Assassin's Reign: Book 4 of The Civil War Chronicles (32 page)

Cecily drew her mount to a standstill. ‘He is not at Oxford, Lisette. After all this, he is not there.’

Greening reined in his gelding too, his lieutenant issuing orders that rippled down the column to bring the company juddered to a gangling halt. ‘Does it matter, ladies? I will escort you to Oxford where you will be safe, I promise.’

Lisette had been slightly ahead, and now she wheeled back to them. ‘There are more spies in Oxford than anywhere else outside of London.’

Halfway down the line, Waller was barking into the rain. His hackles were up, teeth bared at some unseen foe. The men ignored him.

‘Then you agree with me?’ Cecily said.

‘That we should make for Gloucester instead?’

Cecily’s stare was intense. ‘Aye.’

Lisette thought of the risks of being on the road any longer than was necessary. It was not a pleasant thought, but Oxford, though militarily safe for the king’s supporters, was a seething nest of agents and double-agents, and Collings’ reach would most certainly extend beyond its new fortifications. She nodded. ‘If King Charles is at Gloucester, then that is where we must go.’

Cecily mouthed her thanks, while Greening shook his head in exasperation. He made to speak, but whatever he meant to say was drowned out by the rain, and almost immediately by the shrill scream that drifted up from the rear of the column. They peered back over the heads of the men, but their view was obscured by the forest of pikes that brushed the overhanging leaves.

There was another scream, followed fast by a wail of utter despair that rose like a sudden ocean swell to an ear-shredding din. More men turned now, squinting back down the line as an anxious murmur rumbled up from the ranks. And then it was clear, for the ground was vibrating and more men were shouting. The branches at the side of the road towards the column’s rearmost tail were rustling louder than the rain, as they were thrust roughly aside. Huge shadows moved there, pushing through the woodland on both flanks. Whinnies and snorts pulsed on the wind, a wave of sounds crested by the shouts of men and the scrape of metal, and Lisette turned her horse in a tight circle as she gazed at the unfolding horror that was already sweeping up from the back of the company.

Horsemen. Lots of horsemen. Snarling and stabbing, slashing and cursing. They were under attack.

The south wall, Gloucester, 14 August 1643

‘It is imperative we block that hole.’

Edward Massie stood at ground level, his hands planted firmly on hips, peering up at the damage to his southernmost defences. He was surrounded by a flock of blustering garrison men and politicians, though he seemed to notice none but an elder sergeant, who kept his distance, his tired bones draped nonchalantly against a black-staved halberd. ‘See to it immediately, Sergeant Clements.’

Clements straightened, doffed his cap and covered his mouth as he yawned. ‘The volunteers are exhausted, sir.’

For the briefest moment, Massie’s cool facade appeared to slip and his pale face tightened, but a slow breath in and out of his lean nose seemed to calm his ire. ‘Then put some damned soldiers to the task.’ He pointed a narrow finger at the top of the rampart. This section of wall was the best part of fifteen feet high, and, at the breach, it had been sheared of six, the turf spewing out into the ditch on the far side. ‘More soil, stone, gabions, woolsacks, I care not what. But get it closed.’

The sergeant bowed. ‘Right away, sir.’

Massie nodded sharply. ‘And get an artillery piece over here. I want it pointed straight at the breach, loaded with case shot. If any man appears in that hole, you flay the flesh from his bones, understood?’ He turned away before Clements could respond. ‘Stryker, you are recovering I trust?’

Stryker and Skellen had already joined the crew attempting to patch up the breach when Massie and his entourage appeared. ‘I am, Governor,’ he replied as brightly as he could, though his tongue immediately snaked its way back to the shattered ruin of his missing tooth.

‘Good.’ Massie offered his hand for Stryker to shake. ‘I had hoped to speak with you again. I was very sorry to hear what happened. Colonel Skaithlocke explained it to me. The blackguard Port and his men will be dealt with, I can assure you.’

‘Thank you, Governor.’ Vincent Skaithlocke loomed from the crowd to stand with Massie, and Stryker smiled a greeting. ‘I owe the colonel my life.’

Massie glanced between the two men. ‘I understand you are old comrades.’

Skaithlocke nodded happily. ‘Brothers of the blade, sir.’

‘I enlisted with Skaithlocke’s Foot in twenty-nine, sir,’ Stryker said. ‘My first command was given me by the colonel.’

‘Breitenfeld,’ said Skaithlocke.

The governor was clearly impressed. ‘Before my time, I’m afraid to say, but a bloody day by all accounts.’

‘We served with the Swedes,’ said Stryker. ‘A marvellous victory, but bloody indeed. Near fifteen thousand dead.’

‘A rare baptism of fire, sir,’ Massie said. He blew out his white cheeks. A gust of wind funnelled between the wall and the houses, and slammed rain into their bodies in a spiteful blanket. He drew his cloak tighter about his thin body. ‘I am glad men such as you serve with us. You are content to be with us at our time of need, Captain?’

‘Aye, sir, that I am,’ Stryker replied, and, for the first time, did not feel as though he was lying.

‘Sir!’ a voice bellowed from up on the rampart, a short way along from the breach. ‘Colonel Massie, sir!’

Massie’s eyes betrayed a flicker of fear, and Stryker knew he must be expecting an escalade at any moment. ‘What is it, man?’

The bluecoat moved off the wall, turning sideways on the muddy crest, and let his boots slide a few yards down the slope. ‘The trenches, sir, they’re full o’ water! They’re collapsing!’

The governor bolted on to the mound, immediately sinking in the loose soil, but he jerked his boots free and clawed his way up to the crest. Others followed close behind, and they lined the walls around the breach, staring down at the Royalist saps.

Stryker found himself leaning on a loose slab of masonry, squinting from the black band of the moat to the labyrinthine siege-works that stretched all the way out to the gun emplacements. From within that new-dug warren emerged soldiers with their long muskets and sappers with picks, shovels and a myriad of other tools. Like rats fleeing a blazing ship, they slogged back to the main camp as their works began to disintegrate.

‘They’ve hit the springs!’ someone on the wall shouted in delight.

‘Not all,’ Massie said, tempering the excitement. ‘The ones closest the moat.’

Stryker realized that he was right. The initial report had been an overstatement. The saps had not filled with water as if suddenly becoming tributaries of the nearby Severn, but like the city ditch, the gullies had reached deep enough to disturb the subterranean springs. Gradually, over a matter of hours and days, the water had seeped into the walls of the saps so that now, heavy with saturation, they were beginning to cave inwards.

The people of Gloucester cheered. They fired their weapons at the retreating Royalists and the king’s men fired back. The garrison and citizens lined the walls to witness the miraculous sight. Men and women balled fists, whooping at the heavens and jeering at the ground.

Stryker scanned the dark lines below. In truth, only a tiny fraction of saps had become saturated enough to make them collapse, and the soggy interlude would do nothing to delay the king’s men in the long term, but to the people of the surrounded city this was nothing short of a sign from God, and he could hardly begrudge them that.

An engineer in full body armour slithered out of one of the closest trenches, rolling on to his back like a flipped stag beetle. He wallowed there for a moment while the rebels howled their delight. Eventually he managed to turn on to his front, and, sliding like a drunk on an iced lake, made it to his feet. It was a ridiculous sight, and the folk at Stryker’s flanks poured scorn on the slithering man, who looked like he might be off to joust in his heavy helm. He ran from their taunts and they brayed into the sky. Stryker found himself laughing with them, infected with their joy and sharing their relief.

‘Sir?’

Stryker turned to see Skellen at his side. ‘What is it, Will?’ he said with a grin.

The tall man spoke into his collar. ‘That’s our lads down there, sir.’

Stryker’s mirth shattered. He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Not necessarily, Sergeant.’

‘Even so.’

All Stryker could do was turn away. Skellen was right, of course. They had come here on a mission for Prince Rupert, yet already he was feeling drawn to the iron-hard rebels. He would not admit this to Skellen, but his pleasure at seeing the sap collapse had been as genuine as that of any other soul on Gloucester’s pockmarked walls. The guilt hurt more than his wounds.

Near Oxford, 14 August 1643

They were like a flock of ravens, all black, with razor beaks that glinted like steel. Except these predators did not fly, but rode out of the trees on the backs of horses. Lisette counted at least a score, and though it was a small enough force, the element of surprise had proven deadly for Titus Greening’s ill-prepared recruits.

The black-coated cavalrymen kept coming, bursting through the scrub like four-legged demons, white-eyed mounts snorting and gnashing and stamping their way into the column. The rear half of the line was hopelessly enveloped, even as the sergeants began bawling orders to charge pikes for horse. It was all too late. The road boiled. Steel and armour, helmeted harquebusiers with tawny scarves and flashing blades, anguished faces and snarled oaths, all seething in manic chaos. Pistols discharged at no range at all punched into the chests and faces of men encumbered by their great pike staffs. And those fearsome staves toppled like rotten boughs in a storm, for they were no use in such a close fight. The enemy was already inside the killing range.

‘Lisette!’

It was Cecily. Lisette turned to her. ‘Stay with me!’

Along the road, the black-coated Parliament men were hammering at the feeble Royalist line. They destroyed the musketeer units first, keen to deny the company time to prime their weapons, and most of those stricken men were already dead or had scattered into the forest. The greycoats were not fighters, they were shopkeepers, labourers and clerks. They took up arms because civil war had overrun their lives and they yearned only for peace. The men in black were of a different breed entirely. They were professionals, trained in war and paid well by one of the most feared men of the rebellion. Lisette searched the line, praying to see some means of escape, for she knew the Royalist position was utterly futile.

‘Are they—?’ Cecily’s words died on her lips.

Lisette followed her gaze. At the end of the line, coming last from the darkened bridleway, rode a young cornet of horse. He wore russet breast- and backplates over a buff-coat, the tawny scarf of the Earl of Essex at his waist, a billowing black riding coat and a wide, black hat. In his hand he gripped a short staff, atop which fluttered a simple black colour adorned with the profile of a white raptor in mid-flight. She had not seen the device before, but the white band at the man’s hat told her enough. ‘
Oui
,’ she said simply. ‘They are Collings’ men.’

‘What do we do?’ Cecily shrieked, her delicate features made haggard by terror.

‘Stay alive.’

Lisette vaulted from the saddle, her boots sinking to her ankles in the hoof-churned mire, and ran to Cecily, dragging the younger woman from the horse. Cecily yelped, but let Lisette take her arm and steer her into the midst of a group of greycoats who had yet to be engaged by the tide of harquebusiers. The corporal in charge had had the presence of mind to move his panicked squad into space and get their pikes charged for horse. There were only a dozen men, but they made a formidable defensive ring, with their tapered staves thrust out at an angle, butt-end braced against the instep of the rearmost foot, bladed tip wavering in the air at the height of a horse’s muzzle.

The cavalrymen reached them in seconds. The first to come took a wide swipe at the tip of one of the pikes, his horse wheeling expertly with the movement, but the shaft of ash had steel cheeks riveted for two feet below the point, and the sword bounced harmlessly clear. Another of the pikemen crouched, jabbing low so that his weapon pricked the horse’s flank. It whinnied in anguish, reared, and threw its rider.

‘
No
!’ Lisette screamed, but her voice went unheeded in the melee. The greycoats broke ranks, as she knew they would, and descended upon the fallen Parliamentarian with discarded pikes and naked swords. But now the rest of the black-coated killers were amongst them, and they turned back, eager to regain their defensive ring. They were too slow, and found themselves hopelessly cut off. The hedge of ash and steel had been broken, the horsemen now commanding the space and felling the naive greycoats where they stood.

Lisette hauled Cecily savagely away, almost pulling her from her feet. She made for the trees, followed by a lone infantryman whose hands gripped a rusty sword, his face streaked with tears. They forged on, holding cowls tight over their heads as they scrambled through the snagging brambles and wet bracken, hoping the blackcoats had not noticed them amid the chaos. But the crashing of foliage at their backs continued. They turned to see one of the harquebusiers. His skewbald destrier was big enough to smash its way through the tangled forest floor with little difficulty, and he had soon closed the ground between them.