristocrat, while in Holland you must pay rent on the coins from bankers that you used to buy the land to work. It is the same. Today you spoke long to old Cleff. He is the wisest man I know and yet he can barely read. Did you not listen? What is given by God is for the common wealth of all, and the fruits belong to those who do the work. Today that is hardly more true in the republic of Holland than it is in the kingdom of England."

  Oliver felt an all too familiar dark cloud shadowing his thoughts, and he sighed. For one short afternoon the dark cloud he had lived under for a decade had receded from his mind, but now it was creeping back. In desperation he asked them, "So how can we English free ourselves of aristocrats like the Heaths, without simply replacing them with bankers?"
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  It was Robert who answered. "The bankers gained Holland because of the cost of the seventy years of war against the Papist aristocrats. The leaders of the rebellion borrowed heavily to keep the rebellion going. Do you think that working folk, even Dutch folk, can afford pistols like those?" he asked, pointing to his long holsters that hung on a cloak hook. "The bankers supplied the rebellion with weapons, but always for a price. Now they hold a huge claim against Holland's future."

  "So England must rid herself of her aristocrats without borrowing to do it,” Oliver was desperately trying to hold back his own personal dark cloud.

  Robert snorted sarcastically. "If there are armies involved, then for sure the bankers will gain control, for they will loan money to both sides. In Holland the aristocrats borrowed heavily to hire mercenaries to put down the rebellion. That forced the rebels to borrow heavily to gain modern weapons. That forced the aristocrats to borrow to... well, you see the vicious circle. Eventually the Duke of Burgundy was so deeply in debt that his duchy collapsed and was taken over by the King of Spain. When it comes to armies, the only consistent winners are the bankers, while the only consistent losers are the women and children. Always the women and children."

  "If the Puritans weren't trying so hard to replace the Catholics as the new ruling class,” Daniel told them, "then they wouldn't need armies. May the goddess save me from bible-thumping-over-educated Puritans." After the curse he continued quickly in hopes that these God-fearing men had not noticed the word goddess. "In my village, and in all the damp island villages of the Fens, we learned this lesson back before memory.

  All we have is our damp islands and our ships. When armies threaten us we do not raise an army to match them. Instead we flee on our ships. Eventually the invaders realize that our damp islands have nothing that they want and they leave. We have been known to hurry their departure by arranging fatal accidents for their leaders. You don't need to raise costly armies just to get rid of a few bad leaders."

  "You Frisians are a special case,” Robert replied, "both here and in Friesland. You purposefully build your villages on easily defendable islands so that you can leave your women in safety while you go off on your ships for months at a time. Your land is communal to the clan. Your men would rather own a ship than a manor house. Your women are trained in weapons."

  "Which is how we met this morning,” Oliver interrupted. "At first I did not recognize Teesa as my daughter's friend. All I saw was a Fens maiden about to skewer a man with a fishing spear. I fired my pistol to stop everyone in their tracks. I have heard many stories of dry-landers having fatal accidents in the Fens, and many of those stories begin with some dry-lander taking liberties with a Fens maiden.

  Unfortunately, neither did I recognize Heath until I was on the bank. Just think, if I hadn't been there, then by now that bastard Heath would be dead. No, I do not dare wish that, for that would have required that Teesa be ravaged by him. For her sake I would have stopped him no matter what. Umm, just out of interest, if Heath had ravaged Teesa, how would he have died?"

  "Badly,” Daniel said quickly and then gave the question some thought. "But perhaps not this week or even this month. The clansmen would have patiently waited until they could cause him an accidental death, with witnesses to swear it was an accident. Perhaps his horse would have been startled by something and bucked him into one of the bottomless bogs."

  "Are you related to Teesa?"

  Daniel smiled while thinking about how to explain the complex relationships within his village to a dry-lander Puritan? "The ship is owned communally by my clan. We have two such ships and my elder brother captains the other. Teesa is his daughter, or at least I think she is his. In my village you can never be sure. Sometimes the village men sail away for months at a time. Sometimes they don't come back.

  A man of my age is often supporting a woman on each side of the North Sea. Tit-for-tat, those same women will have more than one man supporting them. The children all know their mother, but few will know who their blood father really is. That is why our children are raised by the entire village. So yes, I may be related to Teesa. By blood I suppose I am her uncle, or her cousin. I am too young to be her blood father."

  "And yet you did not punish Heath after what he tried to do to Teesa? If Cleff hadn't stopped the crew they would have at least given the bastard a good beating."

  "Oliver, you ask a great many questions and yet you don't seem to listen to the answers,” Daniel criticized. "Heath's tongue was bitten almost through by Teesa, and his writing hand will still be numb from my shooting the pistol from his grip. To beat Heath further would win that day's battle, but risk losing the war. You are just like Robert. He would kill artillery men in hopes of winning a single battle, whereas I would kill the leaders of the army in hopes of winning the war."

  Oliver suddenly felt like something was missing, something was absent. Like when you strain your back while digging, and it aches for days, and then one day you wake up and something is missing It always takes a while before you realize that what is missing is the backache. Then it came to him. The dark cloud was missing from his mind. It was not just hovering to the side ready to cloud his mind again. It was missing.

  There was a rap at the door and then an alewench from the Inn's tap-room came in to side the dishes from their meal. She was a handsome young lass, and her bodice would have been showing a lot of cleavage, if she had any. Oliver stared at her face as she was bending over the table giving it a wipe, partially so that he would not be tempted to look down her bodice, and partially because she had a striking resemblance to the girl Teesa from today's incident with Heath. Or was that just his imagination because Teesa had just been in his thoughts.

  "Glad you're back, Dan,” the girl said and then gave the man a peck on the cheek. He in turn grabbed her around the waist and sat her in his lap and gave her a good hug. "No Dan, I'm not a little girl anymore. It's not proper to do that in front of others. You will give them the idea that I am an easy woman." She wriggled out of his grasp and off his knee, but stayed close to him. "So, if you are back from Holland and here for the winter, then has any woman spoken for you yet? Are you going to spend the winter warm in a house, or with the single men in the longhouse?"

  "That depends on which other men stay the winter. I have to do some business in London before the highways become quagmires. Umm, Britta love, does Edward Heath come to the George much?"

  "Not usually, but this summer he had men working on a drainage ditch near to here. Has this something to do with Teesa? Some of the crew were telling me...."

  "That is not for tavern gossip, love. Keep it to yourself. And be careful around Heath and his men. You took this job as a way of finding a good husband, remember, and against your mother's wishes. If Heath or any of his men are in the house, then you hide and let the others serve them. I don't want you anywhere near them."

  In a careless but oh-so-graceful move, she twirled away from him, picked up the loaded tray and glided towards the door. "Jealous are you?" she said and gave Daniel a saucy wink and was gone. The door closed behind the girl, and the room suddenly seemed a dull place without her smile.

  "She looks like trouble in skirts,” Robert muttered. "I pity her mother and the trials she must endure. What is she, seventeen?"

  "Thereabouts,” Daniel replied. "Our village teens are a constant trial to all of us. The more we try to protect them, the worse they rebel. At least the lads can crew on the ships. This Inn is a Godsend for the lasses. The wife here is from our village and she hires our girls once they reach the point where they will leave home anyway to go a-roving on their own. Between the innkeeper and his wife, they keep them working and safe enough until they learn some city skills. This city is filled with horny students, yet somehow the wife keeps our lasses safe from them."

  "Especially tough since your lasses are so comely,” Oliver admitted. "All the women from the Fens clans are comely, and not just the girls, but also their mothers, and even their gr
andmothers. They would be considered beauties anywhere in England. What about in the Netherlands?"

  "In the north of the Netherlands the women, the folk, everyone looks much like our clan, and no wonder, for they share the same Frisian blood. In the south and in Holland, not so much. The south has a mix of many different folk from all over Europe, all over the world." Daniel checked to make sure that the table was dry. It was. "Robert, now that the table is clear we should plan our route for tomorrow. Spread out your map."

  While Robert and Daniel planned their route to Somerset, Oliver inspected their long pistols and compared them to his own weapon. The very pistol that his grandfather had kept beneath the bar in The George Inn in Huntingdon. The barrels and the stocks were not dissimilar but the locks and triggers were completely different.

  His grandfather's pistol was a matchlock. The trigger arm held a match cord and when you pulled the trigger the cord would drop into the powder flash pan. If the match cord was still lit and the powder hadn't blown out of the pan, then the flash from the pan would travel down along the vent into the barrel and ignite the powder loaded in it.

  When he'd broken up the fight for Teesa by firing this pistol from his punt, he had been delayed while he used his flint and steel to light the match cord. In truth, he had given up in frustration at lighting the cord because it must have been damp. Since his purpose was just a warning shot, instead he had braced the pistol against the gunnels of the punt with his foot, with the barrel pointed towards the sun, put some fresh powder in the pan, and then had used his flint and steel to set off the flash.

  As a weapon for use out in the open, in the damp fens it was pretty well useless. The only reason he carried it in his belt was as a sign of his authority as the Abbey titheman. He dreamed of someday buying a better pistol but with six children, coin was always hard to save.

  One of these Dutch pistols would do him nicely. They were Dog-locks. A pivoting lid covered the powder in the flash pan to keep it in place and dry until it was needed. There was no rope fuse to light because ignition was by the spark of a flint. There was a piece of shaped flint held by a clamp called a dog. The dog arm was cocked against a spring and then held in place by the trigger.