Devil's Charge (2011)

by Arnold, Michael

  But it was not the snipers whom they should have feared, for now that they had abandoned the civilian screen they were easy pickings for the earl’s men at the walls. Stryker watched implacably as the men below him on the wooden platform let loose a ragged volley that rippled in a great wave across their vengeful ranks.

  It was too much for the attackers. A white flag appeared from somewhere – perhaps, Stryker wondered, a piece of shirt taken from one of his early victims – and a helmeted man was waving it frantically. The earl’s defenders, so impotent for such a long time, were not inclined to curtail their fury, and more shots spat down from the Close, claiming half a dozen casualties. Eventually, however, the earl and his officers managed to regain control of their unforgiving charges. And all was silent.

  CHAPTER 12

  Past midnight, 3 March 1643

  ‘We must look to the north wall, yes?’ the Earl of Chesterfield said as the garrison’s most senior figures sat around a large table in the Great Hall. Candles burned bright on the stout walls, alleviating the gloom of a night devoid of moonlight or the shimmer of stars, their light smothered by the thick blanket of cloud that hung over the city. It was well past midnight, but the earl had called a council of war in the wake of such an eventful day.

  ‘They have only been concerned with the south thus far, my lord,’ one of the assembled officers said in reply. He held a delicate kerchief over his nose to stifle the stench of tallow. The supply of beeswax candles, like so much else in the ill-prepared garrison, had been quickly exhausted.

  Sir Richard Dyott was present at the assembly, and he leant forward impatiently. ‘But that is surely because they do not know the lie of the land hereabouts.’

  Next to Dyott sat a tall, lean man with a clean-shaven chin and a single, grey eye. ‘The north wall is really so vulnerable?’

  Dyott nodded. ‘It is, Captain Stryker. There are no pools that side of the Close, for the ground is too sloped, and our walls there are no higher than seven or eight feet.’

  ‘No trouble for a determined assault,’ Stryker replied. Once the Parliamentarian attackers had dragged their dead and wounded away from the south gate, releasing the unscathed captives amid jeers and taunts from the high walls, he had returned to the infirmary to check on Lisette. Satisfied that she was recovering well, he had returned to the palace to take up his new-found place as adviser to the earl. It was a strange situation, for many of the council remained wary of him and his companions, but the earl, encouraged by Dyott and Barkworth, had decided to trust him for the moment at least.

  Dyott jerked his chin towards the man positioned the other side of Stryker. ‘A lofty fellow like Sergeant Skellen, there, could vault it, like as not. It is only a matter of time before the local Parliament men tell their new commander.’

  ‘Thank God they have not thought of it thus far,’ the earl said. ‘I wonder if their cowardly enterprise with our kin has set a few minds against them, yes?’

  Stryker thought the earl might well be right. The advance against the south gate had ended in nothing but blood and humiliation for the purplecoats, and must surely have made enemies of many in the town who might otherwise have offered sympathy. But they could certainly not rely on such a hope. There would doubtless remain plenty of support for the rebels, and one of those folk must surely recommend an attack from the north before long.

  ‘Perhaps we might station Major Edberg’s dragoons out by the north wall?’ Stryker suggested. ‘He would, at least, be in a position to quickly harry any that might come over.’

  Edberg was sat, stone still and glowering, at the far end of the table. He threw Stryker a baleful gaze. ‘I do not take orders from criminals.’

  Stryker opened his mouth to offer a stinging retort, but Chesterfield thumped his chubby fist on to the table’s polished surface. ‘Enough of this, Major! Your charge is taken seriously, sir, but the safety of this garrison is paramount.’

  ‘My lord, I do not question your judgement,’ Edberg replied, his voice lacking any conviction, ‘but my orders were to apprehend the captain.’

  ‘That’s as may be, sir,’ said the earl, ‘but Stryker is a proven expert in warfare, one of only a handful at my disposal. He remains a free man while Lichfield is in danger. And look around you, Major. He can hardly take his leave of this place!’

  Edberg tensed at the chorus of sycophantic chortles, but knew there was no benefit in arguing further. His menacing gaze twitched from Chesterfield to Stryker, fury barely restrained. ‘North wall, then.’

  Shots rang out. They were distant, somewhere outside in the darkness, and the council of war was immediately at an end. Men stood quickly, moving towards the door and the courtyard beyond.

  Stryker wondered at first whether Dumb Dyott was still up in the tower, putting his punt gun to good use once more, but there was no way he could pick out targets on such a black night, and Stryker, like the others, began to wonder whether another assault was underway.

  The officers, mingling now with their men, who had been roused from fitful sleep by the gunfire, ran quickly across the Close and clambered up the groaning ladders to the walls. They peered out, squinting into the blackness, eager to identify the threat. Sure enough, the night was punctuated by flashes of orange, but those shots were delivered deep within the town in the direction of the south-west.

  ‘Look there!’ a voice near Stryker cried out, and he turned with the others to see more flashes, accompanied by more crackling musketry, away to the north-west.

  At once it became clear. A force had circled around Lichfield and launched a two-pronged attack against the Roundhead occupiers. Now, in the smallest hours of early morning, battle raged.

  ‘It is king’s men!’ another voice burst forth excitedly from the mass of bodies on the viewing platform. ‘A relief force! We are saved!’

  As the Earl of Chesterfield boomed a great huzza, and his garrison cheered until they were hoarse, Stryker turned away from the bright gunshots and bounded down the wooden ladder. When he reached ground level, a hand grasped his shoulder, spinning him round.

  ‘What news?’ It was Lancelot Forrester. He and Skellen had been unable to get on to the platform due to the sheer weight of numbers already vying for space, and his eyes were like great spheres in the gloom.

  Stryker glanced up at the figures on the walls. ‘Someone is attacking Brooke’s men.’

  Forrester grinned, his teeth shining even whiter than his eyes. ‘Thank Christ for that!’

  ‘Go to the kitchens,’ Stryker said, already walking away.

  ‘Hungry, sir?’ a bemused Skellen called at his officer’s back as the pair followed in his wake.

  ‘No. You’re fetching supplies and I’m fetching Lisette,’ Stryker said hurriedly over his shoulder, ‘then we’re getting the hell out of this bloody place.’

  The trio parted, and Stryker paced quickly along the corridor that would take him to the infirmary and Lisette Gaillard. He thought of her, of taking her out of this House of God that had become a prison, and felt new buoyancy. They had been trapped here by both sides – Roundhead guns without, and Edberg’s accusations within – but the distraction caused by the battle raging in the city had suddenly, incredibly, made escape seem tantalisingly achievable.

  Stryker’s step quickened at the thought. They would take Lisette from her bed – carry her if needs be – and make their way to the north wall. While Chesterfield’s garrison were transfixed upon the fight, Stryker and his companions would find a way to flee. He had considered the incredible revelation of the north wall’s vulnerability with the mind of a defender, taking the fact that they were so easily scaled as a terrible blow, but, now that this new diversion had presented itself, his thoughts were turning to flight. As he saw the infirmary door up ahead, he allowed a small smile. Freedom was finally within his grasp.

  In his reverie, Stryker’s instincts were not as sharp as they might have otherwise been, and he failed to notice the figure that stepped into his pa
th until it was too late.

  ‘Alone at last,’ Major Henning Edberg said quietly, the tip of his sword nestled beneath Stryker’s chin.

  Near Radbourn, Warwickshire, 3 March 1643

  Lieutenant Andrew Burton swore viciously as his leather sling snagged on a jagged branch. He freed it with his good hand, trying to still his heaving chest so that he might listen to the night’s sounds, but nothing resonated above his own blood as it rushed within his skull.

  ‘Where are you?’ he whispered, eyes darting left and right, probing the forest’s dark interior for a flicker of movement or the telltale glow of a firearm’s match. Nothing.

  Burton leaned back on the trunk of the tree that had waylaid him, desperate to catch his breath. For the first time he noticed the cold creeping up his legs, and he realised that his boots and breeches were damp, having absorbed moisture from ground left sodden by thawing snow. Thank God it had not rained, he thought, for his waterproof buff-coat had been jettisoned many hours earlier, a casualty of the need to travel light.

  A high-pitched screech snapped the silence somewhere away to his right, and every muscle in Burton’s lean frame tensed. He waited for movement to register. Still nothing. Probably a fox, he thought.

  He stepped out from the tree, the snapping of twigs beneath his boots sounding excruciatingly cacophonous in the still night, and began to run again. It had been so long, so many hours of running and hiding since that fateful ambush outside an innocuous-looking tavern in Kenilworth. Blaze was dead. They were all dead. He had failed.

  A noise some distance behind Burton made him turn. He saw a flicker, nothing definite, but a movement of grey amid the dark oaken boughs, and it made him quicken his step. He stumbled. A branch, a pothole, a rock. He could not tell, such was the blackness shrouding his progress. He hit the earth, good arm breaking his fall amid twigs and ice-cold mulch. No sound yet. Just his own, heaving, agonizing breaths.

  Burton hauled himself to his feet. His hunter was gaining once again. He could sense it with every heightened nerve in his body. His useless shoulder ached in the tight leather strap. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the sensation for the trivial distraction it was. His breath steamed out with every laboured lungful, white and hectic in the air about his head. He concentrated on the ground, staring, studying, scrutinizing the narrow animal track lest he falter again. He would push on through the night, as he had the night before, and find a place to hide during daylight, moving ever south and east in search of Oxford and safety.

  Now there were sounds. Burton slowed slightly. Turned.

  The shot flew high and wide. Burton ducked instinctively, his foot slipped on a patch of wet leaves. He swore again, breaking into a sprint. It was a man, alone and on foot, that ran in his wake. The same man who had tracked him since the ambush. The man he had considered bested until, like a bloodhound after a scent, he would reappear some way behind, tenacious and hungry for the kill. Each time, though, the distance between predator and prey had been great enough for the latter to safely find a place to hide, or simply change direction and throw his pursuer into confusion as he battled to pick up the lost trail. But this time the man had him within pistol shot. He was simply too close to evade.

  Perhaps before his injury Burton might have fancied his chances against a single assailant who had evidently abandoned his mount when he plunged into the dense wood after his quarry. But, though the shattered shoulder bone had not become infected, its muscles had never fully regained their strength. They had simply withered so that he could barely move his right hand and could certainly not lift the arm beyond a few degrees. Exhausted, unarmed and crippled, Lieutenant Burton knew his chances of survival were slim.

  He ran on, slipping, sliding, chest heaving, heart likely to explode against his ribs. He would not give up. The bullet meant to kill him outside the Two Virgins had whistled several feet above his head, and such a poor shot, Burton told himself, can only have been a sign from God that he was supposed to live. At the very least, he had been given a short reprieve, and he would be damned if he’d give up his life without a fight. That, thought Burton, was the very least Captain Stryker would expect of him.

  Lieutenant Josiah Trim thrust the spent pistol back into the holster at his waist. He was a God-fearing man and would not curse, though he sorely felt like it. His horse, a good one, had been left, tethered and ripe for theft, at the edge of the forest, for the dense labyrinth of branch and root was too treacherous for even the trustiest steed.

  The soldier some sixty paces up ahead seemed more like a slippery eel than a man. He was only young, Trim had recognized that from the close view he had received during the ambush, but that belied a character that was clearly both resourceful and resolute. Trim had been given a day to track down and dispose of the only man to have escaped the carnage wrought at the Two Virgins, and it had seemed an especially easy task when, during that first night, he had come across the Royalist’s lame mount abandoned at the side of the road. But his quarry had proven as adept at evasion on foot as he was at fleeing on horseback, and the day’s grace Major Girns had allowed was now stretching into two, such was the difficulty Trim had had in keeping the trail warm. He was angry and he was humiliated.

  He upped his pace as best he could. Leaping exposed roots, kicking away thickets of brown bracken, he did not take his focus from the grey form of the Royalist up ahead. It was a moonless night, made even darker by the thick canopy of leaf and branch above, but as long as he kept up this pace, the distant figure would gradually resolve from the gloom. He drew a second pistol.

  Burton scrambled through the blackness. The hunter was gaining rapidly, for his fresh legs were powering through the cloying earth in a way Burton could never hope to match with his numb limbs. He hoped and prayed that his pursuer had exhausted his only weapon already, but somehow he doubted such optimism, and he weaved in and out of stout trunks, desperate to make himself a moving target for the next shot.

  He toppled over the brow of the escarpment before he even knew it was there. The ground simply vanished from beneath him as Burton made to plant his right foot on the wet earth, and he pitched forwards, toppling into what felt like oblivion. For a moment he wondered if this was the journey to the next life. Perhaps, he wondered, a pistol ball had finally found its mark and he was already floating into a black abyss. But then he saw trees to his left and right, racing, spiralling, plummeting past him in a blur of greens and browns, and he realized he was falling.

  Burton hit the ground hard. He tumbled in ragged cartwheels for what seemed like an hour, knees, head, back, elbows bouncing against the ground in turns. When he finally came to rest, he clutched a hand to his stomach, certain his guts had been impaled by the flapping sword at his waist, but thankfully the scabbard had protected him from anything more than a sickening bruise.

  He stood gingerly, feeling each aching part of his torso for a break or cut, but finding nothing of note. His mind was slow, as though the heavy clouds had covered his wits as well as the moon and stars, and it took several moments for the memory of recent days to regain, image by image, some semblance of clarity. He remembered Blaze and Rontry, their faces terrified as shots, pouring down from on high, had enfiladed the small convoy. He remembered seeking shelter behind poor Bruce, heard again the sharp report of a single musket shot that flew so close to his head. And then the memory of a scrambled, frenzied escape came back to him in a horrific flood. The dazed, half-lame horse he had taken from the scene, the feeling that vengeful enemies would run him to ground at any moment.

  And then he remembered this night. The race through the woods. The shot at his back. The man he had first seen on the black line of the horizon, who had expertly tracked him to this place.

  Burton tilted back his head, eyes climbing the escarpment all the way back to the high crest. And there, at the very top, stood a figure.

  ‘Thank you, Lord,’ Lieutenant Josiah Trim prayed aloud as he reached the ridge. How he had thought to slow his c
hase at the moment when the ground sloped sharply away was nothing short of a miracle. His quarry had clearly not been so blessed, for Trim had caught a brief glimpse of the man at the foot of the small hill. That man vanished into shadow again, but, Trim thought as he jogged carefully down the steep gradient, to have fallen all the way down would have left the fellow stunned, if not seriously wounded.

  Trim held out the pistol in front of him, ready to pull the trigger immediately now that the range was more reasonable. He scanned the darkness, the trees and bushes on either side of the slope’s foot, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Cavalier fugitive and thus to finally bring an end to this awful, bloody enterprise. He had not wanted to kill. Captain Cromwell had recommended him to Girns only as a tracker, but the zeal that drove his new master was both frightening and infectious. Trim did not wish to disappoint the major – or anger him – and found himself agreeing to join the Kenilworth ambush. But that first killing he had committed seemed to stab like a vast dagger at his heart and soul. When it came to letting his second shot fly, Trim had panicked, lost his nerve, and lost his aim. The humiliation burned in him. At least now he would make amends.

  A rustling sound carried to Trim’s keen ear. He spun to where it originated, a patch of mouldering bracken some ten paces away, and levelled the gun. ‘Come out, sir!’

  A second noise, louder this time, rang out from the trees further to his left, startling him, and Trim turned nimbly to face the possible threat. He was face down in the damp forest soil before he could blink, a great, irresistible force pressing against his back and head. The gun fired into the ground at his side, his mouth and nostrils filled with suffocating mud. Trim tried to fight back. He bucked and writhed and squirmed against the weight, but he was dazed and weakened from that first collision, and each second of denied air saw his strength wane further, as if it were being sapped directly into the ground by some unknown force.