Assassin's Reign: Book 4 of The Civil War Chronicles (57 page)

The laconic sergeant jabbed the butt end of his musket into the mud, leaving it there like a shortened flag pole, and delved into his snapsack. He drew out a scrap of salted meat. ‘Race against ourselves, sir,’ he said, popping the meat into his black-toothed mouth. ‘Got to break in before the tawny boys reach us.’

Stryker eyed the meat greedily. ‘Where did you get that?’

Skellen kept his face impassive. ‘One o’ the wenches at some boozin’ ken, sir.’

‘Did you a favour, did she?’

‘Did her a favour, sir,’ Skellen said.

Stryker decided it was best not to know more, and steered the conversation back to more pressing matters. ‘Any luck finding Hatton?’

‘None,’ Skellen said. ‘No one’s seen him. You sure he’s Skaithlocke’s man?’

Stryker shook his head. That was just it, he was not sure. He suspected this man, Hatton, for no other men had deserted the rebel garrison at the time Skaithlocke had indicated, but perhaps the killer had come through undetected, and they were searching in entirely the wrong manner. Either way, they had found no trace of anything untoward. Perhaps, as Prince Rupert had said, it was indeed all simply another cog in Edward Massie’s complex web of obfuscation.

‘How d’you feel about it all now?’ Skellen asked.

Stryker took a whetstone from his pocket and drew his blade. ‘I wish I knew what the assassin intended.’

‘Not that, sir,’ replied Skellen. He pointed up at the walls. ‘That.’

In truth, Stryker had tried to force their rebel odyssey to the back of his mind in recent days, but he could hardly deny Skellen the chance to discuss it. He looked down at the Toledo sword in his hand, gently running the stone along one of its cutting edges. ‘They’re good people.’

Skellen pulled off his cap and scratched at his ear. ‘Aye, they are. I feel bad to think we’ll soon have to kill them.’

Stryker knew that the statement was loaded. ‘If you’re asking whether the King will offer them quarter, Sergeant, I can’t give you any reassurance. They’ve refused repeated calls to surrender. When we get over the walls, there’s every chance there’ll be a massacre.’

‘Jesu.’ Skellen slumped back against a large piece of timber that had been propped against the side of the sap to give it stability. The gabion sat immediately above them, shielding them from the men on the rampart. ‘Are you glad we came back?’

Stryker was happy with the fine sharpness of his double-edged blade, and he put the whetstone away. He sheathed the weapon and sat next to the taller man. ‘Yes.’

‘Not just cos you’re chasin’ the assassin?’

‘Not just that,’ Stryker said truthfully. ‘This is where I belong. We’ll never speak of this again, understood?’

‘No argument from me, sir.’

The pair stared away to the east. The area had been transformed by Roundhead fire and Royalist excavation to an obliterated no-man’s-land. Lone gable walls climbed out of the mud, leaning precariously at strange angles. Blackened piles of rubble betrayed the places where family hearths had been. The Bible spoke of Armageddon, thought Stryker, and he found himself wondering if this was what the world would look like after that final battle.

Beside him, Skellen had produced a shard of biscuit. The sergeant tapped the granite-like scrap against his boot to rid it of the weevils lurking within. ‘Want some?’ he proffered.

But Stryker was no longer listening. Further to the south-east, along the old road that had once been the main conduit through the annihilated suburb, a man was striding alone, a huge metal tube in his hands. Stryker watched him closely, for something about the fellow had caught his attention. He stared a moment longer, and then it struck him like a thunderbolt.

He pushed himself off the rough timber perch. ‘He has fair hair.’

‘Come again, sir?’

Stryker pointed to the man. ‘Skaithlocke said the assassin had golden hair.’

Skellen squinted along the road. ‘Plenty o’ folk do, sir.’

‘What is he holding, Sergeant?’

‘Looks like a duck gun to me, sir. Captain!’

Stryker was already running. He had leaped from the trench, sliding haphazardly as he hit the slick mud, but gained his balance in a frantic flail of limbs. And now he bolted through the desolate field towards the road, holding his scabbard out at the side so as not to trip, the enemy musketeers heralding his departure with a flurry of shots that all flew woefully wayward. He skirted the foundations of several buildings reduced to almost ground level, and burst out on to the road.

Still the musketeers took aim at his back, but he was out of range now, and he pressed on, closing the distance between him and the blond soldier with every racing heartbeat. Suddenly he was sure. It all made sense. The man had golden hair, as Skaithlocke had said, and he held a fowling piece; it was eight feet of iron and deadly at long range. He had seen one used at Lichfield during the winter, when a man had used one to shoot Baron Brooke through the eye from the very top of the cathedral spire. It was a sharpshooter’s weapon. An assassin’s weapon.

The man saw Stryker coming and his jaw dropped. Stryker drew his sword and bellowed at him to halt. To his surprise, the order was immediately obeyed.

‘Mercy, friend, please, I beg of you!’ the high-pitched plea tumbled from the blond man’s mouth. His face had a look of unadulterated terror, and he released the huge gun, letting it squelch on the churned road.

Stryker held his sword level with the man’s throat. ‘Who are you?’

‘Jeremiah Plant, sir,’ the man whimpered through shivering lips. ‘Local man, is all. Volunteered to fight for ’is Majesty, sir.’

Stryker looked down at the fearsome long-arm half sunk in the morass. ‘Why do you bear this piece?’ He noticed that a detachment of cavalry, probably fifteen strong, was coming up the road at Plant’s back. If the man ran, he would be nicely trapped.

‘I use it to shoot birds for the big manor over at Southam, sir. ’Tis my own gun.’

Stryker stared at Plant for a lingering moment, gauging the man’s expression, but all he saw was fear. He lowered his sword, feeling the tension flow out of every muscle. He felt desperately foolish. ‘My apologies, sir,’ he said, sheathing the blade and stooping to retrieve the grubby fowling piece. ‘A case of mistaken identity.’

Jeremiah Plant looked as though he might soil his breeches at any moment. ‘M-may I go, sir? I’ve m’ new billet to find.’

‘Of course, Mister Plant. My apologies again, sincerely.’

‘No matter,’ Plant murmured, hurrying away towards the Astley’s large encampment around Barton Hill.

‘Christ,’ Stryker snarled at himself when Plant was gone. ‘You stupid bastard!’

‘Weren’t him, then, Captain?’ William Skellen’s sardonic voice sounded at his back.

Stryker turned, slapping a hand on to his face in embarrassment. ‘This thing has me out of kilter, Sergeant.’

‘I can see that, sir. Still, least you didn’t fillet the poor bastard.’

Stryker laughed at that. ‘I suppose that’s something.’

‘And he’ll get over the fright,’ Skellen added with the ghost of a smirk. His sepulchral eyes drifted over Stryker’s shoulder as he spoke, taking in the approaching cavalry.

‘I hope I get over the shame,’ Stryker added.

‘Oh, I reckon you will,’ Skellen replied. He pointed at the horsemen who were now less than fifty paces away. ‘You’ve got plenty else to think on, sir.’

Stryker frowned. He turned slowly, and as his gaze absorbed the cavalrymen stretched across the road, it felt as though the very breath had been squeezed from his lungs. Because, riding at the very centre of the bristling harquebusiers, was a person he had feared he might never again see.

‘Hello
mon
amour
,’ the woman said. She was dressed all in black, perched nonchalantly upon a grey pony that scraped at the cloying muck with its front hoof.

Stryker looked from her long boots, past her breeches and voluminous cloak, to shoulders draped in thick tendrils of tousled gold. Her face was in the shadow cast by the wide brim of her hat, but he knew who it was, all the same. ‘Hello, Lisette.’

Near Somerton, Oxfordshire, 2 September 1643

Lieutenant General Henry Wilmot, first Earl of Rochester, drew his sword. It was a beautiful blade, long, single-edged and gleaming. Its hilt swirled in the Venetian Schiavona style about his gloved fist like a ball of diamonds, calling his men to arms.

They came in their droves. He had almost two thousand mounted Cavaliers at his back, deployed around the pebbled ford, and the rasping sing of all those swords being drawn in unison was like an angelic choir to his ears. He peered at as many of the mad-eyed harquebusiers as he could through the slim bars of his visor, grinning wolfishly at any who caught his eye, and then stood high in his stirrups. ‘
To war
!’

‘
To war
!’ was the bellowed reply.

‘For God and King Charles!’

Again the cavalrymen echoed his cry, and they were off, raking at their mounts’ flanks, sending great fountains into the air as so many fetlocks thrashed through the ford. The horses whinnied and reared, their masters snarled into their pricked ears, whipping them to a frenzy of excitement, and the air chimed with jangling metal and pounding hooves.

Wilmot led the advance. Ahead, on the eastern side of the Cherwell, was another body of horsemen. These rode behind the twin cornets of Middleton and Ramsey, men who reported to the Earl of Essex, and Wilmot sensed they were here to keep him at bay. If that was the case, then he guessed Essex’s main infantry brigades would be on the move. His scouts had informed him that the Parliamentary army had spent the night camped around Aynho, on the great river’s east bank, which meant that they would now need to cross if they were to advance up the Severn Valley. Such a crossing made infantry terribly vulnerable, and Middleton had evidently been ordered to prevent the Royalist cavalry from cutting them to shreds as they crossed. Well, Wilmot thought as he spurred with gritted teeth along the bulrush-choked bank, they would see how difficult a proposition such an order would prove to be.

The Royalists galloped in a great line beside the bank. To their right was thick forest, dense and impassable, but up ahead the track opened out into a broad clearing, and it was there that Wilmot intended to be. He looked back with a whoop of joy, the thrill of the hunt pulsing through every vein and sinew. His men were at his back, flying across the muddy terrain like a flock of giant cockerels, such was the array of colours on display. Blues and greens and reds and purples flashed brightly as they careened through the mouth of the track and on to the open ground.

The Roundhead cavalry were cantering in formation across the small field. They spread out to meet the much larger force, drawing pistols, blades and carbines. The rebel officers screamed unintelligible orders as the space between the two parties evaporated.

Lord Wilmot leaned into his steed’s powerful neck, smelling the musty scent of leather and sweat on the breeze-blown mane, and thanked God he was alive to see these days of glory. Roundway Down had made his name; today would make him immortal. He pointed his blade straight ahead as his thundering column spread out to envelope the Parliamentarians, noticed the enemy cornets fluttering proudly at their flanks, and steered his charge to pick them out. The standard bearers would die first.

‘King Charles!’ Wilmot screamed. ‘Cold steel and warm lead!’

The musket volley took his immense force in both flanks. It shattered the grey afternoon, tearing through the Royalist cavalrymen on the outermost fringes of the column and sending panic through Wilmot’s hitherto ebullient harquebusiers like flame through a dry thatch.

From Wilmot’s position at the centre of the charge, he could not see what new threat lurked in the flanking woodland, only the huge clouds of yellowish smoke roiling out from a tree line suddenly transformed from rural serenity to powder-singed menace. He sheathed his sword as rapidly as he could, taking the reins in both hands and wrenching his horse’s head roughly to the side, compelling the frightened beast to wheel back in a sliding, skidding circle that sent black clods of earth flinging up in every direction. He gave no order, for the unforeseen volley had done his work already. The king’s cavalry had been caught by surprise and now faced the possibility of a sizeable force of infantry on the field. They were not about to hammer home the charge until they knew precisely what foe they faced.

Even as they rode back towards the track, a second rattle of musketry burst forth from the woods. Wilmot cast desperate looks at both the flanks, and though no one looked to be hit, every horseman seemed to shrink in his saddle, chin down and features clenched, as though he rode into the eye of a wintry storm. Except here and now the howling wind was the howl of man, and the stinging sleet was murderous lead.

He stood in his stirrups, craning over the bobbing heads of his men to squint into the trees. There, between two great boughs, he saw the glint of a bridle. And another, and another.

‘Goddamned dragooners!’ he snarled, as they reached the track that would take them out of musket range.

‘Sir?’ one of the nearer cavalrymen shouted above the din of hooves.