Devil's Charge (2011)

by Arnold, Michael

  Twine bobbed his head of thinning, sandy-coloured hair. ‘Indeed, sir, like yourself. I am bound for service with the fireworker, Jonathan Blaze.’

  Redpith looked up sharply. ‘Blaze?’

  Twine smiled. ‘He sent for me, for I once scribed for him in Holland. You know the name, sir?’

  ‘Of course, Mister Twine, I am chief clerk here. The generals can’t even piss without me knowing. Besides, Jonathan Blaze was famed in this land even before his untimely demise.’ Twine’s rosy face drooped suddenly, and Redpith inwardly chided himself for taking satisfaction in the shock he had caused. The boredom of a clerk’s life could turn a man to mean pleasures. ‘My apologies,’ he added, ‘I did not intend any upset.’

  ‘No, no,’ Twine replied quickly, ‘none caused, sir, I assure you. It is a shock, that is all. A rare shock. My time on his staff was enjoyable, so to hear that he is now dead is a blow. I’m sure you can imagine.’

  Redpith nodded. ‘Not least because you are now bereft of work.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, sir,’ Twine replied absently.

  ‘Still,’ Redpith said as he rifled through a pile of parchment that perched at the desk’s edge, ‘I’m certain we can find a suitable position. Money, men and munitions, Mister Twine. The very cogs of war.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Who must grease those cogs but clerks, sir? War is an evil business, Mister Twine, but, by God, it creates employment like nothing else!’

  ‘What happened?’

  Redpith frowned. ‘Happened?’

  ‘To Master Blaze, sir. How did he die?’

  ‘Ambush,’ Redpith replied. ‘Shot to bits on his way to a posting in the Midlands, so I hear. Bad business, undoubtedly, but such things happen in a time of conflict. Be a clerk, sir,’ he said, brightening suddenly, ‘it is damned boring, but damned safe!’

  Twine smiled weakly. ‘Quite right.’

  ‘Ah ha!’ Redpith exclaimed happily, his eyes snaking across one particular scroll. ‘I have something perfect for you. Prince Rupert requires a scribe.’

  Twine’s brow lifted in surprise. ‘Prince Rupert is in Oxford, sir?’

  ‘Indeed he is. Gloucester and Bristol would not open their gates to him, despite first wooing the treacherous felons and then threatening them, so he led his flying column back here.’

  ‘He’ll doubtless return,’ Twine said.

  ‘Be certain of it,’ Redpith agreed. ‘But how does such a post suit?’

  ‘Perfectly, sir, thank you. But may I ask one more thing?’

  Redpith’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Were all in Fire-worker Blaze’s party killed? I was a great friend of his servant, Jesper Rontry, and—’

  ‘All save one,’ Redpith interrupted. ‘One man escaped with his life and found his way here. It is how we heard of the ambush in the first place.’

  ‘Tell me it was Rontry,’ Twine said, his voice desperate with hope.

  ‘Alas no,’ Redpith replied, staring down at the parchments to hide his discomfort. ‘The sole survivor was a soldier.’

  John Twine stepped gingerly through the wood on the outskirts of Oxford. He knew where he was headed, and might have walked with confidence had it been noon, but it was now evening, and, as the dusk air cooled, shadows lengthened into twisted parodies of the trees from whence they sprang. It was an eerie place of dark, forbidding shapes and treacherous root-rutted ground. Not a place to be out for a stroll, especially when hefting a bulging sack full of precious objects.

  Eventually he saw what he was looking for. A small clearing some twenty paces up ahead, a place where ancient elms had surrounded and killed the earth’s foliage with their sun-blotting canopy. He upped his pace, careful to keep an eye on the narrow track for potholes and debris, but eager to make it to the clearing.

  Another shadow appeared; one that moved like a gliding demon through the bracken and branches with astonishing stealth. The clerk froze, for he saw the blade that moved with it. In an instant the shadow was on the path, travelling quickly towards him, the sword levelled with intent.

  The demon’s features began to resolve as it reached Twine. Tall, thin of face, broad at shoulder, with long raven-black hair tied at the nape of his neck, a single eye, the colour of his sword, on one side of his face and a deep, mottled, hideous scar on the other.

  ‘Heavens above, old man, but you’re fearsome as a dose o’ the pestis.’

  The demon frowned. ‘Christ, Forry, I could’ve skewered you.’

  Captain Lancelot Forrester shrugged in the darkness. ‘I couldn’t remember whether it was an owl’s hoot or a fox’s bark.’

  Stryker shook his head in exasperation. ‘You obtained the items?’

  Forrester squeezed the sack so that its contents jangled. ‘Blades, cloaks and buff-leather. All spirited away from the Astronomy School.’

  ‘They will not be missed?’

  ‘Missed?’ Forrester’s brow shot up. ‘Unlikely. They’re using the university buildings as barracks, offices and storage depots. They build drawbridges, of all things, in the Rhetoric School. Law and Logic are now granaries, and Magdalen Grove’s a bloody artillery park. I assure you, Stryker, a clerk with a bag of kit is just one more faceless ant scurrying about. It’s a vast and ever-growing colony. And besides, I played the part of Clerk Twine to perfection. Even the great Ned Allen would’ve been proud of the performance.’

  ‘Well done,’ Stryker acknowledged. ‘What else did you discover?’

  Forrester tilted his head to the side. ‘May we discuss it beside the fire? This bloody bag weighs a ton, and I’m so cold even my arse feels numb.’

  Stryker turned away. ‘Follow me.’

  ‘I’ve good news and bad,’ Forrester said as he strode into the warm light of the small fire at the centre of the little camp. He swung the sack down from his shoulder, letting it land with a muffled crash at his feet.

  ‘Go on,’ Stryker said, thrusting the sword into the soft earth and sitting on ground kept reasonably dry by a thick ceiling of foliage above them. Skellen was already seated, long legs crossed, stabbing at the flaring embers with a long stick.

  ‘Blaze is dead,’ Forrester said, as he fished in the sack, drawing out three sleeveless buff-coats, three voluminous cloaks and three long, leather belts. ‘Ambushed, like his brother. I’m sorry, Stryker, but they already got to him.’

  Stryker looked at his friend across the flickering flames. ‘You’re certain?’

  Forrester tossed the garments to sergeant and captain and kept a belt, cloak and buff-coat for himself. Then he thrust a hand back into the sack to produce a pair of gleaming, newly forged swords and a trio of scabbards. He threw one blade and sheath in the direction of Skellen and dropped the other at his own feet. The spare scabbard went to Stryker. ‘I spoke with Uriah Redpith himself.’

  ‘Chief clerk,’ Skellen grunted. He was standing now, checking the fit of the new buff-coat and buckling the belt across his torso, from right shoulder to left hip.

  ‘The very same. There was one survivor, and he somehow extricated himself from the ambush and managed to meet up with a passing Royalist troop. They were on their way here, so here is where he’s ended up.’

  Stryker lifted a hand to rub his tired eye, wondering how on earth he would break the news to Lisette. ‘Jesu, we were too late.’

  ‘Much too late, old man,’ Forrester agreed, fitting his scabbard at his hip and sheathing the new blade. Suddenly he smiled. ‘But as I said, Stryker, I had some good news as well.’

  A sound of rustling carried to them suddenly from the periphery of the clearing. All three heads swivelled to face the direction of the noise.

  There was a figure, a man, out in the gathering gloom. Stryker stood, jerking his blade from the soil, already aware that if this were an arrest party, then they stood no hope of fighting their way through. He heard the scrape of steel to his right and glanced across to see that Will Skellen was similarly armed and prepared for a ski
rmish. His heart pounded, senses keen and halberd sharp. No sound came from his other flank, and he turned, wondering why Forrester had failed to unsheathe his own blade. To his bewilderment, the captain was grinning like an April Fool.

  ‘Stone me backwards, Captain,’ an unexpectedly familiar voice carried to them from the direction of the dark apparition. ‘It’s bloody good to see you.’

  And Stryker lowered his sword as Lieutenant Andrew Burton stepped out into the clearing.

  Near Tadcaster, Yorkshire, 13 March 1643

  Abel Black and Lisette Gaillard galloped northwards. They had taken a somewhat circuitous route from Lichfield to Yorkshire, prompted by the strong Parliamentarian presence in the Midland shires, but now, as soft diagonal sheets of rain fell at their backs, they began to feel safe. The north was a hotbed of Royalist sympathy, and at York itself they would find the combined forces of the Earl of Newcastle and Her She-Majesty Generalissima Queen Henrietta Maria.

  ‘How much further?’ Lisette called across to Black, who rode his grey mare at her left side.

  Black returned the glance. ‘Hardly a trice! Tadcaster is next on our route, after that we find York!’

  Lisette looked back to the road ahead. It was muddy and was gradually worsening with every minute of rain, but their steeds were steady beasts and could cope with the terrain if handled with strength and care. And strength was something that was rapidly returning to Lisette Gaillard. She had recovered well enough in Lichfield under the care of Stryker and the expertise of Chambers, but now that Black had taken her on to England’s high roads, fresh air filling her lungs and a good supply of food in her snapsack, that recovery had gathered pace. She was not yet fully well, and her shoulder hurt with every jarring hoofbeat, but a new energy fizzed like a grenadoe’s fuse within her veins.

  She kicked at her bay horse’s flanks, urging it on, desperate to be with the queen again. It had been far too long. That prospect, though, was tinged with gnawing regret. A lean face, at once feral and distinguished, mutilated and handsome, appeared in her mind’s eye. Once again she was apart from the man she loved. The man who had risked all to find her. The man who, even now, was seeking out Jonathan Blaze simply because she had asked it of him. ‘Look!’ Abel Black’s voice smashed through Lisette’s reverie like a shell from Sir John Gell’s mortar.

  The image of Stryker’s face vanished and she followed Black’s outstretched hand, her eyes eventually settling on a point some two hundred yards ahead. It was a lone rider moving slowly north along the highway. Lisette watched him for several moments, noting that the horseman wore simple black doublet and breeches. A sword jutted out from his side, but he had no armour or buff-leather of any kind. She looked across at the colonel. ‘Not a soldier.’

  Black shook his head. ‘But he may have news.’

  ‘Let’s see.’

  They gained ground rapidly, and, though he remained in the saddle, it was soon apparent that the rider’s mount was lame. He twisted round upon hearing their approach, eyes widening as he saw them bear down on his position, and began to frantically kick at his horse.

  ‘Why does he run?’ Lisette called, raising her voice above the squelching of the hooves.

  Black frowned in puzzlement. ‘Something to hide, methinks. Hold, sir!’ he bellowed suddenly. ‘We mean no harm!’

  But the rider seemed to become more frantic than before. His head jerked left and right as he searched for a way off the road, but the thoroughfare was enclosed by thick hedgerows, and he quickly realized there was nowhere to go. He turned the horse as the pair drew within twenty paces.

  ‘Good day to you, sir,’ Black hailed the horseman.

  Close up now, Lisette could see that the man was not much older than a child. His face was not only clean-shaven, but fresh-skinned and unblemished. His hair was a mass of tight red curls, and his slender neck betrayed a frame that had not yet thickened with muscle. He might have been only fifteen or sixteen years old, and yet there was something disturbing in his demeanour.

  ‘G—good day, sir,’ the lad replied, offering the colonel a curt nod.

  Lisette studied him as he and Black exchanged pleasantries, noticing that his brown eyes never rested in one place. They did not twitch in practised watchfulness, like Black’s, but almost convulsed. It was fear, Lisette realized. All-consuming fear.

  Abel Black slid down from his saddle, boots sinking into the cloying mud. ‘Where are you bound, sir? Perhaps we might travel together awhile?’

  Lisette watched the rider nod quickly in response to the older man’s suggestion, and wondered why he should agree to such a thing without discovering the identity of the two strangers. And then she saw it, the glimmer of metal in the rider’s hand, and she realized that he had somehow grasped hold of a pistol from a holster at his saddle. Perhaps the foul weather had obscured their view, or perhaps the rider’s tender years had made them blind to the danger he presented, but either way, Lisette understood, danger there certainly was.

  ‘Gun!’ Lisette shrieked in the hope that Black would react, for she had no weapon of her own, but the young man was already raising his arm.

  Black saw the danger now, but it was too little, too late, and the rider’s pistol flashed bright in the drizzle-hazed air. There was a dull fizzing sound, and for a moment Lisette dared hope that the powder had become damp, but then the charge ignited properly, the pistol spat its ball clear, and Abel Black was thrown from his feet as though kicked by a cart-horse.

  Lisette swung a leg across her saddle, desperate to get down on to the road, but the panicked rider matched her by turns, and they were both standing ankle-deep in the mud at precisely the same moment. Lisette quickly scanned the scene, searching for a weapon to snatch up, but Black’s prone form was too far away, wide eyes staring sightlessly up at the hoary sky, a film of rain glistening on his skin.

  The red-headed horseman levelled his pistol again, pulling back the trigger with a spindly white finger. The flint snapped down, no shot came, and it was only then that the trembling killer remembered he had already discharged the weapon. But Lisette was already scrambling across the increasingly slick turf to find Black’s pistol.

  The rider threw his spent firearm into the hedge and drew his sword.

  Lisette was on all fours now, crouched over Abel Black’s still body, scrabbling in the folds of his coat for the pistol she knew he had.

  ‘I—I didn’t want—I didn’t want to do that!’ the young man blurted, almost in tears. He lurched forwards, swinging the steel down in a great arc that might have cleaved the Frenchwoman’s skull in two.

  Lisette rolled away, landing on her back in a shallow ditch at the road’s edge. She scrambled up and sprang into a crouch, just as her assailant was preparing to lunge again. ‘Who are you?’

  The young man gritted his teeth. ‘Just a messenger!’ he cried as raindrops dripped from his curls to run down pallid cheeks, mixing with his tears. ‘A messenger!’

  He lunged again, but Lisette was far too quick for him and sprang nimbly out of the sword’s range. ‘For whom?’

  ‘The Parliament!’ The messenger was sobbing now. ‘I was told to deliver the papers to Tadcaster and not engage with anyone en route. Not anyone!’

  Lisette felt the unusual sensation of sympathy as she looked at this rain-soaked excuse of a fighter. The boy was too young, too naive, too raw for this task, and, though he had killed Abel Black, she knew it had been out of sheer terror at the prospect of failure. It was such a shame, for that rash decision would cost him dearly.

  ‘Why Tadcaster?’ she said, still bent low, ready to spring out of harm’s way when the boy had summoned his next volley of courage. ‘What is there?’

  ‘Our new garrison,’ the messenger replied, keeping his sword-tip in line with the petite woman with golden hair and granite gaze. ‘Town fell some weeks back.’

  Well that was one useful piece of information, Lisette thought. They had believed Tadcaster to be a friendly town, and were thin
king to ride through it to collect supplies and change horses on their way to York. Now she knew better.

  The horseman took a deep breath.

  Lisette saw his movement and leapt to her right.

  The lad lunged with all the strength he could muster, screaming a war cry that was shrill as a spring starling, and rammed the blade forwards. But Lisette was long gone, and her would-be killer flailed at thin air before tripping in the ditch and crashing headlong into the hedge.

  He screamed, in pain and in fear, and Lisette was behind him while he still tried to free his torn flesh from the razor-like barbs that snagged his face in a dozen places.

  Lisette took aim at his back with her pistol. But as she heard him whimper and wail and cry out for his mother, something within prevented her from pulling the trigger. She stared at the floundering, thrashing, pathetic boy, and felt only pity.

  ‘Time to sleep,’ Lisette said eventually, reversing the pistol so that she held it by its sleek barrel.

  The boy heard her advance but, still stuck in the hedge’s sharp talons, could not turn to face his fate. ‘No! Please no!’ he cried, his voice muffled in the clawing foliage.

  ‘Do not worry, jeune garçon, you will wake.’ She hit him hard across the back of the skull. ‘But you’ll feel like your horse sat on you.’ The lad went limp.

  Near Adderbury, Oxfordshire, 13 March 1643

  ‘You’re hardly the most elusive chap to locate, Lieutenant,’ Lancelot Forrester shouted as the drizzle and wind whipped around the group. They had purchased a replacement horse for Burton as soon as the decision was taken to travel north, and now, though the weather made travel interminably difficult, they pushed on as best they could. ‘As soon as old Redpith told me you were at liberty in Oxford awaiting orders, I knew to check all the taphouses!’