The Rebel’s Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

Percy Karce’s men.” Those infamous “Lambs”; men who
wouldn’t be cowed by a bunch of farmers wielding nothing more
threatening than sharpened scythes attached to pitchforks, though
Jonathan forbore to say so aloud.
    “ They
look to have no more men than I.” Monmouth swung his spyglass over
the horizon “However, I know those men. They will
fight.”
    “ Tell
His Majesty what you told me.” Lord Grey beckoned to a
nervous-looking young man in shabby clothes who hung back by the
tower door. He had given his name as Godfrey, and claimed he
possessed useful intelligence.
    Jonathan flicked Grey a glance of
distaste. He wished the man wouldn’t insist on calling Monmouth
that. Wasn’t the duke already full enough of his own importance, as
it was? He had even started retelling the story of Lucy Walter
having married King Charles when a prince in exile, a claim
dismissed as lies by his father, King Charles, years
before.
    Godfrey crept forward, kneading his felt
hat in both hands. “There be two thousand on the moor, sir - Your
Majesty. “Bout a thousand in Middlezoy and the same in Otherey. But
they don’t know the ditches like I does.” He sidled closer to the
Duke. “If you makes for “ere, sir.” Godfrey dragged a grubby finger
across a hand drawn map pulled from inside his coat, “…go along the
old Bristol road towards Bawdrip, and then turn south along Bradney
Lane and Marsh Lane. It’s the longer route, but your chances of
being seen are low.” His dirty-nailed finger stabbed at the page.
“Here be the Black Ditch, which is marked by a large rock. I could
get you the other side of the Bussex Rhine and right into their
camp before they know what’s happenin’.”
    Monmouth lowered his spyglass
and stared at the man down his nose, then raised the glass
again. “The
horses are set far apart from the foot. If we can infiltrate their
lines and keep them apart, we may have the advantage. Our spies
tell us their discipline is not good.”
    “ Indeed
not,” Captain Hucker gasped, still winded from the climb. “They
drink themselves into a stupor on local cider every
night.”
    “ No
guards have been posted,” Nathaniel Wade added. “Though they have
guns laid out on the town road.”
    “ We
could avoid those by making a detour north of Chedzoy.” Grey arched
a brow at each of them, looking more sly than reassuring. “Our
chances of victory are doubled.”
    “ The
Cavalry could lead, your Majesty.” Gray’s lip curled into a leering
half-smile.
    Besides, by now the whole countryside knew
what they were about. Perhaps anything was better than dodging
Ogelthorpe and his troop through the countryside, until they ended
up back at Lyme where they started, or being captured and hanged by
Feversham’s men.
    Nothing had gone the way he had thought it
would. They should have been in London by now, cheered on by an
enthusiastic crowd, not still being harried across Somerset by the
King’s troops. Besides, his lodgings were squalid, and the landlord
sour-tempered, although more civil since being assured his guest
intended paying his bill.
    Most of their men were camped out in
people’s houses, or in fields sodden by days of rain, with no
shelter at all, ransacking the local farms for horse feed. No
wonder Bridgwater had been less than happy to receive
them.
    Their march into Taunton had
been the high point of the expedition. The celebration that
followed at Captain Hacker’s house was reminiscent of those heady
days of the Green Ribbon Club , when they would drink the night away at the
Kings Head, speculating on a world under Monmouth’s
kingship.
    Those days were an illusion, Jonathan
realised now, and King Charles, aware of his bastard son’s
involvement in a traitorous society, had protected him, and in
doing so, his friends too.
    It was one thing drinking to Monmouth’s
health and damning the Duke of York when King Charles was still
alive. Now, King James had the perfect opportunity to exact