Read William Falkland 01 - The Royalist for Free Online Page B

interest in running, not yet. Warbeck was already taking me towards the places I wanted to be.
    With Andover in sight we spent the second night huddled in an abandoned farmhouse and pushed our horses hard through the third day to another, a bleak and lonely place on the top of a hill. We saw almost no one on those days of riding together. I thought perhaps we might be somewhere within a day of Bristol now, a city which, last I’d heard, was still held by the King after Prince Rupert had stormed it in the summer of 1643. When I asked Warbeck he merely grunted.
    ‘Your Prince surrendered the city to Fairfax and the New Model in September, Falkland.’ He watched me closely that night, perhaps imagining that I saw my old friends and allies not so far away. If I could escape and keep free of him for a day then perhaps I could be among royalists once more. I could see him thinking it.
    ‘Would you like to bind me?’ I asked him, full of disdain.
    ‘Oh I’ll catch you quick enough if you run, Falkland.’
    And in truth I did lie awake a while, weighing that choice, but in the end I found it wanting. I might slip away from Warbeck but what then? I didn’t know this land. We’d ridden through wild and lonely hills these last few hours and in the night with no sun to guide me I might confuse my direction. England had become such a patchwork of loyalties, some conquered, some divided. Yet most of all what stayed me was the thought of success – what if I reached the King in Oxford or some other place, what then? If the King’s armies were in retreat as Cromwell had said then I’d be pressed into service once more. So I slept and in the morning let Warbeck lead us on. I suppose he thought me weak or afraid and it never crossed his mind that each step I took at his side was a step closer to my Caro. Alone, I would have travelled the same roads. Better to ride them with Warbeck behind me than as a hunted man.
    He pushed us hard that next day and, from what little he would admit when I questioned him, I gathered we were approaching Taunton, which I’d last heard was held for Parliament but under siege. We reached another one of Warbeck’s inns where a secret knock allowed us entry. Once again every room had been plundered, although this time I supposed it could have been either army. I wondered why we had not camped instead but got my answer when Warbeck led me to the inn’s pantry and pushed me inside. ‘You sleep in here tonight, Falkland.’ From his nervous disposition I surmised that the siege must continue and that he didn’t trust me not to run. Can’t say as I blamed him for that.
    I supposed he would simply lock me inside and leave but instead he squatted in the doorway as I sat down and regarded me with a curious expression. It was cramped in that pantry but not because the shelves were packed. There was only a single jar and even that, when I opened it, was empty. I breathed in the scent of honey and found myself taken back to my boyhood, to summer days and sunshine and flowers and the bees.
    ‘Doesn’t it fly against everything you’re fighting for, Falkland?’ he asked me. ‘If your King can be wrong?’
    I could hardly see why. ‘A king is just a man like any other.’ I tried to stretch out but there wasn’t enough room, so instead I made myself a pillow of my boots and twisted into a shape I thought might give me a little sleep. ‘A man was justly hanged for his crimes and that was all I saw of it. I gave it little thought at all.’ I suppose at the time I doubted the King would even notice. Afterwards I’d had my fears for a time but I’d never suffered any consequence. ‘How is it that you and Cromwell give it so much more?’
    ‘Oh, you caused quite a stir.’ Warbeck gave a sly smile and then shook his head. ‘You defy him and yet you continue to fight for him. You confound me, Falkland.’ Abruptly he rose. I wondered, then, if that was why the King would never let me go home after I was