by Eric Flint
"Enough," said Boyle, drawing his coat around him tightly. "I'm freezing. Let's be off, gentlemen."
He turned-carefully, because of the icy ground-and began walking down the hill. His steps were almost mincing ones. Endymion Porter came with him. Paul Pindar stayed atop the hill for a few seconds longer, and then started to follow.
"Wait!" he suddenly cried out.
"All right, Richard," said Leebrick, after he rejoined his lieutenant. Towson already had the front ranks of the company drawn up, ready to begin a pike charge. A pike advance, rather, since "charging" was quite out of the question in the condition the road was in today. "Before we do anything, I'm going to cross over there myself and see if I can speak to the lads. Explain to them that today's no day for tomfoolery, and if they bloody well aren't out of my sight in three minutes there will be-"
A sudden ruckus brought his head around, looking to the rear. Shouts and the sounds of gear clattering. The royal carriage was being turned around to head back into London. The second carriage holding the royal children was preparing to do the same thing. For a moment, Leebrick could only gape at the sight. By the time he clamped his mouth shut, the first carriage was already on its way-and moving far more rapidly than any sane driver would push any sort of vehicle on the road today, much less a carriage as big and heavy and ungainly as the one carrying the royal couple.
"What are they doing?" demanded Towson.
Leebrick had no idea himself. Until a moment ago, the king and queen had been in no danger at all. Nothing worse than perhaps a ten minute delay in making their way to Oxford. Now, not only had they left their military escort behind and were completely unprotected, but-far, far worse-they ran the serious risk of having a bad accident.
The queen's panic must have finally unsettled the king, was all he could imagine. A king, unfortunately, who was none too steady himself.
"God only knows," he said, between gritted teeth. "Richard, clear this bloody damned road. If they won't give way, then kill all of the bastards if you have to. I'll see to the king."
He sent his horse after the fleeing carriage, moving as rapidly as he dared. It didn't take him long to overtake the carriage holding the children, which had just completed the turn-around. The driver of that carriage, clearly unhappy at the situation, was keeping his team to a slow pace. But to Anthony's growing horror, he saw that the carriage holding the king and queen was actually outdistancing him. There was no way in Heaven that an experienced and capable driver-which that carriage certainly had-would be pushing his mounts like that, under these conditions. It didn't matter how many threats the king shouted at him. That meant the driver was already losing control of the team. He could see the coachman riding the near lead horse staring back at the driver. Even at the distance, Anthony could sense the panic in the man's expression.
"After me!" he shouted at Patrick and his men, when he reached the side road. "To perdition with those lads!"
He didn't care any longer about the small Trained Band on the side road. If need be, Towson would handle them also. Anthony and Patrick and his skirmishers needed to catch up with the king's carriage. It wouldn't even take Patrick that much longer than it took Anthony himself. Welch was the only one with a horse, but with this sort of footing a man could move as fast as a horse anyway. Faster, if the horse wasn't being pushed beyond its natural inclination.
So, alone for the moment, Leebrick continued his pursuit of the carriage. By now, it had passed around a bend in the road and he couldn't see it any longer. All he could hope was that the driver could bring the team under control again.
"Oh, marvelous!" exclaimed the earl of Cork, who was now back on top of the hill. He watched the royal carriage disappear around the same bend in the road. "Wentworth may even be dismissed, on account of this affair!"
He turned eagerly to his horse. After taking two steps, one foot flew out from under him and he landed on his buttocks, then slid down the slope for a good fifteen feet before he stopped. The fact that he slid that far on a gentle slope was a sharp reminder of just how bad the footing was. Sleet mixed with the mud from a long thaw made for truly treacherous ground.
His two companions hurried to reach him, as best they could, and help him to his feet. By the time they got there, Richard Boyle was grinning cheerfully. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a moment's embarrassment. Oh, what a splendid day! Is there a patron saint for sleet?"
Saints weren't exactly frowned on by the Church of England, although they weren't anywhere nearly as prominent as they were for the Catholic church. But neither of the earl's companions was surprised by the remark. For all his Protestant Irish harshness toward Catholics, the earl of Cork didn't feel himself bound personally by any fussy doctrinal obligations.
"I'm not sure, Your Lordship," said Pindar, helping him to his feet and brushing off the mud from the earl's coat.
"Well, if there isn't, by God, there damn well should be! And I'll see to it!"
Chapter 19
Coming around the bend, Leebrick saw one of the coachmen lying on the side of the road, holding his head in both hands. Thrown off, apparently. Or perhaps he'd simply jumped, figuring he could claim he was thrown. Under the circumstances, Anthony couldn't blame the man.
There was another bend, perhaps seventy yards farther. To Leebrick's dismay, it looked to be a much sharper one. That matched his memory, also.
His own horse almost went out from under him as he neared the bend. He spent a minute standing still, simply calming the poor beast. He'd been transmitting some of his own anxiety, he realized. Under these conditions, that was utterly perilous. As heavy an animal as it was, with this sort of icy and unsteady surface, all four of a horse's legs would tend to go in separate directions. Left to its own devices, in fact, the horse wouldn't willingly move at all.
The problem was that horses simply weren't very smart; they were herd animals-and they considered their human masters to be the leaders of the herd. So, once let panic seize them, they'd go from unmoving stolidity to a blind and bolting runaway pace. That was dangerous enough on a good dry road in midsummer. On this road on this day in midwinter, it was-
Leebrick's head came up from speaking soothingly to his mount. He thought he'd heard a scream, coming from around the bend.
He set his horse back into motion, not trying for anything faster than a walk. As imperative as it was to find out what had happened, there was no point in adding himself to whatever havoc had occurred.
Before he got to the bend, he hear the sound again, and it was definitely a scream. Not a scream of fear, either, for it came from no human throat. That was the sound of a badly injured horse.
When he came around the bend and could finally see down the next stretch of road, his worst fears materialized. Some thirty yards beyond, the royal carriage was a shattered wreck. He could see a deep rut in the road ten yards ahead of him, and what was left of one of the carriage's wheels.
He was aghast, but not surprised. Having a wheel or axle break on a carriage, especially a heavy one, was a frequent occurrence. Adventuresome young men in taverns would make bets that they could make it from one city to the next without a broken wheel or axle-and the house odds were against them.
That was in midsummer. Nobody laid bets on the matter in wintertime, not even drunken young carousers.
To make things worse, the royal carriage was of the new Cinderella design. They were fancy looking things, but their suspension was even more fragile than that of most carriages. They were particularly prone to having the rear axles break.
Leebrick had no trouble figuring out what had happened. Coming around the bend as fast as it had been going, the carriage must have started to slide on the slick surface. Then, either from panicky movements of the team, or too sharp a correction by the driver, or simply a minor obstruction in the surface-any or all three put together-the axle had broken. That, in turn, had simply splintered the wheel.
Within a few yards, the carriage had spilled on its side-a
nd then, on this surface, it had slid right into the wall of a building. One of the horses had been killed outright, and at least one-the one screaming in agony-had suffered a shattered leg. Two others were lying on the road. One appeared to be just stunned but the other was clearly dead. A great jagged piece of wood had been driven into the creature's belly.
They were the only horses in sight. The harness had come to pieces in the accident. The pole holding the doubletrees must have shattered-that would be the source of the wood that had killed the one horse-and the four lead horses must have continued their panicked race around the next bend in the road. At a distance, Leebrick could see the body of the coachman who'd been riding the near lead horse. He, too, might either be dead or simply stunned.
But he'd have to wait. Anthony needed to find out what had happened to the king and queen. He still had hopes they might have remained uninjured-or simply bruised, at least. They'd had the protection of the carriage body and all the cushions and blankets within.
But as he came nearer, Anthony's hopes started fading. He'd thought at first that the carriage had struck the side of the building and then been upended from the impact. But now he saw that the situation was far worse. There was apparently a sunken stair into which the carriage had plunged. Instead of the weight of the carriage's body protecting the occupants, the body had caved in on them.
He brought the horse to a halt, got off, and clambered onto the carriage. The first thing he saw was the driver. His body, rather, for there was no question whether this man was dead or stunned. He'd been thrown into the stairwell and part of the carriage had landed on top of him. The front axle had crushed the poor man's chest like a great blunt spear. His sightless eyes staring up at the sky were already half-covered with sleet.
Almost frantic now, Anthony reached the carriage's door and tried to pry it open. Finding it jammed, he drew his sword and used it as a lever. Thankfully, it was one of his everyday swords, not the expensive one he kept at Liz's lodgings for ceremonial occasions. He was quite likely to break it, since swords were not designed to be tools for such use.
Indeed, it did break-but not before it finally snapped whatever obstruction was keeping the door jammed. Anthony tossed the hilt onto the ground and, using both hands, pried the door the rest of the way open.
Peering in, he couldn't determine anything at first. It was a dark day because of the overcast and very little of what light there was made its way into the carriage. To make thing worse, the interior was in a state of sheer chaos. The trunks must have been flung open and had scattered their contents everywhere. At first glance, the inside of the carriage looked like nothing so much as a huge, half-filled laundry basket.
Then something pale moved, coming up from under the blanket that had been covering it. A face, Anthony realized.
The king's face.
"Help me," Charles whispered. "My leg…"
Hearing a call, Anthony looked back. To his relief, he saw that Patrick had arrived with his Irish skirmishers.
"Just a moment, Your Majesty, I'll be right there," Anthony said hurriedly. Then, to Patrick: "I need three of your men up here. Have the rest tend to whatever else they can-but don't shift the carriage about yet."
Hearing the horse scream again, Leebrick winced. "And put that animal out of its misery, would you?"
That done, he lowered himself into the carriage, being careful not to step on the king's body. Wherever that body was, since all he could see was still just the royal face, staring up. He had no idea at all where the queen had wound up.
Once he got to the king, he slid his arm down into the tangle of blankets and cushions to cradle the man's shoulders and lift him. But the moment he did so, the king started to shriek. "My legs! My legs! Stop, damn you!"
Anthony left off immediately. He'd thought from the king's first plaint that he'd suffered a broken or wounded leg. But "legs" probably meant something worse. He didn't dare move Charles at all until he could see what the problem was.
One of the Irish soldiers was at the window, now.
"Come down," Leebrick ordered. "But make sure you put your feet over there." He pointed behind him, to a part of the carriage that seemed safe enough. He still didn't know where the queen was.
While the skirmisher lowered himself into the interior, Anthony shifted himself a bit and began carefully removing the items that covered the king's body.
"Where's my wife?" Charles asked. He seemed more puzzled than anything else.
Leebrick decided to ignore the question, for the moment. He had no answer, and that was more likely to panic the king than anything else. He just kept at his labor.
"Where's Henrietta Maria? Where is she? Why isn't she here?"
Thankfully, it was clear from Charles' tone of voice that the king was in a daze. He wasn't really asking a question aimed at a specific person, he was simply uttering a confused query to the world. He sounded more like a child than a grown man.
Finally, Anthony cleared enough away to see most of the king's body. By then, he knew the situation was a very bad one. The last blanket he'd removed had been blood-stained.
Charles' hip was shattered. Anthony could see a piece of bone sticking up through the flesh and the heavy royal garments.
He tried to restrain himself from hissing, but couldn't.
"What's wrong," asked the king. Still in that confused little boy's voice.
"Everything's fine, Your Majesty. It'll just take us a moment to get you out of there."
Leebrick wondered if he even dared move the king at all, until his men had cut away most of the carriage. If Charles' hip was shattered, there was a good chance he had a broken back also.
But he decided he didn't have any choice. If the only problem had been the king, he'd just wait. But even after spending several minutes in the carriage, he'd still seen no sign of the queen. He had to find her, and probably very soon-if it wasn't too late already. The carriage had landed on her side, not the king's. If the impact had caused this much damage to Charles, it was likely to have caused worse to her.
A second skirmisher had made his way into the carriage.
"All right, lads. Here's the way we'll do it. Tell Patrick to have two men-no, it'll likely take four-to start cutting away the side of the carriage. And tell him, for the love of God, to do it carefully. This carriage is half-shattered already. We just need enough space to lift His Majesty out using a sling of some sort. A big one, that'll cup his whole body. We can make it out of these blankets and what's left of the harness. Understood?"
Gravely, both men nodded.
"All right, be about it. I've got to find out what happened to the queen."
The last he said very softly, not to alarm the king. But when he turned back, he saw that his caution had been unnecessary. Charles was no longer conscious.
Under the circumstances, that was a blessing. Moving as fast as he could in the cramped space, Anthony used a blanket and the aid of one of the skirmishers to shift the king's body far enough to the side to be able to see what might be lying under him. That took some time, despite the urgency of the situation, because he had to be as careful as he could not to twist the king's back in the process.
But, finally, it was done. Feeling like a miner digging through expensive clothing and blanketry-practically tapestries, some of them-Anthony worked his way toward the side of the carriage that now served as its floor.
The first thing he spotted were the queen's eyes, staring at him. He couldn't see the rest of her face, because it was covered by some sort of heavy garment.
"Your Majesty! Just a moment and I'll have you out of there." Hurriedly, he shoved more things aside to clear her shoulders.
"Your pardon, please." He took her shoulders and tried to lift her up. But after shifting perhaps two inches, her torso seemed to hit some sort of obstruction. A very sudden one, in fact.
To his surprise, he realized that the queen still hadn't said anything to him. Very unusual, for her.
; He looked down at her face and instantly understood the reason. Her eyes were still looking at him, but that was sheer chance. Those weren't eyes, any longer. They were just pieces of a human body. Henrietta Maria, sister of King Louis XIII of France and wife of King Charles of England, would no longer be saying anything to anybody, in any language, except whatever tongue might be spoken in the afterlife.
Below, the mouth gaped open. What had once been a torrent of blood was starting to dry on her chin and her neck and what he could see of her chest. Roughly, he shoved the rest of the material down to her waist, trying to spot the obstruction.
Nothing, oddly. But there was certainly no question the woman was dead. Even if she could have survived that much loss of blood, the fact that there was no further blood coming was proof enough.
He closed his own eyes, and took the time for a quick prayer for the woman's soul. Then, moving much more quickly because he needn't fear any longer the queen's displeasure at having her body groped, he pried his hand under her back looking for the obstruction.
It didn't take him long to find it. Her torso hadn't been kept from moving by something on top, it had been hooked from beneath. From what he could sense with his fingers, a large piece of the carriage's frame had been smashed up just as the queen's body came down. As ragged-edged as a barbed spear, the huge splinter had pierced her heart and jammed somewhere in her ribs, or perhaps against her spine.
He'd seen very much the same thing happen as a young man, when he'd spent some time serving on a warship. After two naval battles, he'd decided to make his fortune as a soldier rather than a seaman. A soldier had to fear metal in many shapes and varieties, but at least simple pieces of wood weren't likely to tear him to shreds. For a boy whose father had been a cabinetmaker and for whom wood had been a comfort, that seemed somehow grotesque.
He heard Patrick's voice. "We're ready, Captain."
Looking up, Anthony was surprised to see that Welch and his men had already cut away most of the carriage's side. Roof, now, the way it was lying. He must have spent more time working to find the queen than he'd realized, and he'd been so focused on the task that he hadn't even heard the noise they'd been making.