Highwayman: Ironside by Michael Arnold Page B

wars had come, and Tomkin Dome had pinned his colours to the wrong mast. Now he had nothing but a waggon to his name, bitterness in his heart, and relentless, grinding agony.
    Dome thrust the flask home and squinted into the murky dawn. It was close upon eight o'clock. A thin mist crept up off the River Wey to extend white fingers between ancient boughs and over the wide road. Grey clouds, pregnant and vast, loomed ominously overhead. The air smelled of rain. There was no breeze so the trees were still, darkening the land either side of the highway, their branches, mostly stripped of leaves, straining for the sky like so many talons. A boil smarted on his rump and Dome shifted his skinny frame irritably, spewing a savage oath as he did so. One of the riders out in front turned back to admonish him in clipped tones. Dome's seething retort was lost, he hoped, amongst the sound of hooves, and he turned his attention back to the job at hand.
    The cart was small in size. Not the massive, gilt coaches of the rich and powerful, but an unprepossessing vehicle, plain and functional. It was drawn by a pair of strong horses, a chestnut and a grey, the traces jangling behind as wheels creaked and bounced noisily. The cart had been agrarian in nature at one time, flat and open for grain or hay, but now it was a perfect box, for a metal frame had been placed upon its rear platform, like a giant aviary, with a small door against which a heavy lock clanged. Within the cage, slumped against the bars and swaying with the motion of the vehicle, was a figure. His hair was long, unkempt, framing a face that was bowed from view, as though dipped in prayer. Occasionally the horsemen would call to him. There were ten of them; five out front, five at the rear, and they would make sport of taunting the captive, sneering when he ignored them, laughing when the gaunt, stubble-shaded face deigned to look up.
    "Steady!" Tomkin Dome snarled as the horses rounded a kink in the road and approached a small stone bridge. "I said steady, you flea-bit buggers!" He received a host of withering glances from the pious troopers for his trouble.
    The cart slowed to walking speed. The vanguard of horsemen - heavily armed harquebusiers - trotted forth first, clattering onto the stone slabs that spanned the Wey. Below them the water meandered lazily. The river was deep here, clear as crystal so that the grey silhouettes of fish could be seen darting in the shadows cast by the grassy banks and amongst the gauntlet of smooth rocks and straggly weeds.
    Dome scratched at an ulcer beneath his armpit as he waited for the troopers to wave him on. He was a frail man, given to feeling the cold more than most, but his brow prickled with sweat nevertheless. He drew a cloth from his sleeve, mopping his face. "Well?"
    The troopers had gathered at the centre of the bridge. One of them was speaking, but not to the driver. Dome looked past him to see a lone man on the far bank. He looked, to Dome's poor eyes at least, like a scarecrow. A thin, gaunt, crook-backed bag of bones, white-bearded and deeply wrinkled, a filthy bandage wrapped round his skull to cover what was left of an eye lost long ago. The scarecrow seemed to whisper to himself, admonish himself. He would suddenly bellow a scrap of scripture, arguing with some unseen spectre. Occasionally he would twitch, his neck convulsing, one cheek jerking hard as though tugged by an invisible rope.
    Tomkin Dome stood. "Long way to go yet, Lieutenant Chickering!"
    The most advanced rider twisted in his saddle, his face taut behind the trio if vertical bars that hung from the hinged visor of his helmet. "I am aware of that, Master Dome," he replied testily. "I shall move this doltish beggar off the bridge and we'll be on our way."
    The scarecrow shuffled forward a couple of paces. "Doltish, sirrah? No, sirrah! Not I! Not ever!"
    Lieutenant Chickering drew his sword, leaned to the side so that his saddle creaked. "No further, old man, I'm