The Black Madonna (Roundheads & Cavaliers Book 1)

by Stella Riley

  Knowing that they would not be granted quarter and therefore determined to resist to the bitter end, the remaining members of the garrison retreated to the houses to pepper their attackers with grenadoes – but with little useful result. Some of the enemy had already taken the Norman bailey and were preparing to storm the huge gatehouse, while others were streaming in through the windows of the New House. Now that the day was unalterably theirs, the tumult of violence soared to fever-pitch and the previously spasmodic battle-cries became a single, bloodthirsty howl of ‘Down with the Papists!’

  Disputed to the last bullet and broken blade, the Old House finally fell and was immediately turned into a charnel-house as every Cavalier found alive inside it was ruthlessly butchered – some in the very act of surrender. Flown with victory and the promise of rich Papist spoils, the army cheerfully indulged itself with a little cold-blooded murder. And, freed for once from Fairfax’s scrupulous, restraining hand, the lieutenant-general did nothing to stop it.

  As yet, Kate had seen mercifully little of the untrammelled horrors taking place outside. The moment that the garrison drums first began signalling the assault had seen her hurtling down to a pre-arranged destination in the New House with her hand clamped firmly in Luciano’s and Selim pounding dutifully at their heels.

  The corridors and stairways were awash with fear as ladies and gentlemen – not all of them fully dressed – ran first this way and then that. Doors slammed, wild-eyed servants rushed by clutching bags and coffers, feet pounded towards secret hiding places; and everywhere there arose a jumbled cry of ‘What’s happening? Are they past the walls? Tell us what to do!’

  Without slackening his pace, Luciano hurled back the information that the Roundheads would be in soon enough and that the Royalists should look to saving themselves rather than their goods. It was all he could do. His own task was to keep Kate, Selim and himself safe from the invading hordes long enough for Eden’s promised protection to arrive; then, if Fate placed itself in his hands, he had to finish what he had started. Neither was simple and both could easily end in disaster; so today was for his own concerns – and the rest must shift for themselves.

  They reached the library and found it mercifully empty. No one, obviously, had as yet had the idea of hiding, rescuing or purloining the fortune in books that lined his lordship’s shelves. While Selim locked the door and stationed himself in front of it, Kate looked vaguely around her and said, ‘Why here?’

  ‘Two reasons,’ replied Luciano briefly. ‘It’s on the first floor – so we needn’t worry about attack from the windows; and the only other door is the sole means of entry to the marquis’s private office.’

  ‘And you think Cyrus Winter will try to go there?’

  ‘It depends on where his loyalties currently lie and what he believes may be in there. But yes – I hope so.’ Turning away from the window, outside which the noise of battle was rapidly escalating, he said, ‘Selim – help me move some of this furniture down towards the inner door. If all goes well, we’ll need space … and a barrier we can shelter behind may not go amiss. Caterina – we’ve four pistols between us. Check they’re properly loaded and then bring them down to this table.’

  Glad of something to do, Kate carried the weapons to a place which afforded an oblique view of the courtyard. Members of the garrison were already flying across it, apparently in full retreat and, seconds later, a wave of pursuing red-coats appeared in their wake. Then the rattle of musket-fire was drowned in a series of loud explosions. Mechanically checking the last pistol with shaking fingers, Kate peered down through the smoke and said sharply, ‘They’re getting in downstairs.’

  ‘All right. Don’t worry.’ Luciano materialised at her side and picked up two of the guns. ‘Come and sit on the floor behind this desk and make ready to reload for Selim and me if the need arises. With luck, we shouldn’t have to hold out for long. Eden promised to have a couple of his own men from Thorne Ash come straight to this room – and it will be your job to recognise them. I don’t want Selim shooting our friends by mistake.’

  ‘From what I know of him,’ responded Kate grimly from between chattering teeth, ‘he couldn’t hit a barn door at ten paces. So, if it’s all the same to you, I think it will be better if I do the shooting.’

  ‘Much better,’ agreed Selim, joining them behind the hastily constructed barricade. ‘I trust only my knife. But I do not mind reloading, if you wish it.’

  ‘That would be a great help,’ retorted Luciano with a faint, crooked grin.

  And then they all fell silent, listening.

  The clamour of swords, crack of pistols and din of shouting voices was much closer now and ominously punctuated by the sound of exploding locks and splintering wood. Feet stampeded on the stairs and bloodthirsty yells could be heard through the door. His face pale and set, Luciano cocked his pistol.

  The commotion reached the passageway outside. The heavy brass latch clattered under someone’s hand and the stout oak door shuddered in response to an almighty blow. Her breathing light and shallow, Kate strained her ears for the sound of particular voices but was defeated by the general mêlée. The door withstood a second assault – then a third. And finally there was a deafening bang as someone fired a pistol into the lock.

  The door burst open, revealing Cyrus Winter with three iron-helmeted troopers at his back. The gun in his hand was still smoking, his coat was streaked with dirt and, for once, he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Infine!’ breathed Luciano.

  One of the soldiers kicked the door shut - and Kate caught her breath. Meanwhile, the utter incredulity in Winter’s light eyes was slowly replaced with cruel satisfaction.

  ‘My God,’ he drawled. ‘The gutter-bred crookback and his jade of a wife, no less. How utterly perfect. But don’t you ever get anything right?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ His tone completely devoid of expression, Luciano stood perfectly still, a pistol steady in either hand. ‘Just now, for example, your way to Lord Winchester’s private papers lies through me.’

  ‘And you think that will stop me?’ came the contemptuous reply. Then, to the silent trio behind him, ‘Remove them. Kill them, if you must.’

  Nothing happened.

  ‘You heard what I said!’ he snapped, half turning. ‘What the devil are you waiting for?’

  ‘A different order to that one,’ grunted Tom Tripp, pulling off his helmet. And then, ‘Are you all right, Miss Kate?’

  ‘Better than all right,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.’

  ‘Nor I,’ began Luciano. Then, as Tom was forced to side-step a vicious blow to the head from the butt of the major’s pistol, ‘Stand – or I’ll put a bullet through your elbow.’

  Cyrus Winter froze, his face contorted with fury.

  Kate said quickly, ‘Tom – we need time to talk to this – this gentleman. Can you and Robert and Abel stop anyone else from coming in while we do it?’

  ‘We can try. With half the army running wild after plunder, it won’t be what you might call easy. But I suppose we can always say Old Noll’s in here. That ought to hold ’em.’ He directed a laconic stare at the seething major. ‘If you want to see me court-martialled, you’d better not lay a hand on Miss Kate – or you won’t live long enough.’ And, with a jerk of his head for the other two, he was gone.

  The ruined door closed behind them, leaving Cyrus Winter marooned in the middle of the floor, his gaze resting narrowly on Luciano. From elsewhere in the house, the sounds of pillage and destruction raged like a tide; but inside the room the currents of violence were marked only by ugly, voiceless hatred until, at length, Winter said coolly, ‘So. Here we are at last. You seem to have gone to some trouble.’

  Luciano’s brows rose over a look of purposeful restraint.

  ‘None worth mentioning. And at least you don’t need to ask why.’

  ‘Hardly – unless you wish to ask if I enjoyed your wife? But no. We’re presu
mably here to discuss your tediously unimportant father.’

  His fingers tightening on the cocked pistol, Luciano said, ‘Just in case the perils of your present situation have somehow eluded you, allow me to point out that a small modicum of diplomacy is called for.’ A slow smile dawned. ‘Of course, I don’t intend to let you leave this room alive … but you may continue to hope for a rescue party as long as I don’t pull this trigger. Or then again, you might regret it if I were provoked into shattering your tediously unimportant ankle.’

  There was another long, poisonous silence. Kate dug her nails into her palms and prayed she wouldn’t be sick.

  ‘And now,’ continued Luciano, ‘we will begin. Selim – a chair for the major; position yourself between it and the door. Caterina – I suggest you go through to his lordship’s office and wait there till this is done.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Her throat was raw and aching. ‘You know I can’t. Not until I know about Father.’

  Harsh, savagely amused laughter scored the air like a razor and, dropping carelessly into the chair Selim brought him, Winter said, ‘Your father? He saw me talking to the Parliament’s scoutmaster-general and came blundering after me to Cropredy at a time when I was fairly busy. If he’d been content to mind his own business, he’d be safe at home in his slippers. As it was, he was in my way. Is that what you wanted to hear?’

  Luciano cast a brief, worried glance over his shoulder at his wife. She was ashen and her eyes were stark with misery. To spare her the need to ask, he said quickly, ‘You’re saying you killed Richard Maxwell because he found out that you were betraying the King?’

  ‘In part. But mostly because I knew he was a friend of yours.’

  Kate gave a small choking sob, quickly checked.

  ‘And now?’ pursued Luciano.

  ‘Oh – now I’m looking out for myself. Not quite ‘betraying the Parliament’ as you’d doubtless like to put it … but something similar. Surely you knew that – unless those cartoons weren’t your work after all? No. The only thing this war means to me is what profit I can make out of it. You see? I don’t mind admitting it – for neither you nor anyone else will ever prove it. But then, having already tried, you know that too. Don’t you?’

  ‘You make an awful lot of assumptions,’ remarked Luciano, strolling across the floor to within four feet of him. ‘The cartoons were merely inspired guess-work. A small repayment in kind, designed to tell you that your anonymity was over. And Richard Maxwell didn’t follow you because you were a spy. He followed you because he knew you for a cold-blooded killer.’

  ‘Did he? Dear me! Can it be that I under-estimated him?’ For the first time, the silver eyes exhibited something other than mocking boredom. ‘And how, precisely could he have done that?’

  ‘The same way that I do.’ Taking his time, Luciano allowed each syllable to arrive in crystals of ice. ‘You made the mistake of wearing the ring you cut from Samuel Fisher’s hand. It was once mine.’

  The words echoed on into the four corners of the room and this time there was no mistaking the naked malevolence on Cyrus Winter’s face. Screams and raucous yells came from beyond the door but the air inside was charged with something infinitely worse.

  Kate clung to the shreds of her self-control and wondered why Luciano did not make an end. He must know that it was dangerous to linger … and that the man in the chair knew it too and was playing for time.

  Then, ‘Yours?’ grated Winter, in a voice suddenly stripped of all pretence. ‘Then take it, you poor, ill-formed bastard. Take it!’ And, dragging the emerald from his hand, he hurled it straight at Luciano’s face.

  Luciano stepped from its path and heard it strike the wall behind him. It was almost time to ask the only question that mattered; almost, but not quite. And so, without once moving his eyes from the other man’s face, he waited.

  ‘Fisher – that stinking old goat?’ spat Winter. ‘Yes. I killed him. Indeed, I rather enjoyed doing it. But why should you care?’

  ‘I don’t,’ replied Luciano softly. ‘Or less, perhaps, than I care for the deaths of my father and Richard Maxwell and the woman your cut-throats murdered in my house. But you can tell me why Fisher had to die, if you like. After all, we’ve very little left to say to one another, have we?’

  ‘Enough, I think, to stop you from touching me,’ came the swift, savage taunt. ‘But by all means let us pass a little time talking about Fisher. He knew, you see. Did you never suspect it? He knew that it was I who had orchestrated both the indictment against your father and the evidence that would convict him. He discovered it after the trial when he tried to put the squeeze on Giles Langley.’

  Luciano drew a slightly ragged breath.

  ‘Langley told him?’

  ‘You really don’t know very much, do you? Of course Langley told him – though I didn’t know it at the time. He was my go-between, the weak link in my chain – and the only one holding a potentially incriminating document with my name on it. A document, I might add, that would have meant nothing to anyone who didn’t know the full story.’

  ‘But Langley did know it – so you drowned him.’ Luciano could feel cramp beginning to stir in the hand that held the pistol and was distantly grateful that his nerves had so far remained steady. ‘I take it, however, that he’d already given the document he held to Fisher.’

  ‘Ah. So you do have a brain. Yes. He thought it would protect him. Fisher, of course, had more sense than to attempt to use it against me – or even admit that he had it. Then you turned up … and he realised he had something we both wanted and could drive the price up as high as he liked.’ Winter shrugged. ‘His mistake.’

  ‘Because, once you’d worked out who I was, you couldn’t take the risk that I’d outbid you.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Yes. Tell me … do you sleep at nights?’

  ‘Better, I imagine, than you have done these past two years,’ replied Winter, with a short abrasive laugh. ‘How did you like knowing yourself at my mercy, I wonder? Did you enjoy the kickings, the fires, the arrests and the abduction of your brother-in-law’s brat? Were your gutless dealings with Ferrars and Webb worth the cost of bringing yourself to my attention? I doubt it. For I knew everything about you, my pathetic, misshapen cretin. And I could have killed you at any time.’

  ‘Then it is your misfortune that you didn’t, isn’t it?’ observed Luciano. He let the pause develop until it lapped the edges of the room. Then, at long last, he said carefully, ‘And now … now you will tell me why you destroyed my father.’

  Thank God, thought Kate. Every bone and muscle in her body burned with tension and she was leaning heavily against the makeshift barricade. Thank God.

  Cyrus Winter sank back in his chair and folded his arms.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said, with soft derision. ‘No. I don’t think I will. For that’s the only thing you really want to know, isn’t it? So telling you would be tantamount to cutting my own throat. And that would be a pity – because, from the noise outside, I’d say your friends won’t be able to hold the door for much longer.’

  It was unfortunately true. A miscellany of thuds and angry, shouting voices emanated from the other side of the oak panels, followed by the clash of swords and, finally, a shot. Luciano’s steely calm, however, did not waver by so much as hair’s breadth. He said, ‘Perhaps – perhaps not. But if you think that will help you, I fear you are misreading the situation. And in the meantime, my servant is an artist with a knife. You’d be surprised at the amount of damage he can inflict without in the least endangering your life. So I’ll ask just once more. Why did you destroy my father?’

  Abruptly abandoning his careless pose, Winter sat up and twisted his head as Selim approached, smiling.

  ‘You’re bluffing!’

  Luciano merely shrugged and, without turning round, said, ‘Caterina. Go into the other room. Now.’

  His tone told her that he meant it. Fortunately, it told Cyrus Winter the same thing and, for the first time, a flicker of
fear appeared in his face. Without taking his eyes from the bright, wickedly advancing blade, he said sharply, ‘All right – all right. I’ll tell you.’

  ‘I thought perhaps you might.’ Luciano sent Selim back to the door with an almost imperceptible movement of his head. ‘Well? I’m listening. And you’d better make it quick. It all began with money, I suppose?’

  ‘How else? You don’t suppose I associate with Papist bloodsuckers for the pleasure of their company, do you?’

  ‘Stick to the point.’

  ‘The point? The point is that I’d gone through one fortune and needed to found another,’ came the bitter response. ‘So I borrowed twenty thousand pounds from Alessandro Falcieri and invested it in Irish land.’

  Luciano’s breath leaked away.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ he murmured. And then, ‘Let me guess. My father found out how you were using the money and recalled it.’

  ‘More than that,’ sneered Winter. ‘He had the insolence to lecture me on what he called “the shocking evils of profiteering and exploitation”. He drew a long and harrowing picture of what I and others were doing to the Irish – casting the poor Papist bogtrotters off their land to starve. And then he threatened to ruin me if I didn’t restore every acre I’d bought.’

  ‘Yes. He would.’ The last hour was beginning to take its toll and Luciano’s voice had grown curiously remote. He thought about Gianetta and Liam and the sudden ironic aptness of it all. Then, pulling himself together, he said, ‘Only, of course, you didn’t. There was too much money to be made. So you decided to do away with both your debt and my father in one move. Except that it wasn’t one move, was it? It was a whole five-act bloody drama.’