After four or five tense minutes, Burton finally laid eyes on the horsemen. Crouching and concealed as he was, his view was limited, and he could only catch fleeting glimpses of riders and beasts as they cantered along a wider track running parallel to the one he had followed, some fifty paces away.
Burton was exhausted, and his eyes stung and streamed, bathing everything in a surreal blur, but he could see that it was a half-troop, perhaps some forty-five men. They were definitely Roundheads, for flickers of orange carried to him from ribbons and sashes at arm and chest, and all were swathed in the pale yellow of new buff-leather coats, with flared skirts and thinner, flexible sleeves. These were new recruits, he reckoned, freshly raised and bankrolled by some benevolent – and wealthy – patron. The image was further bolstered by the gleaming plate each rider wore at back and breast, and by the helmets adorned with flexible lobster-tails to protect the owner’s neck.
Burton felt a pang of relief. They were an impressive force, well equipped and eager-looking, but, above all, they were part of a fledgling troop. And that made affiliation with the professional killers who had ambushed Burton and his men with such devastating efficacy extremely unlikely.
Burton stayed low. The troop might not have been searching for him specifically, but he would still be captured as an enemy of Parliament; or worse, if they took him for a spy.
‘Go on,’ Burton whispered, the leaves at his face quivering against his breath. ‘Go on, you bastards. Ride away.’
The horsemen were nearly all past him now. His eyes began to sting again, racked with tiredness and the rigours of being forced open during this new alert. He raised a hand, rubbing the lids, feeling beads of moisture tumble from their corners, and, when they felt a little better, he glanced up again.
And realized the sashes and ribbons were not, in fact, orange. They were red.
Lichfield, Staffordshire, 4 March 1643
The Royalist garrison and their families gathered in the Great Hall of the Bishop’s Palace for what victuals the womenfolk could muster. There was not a great deal to divide between hungry mouths that – since the rescue of the captives during the enemy’s failed attempt to burn the drawbridge – had swelled in number to well over three hundred.
‘What are we to do, my lord?’ one of Chesterfield’s officers, a Derbyshire man, shouted to the earl as he watched his small child nibble on a hunk of mouldering bread. Despair etched deep lines in his face and strained at each reluctantly delivered word. ‘We may fight them off each time they come, sir, but how are we to put food in our bellies?’
Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, rose awkwardly from his stool, helped on to gout-ridden feet by a pair of grunting stewards. ‘We will prevail here, yes?’ he said, leaning forwards on his gnarled and knotted stick, his huge stomach swaying low like a sack of turnips. ‘We have held firm long enough for word to reach Oxford, yes? And Hastings has seen our plight, do not forget. A relief force will be on its way.’
‘Before my daughter wastes to nothing!’ the Derbyshire man snapped waspishly.
Chesterfield narrowed his beady gaze, but evidently thought better of rebuking the man for fear of instigating a mutiny. ‘We will prevail, Sir Edward, you must have faith. In King Charles and in God. Tomorrow is Sunday, and we shall gather in the cathedral, come rain or shine, for prayers.’
‘Prayers ain’t gonna fucking feed us,’ Sergeant William Skellen murmured. He, his two officers and Lisette Gaillard were in the Great Hall with the rest of the exhausted multitude.
Stryker glanced sideways at his sergeant, seeing no pleasure in the taller man’s face for having been proved right in the matter of the Close’s supplies. ‘Voice down, Will.’
‘He’s right,’ Lisette muttered in Stryker’s ear. ‘We’ll be starved out of here in a few days at most. Did he not prepare at all?’
Stryker looked at her. He had given his own rations to Lisette in order to keep up her strength, and was pleased to see that she was now able to walk short distances, albeit with his help. ‘He did not expect to be besieged. He thought he could go on taking anything he required from the city.’
She shook her head in amazement.
‘But he may be right,’ Stryker said after a time. ‘About the relief force, I mean. Word will have reached our high command by now.’ He forced a weak smile in response to Lisette’s incredulous grimace.
The boom was as shocking as it was loud. It was cacophonous, as though the very sky was caving in over Lichfield. It was deep, rib-shaking, gut-churning. Terrifying.
The women and children within the Great Hall screamed, their men gaped at one another, slack-jawed with confusion and fear, and then they streamed out through the thick doors and into the courtyard.
Stryker hooked Lisette’s arm around his shoulders and virtually carried her out into the open. There, joined by Skellen and Forrester, they stared up at the brooding clouds, at the three spires and the battlements, wondering what had caused such a noise.
‘Mortar!’ a man bellowed from the direction of the cathedral.
Stryker recognized him as one of the men – fearless with heights and a reliable shot – the earl regularly used as lookout-cum-sniper in the central tower. ‘Come,’ he said urgently, compelling Lisette towards the cathedral.
‘They have a mortar-piece, my lord!’ the look-out was saying breathlessly, his rapid descent having taken its toll on heaving lungs.
‘Slowly, Corporal, slowly,’ Chesterfield replied as steadily as his own concern would allow. ‘Calm yourself. Now; where is this mortar?’
‘Down in Sadler Street, in one of the gardens that runs right up to Minster Pool.’
‘Can we not shoot them from the tower?’ asked the earl. ‘If it is against the Minster, then it is well within range, yes?’
The corporal shook his head. ‘I fear not, my lord. It is well protected by earthworks. They must’ve dug them while it was dark.’
‘Jesu,’ Stryker whispered. ‘The noise was the mortar firing.’
‘Now we know why they didn’t bother attacking again last night,’ Skellen said unhelpfully.
‘Where did the shot fall?’ Chesterfield was asking now, having to raise his voice above the anxious murmurings of the garrison and their families.
‘Well wide, my lord,’ the corporal replied.
‘Thank God.’
Another explosion suddenly erupted outside the walls, cutting off whatever the earl might have said next, and the inhabitants of the Close ducked down in fright, instinctively shying away from the ensuing firebomb. When no calamity befell them, it gradually dawned on the Royalists that whoever was setting the mortar’s trajectory was afflicted with a sorry aim. A desultory half-cheer went up from the tired, hungry throng.
Stryker left Lisette in Forrester’s care and climbed the ladder up to the platform running along the south wall. He peered out upon the city, resting his eye on the gardens jutting out from Sadler Street and, eventually, the earthwork from which a pall of new smoke belched.
‘What kind of evil is this?’ a man stood to his left was saying.
Stryker turned his head to bring the young soldier into his limited field of vision. ‘A mortar is a wide-mouthed thing,’ he explained, realizing that many here would never have seen such a machine before, ‘like a great iron toad.’
The soldier stared back at him, unable to keep his gaze from the mutilated left side of Stryker’s face as he spoke. ‘And they fire it at the drawbridge? It is a poor effort.’
Stryker shook his head. ‘No. They do not try to smash our walls. That tactic was tried and has so far failed. They wish to burn us out.’
The soldier’s gaze widened. ‘Burn, sir? How the—’
‘They take an iron ball, about so big,’ Stryker said, setting his palms apart to demonstrate a diameter similar to that of his forearm, from elbow to wrist, ‘and pack it full of black powder. There is a small hole into which they insert a length of tow, and that is lit to make a fuse. Then they s
ling the damn thing over high walls, for the mortar allows for a tremendously high trajectory.’
The soldier gaped at him. ‘And these powder-shells explode!’
‘They do. Inside the walls. It is not a weapon to destroy a castle, but to destroy the morale of those within.’
‘Chad protect us,’ the younger man said quietly, looking back into the Close.
‘Have faith, sir,’ Stryker said. ‘I am sure God will save us, and dusk fast approaches so, at the very least, they will be forced to wait till morning.’ At least the latter was true, he thought.
A third immense boom reverberated about the buildings of Lichfield as a mortar was brought to bear once more. Stryker ducked behind the battlements, praying the incendiary would not find its mark near the scaffolding on which he stood.
It was not an explosion he heard next, but a great splash, followed by more jeers from the Royalist side. He looked up. The shell had found a home in the Minster Pool.
Near Berkswell, Warwickshire, 4 March 1643
As dusk steadily drew close, the small party of four riders, trotting slowly but steadily in single file, made their way north and east. The resumption of this journey had been a vexing decision to make, for they were without one of their number, but time could not be spared.
‘What about Josiah, sir?’ Tom Slater’s nasal tone carried to the lead horseman from the back of the group.
Major Zacharie Girns, clad in black and with skin so pale it seemed to glow, clusters of warts sprouting like miniature cabbages at his nose and chin, twisted in his saddle to look over his shoulder. He had to lean slightly to see beyond the two riders immediately at his back. ‘We have waited long enough for Lieutenant Trim. I gave him a day, and it was near two when yesterday we broke camp. I will waste no more time on him. If he wishes to dawdle in his task, then that is not our concern.’
‘What if that bugger’s shaken him off?’
Girns shook his head. ‘Impossible. Trim was the best tracker Cromwell had to offer. Besides, I allowed him to go after that last Cavalier because it was his shot that missed.’ In the aftermath of the ambush at the Two Virgins, Girns had emerged from the inn to lay eyes upon an almost perfect vista. Blaze and his servant, terrified and babbling though they were, had survived the carnage without so much as a scratch, while all their Royalist escort lay dead. Almost all. ‘Trim must atone for the mistake,’ he growled, remembering the sight of the Cavalier officer speeding away down the high road on one of his fallen comrades’ horses. ‘But you and I have our real quarry, so we will press on. If Trim is worth his salt, he will pick up our trail. Concern yourself only with our friends here. And keep the grenades close, in case we run into difficulty.’
Slater nodded, leaning across to pat the cloth sack that hung from his saddle. ‘Got ’em here, safe and sound, Major.’
‘And when shall we rest?’
It was the second rider of the four that spoke now. Girns glared at the big, blond-haired man riding some half-dozen yards behind him. ‘Still your flapping mouth, sir, or I shall remove your tongue.’
Jonathan Blaze grimaced. ‘But I am exhausted!’
‘We ain’t been travellin’ long!’ Tom Slater called from the back of the group.
‘Long enough,’ Blaze responded tartly. ‘And I am unused to such privation.’
Girns ignored him. He hated the way his prisoner bleated like a stuck sheep at every perceived hardship. It was an attitude borne of a privileged life. A life where sovereigns and generals parted with vast sums of cash to secure his services. Girns loathed such men, but he would suffer Blaze’s infernal chatter, for this trial would see him well rewarded.
‘Where are we going, Zacharie?’ Blaze moaned after a time.
‘You’re goin’ to your grave!’ Slater chirped nastily. ‘And it’s Major Girns to you.’
‘Then why do we live yet?’ Blaze sniped back, his voice haughty, unwilling to be cowed by a man he clearly regarded as beneath contempt.
Girns twisted round. ‘Oh you will die, Jonathan, do not make the mistake of thinking otherwise.’
‘Sir Samuel Luke,’ Slater said with relish, ‘Parliament’s new Scoutmaster General. He’s put a juicy price on your bonce.’
‘Glad to see my reputation is worthy of the attention of such a man,’ Blaze replied.
Girns almost laughed. ‘Even in your final hours you are arrogant as ever. Still, I will puncture that pride, just as I did Lazarus’s.’
Blaze stared at him. ‘Lazarus? What have you done to him, Zacharie?’
‘I said, you’ll address him as Major, you Rome-lovin’ antick!’ Slater snarled.
Girns tugged gently at his mount’s reins, and the beast came to an obedient halt. ‘Relent, Thomas. Master Blaze and I are very well acquainted. There is no need for formality.’ Leaving Slater looking baffled, the major stared at Blaze, his green eyes twinkling. ‘Oh yes, sir. Lazarus tried to flee, of course, but he was fatter than I remembered him.’ He shrugged, as if that was explanation enough. ‘It was a relatively simple shot, was it not, Tom?’
Slater licked his thin lips. ‘Easy as shooting a boar in a basket, sir.’
Tears glistened at the corners of Blaze’s eyes. ‘My poor, sweet brother.’
‘He was a Popish traitor!’ Girns hissed suddenly, startling all but his own horse. ‘He would use his knowledge of gun and powder to win this conflict for the King and his sinful lackeys. With that victory would come the insidious tide of Catholicism. It had to be stopped. He had to be stopped. And so, Jonathan, do you.’
Blaze simply stared in bewilderment and fear. At length he turned to the man riding behind him, but his aide, Jesper Rontry, kept his gaze firmly on the ground.
‘Then why do you not put an end to this, Zacharie?’ he said eventually, seeing no support would come from his terror-stricken companion. ‘Leave me dead and claim your money!’
‘Not yet,’ Girns replied calmly. ‘For it is not the scoutmaster’s coin I want. We’ll claim the prize, Tom,’ he added sharply, noticing Slater’s thin-lipped mouth open like a landed carp, ‘do not worry. The money shall be yours.’
‘And you, Zacharie?’ Blaze asked. ‘What do you want? For Christ’s sake, man, where do you take me?’
Girns fixed his green gaze upon the blustering captive. ‘I want your salvation.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘We’re going home!’
CHAPTER 14
Lichfield, Staffordshire, 5 March 1643
The men, women and children of Cathedral Close’s dog-tired and hungry garrison gathered in the great building dedicated to St Chad. It was Sunday and, as the Earl of Chesterfield had promised, they would pray together, beseeching God for a swift and complete salvation.
The earl, his gout-afflicted gait as pronounced as ever, led the procession along the nave in silence, though the lack of chatter or humour was more the result of the congregation’s condition than of any reverence to the glowering stone effigy of Lichfield’s saint.
Stryker and his three companions were there. Three because, as dawn had sent its tendrils creeping across the horizon, Lisette had managed to walk unaided from her bed. She was weak, not least because of the rapidly dwindling rations, but Stryker had never met a more resilient human being, and her vitality was gradually returning.
When they were at the high altar, the procession stopped, and Chesterfield turned to face the assembly like some powerful bishop. The difference being that many in this congregation could barely muster the strength to keep their eyelids open. Men stood stoically, though they seemed to sway a little, women leant against their husbands for support and children simply sat in lethargic stillness, clinging to their mothers’ skirts for comfort.
Chesterfield began with a short word of thanks for the cessation of the mortar bombardment the previous evening. With that final, wayward shot that plunged in a great foaming jet of water into the Minster Pool, the Parliamentarian commander, Sir John Gell, had evidently decided to postpone matters.
‘I
f his boys can’t hit a whole cathedral from bugger-all range,’ Skellen had droned, ‘then they ain’t goin’ to improve much in the dark, are they?’
The sergeant had been correct and, as dusk cast great shadows across the Close, so the black gun and its wicked grenadoes had fallen silent.
The folk assembled before the earl gave a weak but heartfelt cheer, which surprised Stryker at first, for the mortar would surely spring to life on the morrow, once the Sabbath was behind them. The mere thought of a day’s respite – and an extra day for the urgently prayed-for relief force to arrive – was enough to boost spirits, however. It seemed to Stryker that, for every new depredation borne by the Royalists of Lichfield, their faith grew in equal measure. He supposed they had no other option.
‘And on that sacred day, the day of Saint Chad himself,’ the earl was now saying, his voice loud in the cathedral’s high beams, despite its undercurrent of strain, ‘we were sent a miracle. A sign. The man who would have torn up the very foundation stones of this great building was smitten by God. Struck down as he cast his vile gaze over Satan’s work.’
A chorus of amens followed as people remembered the shocking and sudden demise of Lord Brooke, a demise that now seemed so long in the past.
‘Praise Jesus Christ!’ a woman at the front of the congregation shouted out.
‘Praise His holy name!’ a brown-coated soldier near Stryker bellowed in response. ‘And praise His blessings, without which Honest John would not have done God’s miraculous bidding!’
Stryker gazed around the group as more amens and huzzas rang out.
Forrester leaned in close, whispering, ‘Knows how to rouse a rabble, I’ll give him that.’
‘Indeed, indeed,’ Chesterfield cried. ‘Honest John Dyott: the very hammer in God’s avenging fist!’ He peered out across the faces ranged before him. ‘And where is this fair city’s most blessed son?’
At that moment the ebullient mood, so carefully nurtured by the earl, was intruded upon by a commotion back down the nave. Voices were ringing out, urgent but indecipherable from wherever they hailed. With a great bang, the door to the central tower swung violently open.
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