Assassin's Reign: Book 4 of The Civil War Chronicles (14 page)

Backhouse took off his helmet, revealing a thatch of auburn hair that stopped abruptly in a thick wedge at his earlobes. He propped the helmet in between his thighs and ran a hand through his sweat-darkened fringe. ‘Well, keep your wits about you. The enemy are never above treachery.’

‘That I shall, sir,’ the sergeant replied smartly, moving out of Backhouse’s path and motioning with his halberd for the barriers to be removed from the road.

‘We are a compact city,’ Backhouse said to Stryker as they cleared the turnpike. Ahead was another smaller barricade, and then the imposing edifice of what the troopers identified as the Outer North Gate. It was not a gate in the traditional sense, for the ancient stone walls – designed to enclose a much smaller city – did not stretch this far north. Rather, this was a huge, gated, bastion of soil and wooden stakes that loomed malevolently over the road.

‘You seem proud of that fact, sir,’ Stryker replied, drawing up beside the cavalryman. He could see figures scurrying at the crest of the works like a frenzied colony of ants, digging, piling and preparing the slopes.

Backhouse’s helmet was now back in place, and he looked across at Stryker through the protective bars. ‘A small town is easier to defend than a big one, is it not? We are not as strong as Bristol outwardly, but we have a smaller area to defend.’

Stryker considered the assertion. ‘Aye, that is one way of seeing things.’

‘We have the Severn protecting us from a land assault to the west,’ Backhouse went on brightly. ‘And the River Twyver is no mean obstacle to the north, not to mention the marshland thereabouts.’

Stryker again turned to look over his left shoulder. ‘Much building work has gone on in the land to the south, sir. I’d wager it is higher ground, and therefore a deal drier.’

Backhouse shrugged nonchalantly. ‘But we have our walls, sir. You can see them clearly from here, such is their stature. Two storeys in some places. And six feet thick.’

Stryker wondered whether Backhouse knew that large siege cannon would puncture six feet of stone in no time, but he kept his peace. What struck him more, was the Roundhead’s seemingly boundless confidence, which was not what he had expected.

‘I had thought to join a retreating garrison, if I’m entirely honest,’ he ventured.

Backhouse gave a deep snort of derision. ‘No, sir. We shall fight!’

Skellen was riding close to the rear of the pair, and Stryker thought he heard the laconic sergeant mutter something about heads being full of bees, but fortunately his mount’s well-timed whicker sufficiently obscured the words.

He thought a suitably vigorous reply was in order, and raised a fist. ‘Praise God, sir! It gladdens my heart to hear of your courage, Captain. But,’ he added cautiously, ‘the King’s forces are strong.’

Backhouse looked defiant. ‘As are ours.’

‘Come now, sir, I am no spy.’

The cavalryman seemed to think for a moment, sucking at his well-kempt whiskers, but evidently decided that he would not be revealing anything that Stryker was not about to see for himself. ‘Our strength is less than we might have hoped, ’tis true.’

That was an almost laughable understatement, Stryker thought. Ezra Killigrew had told him that the garrison now numbered little more than fifteen hundred men, comprised of a hotchpotch of units with varying degrees of skill and experience. Some of Stamford’s solid bluecoats were apparently behind the walls, and that, he accepted, posed a reasonable threat, but they were bolstered by a local regiment drawn primarily from the town’s Puritan elite, very few of whom would ever have fired a shot in anger. Ranged alongside, Killigrew had heard, was a single company of trained band foot, augmented by around a hundred dragoons who had abandoned their base at Berkeley upon Bristol’s capitulation. By contrast, Stryker reckoned, if King Charles came to Gloucester, he would have more than ten thousand men at his back.

‘But we have foot,’ Backhouse continued, failing to read the misgivings that Stryker assumed were branded across his face, ‘and horse, powder and cannon. And, of course, the good men you see here.’

‘You have served before?’

Backhouse shook his head. ‘Alas, sir, but I am green in the ways of war, to my shame.’

That would explain his blind faith in walls erected before black powder had been invented, Stryker thought. ‘You are a local man, then?’

‘A lawyer by profession. Though I hope to blood my troop soon enough.’

Christ
, Stryker thought, you’d better hope they are not tested against Rupert’s cavalry, for the blood spilled will be their own. But he forced himself to nod happily. A man who understood the scantiness of Gloucester’s chances would not have deserted his own army for a place in its feeble ranks.

They passed through the Outer North Gate without hindrance, though Stryker could feel the hard stares of the men up on the bastion. They were musketeers in the main, for pikemen had no use within a besieged town, and their weathered faces and faded blue coats told Stryker that they must have belonged to the Earl of Stamford’s regiment, of which Edward Massie had recently taken command.

‘They’ll get ’emselves smashed in no time, sir,’ William Skellen whispered at Stryker’s side, as Backhouse spurred further forward to lead his troop home. ‘With Bristol—’

‘This is different,’ Stryker said, risking a glance up at the men on the bastion. ‘They’ll have heard what happened to Bristol. Heard of the storming and the looting, like as not. If Backhouse is right, and they choose to resist, they’ll fight like cornered badgers.’

Skellen grunted, evidently dismissing his superior’s concern, but he instinctively dropped back as the troop forged on into the very core of the rebel stronghold. The road was lined with houses, some set on robust stone footings, their upper storeys projecting ostentatiously on jetties, but most were of the simple wooden kind, their antiquated timbers slanted and drooping. From windows and doors, faces emerged. Women and children, gaunt in the shadows, peered curiously at the newcomers like dark-eyed ghouls, each citizen seemingly assessing the riders for themselves.

‘Wary lot, aren’t they?’ Skellen said quietly.

‘Gerard’s brigade is camped outside,’ Stryker replied in the same hushed tone. ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

But it was not long before the more forthright among Gloucester’s folk stepped out to go about the day’s business. Some waved at familiar faces within Backhouse’s proud group, greeting their men as though they were conquering heroes; others gave simple shouts beseeching God to protect their city and the far-away Parliament for which they might soon have to fight. It was a strange ambience, to Stryker’s mind: nervousness for certain, but tempered by a vein of steel that made him uneasy. Gloucester, as Backhouse had insisted, was ready and willing to defend itself.

Up ahead, the road was blocked by another barrier, but this one was built in real stone. Backhouse twisted to address his companion. ‘Part of the original medieval defences, sir. See there? It joins the cathedral walls.’

Stryker followed Backhouse’s outstretched finger. The wall, like those they had seen to the south of the city, climbed higher than most of the surrounding buildings. Behind it, the vast Gothic bulk of the grand cathedral sat in domination of the city, its tower soaring heavenward. Stryker gazed at it, wondering how long it would remain intact if the king’s fire-workers were brought before the makeshift bastions. He remembered the roar of Sir John Gell’s mortar at Lichfield, its incendiary shells punching through the cathedral’s eaves with impunity. It made him shudder.

At the point where the wall blocked the road there was a stout gate, reinforced with iron and flanked by two musketeers in blue coats. Backhouse hailed them casually, spurred forward to speak with them for little more than a few seconds, and turned back to Stryker. ‘This, as you have probably surmised, is the Inner North Gate. It takes us into the heart of our fair city. You will come with me, if you please, and I shall find you lodgings.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘Under guard, you understand.’

‘Of course, Captain,’ Stryker nodded, hardly expecting to be afforded freedom to roam.

‘The men,’ Backhouse went on, indicating the blue-coated sentries, ‘inform me he is indisposed today. His time is taken with the parley. But after you and your companions have rested the night, I may be able to arrange a meeting with him on the morrow.’

‘A meeting, Captain?’ Stryker replied cautiously. ‘With whom?’

‘Why, Colonel Massie, of course. Your new master.’

CHAPTER 6

Gloucester, 7 August 1643

The officer was slim and tall. He wore a simple suit of brown, clamped tight beneath a smartly polished breastplate, allowing only the flourish of a finely woven falling band collar. His features were delicate, his skin pale and his eyes large and dark. His hair, which was a shade lighter than his eyes, was straight and thick, but tousled from dirt and sweat; it reached all the way to his collarbone. This morning he wore a large hat with a simple ribbon tied at its crown, and he took it off as he walked, fanning his face with the wide felt. ‘What say you, James?’

The man at the officer’s side blew out his cheeks and followed his companion’s gaze. ‘Wouldn’t like to storm it m’self, sir, that’s for sure.’ He offered a crooked smile. ‘But you’re the engineer, Governor, if you’ll forgive me.’

They both stared up at the newly erected bastion that would, they hoped, protect the Alvin Gate, which was the main route into the city at the north-eastern corner. This part of the city had not been fortunate enough to fall within the protective embrace of the medieval walls, and the defenders had been compelled to construct fresh defences. Thus, a massive earthen rampart had been built following the course of the River Twyver, a steep glacis running down its outer face to make an assault by infantry extremely challenging. Even now, the officers looked on as Gloucester’s volunteers – men and women desperate to protect their homes against the feared destruction that would come close on the king’s heels – struggled to place spiked storm poles along the rampart’s crest and in the palisade below.

Lieutenant Colonel Edward Massie, Governor of Gloucester, chewed the inside of his mouth. He was indeed an engineer, having served with the Dutch on the Continent, and knew what he was about well enough. But Gloucester was his to protect. The people had placed their trust on his twenty-three-year-old shoulders, and suddenly he did not feel quite as confident in these new works as he had when the first soil had been broken.

‘Well, James,’ he said in his perpetually soft voice, ‘they will have to do. The scouts bring news from Bristol. The enemy come hither, I suspect.’ He turned suddenly, waving a white hand in the direction of a small, portly built fellow with thinning red hair and a permanent squint. ‘Master Baldwin, if you please!’

The man who had been inspecting some of the storm poles waddled smartly over. ‘Governor Massie, sir.’ He bowed to Massie’s companion in turn. ‘Captain Lieutenant Harcus. I hear you intend to lead a sortie later today.’

Harcus grinned. ‘Our brave bluecoats are restless, sir. We hear the malignants are near Wotton. I mean to find them and bloody their noses. A matter of morale.’

‘God preserve you, sir,’ Baldwin said dutifully, letting his eyes switch to the taller of the officers. ‘You summoned me, sir?’

‘You are our Surveyor of Defences.’ Massie looked back up to the bastion. ‘What say you? Will she hold?’

Baldwin rubbed thick fingers across his chin, the calloused skin sounding loud against his stubble. ‘I am a mere stonemason, Governor Massie.’ He paused, but Massie did not flinch. ‘Aye, sir, she’ll hold. Besides, the terrain to the north is too marshy for a landward attack. If the King comes, he’ll look to the south, I’d wager.’

Edward Massie grunted, stole one last glance up at the bastion, raked his gaze southward along the line of the new rampart, and turned away.
Jesu
, he thought, but what a web he had woven for himself. He had joined the Parliamentarian faction because it had offered greater prospects of advancement to an ambitious man, and in short order he had found himself deputy governor of this rebellious city. Stamford had been defeated down at Stratton, events had moved on apace, and now, as if his own ambition was mocking him, he was the sole military leader of the grand old place. It would have been a dream position but for the succession of recent defeats that had left his modest garrison alone in a sea of enemies. By day he looked to the defences, refurbishing the ancient walls left over from long forgotten wars, erecting the new ramparts, positioning cannon for the expected tribulation and rallying the terrified citizenry with promises of stout and Godly defiance. At night he lay awake, listening for the distant sound of cannon fire, always expecting to see Prince Rupert and his Cavaliers on a flaming horizon. God, but he was a long way from his father’s home in Cheshire.

His thoughts often drifted to darker realms: treachery and betrayal. The previous day’s appearance by Gerard’s Northern Brigade to the south of Gloucester had masked a more clandestine meeting. A personal plea from Colonel William Legge, an old comrade now fighting for the Royalists, had made it clear that the king fully expected him to do his sacred duty and surrender the city. Massie had refused, but the night had passed without a wink of sleep.

‘Guv’nor, sir!’ someone called down from the rampart. Massie looked up to see a skinny fellow in the clothes of a labourer. ‘Comin’ on nice, sir! We’ll stop them Popish bastards, sir, in Jesu’s name we shall!’