‘The ruby then.’
‘The ruby? That is all you seek?’ He shook his head. ‘Then you really are no more than a common thief.’
The Frenchwoman watched Tainton lift a hand to his collar. His fingers appeared presently, grasping a thick cord that looped about his neck. He lifted it over his head, his eyes narrowing as the leather pouch swung like a pendulum from his outstretched fingers.
‘What do you mean?’ Lisette asked uneasily.
Tainton gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘The ruby is a fine piece. Worth a great deal. But nothing in God’s grand scheme. Still, a common thief would not understand.’
Lisette watched the pouch swing enticingly. She did not understand his taunts, but that did not matter now. She levelled her blade. ‘Give it to me.’
Tainton mirrored her move. ‘You’ll take it from my dead hand, Romish whore,’ he hissed.
Lisette stood implacable. ‘And you will have to kill me before you can take to your horse, sir.’
The advancing Royalist regiment marched quickly, for they were becoming easier targets for the defending musketeers with every step. A large house of red brick protected the final approach to the barricade, and the men braced themselves for the hail of shot that would soon come upon them. But it was not the crackle of musketry that greeted their assault. Instead, the air exploded in the thunder of an almighty winter storm, shaking the ground and rocking the houses and shops.
‘Cannon!’ a sergeant screamed, though his alert was unnecessary. Every man on the road knew what he’d heard.
The Roundheads had artillery. Two pieces, positioned either side of the barricade, black muzzles pointing ominously towards the oncoming column. The Royalist infantry scattered left and right, seeking shelter within the doorways of shops and homes. To their relief the heavy ball careened between them, missing limbs by extraordinary chance as it bounced and skittered along the mud, eventually burying itself in the wall of a fishmonger’s.
The second gun had been poorly aimed and its shot had flown clear of the massed infantry. A great cry went up from the Royalist ranks. It started with the officers and spread down to the sergeants with their formidable halberds. They realized that the ordnance pieces had been impotent and it would take them far less time to reach the barricade than it would for the artillery teams behind it to reload the smoking iron monsters. The officers and non-commissioned officers cheered, the corporals shouted and urged, and the men surged forward in their tightly packed companies.
In open battle the attackers might have opted for steady rolling fire, the musketeers presenting by rank, each rank firing and then moving to the rear as they reloaded. But today the strategy was one of speed and shock. The Royalists advanced to within a hundred paces, so that their weapons would be devastating against the mass of bodies beyond the wattle fencing, and offered up their muskets in a single salvo. The late afternoon air was shattered once again as hundreds of priming pans flashed, sending their deadly missiles soaring into the Parliamentarian rank and file.
‘Charge! Charge! Charge!’ the officers cried, and the king’s war-machine – created at Nottingham but hardened beneath a ridge called Edgehill – pitched forward suddenly, pikes levelled and muskets wielded as clubs.
The pikes crossed from both sides of the barricade, points passing in midair, ash shafts becoming entangled like the strands of a basket. In some places the Royalist pike blocks did not meet shoulder-to-shoulder, and musketeers, hammering at the barricade and its defenders, filled these gaps. It was a savage affair, but a near bloodless one, for once the push of pike had been joined the deadly points were often beyond their killing range, and it became a shoving match, a contest of strength and of will. Similarly, the musketeers’ weapons, so murderous when loaded and primed, were no more than heavy clubs when they met the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. With the barricade between the opposing forces keeping the men at arm’s length, the melee was reduced to little more than a street brawl, scarcely deadlier than the annual football match the townsfolk of Brentford had made a tradition.
The lack of fatalities did not detract from the sheer brutality. Men on both sides of the defences found themselves bludgeoned by musket stocks and jabbed by smoking metal barrels. Those in the push of pike were locked in a desperate tussle to force their enemy backward, trapped in the tight mass of bodies by their own unwieldy weapons. The men at the back surged on, digging the balls of their feet into the steadily loosening earth, seeking that vital degree of purchase, while those at the front were leaned precariously over the barricade, close enough to smell the foul breath of their enemy. They drew swords in that close, muggy, rancid fastness and stabbed across the fences and barrels at the opposing ranks. There was no room for powerful thrusts or wild swings, and the blades invariably struck ineffectually at their targets, scoring thin lines on breastplates or biting into wattle and wood as the barricade shielded groins and guts.
As the fight raged, its ebb and flow took on a subtle change. Men were tiring. The will to push had left the pike battailes and the musketeers’ movements were becoming sluggish and ineffective. It was increasingly apparent that a stalemate had been reached.
The Royalist drums started up, announcing the order to disengage, and, like a great beast waking from slumber, the mass of men gradually began to shift into animation once again. The slow separation was punctuated by the odd swing of a musket or jab of a tuck, but men on both sides of the barricade were dog-tired and simply yearned for rest.
The Royalists withdrew, retreating westward down the gently sloping road. The occasional musket-ball whistled above their heads, but none found a deadly mark. The purple-coated men beyond the barricade jeered them. They crowed and cheered and offered challenges. They shouted their defiance and declared that the king’s colours would advance no further this day. They were an ancient, insurmountable cliff-face, letting the waves of King Charles break upon them.
They didn’t know the next wave was rolling in.
Sir Gilbert Gerrard’s lads were sent forward to take up the Royalist initiative. They broke into a swift march as Rivers’ exhausted bluecoats streamed down either side of the road to reform with the main force. They picked up the pace as they began to climb the slope, eventually reaching something near a full canter, for their officers were well aware of the threat posed by the brace of cannon. Those guns, poorly aimed in their first salvo, would be near ready to eviscerate the next wave of attackers.
Stryker was on the flank of the main Royalist column, itching to make an assault. He had no particular wish to fly headlong into the determined foe and their obdurate barricade, except that he now knew where Eli Makepeace and Sir Randolph Moxcroft were hiding. He had watched as Makepeace had hoisted the old spy across his shoulders and disappeared between two buildings adjacent to the barricade.
For the time being, though, he had little alternative but to focus on the battle at hand. Stryker watched Gerrard’s regiment storm forward, closing the gap between the opposing factions, and knew instinctively that their advance was far too slow. The guns would blaze within moments and the brave men of Sir Gilbert’s unit would be shred like parchment.
Turning to Skellen, he indicated the artillery teams with a flick of his head, ‘We need to shift those.’
Skellen followed his gaze, chewing the inside of his mouth as he considered. ‘Fair few, sir. Four to each gun.’
Stryker nodded. Four artillerymen to each cannon presented a formidable obstacle. He was about to offer an alternative plan when Lancelot Forrester snorted. ‘Three of us, old man. Hit our marks, they’ll not stand.’
Forrester’s confidence was persuasive. They had only three muskets between them, but if they could hit the lead crew members it might be enough to dissuade the rest from firing.
The three men split up, Skellen and Forrester staying on the right flank while Stryker went left. They broke away from the column and dashed along the road, careful to stay in the shadows cast by shops and houses.
&nb
sp; As they moved they went through the familiar motions of loading and priming their muskets. By now they were well within range of the rebel saker crews. Those men were busy, frantically preparing their iron pieces to spit fire and brimstone down the slope, acutely aware of their importance to this day’s fight.
The lead man in each gun crew was holding a long stick, on the end of which glowed a saltpetre-soaked match, its tip glowing ominously.
Sir Gilbert Gerrard’s Regiment of Foot were advancing at a pace, but as they slipped along the mud of the road’s surface a sickening realization began to dawn. The big guns could be made to fire before they reached the barricade. They would be caught in hellish rain.
‘On!’ the officers screamed, for retreat was not an option. They ran on, instinctively keeping their heads low. Only when they were less than fifty paces away from the barricade did they realize they had beaten the fearful artillery. In a heartbeat the officers called the halt, and, though sporadic musketry was beginning to spit at them from the purple-coated defenders, they stood firm in order to present their massive volley.
The muskets sparked, pans and muzzles flaring bright in the grey afternoon, and several of Brooke’s men went down. Gerrard’s troops were on the move before the wounded had even fallen. In a moment they were at the barricade and the push of pike was joined with cheers and curses ripping the air as sure as the gunpowder had done moments before. The men of Sir Gilbert Gerrard’s Regiment of Foot thanked God for His divine intervention. It was as if the very host of heaven had spiked the guns into silence.
Back in the main Royalist column, Stryker, Forrester and Skellen congratulated each other, their musket barrels still smoking.
After Gerrard’s men had fought to exhaustion, the drums called them back. They disengaged, allowing Lord Molyneux’s men to take up the assault. Soldiers poured forward, closing the distance between the Royalist column and the barricade in swift order. It was clear that Brooke’s infantrymen were worn down, depleted, bleeding, tired. They had put up a staunch fight once again, letting the wattle and hay and wood blunt the blades of the fresh Royalists, but they knew that Molyneux’s regiment would stand where Rivers’ and Gerrard’s had been. Ruthven would use his vast reserves to attack and rest in rotation for as long as it took, with the surety that eventually the great barricade would fail.
Not far away, an entirely different duel was taking place.
Roger Tainton and Lisette Gaillard cut, thrust and parried in the boat-builder’s workshop. They cared nothing for the men screaming and dying out on the road, or for the great bursts of cannon fire that had shattered the building’s windows around them. Each cared only for the person and the blade in front of them.
Both Englishman and Frenchwoman were skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and they appeared to be evenly matched. Tainton had strength on his side, while Lisette had guile, agility and experience. The cavalryman was protected by expensive armour, born in the forges of Milan, while his golden-haired adversary was clothed in simple doublet and breeches beneath her long cloak. But what she lacked in protection she gained in speed.
Lisette darted forward, as she had half a dozen times already, and jabbed her sword at Tainton’s face. His helmeted head presented a clear vulnerability for Lisette to exploit, but he flicked his wrist up to bat the danger away and slashed a venomous backhand at Lisette’s exposed throat, forcing her to duck and step backwards out of range. They circled again. Lisette lunged, Tainton fended her off. Tainton swept his tuck low and the Frenchwoman was made to bring her blade across to block the blow.
Every so often she risked a glance to the area behind Tainton. This was where he had dropped the pouch, taunting her into making a play for it, and each time he saw her eyes flick to where it lay he grinned broadly.
‘You don’t even know what we fight for, do you?’ the cavalryman said. ‘You’ve never seen it. Never understood. All you care for is the ruby, a trinket you have never so much as laid eyes upon.’
Lisette ignored him. She had been charged with retrieving the strongbox and its contents. That was all she needed to know.
She lunged for the side of Tainton’s neck in a great arc. She was becoming more desperate with every passing moment. Tainton was a good fighter, a classically trained swordsman, and could wield a blade better than most men Lisette had ever fought.
Lisette punched her tuck high, aiming for Tainton’s proud chin, and her black-clad opponent was forced to lift his own blade to block. They closed with one another, swords aloft, steel locked above their heads.
‘You cannot best me, my dear,’ Tainton sneered, their noses almost touching. ‘You are good, I’ll give you that, but nowhere good enough. The contents of the pouch will remain with me and will win this war!’
Tainton was by far the stronger, and he shoved Lisette away easily, but she came at him again, and again, and in their third sally, Lisette thought she might be finally achieving the ascendancy. But then a terrible, gut-wrenching crack split the air between them and Lisette’s forearm jarred painfully, and she knew that the unthinkable had happened. Her blade had snapped, just above the hilt.
Tainton grinned venomously, and Lisette was close enough to see the gleam of his brilliant teeth. Acting instinctively, she hawked as much phlegm into her dry mouth as was possible and spat the sticky spray into the cavalryman’s face.
The spittle found Tainton’s eyes and hung in gloopy tendrils from the end of his nose. It did not blind him, but it threw him long enough for Lisette Gaillard to jam the hilt of her shattered tuck into Tainton’s proud face. The nose, straight and handsome, exploded and Tainton recoiled in a gush of blood and mucus and sinew. He did not release his sword, but the blow knocked his senses and sapped the strength from his legs. Lisette was searching the workshop for another weapon before he could even straighten.
As Tainton’s vision began to clear he saw Lisette a few paces away, bent over, hands scrabbling in the thick layer of wood shavings. Hefting his sword, he staggered forward in preparation for a heavy, killing blow.
When Lisette Gaillard stood, she was wielding a mallet. It was short and stout, no match for the long blade of Roger Tainton, but his reflexes had been dulled by the strike to his nose and he did not expect her to rise from the wood shavings with such speed and ferocity. She launched into him, even as he brought his own sword down toward her head, but the mallet hit home before the sword had completed its arc.
It was not a killing blow. The mallet was certainly weighty, but it was ultimately a blunt instrument and had been wielded with little strength. Lisette had only intended to set Tainton back a few paces, to buy some time so that she could locate another, deadlier weapon. But the mallet caught Tainton in the centre of his chest, above his sternum. Already dazed, the impact sent him staggering back haphazardly, his sword clattering to the ground. As his arms flailed wildly, Tainton desperately sought to steady himself, but he was weighed down by the heavy armour and still shaken by the injury to his nose. It was only when the backs of his legs collided with something solid that his stumble was halted. He rocked back, his eyes wide as he toppled, his face a mask of sheer horror as he realized what was happening. And, with a quickly stifled cry and a glugging splash, he fell backwards into the vat of tar.
The regiments of Molyneux and Blagge had taken their respective turns to dash themselves against the Parliamentarian barricade. They were readily replaced by the men of Sir Thomas Lunsford and Sir Edward Fitton.
Fitton’s lads had three extra bodies in their ranks, for Captains Stryker and Forrester were on the right flank, accompanied by Sergeant William Skellen. They had swords, dirks and muskets, match-cords smouldering, barrels loaded, pans primed.
As the barricade drew close, a man several paces to his left was chopped to the ground by a pair of musket-balls that shattered shoulder and thigh. Stryker knew very well that wounds which were not fatal in themselves could lay a path for a more agonizing death in a day or two, as the devastation caused by flying shot
that flattened and pulverized became infected. He shuddered involuntarily.
Fifty paces; Stryker, Forrester, Skellen and all the other musketeers of the line hoisted their muskets, cushioning wooden stocks into the muscles of their shoulders. The order to fire came immediately and in an immense flash and a bitter, choking cloud of smoke that sent tears streaming from their eyes, they launched fire and lead upon the barricade.
The musketeers waited then, for out of the smoke their comrades in the pike blocks surged in vast units, bristling like gigantic hedgehogs.
Twenty paces; pikes were levelled from both sides of the divide, men cursed and snarled and pissed their breeches.
Five paces; the opposing tertios stabbed home, coming together in a throng of roars and cries, spittle and blood.
And then the musketeers joined the fray, swinging their guns, half-metal clubs, crushing arms and cheeks and skulls like eggshells. It was murderous work.
Stryker was at the wattle fencing, thrusting his reversed musket at faces, aiming to bludgeon and blind the men who dared stand in his way. He was a snarling, horrifying vision of death and violence. His long hair was loose now and framed a twisted face that sneered and grinned like a shark, teeth bared from behind lips that were bloody and split; a face from where a single eye, shimmering with quicksilver intensity, sought out prey and told its victims of a hundred ways they might die. Men quelled when Stryker’s shadow was upon them. They backed away, but only to find themselves pinned by the men behind. So they stood and fought until Stryker hammered each man down with speed and brutal efficiency. The joy of battle had come to Captain Stryker once the fighting became a hand-to-hand affair. He was a musket, he was a sword, he was a saker. He was the fight and he revelled in it. It was as close to death as a man could reach, and yet it made him feel most alive.
Brooke’s Roundheads were tired now, tired enough to allow their weapons to droop. The Royalists saw this and were reinvigorated, for they knew the defenders had had their fill of this murderous labour. With excited energy, they pushed on, tearing at the fences and kicking the bales. A drum-major turned the stacked barrels to kindling with the axe-edge of a halberd. A lieutenant bellowed encouragement as his men forged small inroads into the hitherto stout defences.
Traitor's Blood (Civil War Chronicles) Page 31