“Maybe he did. Or perhaps something worse.” Massoud rose to his feet. His hand rested on the pommel of the Frank’s sword; it felt familiar. When he unsheathed it, he would know instinctively how to use it.
The warrior’s spirit dwells within me. What else did the breaking of the Seal of Solomon unleash?
He snarled at the memory of the grey knight who had taken his burden, slaughtered his mentor and destroyed him. I will show this shadow what darkness really means.
“Come. Sir George awaits.”
Massoud nodded, and hefted the sack over his shoulder. A passenger on another man’s horse, in another man’s body, Massoud left the Desert of Judah.
PART ONE: The Stumps of Wood and the Souls of Serpents
“Once we were men, now we are stumps of wood;
Your hand should show some mercy, though we had been
The souls of serpents.”
“The fruit they bear is not for human consumption.
The leaves not green, earth-hued;
The boughs not smooth, knotted and crooked-forked;
No fruit, but poisoned thorns.”
Dante – The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto XIII
CHAPTER ONE
Dorset, 1643
“Do you fight for the King or the Parliament?”
The question hung in the air, unanswered for the second time. Captain James Palmer awaited the stranger’s reply. Behind him, the two dragoons of his troop kept their peace, but their horses showed the riders’ anxiety. Hooves pawed in the clearing’s churned mud, and only the firm grip on their bridles kept them still.
Palmer swallowed thickly, fighting to hide his unease. He had failed to show leadership in the skirmish earlier, and it was only a matter of time before he lost command completely. Failure to put this interloper in his rightful place would doubtless hasten that.
“I will ask you a third and final time. Do you fight for the King or the Parliament? Speak!” His voice wavered with the final word, an admission of fear, and Palmer cursed himself.
But still no answer was forthcoming. The lone traveller ignored him, his head raised to the sky, eyes fixed on the night, oblivious to the downpour. Rainwater dripped from the wide brim of his battered hat and slid off the soaked travelling cloak, further drenching the tangled knots of hair draped over his shoulders, while fresh rain ran down the scars on his high forehead and gaunt cheeks. The eyes were a startling blue, turned to sapphire in the moonlight. But there was no joy in them. They seemed to stare beyond the rain clouds, seeking the stars, despairing at what they saw there. He muttered something inaudible. Nothing to do with sides in the war, but something about the very stars themselves…
Palmer shifted in his saddle and felt for the hilt of his sword. His flintlock pistols were strapped to either side of his horse, but were useless thanks to the rain and his failure to close the flaps after reloading. The first order of a cavalryman and a dragoon: keep your powder dry. Another flaw his subordinates would hold against him. Still, the rain had been ferocious. The oil sealing of his ox hide buff coat had perished and no longer resisted water. Doubtless his companions suffered the same.
His sabre alone would have to suffice.
But what weapons did the stranger carry? The man’s cloak was clasped and his body hidden from view; his powder would be dry and his pistols primed – and protected – of that, Palmer had no doubt..
But alone, with no horse. Why? Palmer licked his lips, felt the salt tang in the rain from the clouds that had swept in from the sea. It should have refreshed him, but it merely reminded him of the horrors he had seen on the battlefield earlier. He turned and spat into the woods.
The stranger turned and lowered his head. Even though Palmer’s mount gave him a height advantage, the stranger’s stare made him feel small, humble; low to the ground, exposed, an easy target.
“What answer do you wish…” the stranger narrowed his eyes and took in the boots, breastplate, ox hide coat, and the three-barred helmet that only a man of rank could possess, while most of the footsoldiers were limited to civilian clothing and Monmouth caps. “…Captain? Would you strike me down if I proclaimed loyalty to neither?”
Palmer hesitated. He had hidden the orange sash that indicated his loyalty to the Parliamentarian cause, to ensure the answer he received was a truthful one. It was too easy to claim loyalty to Parliament when one saw that tawny-orange strip; similarly, others would profess their support of King Charles if they saw the red sash of the Royalists. No one dared proclaim allegiance to neither. No one.
Except this man, this stranger in the rain, whose sapphire eyes burned with intelligence and a shrewd appraisal of his interrogator. Those eyes noted the youthful features of the captain, the slight frame of one recently achieved manhood. “Or will you accept my advice: to ride on and leave me be, and ensure you live?”
Palmer felt cold. The challenge was there, delivered in a strange accent that he could not place: the tone of a man who spoke many languages in their native country, or had spent years travelling. He heard the sharp hisses of drawn breath from his dragoons, followed by a fumbling of leather gauntlets on mortuary-hilted swords. He saw the thin smile on the stranger’s face, then realised that he would not be facing musket fire.
“Didn’t keep your powder dry, did you?” The voice boomed like a crack of thunder in the clearing, echoing off the sodden limbs and green-slimed trunks of the surrounding sycamores and oaks. “Call yourself soldiers?”
He made no movement, did not even unclasp his cloak to reveal the weaponry he carried. Palmer raised a hand to his subordinates, opening his mouth to call them off.
“Desist –” but the remainder of his command was lost to the thud of spurs digging into horseflesh, the thunder of hooves and the hissing of swords sprung from their scabbards.
A blur of steaming horseflesh and dull steel breastplates rushed past him, causing his own steed to rear on its hind legs, its mud-splattered legs flailing in the desire to join its equine comrades.
The stranger was right: Palmer’s companions were poorly trained, ill-disciplined and, most importantly of all, ignorant. Their powder was soaked and useless, and they believed force of arms, the sudden surprise of a mounted charge and the flash of steel, would be enough to take down their enemy. It had worked on the skirmish earlier, but for God’s sake, their opponents were mere farm boys and apprentices then!
Palmer was a poor commander, he would be the first to admit; but he would always analyse a battle situation before engaging, no matter how mismatched his opponent may appear.
Palmer recognised in the stranger’s eyes the bleak gaze of one who had paid the true cost of warfare; had suffered as well as inflicted suffering. It was a look he had yet to see on many of his comrades’ faces, save the mercenaries who had fought in the Low Countries and come to England to sell their experience and expertise to the highest bidder, regardless of cause. Would you strike me down if I proclaimed my loyalty to neither? They were the ones to be wary of. They fought not for religion, not for conscience, but for silver and their own bloodlust.
They were veterans, and professionals. They were to be respected and feared.
Not charged blindly! He pulled the bridle on his horse and kicked the right flank, forcing his mount to turn away. The horse calmed, then circled in the clearing. Palmer watched in horrified amazement what happened next.
The cloak fell to the stranger’s feet, revealing a steel breastplate that gleamed in the moonlight; polished, well-maintained but pitted with the marks of musket balls and the straight grooves of sabre blades. There was no sword, but as Palmer feared a pistol appeared in the stranger’s hand in a blur of silver, as though a magician had summoned the firearm from thin air.
This was no ordinary pistol, and as the first ball flew from the barrel with a crack of thunder and a cloud of hellish smoke that stank of sulphur, the muzzle flash was reflected, expanding into a flaming sword by the obscene instrument mounted beneath the muzzle.
The first trooper jumped in the saddle, his body struck rigid, his raised sword slowly falling to his side as he slumped forward off the saddle. His bootheels caught in the stirrups and the horse cantered into the trees, dragging its rider through the sodden leaf litter. His body jerked, withed as it struck the exposed roots of the ancient oaks, as though life still fought for possession of his body.
The steed and its dead burden disappeared from view. Captain Palmer’s last memory of his trooper was the shards of cranial bone glinting in the moonlight.
The second dragoon, unfazed by his comrade’s fate, continued in his charge. Perhaps he was confident the stranger had used his pistol – certainly had no other – and was thus reliant on sword alone. It was clear the intruder had none, and so the trooper cheered his mount onwards and raised his sabre higher, ready to cut the man down.
But the man disappeared – or appeared to. The haze of gunsmoke hid him from view as he ducked, curled his body into a ball, and rolled forwards, under the trampling hooves of the trooper’s horse. The shrill shriek of agony from the horse cut through Palmer and he stared in disbelief as the saddle straps snapped upwards, neatly severed, the rider falling to the ground.
The horse halted, staggering as though the palsy had afflicted it; but the hot gush of blood and coils of purplish ropes that emptied from the mount’s belly announced its true fate.
The stranger stood, hot blood steaming from the blade on his pistol, and leapt onto the dismounted trooper. The arm rose once, as filled with the promise of death as the two troopers’ had been, then vanished into the neck of the soldier. The sound of steel hacking flesh reminded Palmer of the thud his father’s axe had made when slaughtering pigs in the winter.
Everywhere the moon shone it illuminated only steaming, running crimson. The clouds began to clear, and Palmer could see the stars reflected in the pool of blood.
The second horse sank to the ground, its mane soaked in crimson, its coat turned from pale brown to scarlet. It was a while before its struggles ceased; the agonised eyes of the horse bored into Palmer, the whites screaming of the agony it felt as it died.
The stranger stood then, his breath steaming in the air along with the blood and entrails of his victims. There was a cold smile on his scarred and battered face, and Palmer knew this man was a soldier from the Continent, one who gloried in violence and took pleasure in death. And more…
The smile vanished as the stranger raised his head and stared at the captain. He raised his hand, grip firm but relaxed on his unholy firearm, and flicked it twice. The message was clear: dismount.
Palmer’s brain whirled. The stranger had no time to load a fresh ball and charge, and there was little chance he could outrun Palmer if the captain decided to spur his mount back through the clearing.
But can I take that chance? This man is more than a mercenary from the Wars of Religion; he has the power of Satan within him. Mayhap he will leap into the sky like a demonic angel and strike me down from the stars.
“Do not be foolish, Captain,” the stranger said softly. “Dismount, and approach me. We will speak as civilised men.”
Trembling, Palmer let the reins fall from his fingers. He clutched the saddle pommel with shaking hands, his legs like rubber as his feet met the ground. Land felt alien, unfamiliar; to Palmer, it seemed the world had changed.
Nothing will ever be the same again, he thought.
The stranger wiped the blade of his pistol attachment on the tunic of the dead trooper, then returned it to the strange leather holster on his left thigh. Palmer could see why the stranger did not bother carrying a sword; the scimitar-like attachment was more lethal, more effective than any ordinary blade.
“Put up your sword, Captain. I have no stomach for fight now. I seek information.”
“What…what do you desire to know?” Palmer’s voice trembled, and he hated himself for it. “If you seek my camp, I’ll not tell –”
“I am no Royalist, sir. I have no desire to seek your camp to report to the King’s spies. I was truthful when I told you I swear loyalty to neither King nor Parliament.” There was a weariness in his voice, and Palmer saw the disgust that filled the man’s eyes when he turned back to stare at his slaughter.
It is as though a demon possessed him, fought its battle for him, and left him, alone and hateful of the slaughter which bears his mark.
“This? This is nothing compared to the slaughter that will come. And make no mistake: it will come from the hand of man, but be driven by the forces of darkness. The atrocities in the Low Countries will be naught compared to the slaughter-yard England will become. Unless I can prevent it.”
Palmer hesitated. There was nothing to indicate holiness or a mission from God in this man, yet he set himself up against the Dark One. He wanted to scream: What are you?
The stranger extended a hand. It was coated in the blood of Palmer’s troop, but the message of friendship was clear.
I should not…and yet, as he took the hand and shook it, a sense of destiny came over him; a feeling that his fortune – or tragedies – would be linked with this man’s.
“I am James Palmer. Captain to Lieutenant Sanders’s company of Launceston.” He retrieved the orange sash and twisted it around his midriff. “I fight for the Parliament. And you, sir?”
“I fight for mankind. And you may call me Shadrach.”
CHAPTER TWO
The evening’s rain should have washed the blood of the battlefield away. Instead, it merely diluted the life fluid spilled from the Royalist army, enabling it to cover the faces of the writhing, dying men – no, Sanders admitted, not men, boys – with a sheen of gore that sparkled in the starlight, as though the very spheres of Heaven gloried in the carnage.
Lieutenant Thomas Sanders shook his head in disgust and turned away, his boots splashing in the pools of mud and blood. He stepped over the shattered poles of the Royalists’ pikestaffs – no longer the forest of glistening, steel-tipped hate on the battlefield this morning, now just broken twigs and branches, mere stumps of wood, trampled into the churned ground like leaf-litter – and faced the grinning men who waited by the barn with a contempt that bordered on hatred.
Recruiting for his section of Parliament’s army had been problematic, to say the least; men were reluctant to fight in Sanders’s troop. Cavalry and infantry, it mattered not: the desertion rates were high. Too high, and it was not fear of battle that made them run.
A Cursed Company, they call my force, Sanders reflected grimly. It certainly is now! He stared in disbelief as a burly sergeant, clad in the civilian clothes in which he had languished in gaol, pushed past him, picking his nose with a severed finger.
Thieves and murderers recruited by the Dorchester Parish Constable to swell the ranks of the skeletal-thin Parliamentary infantry. It was an act of desperation, not to mention idiocy. These animals would normally have deserted the minute the gunsmoke drifted over the field of battle, but Sergeant Lewis, the leader of this band of villains, managed to keep them in line. Not through strength of will, but merely the promise of plunder. Against their own countrymen! English boys, for God’s sake!
Sanders was glad he had managed to scare them off raping the Royalist army’s women. Even then it had only been by thrusting the barrel of his wheel-lock pistol into the big man’s broken-toothed, grinning maw. You slaughter children, but you’ll not touch the women. Stand aside or I will drop you before you can blink.
Yet still, the weeping of the women as they were hurried off – not even allowed to retrieve their dead – played in his mind. That had been the moment he had seen fear and grudging respect in Lewis’s face. The country gentleman who became a lieutenant through political connections alone, as opposed to military experience, had shown steel beneath the flabby jowls and potbelly that were the hallmarks of a rural, gentrified existence.
But still the man pushed him, testing his resolve at every given moment, to see if Sanders’s steel was as soft as the gorget around his th
roat. Never in battle, he would give him that: murderous bastard that Lewis was, he’d never disobeyed an order. And his lack of fear in the face of the approaching pike battailes had enabled his force of musketeers to stand firm and mow the Royalist pikemen down. Even the fear engendered by a cavalry charge did not phase him; indeed, such was the murderous roar he bellowed with each volley of musket fire that Sanders swore the King’s cavalry were frightened of the musketeers rather than the other way round. But when the fighting was done, when time had come for humanity and the dressing of enemy wounds, as well as their own, that was when Lewis pushed.
Sanders grabbed the former felon by his shoulder and twisted him around. Lewis grinned, the thin finger dangling freely from his snot-encrusted nostril as he lifted his snapsack.
“Sorry, sir.” The honorific was sneered, an insult, and a reminder of who truly ruled this company. “Not much in the way of pickings.” He followed his joke with a guttural laugh, and Sanders wished he had blasted a musket ball into that mocking face after all.
In the rents and tears of the sergeant’s bloodstained snapsack, Sanders saw other ghoulish trophies of war. He gagged on bile and smacked the grim baggage from the criminal soldier’s hands.
Lewis had paid too much attention to those Dutchmen who had joined the company after Marston Moor, Sanders reflected. Their tales of atrocity, torture and mutilation in the Low Countries had turned the stomachs of the honourable men in his company, himself included; but Lewis had listened in awe, with an unhealthy gleam in his eye. A fat slug of a tongue ran over thick lips at the tale of a farmer’s cat crucified over the body of a disembowelled farmer’s daughter, and the grisly souvenirs the soldiers of Spain had taken. Staring at the contents of the knapsack, Sanders saw Lewis had decided to emulate his continental peers. At least the Dutch mercenaries themselves took no pleasure in tales of terror, and even sought to forget them.
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