Free 1635: A Parcel of Rogues - eARC by Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis Page B

early to check for any good turn to another road that might be the one they took, but.”
    “Sign of them before Romford?” Finnegan realized he’d be buying another tot of spirits before the day was out, Mulligan having done more than was asked of him. That said, Mulligan was one of the smart ones, who could see that anything Richard Boyle dispatched them on personally was likely to see the earl being more openhanded even than his normal generous self if there was a quick end to the matter. Either way being seen to give a reward would be the right thing to do.
    “Sure and a couple of field lads saw a wagon go by. Four horses, so it stood out. Did I hear that that was the wagon that left here?”
    “You did. Get a change of mount, that screw’s had ten miles at the trot and we’re well found for remounts, and we’ll be off in the quarter-hour, so.”
    The conclusion was pretty obvious. They’d set out for Romford and Chelmsford as a feint, probably on the spur of the moment rather than stay near the pursuit in London. Finnegan liked that, it said he was chasing men unused to pursuing or being pursued. A sensible bandit would’ve cut straight away from the main pursuit, rather than running ahead of it. Changed for faster horses—whatever was in the wagon was surely not worth capture—and changed direction again. Split and regrouped several times, anything to confuse the trail of witnesses. Just as hunting was done best by getting ahead of the quarry and waiting, flight was best achieved by not going where the hunters would be waiting. Of course, if both hunter and hunted knew that game it got very confusing very quickly and the hunter would have to fall back on hoping he had enough men to cover every possible avenue of flight.
    Not so today. The escaping party—Finnegan was still very carefully not thinking of them as Cromwell’s party—had sought to feint to the east and turned either north or south. There would be a limited number of places to do so between the last sighting Welch had reported and Romford. Which it might be was the vexed question. All of the possible motivations Finnegan could think of for a party remaining in the country instead of flying by sea said they would go north. South suggested they had a second ship and some errand had delayed them on land, to make a quieter getaway than the main party.
    Or, and this occurred to him as he mused, just as it must have to Mulligan at Romford, they’d skirted that town to carry on east with a broken trail that simply looked like a feint-and-turn. Finnegan grinned. You could never truly think your way through a tangled haystack of needles such as this, but it was fun to try and you could take bets on the outcome. “Somebody open a book!” he shouted. “I’ve got sixpence says they turned north, last road before Romford. Any takers?”
    * * *
    They found Mulligan an hour later at a turning just before the town. “This way, I found a spot where someone took a heavy load over the river. If I’m any judge, they were after not being seen, and whatever they need that wagon for, they’re not done with it.”
    “And here’s me with no takers for the bet I made that they’d do just this very thing,” Finnegan said. “It fair to makes a man weep that he leads not a single idiot.”
    That got a round of chuckles. Now and then he’d lose a bet like that one, but not often enough that anyone cared to take the wager without serious long-shot odds. A few of the smarter boyos had caught on to it being a polite, pleasant, method of suggesting the boss was wrong, and Finnegan was careful to listen. After all, an opinion a man was willing to put money on was an opinion he’d thought about. Finnegan liked thought, it paid well. And more than once he’d put a man where he could get a feather in his cap for “checking to see if his fool’s wager would pay,” and the good-natured codding was worth it for the credit he could take when reporting to the