The Queen's Bastard by Robin Maxwell

Author:Robin Maxwell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

Six hours later I was again on the road, having slept like a dead man on a borrowed cot in a ragged tent. I had dreamt of my Father and Enfield Chase, but in my dream he had sometimes had the face of Prince William and even once the poacher I had released from capture. I had woken stiff muscled but refreshed, with a feeling of sweetness in my soul. Twas strange, I thought as I pulled on my boots, to have so pleasant an experience in the midst of war and squalor. I remembered another such waking on the morning after my meeting with the Queen and the Earl of Leicester. The pain of my injuries had been extreme, but my mind was light and buoyant as a cork bobbing on the surface of a pond.

So we rode, Beauty strong and surefooted, I knowing my direction and destination, and having carried out my orders in all respects. I was feeling perhaps too confident, too full of myself for my senses to be at their clearest, for I quite suddenly found my nose twitching with a dangerous odor.

Twas the smell of an army marching before me.

Sure enough, the road was littered with fresh horse droppings. Faint but clear, the scent of human sweat and horse lather, the whiff of campfires which permeates every soldiers uniform. Now refuse — a bloodied bandage, a rind of cheese, even human waste where men had squatted quickly at the roadside and returned to their ranks.

I halted Beauty, pulled out my map and saw from their direction of travel that these could not possibly be the reinforcements from Amsterdam. These were Spanish troops and they were on the road. The road to Gouda. I was still five hours ride from the fortress and my company. I did not know the enemys numbers, but I did know movement of any army across the Low Countries terrain was slow, with carts rumbling along at walking pace. There were many rivers, bogs and streams to ford. Tho the cavalry could move faster than the infantry, the whole of the body crawled along at the rate of its slowest component.

I reckoned the rearmost troops could not be far ahead, no more than two miles, and counted my options, which were only two. I could avoid the army, making a great detour round them in which case I would lose time in getting to my destination. And the land on either side of the road was boggy and would provide very poor footing for Beauty. Else I could proceed on this road riding directly thro their midst, pretending to be a Dutchman friendly to their cause. This posed many obvious dangers, but its advantage was the straightest and quickest route to my company, giving them the most warning of the army which approached — and would in deed trap them tween their ambush and the fortress of Gouda.

I chose the latter and spurred Beauty onward to my first encounter with the enemy.

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