A heavy knock at the infirmary door startled the three men, and they peered down the length of the room to where a tall, soberly dressed figure approached.
‘Perfect timing,’ Forrester said. He turned back to Stryker. ‘There’s something afoot in the town. I can feel it in my very marrow.’
Stryker looked past Forrester to study the newcomer. To his surprise he recognized Sir Richard Dyott.
When he reached them, Dyott offered a brief nod and glanced from Lisette to Stryker. ‘How does she fare, Captain?’
‘She lives yet,’ was all Stryker could think to say.
‘Then I thank God for it, though I do not know who she is.’
Stryker ignored the insinuation. ‘What can I do for you, Sir Richard?’
Dyott’s long fingers rose to worry at the waxed point of his dark beard. ‘I asked Captain Forrester if I might come.’
Stryker threw Forrester a quizzical glance.
‘As I say,’ Forrester said, placing the empty wooden bowl on the stone floor and reaching to pick up his hat, ‘there is something ominous afoot. Suffice it to say, our recent sojourn into town will be our last.’
‘Oh?’
‘The common folk are becoming resentful of the earl’s isolation, for that isolation is increasingly construed as abandonment.’ Forrester set down the hat and stretched chubby hands behind him, leaning back, letting his arms take the weight. ‘At first we were confident that two able-looking men, armed and wary as we were, would attract no more hostility than a narrow-eyed glance or suspicious whisper.’
Stryker met his friend’s blue gaze. ‘So what has changed?’
Forrester frowned as he searched for the right expression. ‘A new bravery is taking hold. Their whispers are now shouts. Once furtive glances have become angry, brazen stares. In short; the buggers ain’t scared of us.’
‘It’s true,’ Skellen added, his deep-set eyes remarkable by their glimmering concern. ‘They didn’t like King’s men much when first we arrived, but now they’re all rebel-minded and up for a proper brabble.’
‘Which is why I am here,’ Sir Richard Dyott spoke now. He stepped forward, face suddenly earnest. ‘I have heard Lord Brooke has marched into the county. I fear he may set his sights upon Lichfield.’
‘I’d say he will,’ Stryker replied.
‘And that is why you must speak with Baron Stanhope.’
Stryker almost laughed. ‘Me? To what end?’
‘He must see that trouble is on the horizon. Parliament’s sway in the town grows every day the earl shuts his gates to the people. They want protection. Protection he refuses to provide. So what will they do if the enemy comes?’
‘They’ll do whatever it takes to survive.’
‘They will, Captain. And if the earl will not look to their interests, then they will throw in their lot with Parliament. And we here will find ourselves a lone island in a sea of enemies.’
‘Can you not petition the earl?’ Stryker asked.
Dyott gave a slight shrug. ‘I have petitioned him every day since my return from Coventry. You witnessed one such attempt yourselves. My words fall on deaf ears.’
‘Then why would my words fair any better?’
‘They may not,’ Dyott replied honestly, ‘but you are a man from the King’s army. You have seen the war beyond our little town, and he might deign to listen to you. It is worth the attempt, is it not?’
Falcon Tavern, Huntingdon, 28 February 1643
Zacharie Girns sat at one of the tavern’s low tables, turning the silver half-groat between thumb and forefinger, watching the midday light dance across the king’s face and garnished shield in turn. He glanced up at a sound outside, immediately alert to danger, and peered through the adjacent window, but relaxed when he saw young Tom Slater pacing across the courtyard beyond. He turned his attention back to the coin, feeling the bile rise in his throat as the king’s face stared back at him. Even this small, humble artefact grated at his soul. ‘The king’s image placed on coinage of the realm.’
Lieutenant Trim was standing nearby, clumsily attempting to darn his spare pair of breeches. He tore squinting eyes away from the needle and thread. ‘Sir?’
‘I said the King’s image. It is graven, Josiah.’
Trim raised his brow. ‘You would have Christ, perhaps? Christ with His cross on one side, Parliament on the reverse?’
Girns slapped the coin on to the table, the sound making Trim visibly start. ‘Have you learned nothing, man? The King places his face on every object he might, in hope that we might worship him as we worship the Almighty. But to mint even the humblest penny with an image of Christ. That is all the worse. It is nothing short of idolatry. And why do we fight, if not to purge England of such sin?’
‘Amen to that,’ a new voice echoed from the direction of the doorway.
Girns did not acknowledge Slater, his attention still fixed on the coin. ‘But I like your thought of the Parliament. Yes. Perhaps a small inscription upon the reverse. God’s Justice, or similar.’
‘A hard fight before that happens,’ Slater said.
Girns looked up. ‘Do not lose faith, Tom. Not for an instant.’ Finally he seemed to notice the thin, finger-length tube in Slater’s hand. ‘What have you there?’
The corporal grinned. ‘News, sir. From our man.’
As if a lightning bolt had struck Girns’s boots, he shot up from the stool, virtually leaping across the room to snatch the vellum scroll from Slater’s grimy fingers. ‘Did I not tell you?’ he said feverishly as he unravelled the parchment as quickly as he might. ‘Our patience has been rewarded, as I knew it would.’
The younger men looked on as Girns placed the message on the table before him and snatched up the hat that had been perched on his lap. He rummaged inside, fiddling with the seam of its velvet lining, eventually producing a folded piece of parchment. He set down the hat again, opened the parchment, and flattened it out on the table beside the piece brought by Slater.
‘Sir?’ Trim said inquisitively.
‘This,’ Girns said, tapping the unfurled scroll with his fingers, ‘is a coded message. And this,’ he made the same motion on the scrap that had been inside his hat, ‘is the key to unlocking its contents.’
Girns’s green eyes darted left and right between the two sets of blotchy scrawl, taking in every morsel, absorbing the impact of each word as he deciphered it.
Trim and Slater stood like statues, breath baited, neither wishing to interrupt.
Their patience paid dividends as Girns finally looked up, meeting each man’s eye in turn. ‘We have him.’
‘Blaze?’ Slater asked, though he already knew the answer.
‘Blaze,’ Girns repeated slowly, the word rolling off his tongue with exquisite relish. ‘He is bound for Kenilworth.’
‘Kenilworth?’ Slater echoed, his nose wrinkling, ‘What for?’
‘Kenilworth has a castle.’
‘Hardly important though, is it?’ Slater continued.
‘Do not be so surprised, Corporal. Oxford is safe for the time being, the north will not be busy until the Popish harlot returns – pray God she is drowned in the North Sea – which leaves the Midlands. They are hotly contested at present, and vital to the fortunes of both sides. We must take all the strongholds; Lichfield, Stafford, Kenilworth, all of them, if we are to take the Midlands.’
‘And Kenilworth has high walls and big guns,’ offered Trim.
‘Precisely, Lieutenant. If the right men work their artillery, they will be a difficult canker to cut from the land.’ He gnawed a fingernail. ‘Yes indeed. Blaze goes thither to bolster the walls with his skill in ordnance.’
Slater snorted his derision. ‘In my experience, artillery makes a deal o’ noise and bluster, but little else.’
‘Because the men who take aim are incompetent halfwits, Tom,’ Girns replied. ‘Now, imagine an expert behind one of those giant pieces. A demi-cannon or such. Imagine it pouring its venom straight into our ra
nks.’ He looked at Slater. ‘Noise and bluster for certain, Tom, but murder too.’
‘It’d be hellish,’ Trim offered.
‘Hellish. So we will stop him,’ Girns was beginning to hiss, such was his welling enthusiasm, his green eyes twinkling bright.
‘But Kenilworth’s a long way, sir,’ Trim said tentatively. ‘Would it not be more expedient to send word to—’
‘Enough!’ Girns’s fist crashed into the tabletop with frightening force. He fixed Trim with a glare that seemed to singe the air between them. ‘This is my task. My quarry. Jonathan Blaze is mine to kill. You can never understand. Mine is a higher purpose.’ He straightened suddenly, turning to Slater. ‘Fetch the horses.’
‘Sir,’ Slater blurted.
With that, Major Zacharie Girns stalked from the tavern with a vigour he had not felt since sending a musket-ball into Lazarus Blaze’s spine. Their man had betrayed the older sibling, and now Girns would strike. ‘Thank you, Jesus,’ he whispered.
Lichfield, Staffordshire, 28 February 1643
‘He’s what?’
‘Bathing, sir.’
Forrester’s indignant expression was matched by the rising colour in his fleshy cheeks. ‘Bathing? God’s ankles, man, but we must speak with him at once!’
‘Hold, Forry,’ Stryker intervened.
The sentry stood a little straighter as Stryker came near, puffing up his chest like a cockerel. ‘Like I say, sir, you cannot pass. Not till the earl is ready to receive you.’
Stryker considered forcing the matter, but that would only end in bloodshed and a fight he could not hope to win. He turned questioningly to Dyott.
‘The earl is particular about his ablutions, Captain,’ Dyott answered apologetically. ‘He may be a while longer, I fear.’
Stryker fixed his grey stare upon the leading sentry. ‘Tell the earl I wish to speak with him. It is a matter of utmost urgency.’
‘I will, sir, I will.’
Stryker turned on his heel, annoyed at being dragged from Lisette’s bedside for nothing, and began to stride back down the corridor that would return him to her.
‘Stryker,’ Forrester’s voice called behind him.
Stryker turned. ‘What is it?’
‘It is a fresh afternoon, old man. Let us view the city.’
Stryker could not keep the surprise from his voice. ‘Only this morning you told me it was too dangerous for us now.’
Forrester shook his head. ‘View the city, Stryker. Not walk its treacherous streets.’
Stryker began to decline, but Forrester cut him off, his tone strained, beseeching. ‘Please, Stryker. You have sat inside for days now. Chambers looks to her. Won’t you at least join us while we await Chesterfield’s summons?’
Stryker, Forrester and Skellen stood on the viewing platform atop the cathedral’s central spire and gazed down upon Lichfield. The short day was almost over and the sky around them was the dark grey of rain-soaked slate, thunder grumbling across the distant hills beyond.
The city’s great conduits, Bridge Street and Dam Street, stretched away beyond the Minster and the Bishop’s Pools. Crowded at their flanks were the shops and homes of Lichfield’s citizens, those folk caught in the maelstrom of a war with no enemy.
‘You wouldn’t know,’ Forrester said quietly.
‘Sir?’ replied Skellen, leaning back from the stone edge.
‘That war rages beyond this place. They go about their routines, scuttling this way and that like ants in a nest.’
Stryker studied the civilisation far below. The people did indeed seem to scurry from this high vantage. And more besides. Cattle, horses, street-sellers and carts all fought for space on the dirty streets. Bustling bodies moved to and fro, weaving left and right in the dusky air that would, he knew, be ripe with the aroma of straw and horse-shit. He felt a pang of sympathy for the folk. Despite the prevailing antipathy towards their king, he did not wish destruction upon them. He had seen all too often what war did to places like this, and the thought that Europe’s atrocities would be replicated here brought a twisting sickness to his stomach.
Stryker looked away, catching Forrester’s eye. ‘I am sorry for this. All of it.’
Forrester recognized the morose shadow in his friend’s gaze and slid, back hard against the stone parapet, on to his haunches. ‘Suddenly I am compelled to sit.’
Stryker and Skellen watched him for a moment before following suit.
Forrester took off his hat, placing it carefully at his side, and rubbed his eyes with a tired hand. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a full pipe and a warm wench.’
‘I can help you wi’ one o’ those, sir.’ Skellen unslung his snapsack and began rummaging through its contents.
‘Please tell me you’ve a willing wench hidden away, Sergeant.’
‘’Fraid not, sir,’ Skellen replied, brow creased in concentration as he gazed into the dark interior of the bag. The others looked on as he first took a spare shoe from the snapsack, placing it next to his hat. Then came a sewing kit and a small leather drinking flask, followed by a pouch that clinked and jangled with spare musket-balls. Eventually another, smaller pouch appeared and the sinewy sergeant held it up with a brown-toothed grin of triumph. ‘Got ’im!’
‘Is that what I think it is, William?’ Forrester asked eagerly.
‘Fancy a wad o’ decent Chezpeake sotweed, sir?’
Forrester’s eyes glimmered, and he quickly produced a clay pipe from the folds of his coat. ‘Need I answer?’
Stryker, so detached and morose in recent days, could not help but share Forrester’s infectious enthusiasm, and retrieved his own well-worn pipe while Skellen fished in the snapsack again. Eventually the tall man produced a tinderbox and an old, gnawed pipe and began to pack the bowl with the coarse tobacco. When the pipe held the requisite amount, he clamped the end of its stem between his teeth and handed the pouch to Forrester and Stryker in turn. While the officers packed their respective bowls, Skellen took the steel, flint and char cloth from the tinderbox and struck up some sparks until the cloth glowed with orange tongues of flame. With impressive dexterity, he dipped a sulphur splint into the fire and it roared into life.
‘Jesu, but this’ll be a welcome breath, eh?’ Forrester exclaimed through lips pursed around the clay stem. ‘I do declare the drinking of smoke to be God’s own remedy for tired lungs!’
Skellen had his pipe lit now, and had handed the rapidly burning sulphur splint to Forrester. ‘Welcome to it, sir,’ he said happily as the sotweed rose above the pipe bowl’s rim amid the attentions of the charring light, his face obscured in belching smoke. ‘We’ll all be rottin’ soon.’
‘How delightfully cheerful of you, William,’ Forrester chimed between deep puffs of the acrid vapour.
Charring light waning, Skellen was already tamping down the surface of his tobacco with a small cylindrical chunk of wood in preparation for the inevitable need to reignite. ‘If that bloody bed-presser gets his way, leastwise.’
At this, Stryker looked up sharply, his narrow face and quicksilver-grey eye appearing positively demonic amid the smoke wreaths. ‘Keep some respect in that lofty head of yours, Skellen.’
Skellen concentrated on relighting his pipe. ‘Right you are, sir. Keep me opinions to meself, sir.’
The silence that followed should have suited Stryker, such was his mood, but he was nothing if not aware of his sergeant’s displays of outward disinterestedness that so often veiled startling insight. It would be foolish to let the matter rest.
‘That ill-advised description of the earl aside, what was your point?’
Skellen sucked contentedly at the clay stem, letting plumes of smoke pump from his nostrils to fill the air between and above them. ‘Only that Chessy-field ain’t up for a fight, is he? He should be fortifying this place. Building defences, making it difficult for the rebels to dig him out. Or he should high-tail it away from here, into Wales or down to Oxford. Instead he hides. Takes baths to avoid the like
s of you, if you pardon the expression. Cowers behind these walls as if they’re protection enough. All the while prayin’ they’ll pass him over for bigger fish.’
‘Go on.’
‘My point, sir, is that Brooke’ll see this place as a big enough fish for his supper. The talk in town says his purple-cocks are on the rampage. He wants the whole bleedin’ shire under his boot. Wants the old church smashed away. And that means he’ll want to take this grand pile o’ stone.’ He shrugged and drew on his pipe again. ‘It’s his crazy belly, like Cap’n Forrester says.’
‘His what?’
Forrester beamed. ‘Casus Belli.’
‘Just so,’ Skellen said. ‘The earl’s in this fight ’cause he’ll be in trouble with the King if he ain’t loyal. But Lord Brooke’s in it to change the world. And that means he won’t leave Lichfield alone. He can’t. This fancy church’ll be temptation enough for ’im. So we’ll ’ave to sit here like tethered goats waiting for the Roundheads to come slaughter us.’
Stryker looked at both men in turn. ‘As I said, I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this. You can always leave, Will.’
Skellen simply snorted his derision. ‘You need me to look after you when Brooke comes.’
Stryker felt guilt thump at his guts, because he knew Skellen was probably right, and that the enemy – far from wishing to avoid laying siege to Cathedral Close – would see its capture as a prime target. And he knew that he, Forrester and Skellen should ride away from this cursed town with their skins intact. But Lisette was here.
‘I won’t leave her. Not till she is all well.’
‘We know that, Stryker,’ Forrester said from deep within the smoke cloud. ‘And we shan’t leave you. So here we all are.’
Footfalls echoed suddenly, emanating up from the spiral staircase beneath them, growing louder with each second.
‘Captain!’ A voice carried to them in the wake of the footsteps. ‘Captain!’
Simeon Barkworth appeared from the depths and sprang up on to the platform as the three men stood to greet him, tapping their pipes on the edge of the parapet so that the blackened tobacco was swept away by the breeze.
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