Assassin's Reign: Book 4 of The Civil War Chronicles (45 page)

‘Will he agree?’

‘I doubt it. You must speak with the Prince also.’

‘Me, sir?’

‘You were in Gloucester on his business, Captain. He will wish to see you, I should imagine. Mention this killer to him. Perhaps His Majesty will listen to his favourite nephew.’

Perhaps, thought Stryker. And if not, then he would make his own search. Somewhere in the Royalist camp an assassin roamed, and Stryker intended to hunt him down.

CHAPTER 18

Llanthony Priory, Gloucester, 22 August 1643

‘And you say your mother was Dutch, Mister Hatton?’

Alexander Beak studied the deserter over the wire rim of his spectacles as he leaned back in his chair. He rocked absently on the rear legs as the man standing at the other side of his desk stared implacably at the wall above his head.

‘She was,’ Hatton said in accented English. ‘From The Hague. My father was from York. I grew up in Holland but came here when war broke out.’

Beak held a major’s commission, but his duties encompassed a wide range of tasks. One of which was the processing of the Earl of Forth’s prisoners. It was a thankless task, for they were invariably a rabble, not fit to clean his boots, but occasionally he encountered one marginally more intriguing than the rest. ‘To join the wrong side, sir.’

Hatton sniffed. ‘And I am eternally sorry for that. But I think I showed my true colours when I risked the river, did I not?’

Beak removed the spectacles, wiping the lenses in a circular motion against his sleeve. They were in one of the priory’s larger buildings, the arches of its high monastic ceiling echoing each word spoken. Outside they could hear a non-commissioned officer berating his fumbling charges, who were presumably attempting musket drill. Beak waited patiently for the fellow to draw breath. ‘It must have been a difficult swim.’

Hatton risked meeting the major’s gaze with eyes that were blue as sea ice and just as cold. ‘It was. The Severn is fast and chilling.’ He rounded his shoulders and puffed out his chest a little. ‘But I was willing to make the sacrifice for my liege lord, sir.’

Alexander Beak let the chair drop forwards on to all four legs. He replaced the spectacles, clipping them to the bridge of his lean nose above a lump where once it had been broken. ‘And are you certain you’re quite recovered, Mister Hatton?’

‘Almost, sir, thank you. I would simply request a few days’ recuperation before I enlist with the royal forces hereabouts.’

‘Fight against your former allies?’ Beak asked wryly. It was not uncommon, he conceded. Indeed, the battered and frightened soldiery of this bitter war often turned their coats to save their skins. But this man did not seem the usual sort of cowed dullard, which is why the major had felt it prudent to speak with him just one more time.

‘Gloucester is holding out against all the odds,’ Hatton said. ‘Why would I run if I did not truly believe in the King’s cause?’

Beak nodded thoughtfully. The man had a point; desertion was very rare from this defiant city. And to have negotiated the Severn in the dead of night was no mean feat. It smacked of a man determined to fight for his king. Albeit a little late in the day. ‘You are a gunner, yes?’ He waited for Hatton to nod before sifting through a dog-eared stack of papers under his long nose. ‘
Ah-ha
! Here we are. We lost two gunners and three mattrosses in yesterday morning’s raid. The posts are not yet filled.’

‘I will do my duty, as soon as I am able,’ Hatton said, before doubling over with a wet-sounding cough that made him moan in pain.

Beak looked up, dubious as to the deserter’s fitness. ‘Rest a few days, Mister Hatton. I will make the arrangements for your new posting, but, for God’s sake, be at your ease. We would not want you dying of some ague before you can show us your skill with ordnance.’

Hatton had composed himself and he smiled his thanks. ‘I will make His Majesty proud to have me in his ranks, sir.’

‘Oh, I think you’ve already achieved that,’ Beak replied. Outside, the musket drill had started up again, and Beak rapped thin fingers on the table as he looked for another lull. ‘Your information was vital,’ he said at a suitable juncture. ‘We will reconsider our efforts now that we have such a thorough assessment of their defences.’ He offered a tight smile. ‘The King may wish to thank you personally.’

That seemed to thaw the ice in the gunner’s veins, for he gave a white-toothed grin. ‘I should very much like that. I was wrong to join the rebels, sir, for which I would beg forgiveness of His Majesty.’

‘Forgiveness?’ Alexander Beak said, mildly amused. ‘Your sentiments are touching, naturally, but an experienced gunner is always welcome in our ranks. Especially one who would bring such intimate details of Governor Massie and his vermin.’

‘I would only do what is right, sir.’

‘Quite.’ Beak considered the only man who had successfully deserted the rebel garrison in several days. There was something about him that set him apart from the bleating sheep Beak usually had to process. But his information had certainly been useful, and his determination to break with the Roundheads was admirable enough. He decided to ignore his instinct for the greater good. ‘You are dismissed, Hatton. I will arrange a billet for you while you wait to join your new regiment.’

‘Thank you, Major.’

‘We may have more questions in the coming days.’

Hatton clasped his hands at his midriff and gave a slow blink, putting Beak in mind of a pious monk. ‘I will tell you whatever I know, you may count on that, sir.’ The Dutch artilleryman pursed his lips. ‘And when might I see the King?’

Beak leaned back again, rocking gently. ‘Oh, do not presume it will ever come to pass, Hatton. He is mighty busy, as you are no doubt aware. But he has made mention of gracing you with an audience.’ He picked up the top page in the paper stack and examined it to show that he was done with the besieging army’s newest recruit. ‘Have patience.’

‘I will, sir,’ Hatton replied as he turned towards the door, the light from the windows shining against his perfectly bald head. ‘I am a patient man.’

St Mary de Crypt, Gloucester, 22 August 1643

The inside of the small church was cool, offering welcome relief to the party who ducked into her shadowy inner sanctum.

Colonel Vincent Skaithlocke suffered from the heat more than most, and he drew a large handkerchief as soon as he was out of Southgate Street’s balmy air, mopping the glistening sheen from his jowls with hurried dabs. ‘How bad is it?’

Lieutenant Colonel Edward Massie, the twenty-three-year-old Governor of Gloucester, rapped his long fingers against his breastplate. ‘Bad.’

Massie led Skaithlocke and four other officers along the nave and down into the chambers of the crypt. They were small and secure, thick walls of stone penetrated only by stout oaken doors. Once upon a time they had been the private tombs of priests, but Massie, ever the pragmatist, had found a better use for them. He ordered one door open, and a red-haired sentry produced a jangling set of keys, with which he obliged.

‘I see what you mean,’ Skaithlocke rumbled as he peered over the governor’s slim shoulder.

Massie stared down at the barrels in the corner of the room. The magazine had been full at the outset of the siege, but now there were just a handful left. ‘We must rein in our attacks.’

‘Is that wise?’ It was Alderman Pury who had spoken, and Massie, for all his sombre misgivings, was not oblivious to the irony of the words. It had not been that long since the leader of the city’s Puritan elite had publicly berated him for his daring and, as Pury saw it, profligate tactics. Now, at least, he had come round to the wisdom of raiding, harassing and bombarding the Royalist lines in order to disrupt the enemy and keep them from storming the walls with any cohesion. Yet just as Massie seemed to be galvanizing the whole of Gloucester behind the rebel cause, it was apparent that those very tactics had consumed more powder than he could afford.

Massie nodded glumly. ‘The mills produce three new barrels a week.’

Pury’s high forehead wrinkled. ‘Will that suffice?’

‘It is the equivalent of five rounds per man,’ Massie replied. ‘Six at a pinch. Even if we cease to engage the enemy directly, wait behind the walls for them to make their move, it would not be enough to see us through the inevitable battle.’ He felt suddenly sick. The last sally had been his most ambitious yet. It had almost been the most costly and the most disastrous.

Massie indicated that they should leave, waiting while the rest of the group filed up into the nave. When Skaithlocke reached the stairway, filling it completely with his vast bulk, he paused as if wishing to speak. ‘What is it, Colonel?’

‘I have not heard from Captain Stryker, sir. Not since the sally against the southern redoubts.’

Massie sighed, not particularly wishing to discuss the calamity. ‘Missing, I’m sorry to say. Didn’t return with either Blunt or White.’ He shrugged. ‘Presumed killed.’

Skaithlocke’s thick fingers slid over his mouth, his brown eyes glistening. ‘God, no,’ he intoned in a muffled voice. He exhaled slowly. ‘What of his sergeant?’

‘Him too,’ Massie said, leaving the crypt as Skaithlocke stepped aside.

As the door to the magazine clanked shut behind them, Skaithlocke caught up with the governor halfway up the steps. ‘They were both killed?’

‘Or captured, aye.’ Massie halted suddenly, remembering the time the big colonel had spent walking the walls with Stryker. ‘My apologies, Skaithlocke. I know you were close.’ He offered a wan smile. ‘A tragedy, for they were good soldiers both.’

Matson House, Gloucester, 22 August 1643

Stryker had spent the best part of the previous day walking the encampment in the vain hope of catching the would-be assassin, but as night fell he knew the situation was futile. What was he looking for? Some red-eyed monster with horns and a tail? Perhaps a soldier with the face of a grizzled veteran, carrying a long fowling piece with which he could shoot the king from a great distance? The fact was, he did not know. All he had to go on was the knowledge that the man was blond, and that he was at large in the Royalist camp. In the end he had relented, catching up on the sleep so cruelly denied to men on the inside of a besieged city, and decided to wait for the next morning.

‘Even if you knew precisely what he looked like,’ Colonel Sir Edmund Mowbray said as they waited by the stone porch, ‘the camp is so large now, we’d never be able to search it all.’

They were in a line of generally very well-upholstered gentlemen, queuing for an audience with members of the royalist hierarchy. King Charles had made the Tudor-built Matson House his headquarters and quickly it had become the centre of his itinerant court. Old Patrick Ruthven, the Earl of Forth and, more recently, Brentford, was officially in command of the army, and his fortified leaguer was at the crumbling priory, but everyone knew that this place, two miles south-east of Gloucester, was the real hub of Royalist operations.

The big door jolted open, the smell of perfume, wood smoke and beeswax gusting out from the hallway beyond, and an official-looking fellow in a salmon-coloured coat appeared at the threshold. He beckoned a number of people inside, reading from a list draped across his forearm, and plunged back into the building with an impatient wave to the chosen few.

‘Onwards,’ Mowbray said quietly, leading Stryker into the house-cum-court. Along with a dragoon captain and a major of cuirassiers, they made their way down a narrow passageway at the smart pace set by the courtier.

‘Are the princes here?’ the cuirassier said, jangling like a sack of coins as he walked. He had removed his helmet but still wore the full body armour of his creed, menacing in its gleaming coat of black enamel. Stryker had seen Arthur Haselrig’s Roundhead cuirassiers, known to the Royalists as the Lobsters, at Roundway Down. They had been shattered on those bloody slopes, and now that he saw their Royalist equivalent up close, he could see why. The encumbrance of such armour, though doubtless protective against steel and small arms fire, would have made them terribly susceptible to outflanking by the lighter, faster harquebusiers favoured by Prince Rupert.

The courtier did not look round. ‘They are, sir, but we try to keep them at bay for their own good. Wouldn’t want ’em trampled by horses and suchlike. They’re generally shut up in a chamber on the second floor.’

‘Must be at their wits end,’ the cuirassier muttered.

‘Indeed,’ the courtier agreed. ‘They spend a deal of time carving grooves in the stone window ledges with their knives.’ He halted at a side door. ‘Captain Stryker?’

Stryker stepped forth, ignoring the expression that twisted the salmon-backed official’s tired face. It was a mixture of horror and distaste; something to which he had grown inured over the years.

The courtier cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘Knock and enter, Captain.’ He looked at the others. ‘If the rest of you would be kind enough to follow me?’

Stryker did as he was told, while listening to the muffling of the metallic clatter of the cuirassier as the party disappeared round a corner. Alone, he stepped into the room.

‘Stryker! Good God, man, it is a grand thing to see you.’