Devil's Charge (2011)

by Arnold, Michael

  ‘He’s right, sir,’ Rontry called. ‘Come, ride by me.’

  ‘Have it your way,’ Blaze sighed, and slowed his horse so that the vanguard could trot past.

  ‘You see their leader?’ Girns said, pointing out the party’s foremost rider. ‘He has one arm in a sling.’

  ‘Aye,’ Tom Slater murmured to Girns’s right.

  Girns was at the long upper chamber’s central window. There was another, smaller window to his left, and one to the right. From here they would conduct their task.

  ‘When I throw,’ Girns said quietly, ‘you fire.’

  ‘Simple,’ said Slater.

  Girns looked across at the man crouched to his left. ‘Are you ready to do your duty, Josiah?’

  Lieutenant Josiah Trim was to fire through the left-hand window. He glanced down at the oncoming riders, back to Girns, then down at the riders. ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Then all is well.’ Girns ran a hand over the pocked, pulpy skin of his forehead and closed his emerald eyes. He prayed, quickly and fervently, before fixing Slater and Trim with the most poisonous stare he could muster. ‘I want Blaze alive. Do not fail me in that.’

  The men nodded silently and went to work. Each had three flintlock muskets at their feet, and they set about loading the weapons in turn.

  Girns had already primed his muskets, and instead bent to retrieve a leather sack from which he pulled a spherical object the size of his fist. It was a ball of iron, like a miniature cannon ball, and from its smooth edge protruded a length of match-cord.

  A series of clicks left and right told Girns that his companions had moved their weapons to the half-cock position. They were ready. He rose to his feet, still bowing low so his head would not be seen from ground level, and looked out upon Kenilworth’s sleepy High Street, realizing that the lateness of his quarry’s arrival was clearly a boon from God. Dusk had sent the town to their homes, leaving the streets empty and quiet. The party were immediately below them now; six soldiers out front, Jonathan Blaze and his servant in the centre, and two more soldiers protecting the rear.

  Girns nodded briefly to Slater and Trim, and stooped to collect a candle from the floorboards nearby. It was already lit, tremulous in the cold breeze, and he lifted it gently, reverently, before holding the tip of its orange flame to the end of the iron ball’s dangling match.

  The men out on the road chattered, Slater grinned maliciously, Trim swallowed hard.

  And Major Zacharie Girns stood. ‘God be with us,’ he said, and tossed the grenade out of the window.

  The explosion was deafening.

  Lieutenant Andrew Burton had not seen the bomb, but, as red-hot shards of metal lashed about them in a short but deadly radius, he knew exactly what it was. The wicked device had come from somewhere above them, meeting the mud just behind Bruce’s hind quarters with a wet smack.

  He was surprised in that first moment to find that he was unhurt, and wrenched hard on Bruce’s reins, wheeling him round with all the strength his only useful arm could muster, desperate and terrified in equal measure to lay eyes upon the havoc he knew the grenade would have unleashed.

  The tableau was worse than he feared. Smoke swirled, choked, blinded. Burton could hear screams, could see faces, but they would vanish as quickly as they appeared. Each scream would become muffled, replaced by another from another point within the melee.

  ‘To me! To me!’ he bawled, praying his voice would be heard above the ensuing anarchy, but knowing it was a vain hope.

  It must have been just seconds, he knew, but the roiling smoke seemed to conceal the horror for hours. He urged Bruce forwards, aiming to plunge into the darkness to seek survivors and offer help, but the horse would not move. Burton kicked again, snarling curses at the big gelding’s timidity, until the beast let out a stifled whimper. It was the most pitiful sound Burton had ever heard, and he knew the horse was wounded. From high in the saddle he could not see where the injury had been sustained, but Bruce’s breaths were faltering already. Rasping, as though drawn through water. And his gait was increasingly unsteady.

  Burton blinked savagely, unwilling to let the tears prick at his eyes while there was work to be done. He leapt down on to the muddy street and drew his sword. The cold breeze grew in strength suddenly, and all at once Burton’s group reappeared from the smoke cloud.

  Burton’s jaw dropped. Four of his five leading horsemen were down, shards of metal having eviscerated their bodies with frightening ease. The fifth man had dismounted, but he simply gazed at the carnage as though in a daze. Blaze and Rontry were further back. They were on foot, too, but both unharmed, cowering behind their mounts, and beyond them the two rearguard horsemen were circling defensively, eyes scanning all around them for the next attack.

  And then, as though shaken from a nightmare, Burton’s mind finally sharpened. He knew exactly from where the attack had originated. He looked up, eyes raking across the trio of windows along the upper floor of the Two Virgins. It was then that stabs of bright flame flashed down at them.

  ‘Muskets!’ Burton screamed. ‘Down! Down!’ He saw Bruce had fallen now, his life all but ebbed away save the occasional jerking hoof, and Burton dived behind the sagging chestnut bulk.

  Lieutenant Josiah Trim had one job. He was to kill any of the front six soldiers that might have survived the grenade’s impact.

  He took up his musket, pulling back the cock to its final, deadly position. He watched the smoke clear, saw that two men still lived amid the panic.

  ‘Jesus, Lord, guide me,’ he whispered as he picked the first of his targets. He had joined Girns in order to rid the world of the malignant forces of Popery and a corrupt king. But now that it came to murder, his mind was as confused as the men on the road.

  Trim sighted the dismounted horseman along his flintlock’s dark barrel.

  ‘Lord God. Almighty God. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.’

  He could hear Slater’s shots crack through the air now, and knew he would have to follow suit. He fired.

  Down on the road, Burton was frantically trying to gauge the situation. He desperately needed to keep what little force he had alive, for he needed to defend Blaze. ‘Get down!’ Burton screamed again at the dazed soldier as another musket shot coughed from the tavern’s upper floor. The man did go down, but it was with a great gushing hole in his forehead.

  ‘Help me!’ Blaze was screaming from over to Burton’s left. He sheathed his blade and made to scramble across the mud to where the fire-worker was still hidden behind his horse, but more fire spat at them and he was forced to remain in position.

  A quick glance beyond Blaze told him that both his final two men had been killed, their bodies face down on the street. ‘Jesu,’ Burton hissed, for he knew now that his mission had failed. He knew he would die.

  Lieutenant Josiah Trim took up his second gun. He had killed. Murdered. But that place in heaven for which he had yearned seemed somehow distant now. As though the act had only served to move him further away from God.

  He peered over the sill, cocked the musket and took aim. It was so easy. Too easy. The target was there, unarmed, cowering behind the carcass of his fallen horse. There was no way the man could load a musket, for one arm was tightly bound in a blood-spattered sling. He was a sitting duck.

  Trim took aim, desperately trying to steady quivering hands. The Royalist officer was so close. There were no obstacles between the line of Trim’s sleek barrel and his enemy’s flushed face. He pulled the musket’s stock close so that its kick would be borne by his taut shoulder muscles, whispered another prayer, and pulled the trigger.

  Major Zacharie Girns had known the grenade would make an indelible mark on this operation, but even he had been impressed with its efficacy. He had cut the match perfectly, allowing the optimum time before the flame made contact with the iron ball’s gunpowder-packed innards, and all he and his fellow assassins needed to do was wait.

  The explosion had been designed to take out the six m
en protecting Blaze’s front, and that was exactly what it had done. He had been careful to use the correct amount of powder, for he needed Blaze alive, and could not afford shards of iron to rip him apart as it had done those first half-dozen. Trim was to dispatch any survivors from that foremost group in the initial confusion, while Slater would take care of the pair at the party’s rear.

  ‘Fuck me!’ Slater squealed with delight from the depths of the smoke-filled room. ‘Fuck me! We got ’em, Major! We got the buggers!’

  Girns felt himself bristle at the younger man’s profanity, but there was no time to dwell on it now. ‘Are they dead? All of them?’

  ‘Aye, sir, and good riddance too!’ Slater replied gleefully.

  Trim remained silent. He simply stared down at the bodies that now scattered the road below.

  ‘Let us take our prize, gentlemen,’ Girns said calmly, taking up one of his weapons and running out on to the candlelit landing. Trim and Slater followed.

  CHAPTER 10

  Lichfield, Staffordshire, 2 March 1643

  The alarm was raised at first light.

  Inside the infirmary the cries and shouts sounded muffled, illusory. Precise words, pitched high and querulous out in the courtyard, were hard to discern, the reason for the Close’s sudden panic impossible to ascertain. And yet Stryker instantly understood. He rose from the edge of Lisette’s bed, moving to the rectangular window, and gazed out upon the grey walls beyond. Nothing here. No one running. No one bellowing orders. And yet, from somewhere to the south, from the direction of the cathedral, the alarm went on.

  ‘What is it, mon amour?’

  Stryker glanced back at Lisette, searching for the words that would tell her he could no longer carry out the promise he had made. It had been a difficult enough night, having been forced to finally explain to her the nature of his flight from Cirencester, but he could, at the very least, give his word that he would escape this gaol as he had the one before. But now it was clear that such assurance was no more than a dream.

  ‘Time for a fight,’ Sergeant Skellen replied for him from somewhere deeper in the room.

  Lisette looked from Skellen to Stryker. ‘Trapped?’

  Stryker nodded. ‘Aye.’

  It was all he needed to say, for there could be only one explanation. Lord Brooke had arrived in Lichfield.

  Doctor Gregory Chambers looked up from the emaciated form of the canker-ridden patient a few beds away. His heavy frame sidled towards them. ‘We are to be captured?’

  Forrester was on his feet as well now and he nodded morosely. ‘If our enemy brings a large enough force. And we’re stuck in this hole. Unarmed and useless, like rabbits in a bear pit.’

  The knock at the infirmary’s door startled them all. Surely even veterans like Brooke’s regiment would not have moved so swiftly? Instinctively, they braced themselves for a struggle, Skellen and Forrester striding towards the door, stools hefted like clubs, while Stryker moved to stand in front of Lisette’s palliasse.

  It was with great surprise, then, that they recognized Sir Richard Dyott. He did not stand on ceremony and paced directly into the room, followed by a man of remarkably similar features who carried one of the longest firearms Stryker had ever seen. Dyott noted the quizzical stares and nodded towards his companion. ‘My brother, John. His fowling piece has seen employment only in the pursuit of ducks, but it will have to do.’

  Stryker looked the weapon up and down, impressed by the sight of a barrel that must have stretched to all of seven feet long. ‘Do for what?’

  ‘Brooke is in the town,’ Dyott said breathlessly. ‘He passes through the old walls as we speak. They march this way.’

  ‘How many?’ Forrester asked.

  ‘I do not yet know.’

  ‘What do you wish me to do?’ Stryker asked.

  ‘To fight, Captain!’ Dyott rasped. ‘It is as you said last night. We must bloody his nose, lest Lichfield be known as a town of cowards! For that we need you!’

  ‘Chesterfield—’ Stryker began attempting to fathom how Dyott made it past the guards stationed outside.

  ‘Will agree!’ Dyott interrupted quickly, striding between and beyond Skellen and Forrester. ‘He will have to. We will make him.’

  ‘He did not listen to you before,’ Stryker replied.

  ‘But he listened to you,’ Dyott said, and he lurched forward, taking hold of Stryker’s coat, and dragged him towards the door, ‘before the—incident—with Major Edberg. But now we are in desperate straits. The earl will listen again. Besides, I have a man who has the earl’s ear like no other.’

  They were out in the corridor now. ‘Who?’

  ‘Me.’

  Stryker looked down into the amber gaze of Simeon Barkworth.

  ‘That’s it, my lads!’ bellowed Robert Greville, second Baron Brooke and Parliamentarian General for the Midland Counties. ‘Onwards! They’ll not stand! Upon my honour, they’ll not!’

  Brooke felt as though he were a cauldron. God’s fire burned white beneath him, building his confidence with every prayer, every victory, bubbling up, frenzied and inexorable, spilling over the brim. He sat astride his horse, feeling like some Roman emperor of old, watching his purple-coated troops march through the old barr in Lichfield’s ancient defences. Twelve hundred men to capture this little town. It would be perfect. They would take the cathedral, the very symbol of all Brooke loathed, and then turn towards the great Royalist stronghold of Stafford itself.

  Brooke’s second-in-command reined in at his right hand. ‘What news, Edward?’

  Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Peyto nodded curtly. ‘I have enough men inside the city to begin the assault, sir.’

  ‘Then to your task, Colonel.’ Brooke looked back to the road outside Lichfield. The slower elements of his regiment were coming up now. The baggage, supply wagons, farriers and ordnance. When he looked back into the lieutenant-colonel’s face, he read concern. ‘What is it, Mister Peyto?’

  ‘I fear the malignants will simply scurry back to their Close and shut the door.’

  Brooke’s confidence was unyielding. He stared back at the ordnance as it trundled along the road. At the very rear of the column was a huge cannon; dark, vast and breathtaking to behold. ‘Take the town, Mister Peyto, and worry not. If they shut their gates, Black Bess will come a-knocking.’

  Barkworth seemed to walk on the tips of his toes, such was his evident excitement. ‘Let them come,’ he was hissing in that coarse tone. ‘Let them see how we greet the bastardly gullions.’

  The group – save Chambers, who had stayed with Lisette and his other charges – strode passed the Great Hall, and out into the grey dawn. The earl, Barkworth had informed them, was already outside in the courtyard, coordinating the defence.

  ‘Fanning the flames of panic,’ Dyott added sourly.

  Barkworth chose to ignore the barb for once. ‘Leave him to me. I am his military adviser.’

  ‘What in God’s name are they about, sir?’ Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield and commander of the king’s Lichfield garrison, bawled as he laid eyes on Stryker and his men.

  Chesterfield was at the centre of a score of well-dressed men, none of whom seemed to know what to do in the face of the impending attack. The earl himself was red-faced and breathing heavily. He leant forwards on a stout staff, letting the knotted wood take his considerable weight.

  Stryker approached the group at Barkworth’s heels. They seemed like a gaggle of headless cockerels to him, so many men with more knowledge of plumage than war. ‘My lord, I—’

  ‘Get him back in there!’ Chesterfield snapped across Stryker’s words. ‘I said lock him up, Barkworth! I will not have a man under such a charge at liberty in my Close.’

  Barkworth stepped forward. ‘We need him, my lord. He is the most experienced man in this garrison.’

  ‘And he might very well be a murderer!’ Chesterfield squawked, wincing with the pain in his gouty leg.

  ‘Believe me, my lord,’ Barkwor
th replied calmly, surprising Stryker with his tact, given the little man’s generally scorching disposition, ‘it is men like that you require in times such as this.’ He glanced beyond the panting earl to throw a withering look at the milling courtiers. ‘They will not save Lichfield for you.’

  The Earl of Chesterfield turned back and took in the sight of his well-upholstered retinue. His shoulders sagged.

  That was enough for Barkworth. ‘Do what you must, Captain Stryker. The men are yours.’

  ‘How many fighting men do we have?’ Stryker snapped.

  ‘Three hundred at most, Captain,’ Sir Richard Dyott answered. He pointed towards the men surrounding the earl. ‘These few and their retainers.’

  ‘There won’t be time to mobilize them all before Brooke reaches the Close,’ Barkworth said.

  ‘We’re not waiting for him to come,’ said Stryker.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘We must seize the initiative. If Brooke has only sent a small vanguard into the town, then we must repel it while we can. Make him think twice before making another attack. Muster as many men and muskets as you can. And Edberg’s dragoons. Anyone with a gun.’

  It was then that twenty or so yellowcoated men came pouring from one of the cathedral’s low side doors, a big, moustachioed officer at their head. ‘Christ,’ Stryker muttered.

  ‘My lord! My lord!’ Major Henning Edberg was shouting as he drew ever closer. ‘What is happening?’ His eyes fell upon Stryker and smouldered. ‘And why is this man free?’

  Chesterfield looked from the Swede to Stryker and finally found his voice. ‘He—you can’t—’

  Stryker rounded on him. ‘You did not protect the town, my lord, and now it may fall. But do not abandon its citizens without first showing the rebels a fight. I will lead your men, if you let me.’

  ‘It is a matter of morale, my lord,’ Barkworth agreed. ‘Many of these men have kin in the town. They must be given the chance to defend them.’