Not one single face he spied but was scarred at least in two or three places, and the scar-faced men were armed to the very teeth, the broad-bladed, black-hafted axes cased on the off side of their horses being only a beginning. The hilts of their heavy, cursive swords jutted from under the near-side thighs, braces of big-bore wheellock pistols were bolstered on pommels, and many of the men also carried pistols in their belts or in bootleg holsters; depending from the belts were shortswords and at least one dirk or dagger. Those who did not have a round targe strapped on their backs were carrying a one- or two-barreled wheellock fusil slung there. All save the officers carried either lances or wide-bladed, knife-edged hunting spears, the shafts of the weapons gruesomely decorated with fluttering fringes of human scalps.
After a fortnight in camp with them, Foster hoped he never would have to put civilized troops up against the gal-lowglasses. Sober, the Irishmen were irascible, hotheaded, and unfailingly pugnacious—in other words, murderous, since they never could be found without at least a shortsword and dirk; drunk, they were a nightmare personified, for at the one minute they would be singing mournful songs of lost battles and errant loves whilst tears rolled down their seamed and stubbly cheeks and, in the blinking of an eye, they would be well about the carving up of any man in sight. That Elliot’s wild Scots were terrified of the gallowglasses was, in Foster’s mind, testament enough to their ferocity. And, belatedly, he knew just why King Arthur had left the decision of their employment to him.
When summoned by Foster, de Burgh’s attitude was nonchalant. “Ah, mein Herr Sebastian, the bouchals need but a few good fights to calm them down, an honest sack, a little rapine. True, they’re a little rough round the edges, but they’re good soldiers, none in all the world better, I trow.”
Foster grimaced. “Yd better not hear of them sacking or looting or raping, my lord Baron! The only occupied city left in this realm is London, and if I know the King, there’ll assuredly be no sack whenever it does fall to us. But if it’s fighting your barbarians need …”
At his nod, two of his officers unrolled a map of the southern counties rendered upon thick parchment. Using the point of his dirk, Foster indicated the towns of Chard and Administer and the port of Lynie. “I had thought that we had run to ground all the invaders, last year, but it would appear from reports forwarded to me that several troops-worth of Spaniards, traitorous Englishmen, and assorted foreign riffraff evaded my patrols. They’re operating northeast from Chard, using it as an advance base for their predations, while being supplied from Spain via Lymeport
“They recently were reinforced and are now numbering something over five hundred heavy horse and perhaps twice that number of light cavalry, and they must be dislodged, ex-
terminated; there cannot be harassment of the siege lines around London. Do you think a thousand or so Spaniards would be sufficient to scratch the itch of your gallowglasses, Baron de Burgh?”
CHAPTER 14
What came to be called the Battle of Bloody Rye was unquestionably the most sanguineous cavalry action in which Foster had ever had a part. Deliberately avoiding any save fleeting contact/tie had swung his hard-riding squadrons well west, to the rear of the eastward-faring Spanish force, to fall upon Chard—unsuspecting and ill-prepared for any defense—like the wrath of God; with that town and the adjacent camps blazing nicely, a forced, cross-country march brought his brigade onto Axminister far sooner than any had expected them, then it was on to Lyme.
With the smoke of burning ships and buildings darkening the sky to their rear, Foster’s horsemen met the vengeful Spaniards in planted fields, whose crops the traitors of Lyme would never again need.
Predictably, the enemy center was composed of the Spanish heavy-armed horse, and also predictably, they lost the battle at its very inception through charging before the wings were prepared. Foster’s six little field guns, which had accompanied his lightning operations on muleback, did yeoman service that day, wreaking gory lanes through the compressed mass of horse- and man-flesh until, when he felt the time was ripe, he ordered in de Burgh and Viscount Sir Henry Powys, commanding the Royal Tara Gallowglasses and the Cumberland Heavy Dragoons, respectively. His reserve, the North Wales Dragoons and the Lincolnshire Lancers, were then moved forward to fill the center of the English line.