Every one of Haggett’s troopers was down.
But for Trencher.
The big man’s horse was blood-slathered, its eyes wide with terror as Trencher wrenched the reins and hauled it round and kicked his heels and screamed. Tom dropped his sword and the poll-axe and grasped the arm thrust towards him, his left hand somehow grabbing hold of Trencher’s baldrick as he thundered past. He clung on, swords striking his buff-coat and backplate, his feet thumping against the ground as Trencher’s brave mare carried them out of that murderous maelstrom, back up the rise past dead men and dead horses.
Towards the Red and Blue regiments of the London Trained Bands who had at last arrived to pour their musket fire into the Cavaliers and drive them from the hill.
His men had ploughed into the thin company, annihilating its cohesion, their horses’ chests breaking arms and faces and crushing bones. Now Mun rode into that screaming chaos. Their pistols and carbines spat lead, punching holes in men. Their blades plunged and hacked and blood flew. O’Brien was slaying men who would have had more chance against the noose or fire or foul disease than they had against the Irishman. Some thrust up with the butts of their matchlocks, using the things like unwieldy clubs, but Mun’s men had honed their skill through the last winter and become butchers.
A sword struck Mun’s left thigh, not piercing his buff-coat, and he twisted in the saddle to bring his Irish hilt scything down, knocking the hanger from the musketeer’s grasp then leaning out and ramming the point into the man’s open mouth before drawing it back in a gout of blood.
Harley swept his sword down at a man who threw up his matchlock and caught the blade on its stock, but Godfrey came up behind him and struck down, taking off the man’s ear, so that in a heartbeat his lace falling band bloomed bright red and he was mid scream when Godfrey finished the job with a better-aimed blow that cleaved his skull.
Milward shot a man who fell to his knees still gripping his musket, and John Cole urged his horse forward but the beast pulled up and refused to trample the musketeer and so Cole screamed a curse at the animal and clicked his tongue and kicked his heels. He had all but passed the rebel but then leant right over and drove his poll-axe’s spike through broad-hat and skull and the rebel shook like a fox in a snare.
‘Run, traitors! Run, you dogs!’ Jones shouted as those rebels who were able dropped their matchlocks and ran, or limped, back to their fellow musketeers.
‘Let them go,’ Mun barked at those of his men who made to ride them down. For musketeers without muskets were next to useless on that escarpment, yet must still draw rations and encumber the enemy.
Besides which, Mun had more to worry about than chasing down unarmed men. The main body of Major-General Skippon’s musketeers had discouraged Sir Nicholas Byron’s brigade enough that Byron’s men were no longer coming up the hill. Alarmingly they had the look of a regiment about to withdraw and Mun said as much. A few moments later their drummers confirmed his fear.
‘We’re too damn late,’ O’Brien said, coming alongside Mun, blue eyes fixed on Skippon’s men. Beads of blood glistened like rubies amongst the bristles of his beard, but the crimson spray up his breastplate told Mun that the blood was not the Irishman’s own. ‘You should have crawled faster.’
‘You should have ridden faster,’ Mun said.
‘Whatever, we’ve buggered it up,’ O’Brien said, which was true enough. If Skippon’s musketeers had still been involved in a firefight with Sir Nicholas Byron’s brigade Mun could have risked a charge to attack their rear. But Skippon had beaten Byron off, meaning that the rebels could turn their muskets, or at least a sufficient number of them, towards Mun’s troop. To ride at so many loaded muskets would be reckless at best.
‘And now we’re on the wrong bloody side of the field,’ O’Brien said.
‘Well, we can’t go that way round,’ Goffe put in, pointing to the far side of the ridge where that troop of rebel harquebusiers were still fighting. They had ridden around Lord Wentworth’s left flank and were now pouring pistol and carbine fire into his pike stand, the men of which were helpless, their panicked cries carrying over to where Mun’s troop milled awaiting orders.
Mun wanted to lead his men across the crest to engage the rebel horse, for he did not think they would stand against him for all their bloody-minded tenacity. But he had heard drums coming from the west behind them and that could only mean another rebel regiment was coming up. The London Trained Bands probably. To ride across to the other side of the field now would be to risk becoming trapped between rebel foot and rebel horse.
‘So let’s take stock,’ O’Brien said. ‘Byron’s retreating. Lord Wentworth’s pike are being mauled and another regiment under Parliament’s banner is coming up from the west.’ He rubbed the back of his neck beneath the pot’s neck guard. ‘Have I missed anything?’
Mun swore under his breath. The tide had turned and they had all but lost the hill.
‘If we stay close to the hedge we can slip past the bastards,’ Fitch suggested, nodding towards the gap between the great hedge and the right flank of Skippon’s musketeers.
O’Brien nodded agreement. ‘With any luck they’ll ignore us.’
Mun did not see that they had another choice. As for the dead or any too wounded to ride back with them, they would have to wait.
‘I need to get my men off this hill,’ he said by way of agreement with Fitch’s suggestion.
‘Shear House men! Form column!’ His voice was raw and frayed and his throat felt as though it was closing up. His chest was as tight as a drum with the frustration of having failed. If only Byron had pushed on a little further Mun could have attacked the main body of Skippon’s musketeers and they might have won the hill. Instead, whilst they had no doubt bloodied the rebels, they must now retreat. They must slink off like a fox before the farmer.
All eyes on him, Mun praised the Shear House men for their valour and their honour but said that they must now give up the hill and return to their lines. They would do so by riding along the hedge and they would not engage with Skippon’s musketeers.
‘You’ve earned your beer today, lads,’ O’Brien added. ‘God knows you’ve brawled like bloody Spartans but it’s time to save ourselves the trouble of getting killed.’ He grinned. ‘Last one to the bottom buys the falling down water.’
Mun was already moving, the others falling in behind in twos, so that it was in a neat if diminished column that they trotted over to the hedge in order to keep their distance from Parliament’s musketeers. And they did not know that they were riding into a storm of black powder and lead.
The hedge seemed to come alive, roaring, spitting wrath, and Tobias Fitch beside Mun grunted and slumped forward and horses shrieked. Mun pulled up and wheeled his mount round in time to see Milward fall from his horse and Harley’s mare stagger into the briar hedge, which spat more musket balls, ripping Harley’s life from him.
‘Go!’ O’Brien bellowed, firing his pistol into the hedge, the other side of which bristled with rebel dragoons who had seized their chance to flay Mun’s troop. ‘Go, Sir Edmund!’ But the Shear House men did not know whether to ride off or stay and fight, and others drew wheellocks or fired carbines into the hedge, their horses shrieking, eyes rolling.
‘Ride!’ Mun roared, knowing that to stay was to die, as the smoke rose from the hawthorn and rebel dragoons yelled insults and Mun’s Shear House men reeled and died.
A pistol ball thunked off Mun’s breastplate and then O’Brien was beside him, screaming at him to lead them out of that hell.
And so Mun dug in his heels and rode.
The musketeers of the London Trained Bands paid them no notice as Trencher rode towards them, Tom clinging on for his life. Then Trencher veered right and pulled up off their left flank and Tom at last let go of man and beast, falling to the ground in a heap. Trencher hauled his boots from the stirrups and stepped down, then stumbled and collapsed beside Tom, snatching his helmet from his head, his face a bloo
dy mask of terror and fury. The two of them gasping for breath, they watched the Red and Blue regiments march down from the crest to engage the King’s Cavaliers, though it seemed the Royalists had no intention of waiting and were in full retreat back down the hill.
‘They’re gone,’ Tom said, pulling his own battered helmet off and raking sweat-soaked hair off his face. He ached in a hundred places and his body was shaking madly. ‘They’re all gone.’
‘They’re all gone,’ Trencher confirmed, looking back down the hill towards where the remnants of Colonel Haggett’s troop had made their last stand and been butchered. All of them slaughtered.
‘They’re dead because of me,’ Tom said. His voice was a dry rasp, like the last confession of an ancient man.
‘Maybe,’ Trencher said, his chest working like a bellows, matched by that of his exhausted horse near by. ‘But maybe it wasn’t your doing. Those men should have died of fever weeks ago but they didn’t. They stayed alive long enough to fight here today. To win this damned hill.’
Tom’s mouth tasted sour. Bile was rising and he knew he would vomit.
‘You think God saved them from the fever just so they could die here today? For Parliament?’ He all but spat the words.
Trencher’s face was all grimace. ‘Who are you to say different?’ he said.
Tom did not answer that.
He knew he was bleeding but he did not know where from. That could wait.
‘We won this hill,’ Trencher said. ‘Perhaps no one will know it was us. Maybe they’ll get the credit.’ He nodded down at the musketeers. ‘But we’ll know.’
Tom did not care about the hill. He was thinking of Matthew Penn and Robert Dobson who were down there, still. Bloodied and broken in the grass. Defiled by steel and shot. Left behind.
‘Why are we alive?’ Tom said. ‘How is it possible, Will?’ Tom’s stomach clenched and he gagged. But he had eaten nothing that day and so he spat the sourness into the grass.
‘Come on, lad,’ Trencher said, climbing to his feet and picking up his helmet. The next moment the big man’s hand was grabbing Tom’s breastplate above the arm hole. Tom was not sure his legs would work but somehow, and with Trencher’s help, he clambered up. He was still shaking violently.
‘Come on then, Tom Rivers,’ Trencher said. ‘We’ve got work to do.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NEITHER OF THEM had spoken over dinner and now Lord Denton was filling his pipe whilst his fat servant cleared the table. The servant shook his head disapprovingly when he removed the untouched bowl of broth from in front of Bess but she affected not to notice. She ate most days but only enough that she would not starve, for she could not bring herself to enjoy the mouth-watering fare that was placed before them each day. Not with Joseph and Dane languishing down there in the dark.
Bess did not know for how long she had been Lord Denton’s guest. Six weeks? Eight perhaps? Time had slowed to a crawl and she dreaded to think how the men were faring in the cellar bereft of light and comfort and subject to who knew what treatment at the hands of Denton and his men. She knew they were still alive, or rather she knew that one of them was – Dane if she had to guess, given Joseph’s condition when she had last seen him – for Lord Denton would have the remains of dinner sent down along with wine and ale. But she knew no more than that and the worry ate away at her.
Fortunately Lord Denton was a busy man and she only had to bear his company when dinner was served and even then she would ignore his pretence at civility, not that this stopped him telling her of his day and of the fools with whom he must deal in his work at the Royal Mint. And yet she dared not antagonize him to the point of anger for all that she felt ashamed of her fear. Because there was something predacious about Lord Denton. That he sought revenge for his son Henry’s death was clear, but there was a blade’s glint in the man’s eye that Bess believed would have any woman’s virtue on edge. She knew poor Martha Green had aroused Lord Denton’s base avidity and paid the price.
Now, Denton flicked a hand at his servant in a gesture that told the man to fill Bess’s wine cup. At which Bess felt guilty for if she had denied herself food she had not denied herself wine. It numbed her.
She put the cup to her mouth and felt the wine on her lips and tongue. The white luminescence of a near-full moon spilled through the window to wash a third of the candle-lit room in its purer light. She had heard talk of a great battle at Newbury but she knew not the outcome nor which of the King’s or Parliament’s armies had clashed, though from Lord Denton’s demeanour she guessed all had not gone well for the King. She had contemplated asking him about it but had decided against it lest he mistake curiosity for cordiality.
I must try to escape, she thought now, watching him, afraid even that he might somehow be able to read her mind. She realized then that she would gladly watch Dane kill Lord Denton. But Dane was helpless, a prisoner bound and gagged in the cellar below them, and she was alone.
‘My brothers will come,’ she said. ‘When they find out I am a prisoner here, they will come.’
Lord Denton stopped thumbing tobacco into his pipe and looked up at her, his blue eyes glinting in the candlelight.
‘Oh, Miss Rivers, but I’m counting on it,’ he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Family history and his storytelling hero, Bernard Cornwell, inspired Giles Kristian to begin writing his action-packed Viking series. The first book, Raven: Blood Eye, was published to great acclaim and two further highly praised novels, Sons of Thunder and Odin’s Wolves, complete the bestselling trilogy.
Giles’s fascination with the English Civil War began at school, where he appreciated the cold efficiency of Cromwell’s New Model Army but also revelled in the flamboyancy of the Cavaliers and the romance of the doomed Royalist cause. It is this complex and brutal conflict that provides the backcloth to his new historical series, The Bleeding Land.
He lives in Leicestershire. To find out more, visit www.gileskristian.com
As he’s been working on The Bleeding Land series, Giles has been asked many questions about his writing, what inspires him and his choice of historical subject matter. The Q&A over the page lists just some of them.
A Q&A WITH GILES KRISTIAN
What first inspired you to think you might one day be a writer?
I don’t know. Perhaps it was the poetry of Seamus Heaney. I remember reading ‘Digging’ from Death of a Naturalist, aged about seventeen, and feeling the words so keenly. The poem resonated with me utterly. It still does. I think that even back then, when I read it, I somehow knew that my path was to be a writer, too. I’m sitting here now remembering Seamus Heaney’s poems, the likes of Mid Term Break about the death of his four-year-old brother, and I feel the power of his craft, the emotion of it balling hot in my chest. Since then I’ve wanted people to ‘feel’ my words as I ‘felt’ Heaney’s.
Why do you think you are so drawn to history?
I live at once encumbered and yet quickened by a sense of history. It’s an obsession really – not in terms of facts and figures, but rather I feel times and places in my blood. This is going to sound really weird, but it’s as though part of my subconscious is there in the past and that my dreams are a gateway through which I catch glimpses and feelings. I write historical fiction because it is my way of going back. Until they invent time travel it’s the best I can do.
Did you devour books as a child?
I was never much of a reader as a child. I know I should probably never admit that, but there it is. It wasn’t until I was fourteen and off school with glandular fever that I read my first novel (by choice at least). That was The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore and my mother had picked it up for me, no doubt thinking I’d be drawn in by the warriors and swords on the cover. She was right. I devoured the rest in the series and I think from then on I knew deep down that I wanted to write novels, to create worlds and tell tales.
Is there a sense of your legacy when you write your books?
I love the thought that long after I’m gone, my children and their children will be able to pick up my books and in some way connect with me. Through my stories they will get a sense of who I was and what made me tick (they might find some of it quite alarming!). I may write fiction, but there’s no doubt that a great deal of my heart and soul goes into my books. When I’m long gone my descendants might read my books and hear me whispering to them.
What inspired you to write about the English Civil War?
I felt it was time for a really gritty novel set during the period. I couldn’t see one out there on the shelves and I thought this was strange given how extraordinary and important the Civil War was in the history of this land. I remember at school being captivated by illustrations of the Battle of Naseby in text books. Some years later I took up fencing and my favourite part of the lesson was the interval, when we would play Roundheads and Cavaliers. This invariably ended with a great melee of flashing foils in which you would sometimes be fencing against two or three opponents. For me there was nothing better.
Do you set yourself word-count targets each day or week?
If I write a thousand words in a day I am happy. Because so much of my day is spent on research it’s not a question of simply sitting there and letting it pour out. But even then I suspect I’m on the slow side. I take my time over those thousand words and they change very little from the day they’re first written. All authors work differently and I’m always fascinated by how others do it, but for myself I don’t do draft after draft. My ‘editing’ process is perhaps unusual as it invariably involves adding words – the seasoning as I call it – not taking words away.
Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) Page 39