The Bleeding Land (41 page)

‘We’ll try guile first,’ Captain Smith said, looking forward as he spoke. ‘If that doesn’t work we’ll kick the cur and run.’ In that moment Mun wondered if the captain might be mad, but then what did that make Mun for following him?

They were closing fast now and one of the cuirassiers turned, on instinct perhaps; but appraising the two riders’ unhurried approach and their orange sashes he turned back to his front, unconcerned.

‘You men! Stop there!’ Captain Smith called as they drew alongside the small but viciously armed party.

The riders pulled up, grim-faced, their horses tossing their heads and snorting, and then the man carrying the colours looked up and Mun saw an unarmed man in his forties with flinty pride in his eyes.

‘What is this?’ Captain Smith demanded, glaring at a cuirassier with elaborate moustaches whose armour was the finest and who had the most arrogant air about him. ‘You would have a damned penman bear the King’s standard back to the earl? Have you been struck about the head, sir?’ The cuirassier stared, somewhere between shock, fury and confusion, but Smith held his nerve. ‘This man is not worthy of the charge!’

‘We can hardly carry the damned thing!’ the cuirassier barked, indicating his fellow soldiers, who any fool could see were on horseback too and thus not ideally placed to carry a ten-foot pole wrapped in a huge swath of silk.

‘Don’t be a damned fool! It’s just a question of balance,’ Smith insisted. ‘Here, man, let me show you.’ He pushed his mount between another cuirassier and a harquebusier, extending his
hand
to receive the Standard. But the man holding it hesitated, looking to his comrade in the fine burnished armour, his face revealing his dilemma.

‘And who are you?’ a big harquebusier asked Smith, glancing at Mun too, thick brows knitted.

Mun noticed that his own hands were trembling. He desperately wanted to feel his pistols’ flared butts snug in his fists, for that would stop them shaking, but he kept his hands on his reins and his teeth clenched.

‘Captain Smith of Sir Philip Stapleton’s troop,’ the young Royalist replied waspishly, heavy on the
captain
, and this seemed enough for the penman, who passed the Standard up to him, mumbling that he had only been doing what he had been told.

‘Forgive me, but I’ve ridden with Sir Philip since London and do not know you by face or reputation,’ the big harquebusier said, his hand reaching for his wheellock.

Smith drew first and fired and the harquebusier fell back in a spray of blood, then a cuirassier kicked his mount forward and slashed at Smith, catching the neck of his buff-coat, but Mun grabbed his carbine and fired and the ball punched through the cuirassier’s armour, bursting from his backplate, and he toppled from his horse.

‘Yah!’ Smith yelled, turning his mount and giving it his heels, and Mun hauled Hector round and whipped the reins as wheellocks roared, and he felt a pistol ball deflect off his back-plate’s shoulder but kept his head down and rode.

Seeing what had happened, some of the pikemen up ahead broke from their block and tried to intercept them, but they easily skirted those cumbersome staves and galloped on, snatching off their orange sashes and casting them away as they neared a troop of Prince Rupert’s dragoons that had moved to the plain to cover the Royalist withdrawal. Captain Smith pulled up and Mun slowly let the reins slip through his hands, straightening his legs and back, so that Hector
responded
to the release of pressure in his mouth and slowed, huffing.

‘The lily-livered urchins didn’t even give chase!’ Smith said as Mun caught up. The captain looked genuinely disappointed but then his lips spread into a smile as
Mun
shook his head at the audacity of what they had just done. ‘Did you fight in Flanders, Rivers?’ Smith asked, the Royal Standard couched like a lance, so that even in Mun’s stunned stupor at what they had just achieved, he could not help but admire the man’s superb horsemanship.

‘This is my first battle,’ Mun said, glancing at some dragoons who were trotting over to them. There was a biting edge to the dusk air now and their mounts’ hot breath rose in clouds. ‘I hope it is my last,’ he added, his empty stomach clenching, threatening to have him retching any moment.

‘I can assure you it will not be your last,’ Captain Smith said, ‘but neither should it, man! You’re a born soldier, like me. Saint Michael the Archangel lends us courage and puts swords of fire in our hands that we may smite God’s enemies.’

‘You should have told that to those rebels; they’d have chased us then,’ Mun said, trying to smile.

One of the dragoons introduced himself and asked who they were, to which Captain Smith replied, grinning, that he and Mun were two of St Michael’s men, and the dragoon lieutenant frowned because the introduction had more than a little popery to it, but then he recognized the standard Captain Smith held and his eyes widened.

‘Your eyes do not deceive you. We have recovered the King’s colours,’ Smith confirmed, ‘and shall deliver them to His Majesty without delay.’

‘Then allow us to escort you, Captain,’ the young dragoon said, nodding gravely, for colours recovered were colours formerly lost and there was shame in that. The troop turned towards the escarpment but Smith noticed that Mun had not.

‘Are you coming, Rivers?’ he asked.

Mun shook his head. ‘I have something to do.’

‘Something more important than returning His Majesty’s standard? Are you shot, lad? Have your senses leaked out?’ His eyes were wide. ‘I dare say His Majesty will be grateful for its return. I suspect we have more than earned our twelve shillings today.’ Then that grin again, that got men to do what they did not want to do. But not this time.

‘Please pay the King my respects,’ Mun said, then turned and walked Hector back into the freezing, smoky gloom, onto the field from which the living had retreated, leaving it to the dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

BESS SHIVERED AND
pulled the fur-trimmed cloak tighter, the frozen knot of her hand clutching it at her throat as she stepped out into the night.

‘Miss Elizabeth.’ The young man guarding the entrance porch straightened, lifting the blunderbuss he gripped in white hands a little higher. Try as he might he could not hide his trembling with cold.

‘Don’t tell my mother, Joseph, but I must have some air.’

The young man shifted uncomfortably. ‘But Miss Elizabeth, it int safe outside the house.’ He gestured with the blunderbuss out across the grounds where groups of shadowy figures froze behind gabions, the earth-filled wicker baskets looming in the waning moon’s dull glow. ‘Your mother said—’

‘Tomorrow the rebels will have the house and we all shall be dead or captured,’ Bess snapped, ‘and so tonight, Joseph, I will do as I please.’ The young man recoiled as though struck, and Bess saw fear flare in his eyes, so that she wished she could take those words back. ‘I will be just here,’ she said, pointing down to the forecourt, ‘and feel perfectly safe with you watching over me, Joseph.’ The young man nodded resolutely, the fear in him tempered with pride now as Bess descended the steps and stood in Shear House’s cold, black shadow, her breath fogging
and
her eyes watering. She looked up at the stars, as ever awed by the night sky’s immeasurable vastness, appalled by the stars’ indifference to the trials and tribulations of Man.

The air was bitterly cold but she sucked it in, letting it cleanse her throat and chest, inviting the raw night to scour her of the moans of the wounded and dying that clung to her very soul like cat’s claws in a threadbare blanket. She revelled in the numbing, biting night because it purged her of the foul stink of rotting flesh that tainted every room in the house and was almost unbearable in the dining parlour upon whose floor those luckless, wounded men lay.

She had known one of them, Robert Birch, almost all her life, since he had taken employment as a labourer on the estate, and it was strange, she thought, that the man should only see the inside of Shear House now that he was dying. He had taken a musket ball in the thigh the day the rebels had breached the boundary wall and though they had got the ball out, the wound had turned gangrenous. Bess had watched Prudence their cook cut the putrid flesh away by degrees, even down to the bone, but it was no use and the stench was now intolerable and Bess was certain Robert Birch would die.

And more would die tomorrow. Because the rebels’ demi-cannon had eventually punched a hole in the boundary wall and when this had happened Edward Radcliffe had pulled his garrison back to their secondary defensive positions behind ditches and gabions, the spinney and the rose garden wall.

‘We can still hold the wall,’ Lady Mary had insisted, even as a great cheer went up from the rebels beyond and the last bricks and rampart timbers settled amidst a cloud of dust. But Radcliffe had shaken his head in a way that said he doubted his men’s ability if not their nerve.

‘If that young cur knows his business, m’lady,’ Radcliffe said, and Bess knew he was referring to Captain Downing, ‘he’ll storm that breach and we won’t have the concentrated firepower to stop him. They’ll get behind our lads and once that
happens
we’ll have lost half the damned garrison.’ He coughed into a fist, almost blushing at his profanity. ‘M’lady.’ But Lady Mary showed no sign of being offended.

‘Then I fear we must put our faith in the inner breastworks, Major. At least we shall know where to aim our muskets,’ she said, nodding resolutely towards the breach in the wall one hundred paces away. ‘I’d rather that than the traitorous devils come over the wall in a dozen places.’

‘Quite so, m’lady,’ he had said, forcing a smile. ‘Now, if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course. Carry on, Major,’ she said, and with that had turned, linked arms with Bess and walked unhurriedly back towards the house, the veteran’s barked commands cutting the crisp afternoon air, defying the last of the enemy’s cheers.

Now, Shear House’s makeshift garrison of servants, labourers, stablehands, farmers and merchants waited out there in the dark, praying that a Royalist force would march to their rescue and sweep away the rabble at their door, but knowing they would not.

A sound startled her and she turned, recognizing the approaching figure as Mister Cawley, the farmer from Heskin who had come in with his wife, four children and an assortment of livestock through which the defenders had been eating their way.

‘Mister Cawley,’ she greeted him, regaining her composure and huffing into her hands.

‘Miss Elizabeth,’ Cawley said, touching his hat’s brim and resting his musket’s butt on the ground, the end of the match between his fingers glowing hotly. The farmer seemed comfortable with the firearm and Bess could not but think Radcliffe had done well to turn men such as Cawley into soldiers.

‘At least your match and powder will be dry,’ she said, nodding at the musket and forcing a smile. ‘So long as your fingers are not too numb to load and fire it.’

Cawley grinned. ‘No fear o’ that, Miss Elizabeth, but I’d
wager
those clerks and apprentices int used to being abeawt in this sort o’ cold.’ He grinned. ‘If you listen carefully you can hear ’em shivering.’ She smiled and he thrust a meaty hand inside his tunic and pulled something out which he offered her, seeming glad to be rid of it.

‘A letter for my mother?’ Bess asked, not recognizing the seal on it.

Cawley shook his head. ‘I were told to give it to you, Miss Elizabeth, and to no other. One of their fifers slipped over t’wall wi’ it. Nearly got izel shot full o’ holes, but yer own Mister MacColla saw he were just a pup and let the lad say ’is piece.’ His eyebrows arched. ‘Brave little bugger,’ he said, then nodded at the letter in Bess’s hands. ‘That letter is what he risked ’is neck for. It’s from that rebel captain. Downer.’

‘Downing. Captain Downing,’ Bess corrected him, the name tasting foul on her tongue. ‘And Mister MacColla did not think a letter from our enemy should be given directly to my mother?’ she asked, at which Cawley shrugged and raised a palm.

‘Just doing what I were told, Miss Elizabeth,’ he said. Then he glanced left and right and took a step closer to Bess, so that she could smell his sweat and the tang of stale pipe smoke on his tunic. ‘I get the feeling Mister MacColla is more comfortable i’ t’master’s wine cellar than he is sleeping in t’ditch.’ Bess eyed him keenly, nodding for him to go on, which, after an internal debate, he did. ‘Some of the lads think you might persuade Lady Mary to seek terms,’ he murmured.

‘And that’s what this is about?’ she asked, looking at the sealed letter and placing her other hand on the swell of her belly.

Cawley shrugged again. ‘Just doing what I’re told,’ he said again, picking up his musket. ‘Now I’d best be gettin’ back. We all know what’s coming in t’morning.’ He held Bess’s eye, his last words dangling like a baited hook, as though he sought confirmation of what lay in store. But Bess did not bite.

‘Thank you, Mister Cawley,’ she said, walking forward
beyond
the pool of shadow. ‘But I’d have you stay a little longer if you please.’