Free Highwayman: Ironside by Michael Arnold

studded with nuggets of pink and yellow glass.
    "Colonel Maddocks!" the newcomer exclaimed in a loud voice that echoed about the small antechamber. "All is safe and well within our humble walls, I trust?"
    Maddocks bowed, deeply this time, his face splitting in an obsequious grin. "Safe and well, Sir John, naturally." He waved a hand in Lyle's direction. "I was just saying as much to Sir Ardell."
    Lyle took to his feet. "Sir John Hippisley?"
    "Ha!" Hippisley barked, slapping his silken thigh in delight. "Do not indulge me so, Sir Ardell! You know me well enough, despite this infernal beak. Worn at my goodwife's suggestion, and rued every moment since."
    Lyle felt his mouth contract around his tongue as the saliva dried to dust. He realised he was holding his breath and forced himself to release it lest it affect his speech. "It is an admirable disguise." He hurriedly dredged what he knew of the wool merchant from the back of his racing mind. "And we are not so well acquainted that I might instantly know your voice. Not yet, least wise. I fear I do not often have cause or need to leave my estates."
    Hippisley nodded, the aquiline nose bobbing in a manner that reminded Lyle of a peculiar pink bird he had once seen in a Parisian circus. Though that animal had stood entirely on one of its thin legs, while the one before him seemed to hop excitedly from one to the other. "Quite so, quite so. But I trust our friendship - and our respective business interests - will flourish side by side, Sir Ardell. Tell me, do you enjoy yourself this night? My little soiree is to your liking?"
    "I am enjoying myself greatly, Sir John," Lyle said, beginning to relax now that Hippisley seemed content with his identity. "The good colonel was just assuring me of his intent to rid our fine county of that base rogue, Samson Lyle."
    Maddocks cleared his throat, bowing as he shuffled backwards. "I will take this moment to excuse myself, gentlemen, if it please you. Patrols to see to, you understand."
    "Of course, Colonel Maddocks, of course," Hippisley said gravely, watching the soldier disappear into the great hall. He turned to Lyle when the door had clunked shut in his wake. "I fear he will lose his mind over that man."
    "Lyle?"
    "The same. Maddocks makes it his life's work to catch the so-called Ironside Highwayman, but I can tell you that bringing Major Lyle to ground will not be easy. He was a renowned fighter. And I hear he became a master swordsman during his time in exile."
    Lyle was astounded at the man's familiarity, given the fact that they had never met. "You knew him?"
    Hippisley shook his head. "No, but I am acquainted with many of his old friends." He was a big man, broad as well as tall, so that when he leaned forwards conspiratorially it seemed as though a the whole room dimmed. "The story goes that he fought with Henry Ireton - God preserve his eternal soul - in Ireland. Smashing the papists as was his right and his duty before God."
    "Amen to that," Lyle intoned.
    "Quite so. But I heard that he lost his nerve. Saw one too many death."
    Lyle felt instantly sick and he swallowed back the bile that always singed his throat when Ireland was mentioned. One too many death? Whole towns sacked, their people put to the sword. The smell of smoke and sulphur and roasting bodies came to him like a living nightmare. He breathed deeply, the pungent fumes of the masquerade suddenly as fresh as a meadow by comparison. "What happened?" he heard himself say.
    "Argued with Ireton, stormed out of camp, made ship back to England," Hippisley said bluntly. "That was in the last weeks of '51. But Ireton's messengers reached the motherland first, and when he arrived he was arrested for desertion. He escaped, of course, and fled to France."
    Christ, Lyle thought, but that was a frighteningly succinct description of the gauntlet he had been forced to run. The journey across the Irish Sea had been a vomit-washed hell, the ride from the northwest of England had