The Bleeding Land

by Giles Kristian

  ‘My God,’ she said.

  Fifty or so rebel musketeers had formed a skirmish line which was creeping closer to the trenches and gabions behind which Radcliffe’s men desperately loaded and fired with seemingly little effect. But what was even more terrifying was a company of the enemy who were concentrating their fire on one defensive position at a time. They were arranged in four ranks of eight, each rank firing in turn then reloading as the next line of men threaded through them to present and fire their own muskets.

  ‘Aye, and it’s warkin’, too,’ Ellis said grimly, filling the pan with black powder. ‘We’ve got nowt to stand against tat.’ He closed the pan and blew on it to do away with any loose powder, then put the butt on the floor and poured more powder down the muzzle.

  Bess saw that the rebel musket block had already swept the defenders from the trench at the south-east corner, leaving bodies in its wake. Now this killing wave threatened to overwhelm another defensive position in front of the forecourt consisting of two earth-filled gabions. The eight garrison men behind this bulwark dared not step out of cover to fire their own weapons and were relying on others to stop the rebel block. But the other defenders had the skirmishers to worry about.

  Then two of the garrison men sprang from behind their gabion and fired wildly, but the rebel front rank fired a heartbeat later and the two defenders were ripped to bloody shreds.

  ‘Just a li’le closer, yo bastards,’ Ellis growled, ramming the ball and wadding down, then replacing the scouring stick beneath the barrel. ‘When they’re on their own I’ve got noawe chance of hitting ’em. Thaz moor chance o’ gerrin’ knighted.’ He blew on the match-cord until the tip was burning, then pressed it into the serpent’s jaws and slid open the priming pan. ‘But when they’re bunched up lik’n that . . .’ He fired, the sound deafening inside the house, and Bess saw a rebel in the musket block fall. ‘’Tis babby-wark. Death to traitors!’ Ellis roared down at the enemy, exulting in his kill. Then another hail of lead pelted the brickwork and Bess ducked instinctively, fear flooding her veins.

  ‘Back fro’ the window, Miss Elizabeth,’ Ellis said, his eyes wild with the thrill of killing. ‘Thi’s got a li’le ’un to look after neaw.’

  ‘While this is still my house, Mister Ellis, you will not tell me what to do.’ She could see her mother at the western edge of the forecourt, spurning the relative safety of the house and, with Major Radcliffe, directing the defenders.

  ‘Begging your pardon, madam,’ Ellis said, ‘but thi saw what ’appened to t’lad there.’ Bess turned and looked at the dead man lying on her bedchamber floor, his blood pooled beneath the ruin of his throat. His eyes were still open, staring at the cracked ceiling. She went over and draped the blood-soaked linen over his face, then picked up his matchlock, making it seem lighter in her arms than it was.

  ‘I have a right to defend my own house,’ she said in answer to Ellis’s frown.

  ‘Dost know how to load and fire it?’ he asked.

  ‘I have two brothers, Mister Ellis,’ she said, as though that were answer enough.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ‘I’M LOOKING FORWARD to some home-cooked food, polite company, and a soft chair,’ O’Brien said, wincing as he shifted in the saddle. ‘I think my arse died forty miles back.’

  ‘We’re nearly there now, Clancy,’ Mun replied, offering the Irishman his leather bottle, filled from a stream six miles back at Barrow Brook. The Irishman took it and drank, then tossed the bottle back.

  ‘This reminds me of Ireland,’ he said, glancing around at the rolling landscape of the south-west Lancashire plain and dragging a big hand across his red beard and moustaches. ‘Cold and damp.’

  Mun smiled. He was grateful to have O’Brien along. When he and Osmyn Hooker had met up with Hooker’s forty men north of Christ Church Meadow he had been surprised to see that they had brought the Irishman with them, having found him in a makeshift alehouse off St Aldate’s aptly named the Prince’s Poodle. O’Brien had been drunk enough to agree to go with them, which meant almost too drunk to sit his horse, but he had sobered on the ride north and there was no one Mun would rather have at his side. Well, maybe there was someone, but . . .

  ‘The Prince said you should have a man with you who earns the King’s shilling honestly,’ Hooker had said as two of his men helped the slurring O’Brien onto his big mare. The mercenary had grinned then. ‘But what His Highness really meant was that another pair of eyes watching my merry band would not be a bad thing. You see, the Prince and his sort need me . . . but they don’t trust me. Think I’m as likely to plunder honest men as I am to earn my silver honestly.’

  ‘I dare say His Highness knows you well,’ Mun had answered, to which Hooker had flashed his teeth and replied that if anyone was to keep an eye on him then it might as well be a drunken Irishman who couldn’t see straight.

  But Mun was glad to have O’Brien. The big man’s familiar presence and for the most part cheerful disposition buoyed Mun’s spirits against the weight of guilt and sorrow that threatened at times to pull him under. Guilt for the things he had done, the betrayals he had committed for a brother who had turned his back on them all. Sorrow at his family’s loss. His own loss. He wondered if his father’s death, Emmanuel’s too, would have cut him less deeply had he seen them lifeless with his own eyes. As it was, there was a small, perhaps irrational part of him that could not admit that they were gone, that he would never see them again. And now he was nearly home and soon it would be time to share the burden he carried, though in truth he would rather bear it alone to the ends of the earth.

  Dawn had begun as a pale blue line tight against the eastern horizon, like a sliver of fine steel. Then the strip had turned a dull orange, its glow beginning to shape the world out of darkness. Now, as Mun drew closer to his home amongst the sandstone hills, the new day was a blooming red stain spreading across the sky. It was cold enough for puddles to be skinned with ice and damp enough to make men fear for the powder in their flasks. Mun’s feet were blocks of ice in his boots, which was the trouble with riding on a cold day, for you could not stamp your feet on the ground to warm them. But he knew the others would be cold too. They had ridden through the night, Hooker and Corporal Bartholomew leading the column, Mun and O’Brien behind them, and the rest of the troop following two abreast. Hooker’s men made for a fearsome sight. Loyalty to money alone made a man rich by the looks of it, O’Brien had observed after the first day’s ride. Or dead, Mun had replied. But he could not deny the mercenary life had served these men well enough, for they all rode big, fine horses of fifteen hands, not one of which would have fetched less than eight pounds at market. Each trooper wore buff-coat and back- and breastplate and was armed with a pair of wheellocks or firelocks as well as an assortment of swords, poll-axes and other edged weapons. Neither were they a ragged band of ill-disciplined villains, Mun knew, for almost to a man they had fought on the continent and knew their business better than most in either the King’s or Parliament’s army. They were hard men. Killers.

  ‘A good scrap will see the chill gone from the bones, hey,’ O’Brien said, pressing a finger against one nostril and blowing snot from the other.

  ‘Whatever Parliament men are up here in the wilds,’ Hooker said, emphasizing ‘wilds’ for Mun’s benefit, he knew, ‘I’d wager they are of poor quality. One look at you, O’Brien, and they will kneel in their own piss and pray to God to spare them.’

  ‘That suits me,’ O’Brien replied, not caring whether it was an insult or a compliment as he huffed into bare, cold-chapped hands. ‘The bastards will be easier to kill if they keep nice and still.’ A flock of jackdaws barrelled across the lightening sky, raining down amongst the bare branches of ash and elm and filling the dawn with a chorus of crisp noise that sounded like a thousand shards of flint being struck one against another. ‘Even the bloody birds are laughing at us freezing our ballocks off,’ the Irishman said.

  ‘Quiet!’ Mun hissed. He had heard somet
hing, a low guttural sound that was only made by one thing on God’s earth. Hooker had heard it too, for he raised a hand to stop the column. ‘Charge your firearms!’ he called and was answered by the clicks of spanners on wheellocks and firelocks being half cocked. As the jackdaws’ wild chatter died away Mun heard the lighter snap of distant musketry fading in and out on the breeze. His stomach clenched like a fist. Mother. Bess.

  ‘It sounds as though your kin are making a fight of it,’ Hooker said, grim-faced, tightening the strap of his three-bar pot. The mercenary leader checked his own firelocks, suddenly cloaked in the demeanour of a man about to risk his life in battle. His movements were slow, deliberate and well practised, ritualistic almost, as though each action was the spinning out of time and the saddling of fear.

  But Mun itched to kick back his heels and fly. His very bones trembled and his heart was pounding like a regiment’s drum. ‘Let’s ride, Hooker,’ he said, despising himself for every moment spent not defending his loved ones and his home.

  ‘I would be happier if you left this part to me,’ Hooker said. ‘You can’t pay me if you’re dead.’ He arched a brow. ‘Yet I suspect there is no convincing you to hang back and wait until it is over?’

  ‘If I die, O’Brien will see that you’re paid,’ Mun said grimly, nodding at the Irishman.

  ‘That I will,’ O’Brien said, dipping his head. ‘Now if we could go and kill the curs?’ He glanced from Mun to Hooker. ‘Turns out the stone rolling around in my boot is my God-damned toe. Jesus, it’s colder than a whore’s heart out here.’ Hooker threw a hand forward and the column moved off again, thrumming now with the excitement and fear of imminent violence.

  Mun had told Hooker that any siege would be concentrated on the front of the house, the ground at the rear being unsuitable for horses and artillery, so now the mercenary followed Mun’s lead as they spurned roads and well-worn tracks in favour of an approach across grazing land that would bring them out to the west of Shear House.

  ‘The ground rises to the west leading up Parbold Hill,’ Mun had said, ‘and from there we should have a good vantage of the rebel lines.’

  Keeping the crackle of musketry on their right, beyond an ancient stone wall that followed the ridge north, they had ridden across rough, rocky ground that bristled with tall, frost-stiffened grass. Now, Mun led the troop to the flat-topped final summit of the ridge, then to its eastern edge from where they overlooked the approach to Shear House.

  ‘That’s not a house, Mun,’ O’Brien said, eyes bulging. ‘It’s a bloody palace.’

  Below them the fight was raging. Smoke suddenly bloomed around the demi-cannon at the main gate and a heartbeat later its boom kicked dawn’s guts. They could see that the gun had already battered the house, gouging craters into the thick walls and smashing one of the pillars beside the great iron-studded front door. The whole façade was scarred, like the face of someone ravaged by the pox, and masonry lay in piles all about. Men were scattered across the grounds, many of them wreathed in musket smoke. But this was not a battle like Edgehill, of ranks of men firing great volleys into opposing masses. Rather this was, for the main part at least, a series of individual duels, which the rebels were winning, Mun saw by the stark reality of how close they were to the house itself. Most of the garrison’s defences had been overrun and bodies lay everywhere.

  ‘One day later and your house belongs to the Earl of Essex,’ Hooker said, patting his horse’s neck.

  ‘One day sooner and some of those men would still be alive,’ Mun replied through a grimace.

  ‘Four ranks! Open order!’ Hooker yelled, at which his men arrayed themselves with proficient ease. ‘You see that squadron of musketeers, Corporal?’ he asked, pointing at the thirty or so men who had fought their way to the forecourt and were now a stone’s throw from Shear House’s front door. ‘What do I love about them?’

  The bush-covered slab of Bartholomew’s face threatened to crack. ‘They don’t have any pikemen,’ he rumbled.

  ‘Not a bloody gentleman amongst them,’ Hooker agreed with a smile at odds with the terrible scar across his forehead. Then he half turned his face back to his men. ‘Hold your fire until you can smell them!’ he hollered. ‘We shall tear the guts out of that squadron down there and the rest will bolt like rabbits.’ There were some ayes and growls at this. ‘Shall we introduce ourselves?’ he called, and with that all forty of Hooker’s men began to howl, a primitive, ululating cacophony that clawed at some innate sense inside Mun, making him almost feel like prey. ‘Time for the pack to hunt,’ Hooker shouted to Mun above the din, then led them forward down the ridge.

  They began at the walk, which must have made the enemy wonder whose men they were, but Mun knew this was better than risking a horse falling and fouling the charge. Then, as the ground began to flatten out, they instinctively went into a sitting trot. More rebels had seen them now and some of them halted their attack on the house and took cover until they could be sure who the newcomers were. Then, as Hooker’s wolves rose to a rising trot, some of the rebel musketeers turned their matchlocks towards them and gave fire and Mun heard a ball scream past his right ear.

  ‘Hooker’s lot know their business,’ O’Brien called above the jangle of tack and arms, the drumming of hooves and the horses’ excited neighs.

  ‘God be with you, Clancy!’ Mun said, his limbs thrumming with the fear-drenched thrill that was becoming a familiar prelude to a fight, then he gave Hector his heels, pricked him with spurs that had belonged to the King of England, and rose to the canter, his guts churning, the world around him shrinking as he eyed the musket block ahead of them. An officer stood beside those musketeers, sword in one hand, pistol in the other, bellowing orders, and the front rank began to wheel right while the men in the middle and rear ranks fumbled with bandoliers and scouring sticks, desperate to reload.

  ‘Give them hell!’ Hooker yelled, spurring his mount so that it lurched forward, breaking into a gallop, and Mun’s soul flooded with fury and hatred for the men who had brought guns, blades and rebellion to his father’s house. To my house, he thought.

  ‘Heya, boy!’ he yelled. ‘Go on, Hector!’ And they flew, hooves hammering the ground, the cold wind scouring his face between the three bars of his helmet that framed his world whichever way he looked. ‘Kill them!’ he screamed. ‘Kill them all!’ and he outstripped Corporal Bartholomew, drawing level with Hooker who had drawn his sword. Off his right shoulder O’Brien was bellowing Irish curses, hanks of wind-whipped red hair escaping his own helmet. Mun hauled his sword from its scabbard, holding it wide as the front rank of the musket squadron suddenly vanished in a cloud of white smoke and he heard a clank of ball against steel plate and then a scream somewhere behind. But he felt no fear now. Only rage.

  The rebel musketeers knew they could not stand against cavalry and now they panicked, some running, others drawing their own swords, inspired by the officer who held his ground, arm extended, pistol steady. He fired and Mun heard the ball thunk against Hooker’s breastplate and a heartbeat later the mercenary scythed off the man’s head as neat as ninepence. Mun crashed into the disintegrating squadron, slashing his heavy sword down into a rebel’s shoulder, Hector’s momentum wrenching the blade from the meat as they plunged on. And Mun hacked down again, cleaving another man’s arm off at the shoulder as he raised his matchlock as a shield. ‘Go on, boy!’ he roared, and Hector surged forward into the mayhem, trampling a man whose scream ripped through the battle’s din. Blades plunged and blood flew, the rebels having no defence against mounted men, and those who tried to run Hooker’s wolves chased down, slaughtering them with wild joy.

  Turning Hector with his knees, Mun pulled his carbine round and fired at a man’s back, the ball blasting a hole right through him, spraying gore and flecks of white bone over a black mare’s hind quarters. His breath was like the sea, surging inside his helmet as he turned and saw O’Brien slam his poll-axe into a bearded rebel’s temple, the man’s legs buckling, so tha
t his weight yanked the poll-axe from the Irishman’s grasp. Hooker spurred after a fleeing man and rode him down, his horse trampling the rebel until all that was left was a mangle of flesh and jagged, glistening bones.

  ‘That’s it, Corporal, teach the dog some manners!’ a mercenary cried to Bartholomew, who had dismounted and was throttling a musketeer to death with his enormous hands.

  Then Mun saw his father’s old friend Edward Radcliffe striding towards the rebels, his one eye glaring like fire beneath the rim of an ancient, much-dented pot, his pistol raised. ‘Come on then, you idle bloody lot!’ he yelled at the garrison men behind him and those in a nearby trench. ‘Now is your chance!’ Then he fired and a rebel spun away in a spray of blood. ‘Kill the rabid curs! Send them to Hell!’ he roared, drawing his sword. The Shear House men cheered and charged, reversing their muskets and brandishing blades and ten or more tore into the stunned remnants of the rebel squadron in an orgy of vengeance, staving skulls and spitting bellies.

  ‘O’Brien!’ Mun yelled, hauling Hector around. Hooker’s men followed his lead and, leaving the murder to the garrison men, they galloped back across the grounds, hacking and slashing men who were running for their lives. Some of the rebels threw down their weapons and fell to their knees, baring their heads, hats or helmets held out before them, but their appeals for mercy fell on deaf ears and Hooker’s wolves savaged them.

  Mun galloped past a man who had thrown his musket away and made a run for it, then he pulled Hector up and turned him so that they faced the rebel, who realized there was no escape.