The Winter Siege (Daniel Cheswis Book 1)

by D. W. Bradbridge

  Whilst Gabriel was being revitalised by the magical skills of Mrs Padgett, I put on my cloak and walked down to the Beast Market to hire two horses. I thought about taking my own bay mare, Demeter, to Barthomley, but having lost my cart horse already that week, I did not wish to risk Demeter, to whom I was greatly attached.

  It being St Stephen’s day morning, Edward Shenton, the owner of the stables I usually patronised when I needed to rent a horse, was not expecting much business, and he was still in his chamber when I knocked on his door. It took some time to persuade him to come down, but he eventually emerged, grumbling, and led me to his stables where I hired a chestnut mare for myself, which I had ridden once before, and a black gelding for Gabriel.

  By the time I returned home, Gabriel was ready to move, so I lent him a spare cloak and we set off down Hospital Street. I was glad I had hired the horses, as we could move much quicker than on foot and, despite the restorative effects of Mrs Padgett’s breakfast, Gabriel didn’t look like he would appreciate a walk back to Barthomley in the biting cold of the December morning.

  When we arrived at the sconce at the end of Hospital Street, the soldiers told us to be careful and keep off the main roads. However, they had received no reported sightings of royalist soldiers that morning. It appeared the marauding band of Irishmen was on the move elsewhere, possibly to Sandbach or Middlewich. Nevertheless, we decided to take the soldiers’ advice and keep to the fields and side roads.

  As we made our way through the fields, everything was silent, save the soft crunch of our horses’ hooves as they penetrated the frozen crust of the snow. No-one, it appeared, dared to venture forth from their houses that morning. We headed first towards Butt Green and across pristine white meadows to Wybunbury, skirting the woods to the North of the village. From the trees, we were able to look over into the village, but there were no signs of any royalist soldiers. It began to look as if they had, indeed, moved north. We therefore rode across the fields south of Hough, then due east to Balterley, where we turned north, through Basford Coppice, approaching Barthomley Church from behind. The ride was tense, and Gabriel and I barely spoke to each other. But we need not have worried. Not a soul disturbed our eerie solitude.

  As we approached St Bertoline’s Church, though, I realised that there was some activity in and around the churchyard. As we drew nearer, a shout echoed across the fields, and a number of men with muskets appeared behind the church wall, their weapons pointed firmly in our direction. As we came within musket range, however, someone else shouted; “Stand easy, lads. It’s Gabriel Broomhall and Daniel Cheswis.”

  The musket barrels gradually disappeared from behind the wall, and men began to file out into the field to help us from our horses and to tether them to one of the trees lining the churchyard. A middle-aged man with a balding head and a florid complexion stepped out from the group.

  “Praise the Lord, Gabriel, we thought you were dead too.” The village rector, Richard Fowler, stood leaning on a spade. He wore an expression of desperation and stoic resilience, and I realised the sad duty that he and the other men were in the midst of performing.

  “I nearly froze to death in the woods,” said Gabriel, briefly explaining his lonely sojourn in Domville’s Wood and his trek through the night to fetch me from Nantwich.

  “It is good to see you, Daniel,” said the rector. “Thank you for coming and for bringing Gabriel back safely.”

  “Thanks are not necessary on a day like today,” I said, “It’s a sorry day when a father has to bury his sons.”

  The rector bowed his head and brushed a tear from the corner of his eye. “Aye, that it is,” he said. “Sometimes, God tests our faith in the most terrible way. There was evil abroad in this place, Daniel. Some might say it was the Devil’s work. I must comfort myself with the thought that John and Henry fought that evil with bravery. Now they are at peace in the bosom of our Lord.”

  I nodded in sympathy. “And the animals who did this?” I asked. “They are gone?”

  “Aye. The Irishmen left early this morning with orders to march to Middlewich.”

  “Then God help the people of that town,” I said, grimly. “And my parents? How are they?”

  “Passably well under the circumstances. They are shocked, of course, and their clothes and goods have been stolen, but apart from that they are faring well. Your brother George is with them now. You should go and look after them.”

  “I certainly will,” I said, “but first I would like to familiarise myself with what happened here.”

  “Then prepare yourself well,” said the rector. “It is not a sight for the faint-hearted.”

  Fowler was not exaggerating. The scene inside the church was one of pure devastation. There was wood strewn all over the floor of the nave where the pews had been chopped into pieces, ready to put on the Irishmen’s bonfire by the turret steps. However, the worst sight was in the entranceway beneath the tower, where great swathes of black streaked the walls, below which lay the charred embers of the fire used to smoke out the victims, several of whose bodies were propped up against the wall, some lying grotesquely, almost naked, with their throats cut and knife wounds in chests and backs. The floor was stained brown with dried blood, and the whole area stank with the sickly sweet smell of death. I staggered over to the opposite wall and retched violently. Such a terrible sight I had never seen before.

  I could tell that the rector was on the verge of tears as Gabriel and I surveyed the bodies of our friends. He clenched and unclenched his fists in anger as he led us to one body after another. Suddenly, though, his eye was caught by one corpse propped up in a corner, slightly apart from the others.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Who is this? I don’t recognise this person. Whoever he is, he wasn’t with our defence party that day.”

  I stepped forward to take a closer look, and as I did so, my heart sank. I had been so preoccupied with the awfulness of it all, I had failed to notice what I had dreaded discovering all along. There, sitting with his head lolling sideways, exposing a neat cut to the throat, was the dead body of James Nuttall. Tied loosely around his neck was a crimson sash.

  21

  Barthomley, Cheshire – Tuesday,

  December 26, 1643

  I walked over to where Nuttall lay and inspected his body closely. Unlike the other corpses waiting to be buried, Nuttall was still fully clothed. I carefully removed the crimson scarf from around his neck and placed it in a pocket inside my cloak. It was, I noticed, of identical material to that found on the body of Ralph Brett. Nuttall’s shirt was stained brown with two-day-old blood, but, as I fingered it, I realised that the garment had frozen to a crisp. Moving his head to one side, I saw that his throat had been cut from ear to ear. A small mercy, I thought. Once this had happened, he would not have taken long to die.

  However, a glance at the dead man’s hands revealed something more sinister. I noticed with a deepening sense of shock and disgust that Nuttall’s fingernails had been neatly removed. The poor man must have been tortured before he died. I exhaled deeply, and, running my hand through my hair, I thought about the agony Nuttall must have gone through. I also wondered what information was so important for him to hide that he would have felt the need to endure such treatment and, indeed, whether he gave anything away. Even if he did, I conjectured, he could not have submitted easily, for the nails on both his hands were missing. James Nuttall had undoubtedly been a brave man.

  As the implications of Nuttall’s death started to sink in, my mind turned towards Simon. Where on earth was he? Whoever had sought Nuttall must surely also be seeking my brother. I swallowed hard as ice-cold anxiety began to spread up my spine.

  “You look like you know this person, Daniel,” said Richard Fowler, who had been eyeing me with growing curiosity.

  “I do,” I confirmed. “He is a friend and associate of my brother, Simon. Whoever killed him may be looking for Simon also. I’m afraid he may be in mortal danger. Tell me,” I demand
ed, turning to Gabriel Broomhall, “has anybody been asking after Simon at all?”

  “Are you jesting, Master Daniel?” said Gabriel, with incredulity. “The house has been full of Irishmen since late Saturday morning. Wait, though...” He hesitated a moment as if trying to recall something important. “Now you mention it, a man came looking for him on Saturday evening after Simon had left. Proper mean he looked, too.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Oh – he was quite tall, a strong-looking fellow with a short beard and black hair. That’s what struck be about him, see. His hair was as black as the night.”

  I nodded and realised that Gabriel had given me a description of Jem Bressy.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That Master Simon had long since left. He asked to come into the house to wait, but I said we did not know when he would return.”

  “And he left?”

  “Yes. He said something about royalist soldiers being on the way. He wasn’t wrong.”

  I took a closer look at Nuttall’s corpse, and it struck me that, although his chest was covered in blood, there was none on the floor around his body.

  “Here, help me flip him over,” I said to Gabriel, and with some effort, we managed to roll Nuttall over onto his side. As I expected, the back of his breeches were torn and covered in debris.

  “What’s the matter, Daniel?” asked the rector, as he watched me pick small pieces of gravel and undergrowth from the rear of Nuttall’s breeches.

  “This body has been moved,” I postulated. “I’ll wager he was killed in the woods and dragged into the church. And you say no-one’s been in the church since the massacre?”

  “No-one has dared to stray from their homes,” confirmed Fowler. ”They’ve not been allowed to, either, if the truth be told. The Irish were billeted in most of the houses hereabouts. To my knowledge, no-one has been in the church between Saturday evening and this morning.”

  I own that I was beginning to feel somewhat overtaken by events, which seemed to be spiralling out of control. Although the question of what Simon and Nuttall were doing in Barthomley remained a mystery, my main concern was what had happened to Simon, who was surely in grave danger. I took a moment to sit on one of the few remaining pews amongst the shattered interior of the nave of the church and prayed silently to God that my brother might be delivered safely from whatever complexities he had become entangled in.

  I also allowed myself another, more worrying, thought. Why the crimson scarf? Why did Nuttall’s murderers not just leave the body in the woods? Why take the trouble of dragging him into the church and leaving him fully-clothed alongside the half-naked villagers, and why the need to identify the body with a marker to specifically connect him with the murders of William Tench and Ralph Brett?

  The only reason that I could think of was that the perpetrator wanted, for some reason, to crow about the murder and perhaps to draw my attention to it. Another thought also struck me that chilled me to the marrow. Could the murderers perhaps have known that I hailed from Barthomley and that I would want to go there once the pillaging band of Irishmen was gone? If that were the case, I reasoned, they would know that Simon was from Barthomley too and perhaps also where my family lived. With a growing feeling of apprehension, I decided what I had to do.

  “Gabriel,” I said, “we must get back to my parents. They may not be safe either.”

  I quickly gave my apologies to the rector and was about to leave the church when I caught sight of a familiar figure sweeping up rushes and fragments of splintered wood from the floor of the nave. To my astonishment, I recognised the slight and soberly-dressed physique of Hugh Furnival.

  “Good morning, Mr Furnival,” I said, failing to keep the element of surprise from my voice. “I did not expect to see you here.”

  “Why ever not?” replied Furnival, raising his eyebrow and suppressing a hint of a smile. “I am a Barthomley man like you. I imagine I’m here for the same reason – out of concern for my family. I trust yours are well and have survived this appalling act of butchery?”

  I hastily apologised for my insensitivity and enquired after Furnival and Alice’s respective families.

  “My father died several years ago and my mother now lives with a brother in Manchester, but Alice’s parents fared better than might have been expected. As they live a little way up the hill and were not on the main route, they have escaped being plundered, thanks be to God.”

  “That is indeed a blessing,” I agreed. “And your plans now?”

  “It is my intention to stay with Alice’s family for a couple of days until it’s safe to leave them. However, after that, I need to travel to Shrewsbury to deliver the news I had gathered in Nantwich and to help prepare our next newssheet. As you are here, perhaps I could ask you keep a watch over Alice’s wellbeing whilst I’m away? Especially if the King’s army besiege the town and I can’t get back in.” Of course, I agreed without reservation.

  Engrossed in my own thoughts, I left Furnival to his sweeping and headed back outside the church, gesturing to Gabriel Broomhall to untether the horses and follow me towards the gate leading to Greenbank Farm. As I did so, I noticed the villagers place two bodies carefully into a single grave and start shovelling the frozen earth on top of them. Standing next to the grave, staring into the middle distance with tears in his eyes and his hands clasped in prayer, was Richard Fowler.

  Not surprisingly, my family had locked, bolted, and barricaded the back door of the farmhouse, so it took much banging, shouting, and peering in the window before we heard the sound of voices and furniture being dragged across the floor. Eventually, the door opened to reveal my brother George standing in his undergarments.

  “Daniel!” he exclaimed. “Thank the Lord you have come! We prayed all night for your safe deliverance. It appears our prayers have been heeded. And you too, Gabriel. You risked much by venturing forth in such bitter weather. We owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  George ushered us inside, where we found the whole family gathered around the fire – my father and mother, George’s wife Ellen and their four children: daughters Ellen, Susanna, and Mary and their four-year-old son, Richard. The children had been allowed to keep their clothing, but the adults had all been forced to strip to their underwear and were now sat huddled on chairs, with sheets and sacking pulled tight around their shoulders to keep in the warmth.

  I hugged my family one by one and told them I was relieved to see them safe, although in truth, it was deeply shocking to see them reduced to little more than a cowering, half-naked clump of humanity. It turned out that eight soldiers had billeted themselves within the house, including a boorish major called Connaught. To my brother’s credit, he had shown the good sense to open his doors to the Irishmen and welcome them as though they were a group of avenging angels. He had sworn allegiance to the King and drank to the prospect of the defeat of the puritan traitor Brereton when it became clear that the Irish had been ordered to march to Middlewich to engage Sir William in battle.

  George’s decision to show no resistance had saved him a beating and stopped Ellen from being raped, but it hadn’t stopped the Irishmen from taking their clothes and most of the food in the house. Still, they considered they had got away lightly. They had heard the horses being taken from the stables, but the rest of the livestock was still there. The children had been scared at the presence of eight soldiers with strange accents in the house, but they had behaved well and had not cried.

  “You have been very fortunate,” I said. “The barbarity these men have perpetrated in the church is something no man should see.”

  George nodded and explained they already knew what had happened because the soldiers had been boasting about it. I turned my mind to more practical things and managed to ascertain that my family had not been left totally without clothes and provisions. Before the Irishmen had arrived, George had thankfully had the foresight to hide clothes and some extra food in one of the outhouses behind a pil
e of hay bales, as he had realised the farm might be raided. However, he had not yet dared to go out to retrieve them for fear of the soldiers returning.

  “And what of Simon?” I asked. “I understand he has been here?”

  George nodded in the affirmative. “Thank God he wasn’t here when the soldiers arrived, though,” he said. “Simon left on the Saturday. He said he had business to sort out, but he has not yet returned.”

  I had to concur. I imagined Simon’s reaction to the Irishmen might have been very different to that of my elder brother. At that moment, as though it were providence, we heard the noise of hooves outside. There was a momentary air of tension as we waited to see who it was, but this was immediately relieved as a familiar face burst through the door; that of Simon himself. Open-mouthed astonishment was quickly replaced by joy at the knowledge that Simon was still alive.

  “Thank God you’re safe,” sobbed my mother, as she wrapped her arms around him. Simon wore a broad grin, although he seemed somewhat surprised to see me there.

  “Why is everyone undressed?” he asked. “Surely it is not time for bed at this hour of the day?”

  George was not amused. “Then you have not heard what has happened in Barthomley these last days?” he retorted, and proceeded to relate the events that had taken place in the church. I watched my younger brother’s face pale and the smile vanish from his lips.

  “And where in the name of Jesus have you been this past week?” I demanded. “I think you owe me an explanation.”

  Simon looked me in the eye. “It is quite simple,” he said. “James Nuttall and I were asked by Colonel Booth to seek out Sir William Brereton in Middlewich and to provide him with important information.”

  “Information? What kind of information?”

  Simon ignored the question manfully and continued talking. “Because of the dangers of travelling in these times, we decided to split up. James planned to go through Haslington and Sandbach. I was to take the road to Alsager and Holmes Chapel. When I arrived at Middlewich, it became clear that royalist forces were amassing outside the town, and it was not easy to get in unobserved. It looks like there is going to be a battle there.”