Highwayman: Ironside by Michael Arnold Read Free Book Online Page A

road down into the forest’s infamous embrace. Evidently it had been a good gamble to make, for Colonel Maddocks and his troopers were almost certainly due to link up with Mason at Hill Brow. They had intercepted their quarry in the nick of time. He gnawed his lip as he considered the implication. "Why Maddocks?"
    "That Mason's one o' Goffe's big wheels," Bella answered. "You said so yourself."
    "But so is Maddocks." He shook his head. "Why set his best man to protecting a lawyer? No, it was not Mason himself that was significant. Rather what he was carrying. We must reflect upon our takings."
    Bella shrugged. "Not much. Just a few trinkets."
    "Which means," Lyle persisted, "it was the strongbox."
    The girl sighed theatrically as she delved into the scraps of paper again. "How many bushels o' corn they got in store. A letter from the Major-General askin' Mason to settle a dispute 'tween farmers down at Rowlands Castle." She waved one crumpled sheet. "Message informing Sir Blubber-Belly that a prisoner's to be moved from Newbury to Portsmouth."
    "What prisoner?" Lyle asked.
    She shrugged. "Don't say." She looked through the papers again, pausing at one. "Now this'n is an invitation from Sir John Hippisley for Mason to attend a masquerade, whatever that is."
    "A masquerade ball," Lyle explained. "A grand dance. Very popular in France. The people will wear disguises."
    "Surprised Goffe would allow such a decadent thing," Grumm grunted. "Smacks of Cavalier to me."
    "He probably doesn't know," replied Lyle. "Hippisley's out at Hinton Ampner, is he not? On the Winchester Road."
    Bella scanned the paper and nodded. "The manor house, aye."
    Grumm looked up with a mocking sneer, a trail of fat wending its way down his beard from the corner of his thin mouth. "Surprised you don't attend, Major, given your apparent lust for death." He shook his head in exasperation. "Congratulate you for staying alive, would he? Besnard would have you whipped through the streets for such recklessness."
    That was true, thought Lyle. When he had enlisted with Besnard after a couple of months of listless wandering, he had been an angry, desperate, grief-stricken youth. He had sold his armour to buy food, leaving only the grimy clothes on his back, a big, wounded horse, and his much dented sword. Charles Besnard had seen him fight an ill-judged duel over an unpaid debt - one he had been lucky to survive - and had seen some spark of promise in the way Lyle had handled his blade. He had taken the Englishman on, given him and Bella lodgings, and taught him the ways of the great fencing masters. Besnard had saved Lyle, without a doubt, but he could still be a strict disciplinarian who would not have entertained or condoned the rekindling of Lyle's thirst for danger. "Come now, Eustace," he said calmly, "you know more than most about staying alive. For a righteous man, you've done your fair share of unrighteous acts in the name of saving your skin."
    Grumm sat back and took a drag on his pipe. "We are not discussing me, Major."
    "How many ships did your false light guide onto Clovelly rocks so that you might eat?"
    That hit a nerve, for the old man lurched forwards to jab the clay stem at Lyle's face. "I was never a wrecker, damn your forked tongue!"
    Lyle smiled, holding up placating palms. "A smuggler then."
    "Aye, a smuggler," Grumm conceded, aware that Lyle was goading him and at pains to cool his ire, "and proud to say it. But a wrecker never. If you were any other man, Major Lyle, I'd stick my boot in your behind for such slander."
    "Easy, Eustace, easy. My point is that we play the hand life deals us, and do what we must to survive."
    Grumm eased back again, half disappearing in the billowing smoke. "Amen to that."
    "And next time I shall open Maddocks from chest to ballock."
    Grumm chuckled. "No you won't. You enjoy the chase as much as he."
    Lyle offered a shrug, for he could not argue with so observant a man. He held up the pistol instead. "Look at