Marston Moor (38 page)

‘Sir.’
Stryker twisted back, eyeing his troop, which was drawn up behind the Lifeguard. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Sir Richard.’

He rode back slowly, unwilling to strain Vos so early in the day. The ground was already churned and sapping. He nodded to the flanking troopers and slipped round the back to find his three men and their young charge. ‘You are warm enough?’ he asked when he reached Faith Helly.

Faith was perched atop one of the ponies captured from the dragoons at Poppleton. She patted its neck as she spoke. ‘I verily boil, my heart races so.’

The army had set out from the Forest of Galtres at four in the morning, winding its way down to the bridge of boats. It had taken a long time to cross the Ouse, for it was no easy task to filter so many men and horses over so narrow a structure, especially one that moved with the currents beneath. Mercifully, a practicable ford had been scouted during the crossing, and the artillery train of sixteen field pieces was able to avoid the precariously bobbing bridge. Now the entire Royalist army and baggage train found themselves traipsing on to the fallow moorland west of York, staring up at an arable ridge that swarmed with tawny-scarfed horsemen.

‘If matters go ill for us,’ Stryker said, ‘you must make for York.’ He looked at Hood, Skellen and Barkworth in turn. ‘You hear? Get her to safety.’

Each nodded. Faith shook her head. ‘If matters go ill for your prince, I will make my own arrangement with your enemies.’

‘Kendrick will be with them.’

She hesitated for a moment. ‘Master Sydall was a devout man and a staunch Parliamentarian, and there will be many Parliament men who lament his death. My chances of finding such friends in so vast a host are greater than running into a single enemy. Besides, how would I fare in York if you are no longer there?’

Stryker knew she was right. ‘The supply wagons will retire to the woods, there.’ He pointed to the trees several hundred yards to the rear. ‘You will be with them when shots fly.’

‘Sir!’ Skellen’s hard voice barked suddenly.

Skellen was pointing over the heads of the forming infantry, to the rightmost edge of the ridge. A large body of horsemen was cantering down from the undulating crest in a broad swathe. Musket shots rattled at the same moment, and more horsemen filled that end of the ridge, except that these surged up from the lower ground, and their scarves were red against the slate-grey morning. Rupert, it seemed, had dispatched his horse to take the high ground away from the rebels. The day’s first killing had begun.

Chapter 18

William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle and commander of the king’s northern army, reached Marston Moor as the fight swirled on the lower slope of the ridge. He arrived in a coach drawn by four white horses draped in the same red and white livery as the driver. Almost every gaze turned to the vehicle as it bounced off the road and on to the moor, chains jangling above the hideous creak of strained axle-trees, a muscular destrier in the same livery tethered at the rear. The coach was escorted by a bodyguard of gentlemen troopers, who wore their own civilian clothing beneath various pieces of armour, and Stryker, spurring out from Brownell’s former unit, supposed they had been raised for just this occasion, recruited from the finest men York had to offer.

‘What a day to strap on your grandpapa’s sword, eh?’ Crane muttered as Stryker reined in beside him. ‘I suppose Rupert has pulled their ballocks from the flames, so it is only right that they lend their vigour to our cause.’

‘They shan’t do any fighting, Colonel,’ Stryker replied, aware of the bitterness in his tone.

Crane snorted. ‘Dare say you’re in the right of it.’ He glanced behind. ‘Men ready?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘Come to stick your ugly nose into the business of generals?’

‘Aye, sir.’

Crane’s scar tissue puckered as his mouth turned upwards. ‘Then observe, Major.’

Prince Rupert of the Rhine cantered past them at that moment and intercepted Newcastle’s coach. The proud sentinels of his bodyguard parted like the Red Sea to let the king’s nephew through, and he dismounted as the coach door clunked open.

Newcastle, resplendent in a green and silver cassock and huge felt hat, stepped briskly on to the squelching grass and returned Rupert’s bow. ‘At last we meet Your Highness.’ He glanced up at the ridge. ‘The fight begins?’

‘We clear their horse from that corn hill. I would take the high ground while time is on my side.’
Rupert’s face was tight, his lips pressed firmly in a pale line. ‘My lord, I wish you had come sooner with your forces, but I hope we shall yet have a glorious day.’

Newcastle frowned. ‘My men have lately suffered much privation, Highness. They plunder the enemy siege-lines. It takes time to gather them together.’ He paused as a great shout rolled and built from the trampled crops of the slope. The song of swords rang out, echoing down to the woods at the Royalist rear, as the opposing bodies of cavalry clashed. ‘I urge you, Highness, do not attempt this thing rashly. I have good word,
reliable
word, that there is much discontent within the alliance. They are resolved to divide themselves imminently. We have given them many wounds, these last weeks, and their leaguers ooze with disease. They are likely to march away, should the moment be opportune.’

‘March away?’ Rupert repeated the words as though they were uttered by a Bedlamite. ‘Divide? No, my lord, I would face them here, now, while they are one, so that I may destroy them as a whole.’

Newcastle swallowed thickly. ‘This is folly.’

‘This’ – the prince raised his voice, more heads turning towards them – ‘is His Majesty’s wish. I possess a letter, in my uncle’s own hand. It tells a tale of woe. Of the Oxford Army’s imminent annihilation if help does not reach them soon. His Majesty commands me to relieve York, to defeat the Scots and Roundheads, and then to march south with all haste, to lend him my strength. I have achieved one of those aims. Now, together, we will see to the second. You have four thousand foot, yes?’

Newcastle grimaced. ‘The siege whittled us without mercy. It is nearer three.’

‘Three thousand,’ Rupert said, turning the figures in his mind. ‘We will come to twelve thousand foot when all is joined. And over six thousand horse. How many do the enemy bring to bear?’

‘Fever struck them, this we know, for we perceived their digging of grave pits. But I know not what toll it took.’

‘Then?’

Newcastle blew out his cheeks. ‘Not a great deal fewer than thirty thousand.’

Trumpet calls captured the attention of both Royalist leaders at once. Prince and marquis turned together, squinting into the drab morning to witness the rout of their cavalry. The Parliament horse had swept down from the crest in numbers, first hitting the Royalist party, then enveloping it, so that they pressed too closely for the supporting musketeers to fire. In a matter of minutes the skirmish was over, king’s men crashing pell-mell down towards the safety of the moor.

‘Christ’s bleeding wounds!’ Prince Rupert bellowed, thumping fist into palm. ‘Who are those horsemen?’ He jabbed a finger towards the summit. ‘Who?’

An aide let his mount take a stride forwards. ‘Eastern Association, Highness.’

‘Bible thumpers to a man,’ Rupert hissed scornfully. ‘Make for good fighters, more’s the pity. Commanded by?’

‘Lieutenant-General Cromwell, Highness.’

‘God damn farmer!’ Rupert raged again. ‘Send more men up that bastard hill and take it.’

Even as the aide nodded acquiescence, another rider on a mud-caked gelding slewed to an arcing stop beside the young general. ‘Highness! Body o’ foot climbing the ridge, thither.’

Rupert followed his outstretched arm. ‘How many?’

‘This one? A thousand.’

‘This one?’ Rupert repeated. ‘How many bodies of foot are there?’

‘All of them, Highness,’ the rider replied. ‘The Scotch army and all the English. They return as one.’

Rupert swore viciously, turning to Newcastle. ‘We are in dire need of your regiments, my lord. Where are they?’

‘Lord Eythin brings them forthwith.’

‘Eythin?’ Rupert spat. ‘I no longer wonder as to their tardiness, my lord, for James King is a knave and a scoundrel.’

Newcastle scowled at the insult to his adviser. ‘I understand you two have your differences, Highness, but you have my word that he will bring my men to the field soon.’

The tall prince rubbed his lean, cleanly shaven chin as he regarded the ridge. ‘I’ve a mind to take that hill with my full force and scatter the enemy to the wind.’

‘Wait, Highness,’ Newcastle urged. ‘My lads are as good foot as are in the world. Lord Eythin will come.’

‘He had better, my lord Newcastle,’ Rupert said, still staring at the ridge, ‘for delay will be our undoing.’

Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven and senior commander of Allied forces about York, ascended the ridge at noon. The journey back from Tadcaster had been fraught, riven by waking nightmares of a horde of red-scarved wolves marauding over his uncoordinated and confused brigades. But now, as he finally arrived to resume the position he had maintained during the previous day, he gave thanks to God, for miraculously the Army of Both Kingdoms still held the high ground and the wolves remained on the moor.

Leven kicked his whinnying grey up to the highest point towards the eastern end of the ridge. When he had been here previously, the moor had been secondary to the River Nidd in his mind. He had used the vantage – a view unsullied all the way from that shimmering river in the west to the walls of York in the east – to warn him of Prince Rupert’s approach. Now, though, his eye was attuned to the terrain itself, for this time his enemy had not played him false. This time, the only viable Royalist army in the entire north of England mustered on the flat plain below. The infantry were manoeuvring into position at the very centre of the formation, while huge bodies of cavalry formed both wings; the Northern Horse on their left, while the rest, under Lord John Byron to judge by the colours, took the opposite flank. Leven was pleased with all this, because he had the advantage of the terrain. Had Rupert’s earlier play for Bilton Bream proved successful, the reverse would be true, but Cromwell, that dour, blunt-speaking cudgel of a man, had led a fine action in defence of the position, beating Byron’s horse clean away, and Leven knew that it might well have won him the day already.

Because Marston Moor was a killing field.

Leven had been through the hellfire of conflict many times, and one thing he had gleaned was that battlefields were not perfect. They were not usually like the wards of a castle, where engineers designed and delineated fiendishly clever zones into which men might be coerced and slain. Yet what he saw before him now was exactly that. The moor
was
delineated, by God, if not by engineers. The ridge on which he stood, climbing high above all, marked the southern boundary. Villages – Tockwith and Long Marston – provided clear limits to the west and east respectively, while a dense forest, Wilstrop Wood, shrouded the land to the north. Immediately below Leven’s position, the ground fell steeply away, easing into a gentle slope as it met with the moor at its foot. Away to his right, around Long Marston, the terrain was rough, broken by hedgerows and ditches, while to his left, at Bilton Bream, pioneers with picks and shovels were already setting to the task of clearing a large cony warren so that Cromwell’s horse could move unhindered.

Immediately before the ridge ran a track connecting the two villages, while beyond the track, a ditch – intermittently hedged – curved through the plain, marking both the extent of the cultivated land and the extent of the enemy forces. He watched that hedge. It was difficult to see exactly what awaited anyone brave enough to assault it, but it seemed obvious that the prince would have men lying in wait.

‘He has fewer than we feared.’

Leven looked to his left to see the lords Manchester and Fairfax approach. ‘I see no colours belonging to Newcastle’s foot. When they arrive it will bolster him markedly.’

Manchester stroked his horse’s ears and stared at the enemy lines. ‘My guess is we look upon fewer than fourteen thousand. With the Northern Foot, he’ll have eighteen at a pinch.’ He shrugged. ‘We have thirty thousand in reply.’

‘Twenty-eight,’ Leven corrected. ‘So many did the fever take.’

Fairfax laughed as though he were out for a Sunday hack. ‘It is enough, my lord. Look at them! They are magnificent!’