Marston Moor (24 page)

Near York, 10 June 1644

Devlin Greer crept down to the riverbank. He eased through the rushes, planting his feet carefully. The water, just a couple of yards away, raced past, a bubbling band of pale coldness in the deep night.

He had hidden the boat in the shadow of a weeping willow the previous day, having taken it as far south as he dared after the warning he had received from the trooper. Then he had walked down through the fields until he had come close to the crossing point thrown over the Ouse by the armies encircling York. Poppleton Bridge was not a real bridge. There were no abutments, no keystones, and no arches to pass under. It was made of boats, which had been lashed side by side and planked over the top so that men and horses could pass from one bank to the other. He had watched it from the safety of a patch of spiky scrub, noting the pacing sentries and clattering patrols, and knew that a wide berth would be required. Thus he had waited till nightfall, taken a circuitous route along animal tracks and ancient hedgerows, and bypassed the bridge altogether. And next he had waited, past dawn and throughout the following day, biding his time until the setting sun bled crimson over the west.

Now it was dark again, and he had returned to the river, because it remained the best – the only – way into York. The city itself would not be far away, beyond one or two more reed-fringed bends, and he had resolved that tonight was its time to receive him.

He moved to the edge, paused, senses keen to the sounds of chattering pickets, but nothing spoke, nothing stirred. He dropped, sliding into the inky abyss with a stifled gasp. The water numbed his limbs, froze his heart so that he thought he would plummet to the riverbed without even the strength to cry out. But somehow he kept moving, and all the while he stayed afloat, carried by the swollen currents, gulping down air and forcing his eyes open just enough to see shapes in the darkness. Something brushed his knee, down in the murk, and images of man-eating monsters assailed him, giant eels and ravenous pike ascending from the depths for a frenzied feast. He prayed as he swam, pushing past sludge and weeds and floating debris.

It felt like hours, like a sentence in purgatory. The world was pitch black; the water and the banks and the sky, all gone, all swallowed by the darkness. But there was a sliver of moon. He knew it because of the pale ghost that loomed up ahead, glimpses of its rising bulk snatched with every stolen lungful of air. The ghost was York, or rather its battlements, a vast beacon to give hope to the spluttering Irishman who thanked God for his deliverance. He kicked harder, pulled faster with his arms, and swam to York.

Liverpool, Lancashire, 11 June 1644

Liverpool was crumbling. Though the escalade had failed, the bombardment had continued with renewed vengeance and fresh targets, so that the gaping fissure in the wall only became wider and the rooftops jutting above the girdle of stone and mud began to show visible signs of destruction. Smoke trails rose from the town and churches began to look dilapidated, as though giants had taken great bites from their soaring steeples. But the majority of the wall remained, the spur of river still ran fast and rain-swollen to protect a large swathe of the defences, and the castle still stood guard to the south like a grey sentinel.

The Royalist sappers kept digging. They knew now that, despite Prince Rupert’s claim that the port could be taken by schoolboys, Liverpool was more akin to a lion’s den. Thus, more trenches would be clawed from the sticky mud, winding a circuitous route ever onwards towards the enemy ditch. More gun batteries would be constructed, and the process of undermining the walls could begin. It would be laborious, time-consuming work, and no one had the stomach for it, especially as the rain was never far away. But they had lost almost a hundred men in the assault, killed and captured, and even Rupert knew that he could not attempt another potential bloodbath so soon.

‘Put your backs into it, lads,’ Stryker called as he paced the sap under his command, thankful for the rough timbers his team had cut to line the base. It was less than an hour after dawn, the eastern sky as vibrantly orange as the west was smoke-blackened by the morose pall lingering above town and river and sea. The trench itself was five feet deep, with spoil piled on the town side to add a parapet of another two feet, so that he was shielded from the sporadic shots taken from the walls. Occasionally, one of Liverpool’s larger guns would bark from the rampart or the ships in the river mouth, and he would duck down with the rest of the men, bracing for the inevitable smack of iron and spray of mud, but those were desultory offerings, the defenders content to conserve ammunition and powder while no imminent threat came from their besiegers.

‘Couple of other things I’d rather be putting m’ back to, sir,’ one of the filth-spattered men called from his place on the digging line.

‘The latrines need deepening, Toppy,’ Stryker replied. ‘Why don’t you lend a hand, seeing as you’re so keen?’

Toppy’s grin vanished. ‘Weren’t what I meant, sir.’

Stryker feigned a look of incredulity and the men laughed.

‘I fell in a shit-pit once,’ Skellen’s laconic voice droned from the far end of the sap. His rank meant that he was not required to dig, but he seemed as dirty as the rest. ‘Over in Antwerp.’

‘The stink has’nae left you,’ Simeon Barkworth croaked as he drove his spade deep to scrape away a sucking gobbet of earth.

Skellen ignored him. ‘Blind drunk, I was. Grovelled around in the dung for a good while, trying to find my feet. And you know what? Came up with a gold chain snagged on the end of my shoe.’

‘A golden turd,’ Barkworth said with a cackle.

‘Worth a swim in a latrine, Master Skellen!’ Stryker called down the line.

‘How much did you get for it, Sergeant?’ another man asked.

‘Get for it?’ Skellen repeated the question as if it were uttered by a madman. ‘I’d have been accused of thievery and dancing the hangman’s jig before sundown!’

‘Then what did you do with it?’

‘I made a gift of it, lad.’ He closed his eyes in reverence of the memory. ‘To Sybylla Henkes, the finest whore in all Christendom. Couldn’t understand a word she said, but, by God, she could suck like a bilge pump.’

The men brayed again as talk turned to their own favourite women. Stryker thought of Lisette. He had not seen hide nor hair of the queen’s spy since the previous November. He thought of Faith Helly too. Hoped she was safe and well under Lieutenant Hood’s watchful eye. Kendrick’s company were down in the southern sector, digging towards the castle, which at least allowed him to relax. He absently felt the hilt of his sword, pushing the tip of his finger into the dent made by the pistol ball during the assault. The damage annoyed him, for the weapon had been a gift from Queen Henrietta Maria herself and would be too costly to repair, but immediately he chided himself. It had probably saved his life.

He stared up at the enemy soldiers. There were fewer than usual, just a handful of silhouettes shifting over the patchwork rampart. A dozen colours flew, stubborn and proud from their staked poles, defying the Cavaliers and their Royal commander.

A loud whinny broke his thoughts. He turned to see a horseman rein in on the landward face of the sap, soil cascading on to the timber walkway.

‘Major Stryker?’ the rider called down as the men stopped work to watch.

Stryker nodded, displeased. ‘You are?’

The rider was young and splendidly attired, with a wide, open face that would have been perfectly round had it not been sharpened at the chin by the waxed point of a golden beard. He doffed a yellowish hat, cursing as one of the feathers fell out. ‘Lieutenant Brownell. Compliments of His Highness, sir, and you’re to abandon this work forthwith.’

‘Abandon?’

Brownell leaned to the side of his saddle, eyeing the errant feather as it came to rest on the lip of the trench. ‘Take your men to the north, sir, ’neath the beacon. You will be allocated your command upon arrival.’

‘Command?’ Stryker echoed in exasperation. ‘Speak plain, man. What is the Prince’s intent?’

‘Why, Major Stryker, we are to attack!’ Brownell beamed. ‘Or, rather, General Tillier’s regiment will attack, and you will provide support.’

‘Jesu,’ Skellen grumbled, not quite quietly enough, ‘he’s gone mad, sir.’

Brownell’s pale eyes swivelled along the line. ‘I suggest your creature curbs his tongue.’

‘Shut your mouth, Sergeant,’ Stryker growled, ‘and look to your manners.’ He had not taken his gaze from Brownell. ‘Make matters clear for me, Lieutenant. His Highness will surely not storm the breach so soon?’

‘The breach and many more places besides, sir,’
 
Brownell said, flicking the reins deftly so that his mount loped away. ‘For there are none left to repel us. The Roundheads have gone!’

They had not all gone.

A rear-guard remained, out of bravery or duress, but most of Liverpool’s garrison had been evacuated during the shroud of night. Major-General Henry Tillier commanded the northernmost section of the siegeworks, those nearest the wide channel where River Mersey became Irish Sea, and his lookouts had been greeted with the rising sun by a view of boats streaming back and forth between the riverside wharfs and the ships anchored at deep water. Despite the heroic defence of the breach, Colonel Moore, the Parliamentarian governor, had evidently decided that drawn-out resistance would not be tenable. The twelve colours snapping in the wind were just a decoy, while the Roundheads were sneaking away.

Stryker took command of a new detachment as they swarmed through an unguarded gate set within the northern run of the wall. Tillier’s green-clad fighters formed the spearhead, with Tyldesley’s and Pelham’s in the rear, and the general himself watched them through the gaping gateway from atop a dappled grey.

‘To victory, Stryker!’ Tillier bellowed happily. He fiddled with his shoulder-length brown hair and fastidiously trimmed whiskers with a gloved hand, as if the queen herself waited in Liverpool to greet them. ‘Flush ’em out, sir!’

Stryker swept his hat low as he went past, pleased to be with Tillier’s regiment. They were hard men, veterans of the war in Ireland, the Englishmen branded Catholic by rebel news-books and pamphlets in their desperation to paint King Charles as a secret Papist. And though they had been repulsed the day before, he knew the greencoats were as sturdy a force as any under Prince Rupert’s command. He had fought with them at Newark, seen them outmanoeuvre and outfight Sir John Meldrum’s larger army outside that pivotal Royalist stronghold, and knew they would deal swiftly with any resistance here.

‘Lieutenant-Colonel Caryl Molyneux is your guide, sirrah!’ Tillier was bellowing at his back. ‘A local fellow, but knows his business. You’re in good hands!’

Stryker did not see Molyneux, who led from the front, instructing the vanguard into various streets, buildings and passageways. Instead he went south, along a wide thoroughfare lined with the premises of clothiers, butchers and glovers, fishmongers, boat builders and net makers. Occasionally a shot rang out from an alley or rooftop, but they were few and far between. His men put windows through with the butts of their muskets, peering into houses to ensure there were none home but frightened townsfolk, and every fifth or sixth building had its door kicked in and its rooms searched. Further out, over the roofs and beyond the streets, more fierce confrontations played out, especially near the river where units of Parliament men still clamoured for their makeshift ferries, but here, in the southern quarter, the territory fell in short order.

It was only when Stryker reached the castle that matters altered. A substantial body of men had fallen back on its sheer walls. Perhaps they had resolved to hold it with bloody-minded purpose, or their route of escape was simply cut off. Either way it did not matter; the loopholes bristled with their muskets, lit match-tips danced in the shadows behind.

The colour draped from the battlements was not one of England’s rebellion, and that gave Stryker cause to stall. He held up a hand to stay his troops, and they fanned out into the shade of the buildings fringing the open ground that ran in an arc around the thick medieval wall. Firearms were scoured, loaded and wadded. Some men knelt, others leaned into the pockmarked timber frames as they blew on hot matches and gauged the range of these fresh targets.

‘Scotch,’ Skellen muttered at Stryker’s side, spinning the halberd shaft as he spoke, its base jammed into the mud, light dancing off the triple-puposed head.

Stryker nodded, still eyeing the banner. It was blue, a huge cross stretching to all four corners, yellow inscriptions sewn into each of the segments between the cross’s limbs. This was one of the Scots regiments that had invaded during winter, detached from York to counter the Royalist surge through Lancashire. They would be good troops, had probably refused to flee with Colonel Moore’s garrison, and now they had found a bolt-hole to defend. He swore savagely, dragged a gust of gritty air into his lungs, and went to give the order to attack. It was only then that he saw the huge black stallion.