Page 41 of Dawnlands

Ned stood behind a table in Lyme town hall registering a long queue of volunteers. The line stretched out into the street, men joining the back as fast as men were sworn in at the front. All the west country wanted to serve the Protestant Protector. The only man to speak against the duke—the town mayor—had scrambled for his horse and ridden to London when he failed to persuade the townsmen to turn the cannons on the ships and open fire. No one else had a word against the duke and his army that flew the green banner:FEAR NOTHING BUT GOD.

A clatter of hooves outside was so loud that Ned paused in his work and looked through the doorway to see a huge number of horses—glossy, fat, and well-muscled—clattering up the street and, at the head of them, on a big high-stepping warhorse, Thomas Dare, tipping his hat at the cheers as he rode in with such a prize. Monmouth himself came out of the doorway of the George Inn to see the arrival of his new horses. Dare halted before him and jumped from the saddle. “Your cavalry, sire!” he said.

“Good God be praised!” Monmouth said exultantly. “How many d’you have there, Mr. Dare?”

“Forty horses!” he crowed. “Forty! And more promised for when I go back tomorrow, and men following them on foot to join you.”

“Get them into the pound field,” Monmouth ordered the riders. He turned to Dare. “This is a triumph. Thank you, Thomas Dare. I will see you well rewarded for this.” He looked at the horse Dare was riding, a big dark bay, almost black in color, with a white star on its forehead and a single white sock. “And he is a great beauty.”

“He’s yours,” Dare said instantly. “A gift from my friend Prideaux, of Ford Abbey.”

“No, no, you keep him,” Monmouth said. “I’ve got my own horse, and you’ve got many days in the saddle ahead of you. How many men have you?”

“I’ve got a hundred recruits from Taunton and many more waiting for you there, sire. I brought these back now, so that Andrew Fletcher can set about training them. He came in ahead of me, said he’d make sure the pound was ready for the horses.”

“I haven’t seen him,” Monmouth said.

“And I’ll go out tomorrow to Bridport—they’ve taken up a subscription for you there and they’re collecting stores. It’s the same story all over. Men volunteering and people giving everything they can.”

“Any news of the king in Taunton?”

“I doubt he even knows we’re here,” Thomas Dare crowed. “His main army is lost in Scotland, all he has in the west is the militia, and nobody’s volunteering in Dorset! Same in Somerset. The road to London is wide open to you, sire, and the king doesn’t even know you’re on the march.”

Monmouth laughed out loud and slapped Dare on the back. “Get yourself dinner and drink, Dare. You’ve done a great service to me today.”

“The first of many days,” Thomas promised, and bowed as the duke went back into the inn.

“Well met,” Ned said, coming down the hill from the town hall. He patted the warm neck. “Handsome horse. Was he really a gift?”

“His owner would have ridden with us if he could. How are things here?”

Ned gestured to the queue of men waiting. “They’re coming in faster than we can sign them up. You get your horses to the pound, I’ll get the men to their regiments, and I’ll meet you here for dinner when we’ve finished.”

Andrew Fletcher lurched out of the inn door, his face flushed with drink, Venner, the veteran soldier, behind him.

“So you got here at last?” Fletcher demanded.

Dare tipped his hat. “We came as fast as we could, riding and leading.”

“No point in you having a horse like that if you never get out of a trot,” Fletcher said rudely.

“Leave it,” Venner advised him. “Come back to dinner.” He pulled at Fletcher’s arm but the drunk man shrugged him off.

Ned looked from the cavalry commander’s flushed face to the cool hostility of the Paymaster. “Now, good sires—” he started to say.

Fletcher put his hand on the reins of the horse. “I’m having him,” he said, his speech slurred. “He’s a fine horse, wasted on you. I’m commander of the cavalry, he should be mine.”

Dare twitched the reins; the horse jerked his head up and sidled away at the sudden tug. “Not so. The duke says I am to keep him. I’ll ride him safely and return him to his owner, a good friend of mine.”

“I’m damned if you do,” Fletcher said, his voice rising. “I’m commander of the cavalry, I need a good horse. He’s too good for you, parading yourself before a bunch of yokels. Give him here.” He lurched forward to take the horse again.

“Easy there,” Ned said. “No need for comrades to quarrel. Go inside and take another glass, my lord.”

Fletcher tightened his grip on the reins. “I’m stabling my new horse,” he said with the stubbornness of an angry drunk.

“You step back,” Dare told him. “You’ve done nothing to earn him. I’ve done more today for the cause than you’ve done in the months you’ve been with us. Unhand the reins!”

Fletcher grabbed the horse by the cheekpiece and was pulling it towards him, the big horse backing, showing the whites of its eyes.