Traitor's Blood (Civil War Chronicles) (40 page)

Now she was running down High Street, through New Brentford, Brooke’s barricade at her back and the Royalist column gradually appearing from the road’s curve at her front. She skirted units of retreating redcoats, the occasional walking wounded, and several galloping staff officers carrying messages. One such officer, a callow youth on a black mare, had responded to her hail, reining in beside her. ‘You are lost, madam?’ he called down, his face speckled with mud and sweat. ‘I suggest you turn back. You’ll find only trouble this way.’

Lisette took a breath. ‘I have a message for Captain Tainton.’ She pressed on before the officer could speak. ‘I am sent from Lord Brooke.’ She pointed to a building across the road with a swinging open door, its occupants long since evacuated in the face of the impending Royalist storm. She stepped toward the horseman, eyes burning with intensity. ‘Captain Tainton must come to here immediately. Tell him it concerns Captain Stryker.’

The youth gaped at her.

Lisette glared. ‘Do you think we have time to dither? I do not wish to report your incompetence to Lord Brooke!’

Her forcefulness seemed to shock him into action. ‘I shall report to Captain Tainton, of course.’ As the officer kicked at his mount, he suddenly pulled back on the reins, halting the horse. Doubt had twisted his face into a confused frown. ‘Wait! Who are you?’

But Lisette was already gone.

‘Well?’ the familiar bark echoed around the abandoned building. ‘I was told Lord Brooke had news of my prisoners.’

Lisette had waited several minutes before Tainton appeared. The building must have been the workshop of a boat-builder, for it still contained tools, wood shavings and a large vat of tar that – judging by the small wisps of steam wafting into the air – carried the last vestiges of warmth. The low-beamed, rectangular room had been mostly emptied – hastily, judging by the open door and discarded objects – and now stood cavernous and bare.

Captain Roger Tainton stalked in, his sword still in its scabbard and his helmet in his hand, and snapped at the hooded figure who stood in the centre of the room.

‘Well?’ he said again. ‘This had better be of great import, sir. What do you want? Come, sir, the king’s men are almost at the door!’

Lisette drew back her hood. ‘You know what I want, Captain.’

The Royalist army surged through New Brentford. It was no more than a matter of a few hundred paces between the bridge and their current position, at the end of the road’s curve, but to the attackers it represented a marker laid down, a Rubicon crossed. They were now on the east side of the Brent, choking this defiant town with their men and horses and weapons.
Brentford was falling at the king’s feet. In days the capital would surely follow and the rebels would be pushed into the Channel, where they would drown in the angry swell, choking on their treachery to the Crown.

They passed big brick houses, home to local gentry or merchants, and the smaller, ramshackle dwellings of the common folk. There were the premises of tanners, blacksmiths, bakers and coopers. They marched beneath the shadow of the great church, St Lawrence’s, and felt God’s blessing upon them.

Stryker and his men were back in step with a company of musketeers, and the captain let his eye dart left and right, examining the buildings for any sign of danger. At least, he noted with relief, the Parliamentarian cavalry under Vivers and Tainton had finally ceased the continual raids that had forced the column to move at such a sluggish pace. The Royalist cavalry should have been there to ward them off, but word had spread that they were delayed at Brentford End.

‘Fuckin’ cavalry!’ Skellen had snarled. ‘After plunder while we do the hard work.’

On rounding the bend beyond St Lawrence’s, High Street began to slope upward on its way towards the old town. Stryker’s gaze followed this gradual incline until it reached the brow of the rise. ‘Look,’ he said.

Forrester followed Stryker’s stare. ‘Sir?’

‘Brooke’s lads.’

It was another barricade. There were fences that stretched from one side of the street to the other, pushed flush against the flanking buildings so that the Royalist army could not simply walk round. It was an even more impressive and daunting sight than the work at the bridge. More sharpened pikes, more bales, more barrels. And more men. Lord Brooke’s Regiment of Foot was out in force, distinctive in their purple uniforms. They were massed behind that barricade, pikes lofted high, ready for the fight. Their officers could be heard bellowing orders up and
down the ranks, while the men themselves called challenges to the oncoming king’s men.

‘Company! Halt!’ The shout reverberated along the great Royalist column, repeated by sergeants and captains as each unit’s turn came to hold the advance. The drums reiterated the call to take heed. They were to advance in regimental order, keeping discipline at all times.

A mounted officer reined in nearby and Stryker hailed him. The man nodded towards the barricade, ‘We’re to go straight at ’em, sir.’

‘Can we not work around the flanks?’ Forrester asked.

The officer shook his head, his expression rueful. ‘Would that were possible, sir. But there ain’t enough room between the buildings on our right flank and the river beyond. It’d be a narrower pass to negotiate than the damned road.’ He switched his gaze to the left flank. ‘And over there they’ve stationed plenty o’ musket and pike. It’d be a bugger picking our way through. Take too long. Besides, the earl wants to make an example of ’em.’

‘A show of strength,’ Stryker said.

‘You have it, sir. Wear ’em down, so to speak. One regiment at a time. Advance, discharge muskets, push the bastards back. Simple as that. And our cavalry will work round to their right flank. They’ll take a longer route round, but it’ll be easier than letting the infantry do it.’

‘Who’ll take the lead at the barricade, Lieutenant?’ Stryker asked.

‘Salusbury’s boys need a rest, I dare say, so it’ll be Earl Rivers’ men.’

Stryker glanced back to the defensive works that lay in wait. ‘It’s a bloody big barricade. It’s higher, deeper and manned with fresh troops. I’d say it’ll be a deal of trouble digging them out.’

The rider grunted. ‘Like a big-jawed tick. You’re most likely right, sir. Well,’ he continued, looking back down to the men on foot, ‘I believe Gerrard will take up the challenge if Rivers
fails, and Lord Molyneux is to be third. Not certain after that, truth be told.’

‘Sir!’ Skellen’s coarse tone was urgent. ‘To the right o’ the work, sir.’ He pointed up the sloping road and indicated a spot where the barricade came flush up against the buildings. ‘A couple o’ houses down. What d’you make of those?’

Stryker and Forrester followed the sergeant’s lead towards a house near the slope’s crest. It was unremarkable, save for the pair of figures that stood outside, staring down at the oncoming mass of Royalists.

‘Less I’m mistaken,’ Skellen said, ‘one’s holding t’other up.’

‘You are surprised to see me?’ Lisette said.

She and Tainton stood on the wide floor of the abandoned boat-builder’s workshop, the sounds of battle emanating from beyond the building.

Tainton nodded. ‘I confess, madam, I did not expect to see you again.’

They regarded each other silently. Tainton was heavily armed. His body was encased in the ostentatious black-enamelled armour, with its gilded rivets, his left arm safe within an iron gauntlet. The cross-belts that passed over his shoulders carried the long sword at his left hip and an exquisitely crafted, but empty, carbine at his right.

Lisette had snatched up a discarded sword from outside on the road, but she carried no firearms and had no other protection. Her blue eyes darted down to the cavalryman’s scabbard. Tainton had let his right hand drop in a diagonal sweep, and his fingers were tickling the top of the iron hilt.

‘Give me the strongbox, Captain,’ Lisette said.

Tainton smiled.‘The box? You imagine I hefted that thing into battle?’

‘The ruby then.’

‘The ruby? That is all you seek?’ He shook his head. ‘Then you really are no more than a common thief.’

The Frenchwoman watched Tainton lift a hand to his collar. His fingers appeared presently, grasping a thick cord that looped about his neck. He lifted it over his head, his eyes narrowing as the leather pouch swung like a pendulum from his outstretched fingers.

‘What do you mean?’ Lisette asked uneasily.

Tainton gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘The ruby is a fine piece. Worth a great deal. But nothing in God’s grand scheme. Still, a common thief would not understand.’

Lisette watched the pouch swing enticingly. She did not understand his taunts, but that did not matter now. She levelled her blade. ‘Give it to me.’

Tainton mirrored her move. ‘You’ll take it from my dead hand, Romish whore,’ he hissed.

Lisette stood implacable. ‘And you will have to kill
me
before you can take to your horse, sir.’

The advancing Royalist regiment marched quickly, for they were becoming easier targets for the defending musketeers with every step. A large house of red brick protected the final approach to the barricade, and the men braced themselves for the hail of shot that would soon come upon them. But it was not the crackle of musketry that greeted their assault. Instead, the air exploded in the thunder of an almighty winter storm, shaking the ground and rocking the houses and shops.

‘Cannon!’ a sergeant screamed, though his alert was unnecessary. Every man on the road knew what he’d heard.

The Roundheads had artillery. Two pieces, positioned either side of the barricade, black muzzles pointing ominously towards the oncoming column. The Royalist infantry scattered left and right, seeking shelter within the doorways of shops and homes. To their relief the heavy ball careened between them, missing limbs by extraordinary chance as it bounced and skittered along the mud, eventually burying itself in the wall of a fishmonger’s.

The second gun had been poorly aimed and its shot had flown clear of the massed infantry. A great cry went up from the Royalist ranks. It started with the officers and spread down to the sergeants with their formidable halberds. They realized that the ordnance pieces had been impotent and it would take them far less time to reach the barricade than it would for the artillery teams behind it to reload the smoking iron monsters. The officers and non-commissioned officers cheered, the corporals shouted and urged, and the men surged forward in their tightly packed companies.

In open battle the attackers might have opted for steady rolling fire, the musketeers presenting by rank, each rank firing and then moving to the rear as they reloaded. But today the strategy was one of speed and shock. The Royalists advanced to within a hundred paces, so that their weapons would be devastating against the mass of bodies beyond the wattle fencing, and offered up their muskets in a single salvo. The late afternoon air was shattered once again as hundreds of priming pans flashed, sending their deadly missiles soaring into the Parliamentarian rank and file.

‘
Charge! Charge! Charge!
’ the officers cried, and the king’s war-machine – created at Nottingham but hardened beneath a ridge called Edgehill – pitched forward suddenly, pikes levelled and muskets wielded as clubs.

The pikes crossed from both sides of the barricade, points passing in midair, ash shafts becoming entangled like the strands of a basket. In some places the Royalist pike blocks did not meet shoulder-to-shoulder, and musketeers, hammering at the barricade and its defenders, filled these gaps. It was a savage affair, but a near bloodless one, for once the push of pike had been joined the deadly points were often beyond their killing range, and it became a shoving match, a contest of strength and of will. Similarly, the musketeers’ weapons, so murderous when loaded and primed, were no more than heavy clubs when they met the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. With the barricade between
the opposing forces keeping the men at arm’s length, the melee was reduced to little more than a street brawl, scarcely deadlier than the annual football match the townsfolk of Brentford had made a tradition.

The lack of fatalities did not detract from the sheer brutality. Men on both sides of the defences found themselves bludgeoned by musket stocks and jabbed by smoking metal barrels. Those in the push of pike were locked in a desperate tussle to force their enemy backward, trapped in the tight mass of bodies by their own unwieldy weapons. The men at the back surged on, digging the balls of their feet into the steadily loosening earth, seeking that vital degree of purchase, while those at the front were leaned precariously over the barricade, close enough to smell the foul breath of their enemy. They drew swords in that close, muggy, rancid fastness and stabbed across the fences and barrels at the opposing ranks. There was no room for powerful thrusts or wild swings, and the blades invariably struck ineffectually at their targets, scoring thin lines on breastplates or biting into wattle and wood as the barricade shielded groins and guts.

As the fight raged, its ebb and flow took on a subtle change. Men were tiring. The will to push had left the pike battailes and the musketeers’ movements were becoming sluggish and ineffective. It was increasingly apparent that a stalemate had been reached.

The Royalist drums started up, announcing the order to disengage, and, like a great beast waking from slumber, the mass of men gradually began to shift into animation once again. The slow separation was punctuated by the odd swing of a musket or jab of a tuck, but men on both sides of the barricade were dog-tired and simply yearned for rest.

The Royalists withdrew, retreating westward down the gently sloping road. The occasional musket-ball whistled above their heads, but none found a deadly mark. The purple-coated men beyond the barricade jeered them. They crowed and cheered and offered challenges. They shouted their defiance
and declared that the king’s colours would advance no further this day. They were an ancient, insurmountable cliff-face, letting the waves of King Charles break upon them.

They didn’t know the next wave was rolling in.