Assassin's Reign: Book 4 of The Civil War Chronicles (17 page)

‘He’ll be watching for us?’ William Skellen said under his breath.

‘Him,’ Stryker replied equally as softly, all too aware that their watchful guard paced a short distance to the rear, ‘or one of his people.’

‘There,’ Skellen pointed to the end of the street, where they could make out the pale grey of the wall marking the termination of alleyways that ran between blocks of houses. Above the man-made structure rose the distant hills, a patchwork of greens in the summer sun, though they were ominously empty of livestock, the sheep and cattle having long since been driven down and into the city to bolster supplies. ‘So how to shake that bugger off.’

Stryker glanced back at their blue-coated shadow. Corporal Dodd was a wiry, red-faced fellow, with a flaxen moustache and triangular beard that appeared almost white against his ruddy skin. He might have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty, Stryker reckoned, and his green eyes seemed to look in different directions, giving him a disconcerting stare that one could never quite return.

‘This should do,’ Stryker said when he had turned back, and he steered Skellen into a small crowd of people who were gathered about a team of bony looking oxen. There was a growing murmur of voices from within the group.

‘
Oi
!’ Corporal Dodd, face even more red, if that were possible, yelled at his charges’ backs as they pushed through the bodies, making direct for the oxen. ‘I can’t see you, sir! Back ’ere, if you please!’

It did not please Stryker, so he forged on, careful not to look as though he were actively running from their guard, but briskly enough to put distance between them and Dodd. He and Skellen eased some shoulders aside, downright shoved others, until at last they reached the team of weary beasts, hides streaked with pale lines where rivulets of sweat had cut mock valleys down their dirty flanks.

The object round which the curious townsfolk had gathered was an artillery piece: a forbidding cylinder of black iron the length of two men lying top to tail and mounted on a wheeled chassis that was connected by a series of thick traces to the exhausted beasts. It was a demi-culverin, a formidable thing weighing three thousand pounds, and Stryker guessed it had been moved here from some other placement on the walls, explaining why the crowd had not seen something of this size before. Whatever the reason for the noisy curiosity, he was thankful for it, and pushed on through the chaotic mass, skirting a gang of children who were taking turns in providing piggy-backs for their friends to see over the taller adults. Eventually he made it to the far side of the furore, turning to see Skellen emerge at his heel, slightly stooped to make himself less conspicuous. Further back, still at the centre of the crowd, Corporal Dodd jostled and cursed his way through, his musket bobbing high above the throng.

‘On me,’ Stryker said, more casually now as the noise of the crowd near drowned all other sounds. He twisted quickly away, checking all around for suspicious faces, and led Skellen from the cannon and its admirers. The pair plunged into one of the narrow alleys that ran, like rat holes, in between the multitude of timber dwellings, and strode quickly south and east, making for the old medieval walls that inevitably blocked the far end.

‘If he sees which way we came?’ asked Skellen, breathing fast.

Stryker nodded to a white-coifed woman who squatted in the threshold of her home preparing vegetables, the peelings collected by a small child, half naked in the heat, for some later meal. When they were well past, he spoke: ‘We’ll say we did not realize he had lost us. We have not fled from him, have we? We are simply strolling out to see the defences we will soon be manning.’

The wall had been impressive once, back when it enclosed Gloucester completely, a ring of stone blocks that were too thick to break by hand and too high to climb. But those walls had long since ceased to stretch beyond this single section of the modern city, and siege cannon would make short work of the most robust stone. With Massie’s leadership, though, Stryker had seen how the citizens were volunteering in their droves to make the best of what they had, and here it was no different. The rest of the city perimeter had seen more frenzied work thus far, as the need to raise a rampart where there had been nothing was far greater than the desire to shore up the existing defences, but the governor’s construction teams had nevertheless begun to pile heaps of soil at the foot of the stone face in order to give the wall extra strength in the event of a Royalist bombardment. Moreover, they had erected wooden scaffolding along the inside of the wall to provide a firing step and continuous vantage point, and it was here that Stryker headed.

With a furtive look back across his shoulder, he saw that the alleyway was empty, save the woman and child, and he made straight for an old groaning ladder that bowed disconcertingly under his weight. He paused to check that it would not break up beneath his boots, nodded to Skellen, who waited patiently for his turn, and scrambled up to the platform above. The tall sergeant joined him promptly enough, though the climb was not so easy with his wounded leg. At the top they paused to check the walkway.

There was just one other man close by, about twenty paces along the platform, and the roofs of the nearest houses obscured them from being viewed from ground level. They approached the lookout without delay. The hammering of their boots on the fresh timbers sounded unnaturally loud, and he must have heard their advance, but he did not bother to turn. Evidently not expecting an enemy at the rear, the man instead squinted into the sun-drenched horizon, intent on being the first to spot the bright banners of a Royalist force on the surrounding hills. He wore the clothes of a civilian but was armed with a standard tuck, the kind issued to infantry recruits, and a matchlock musket. The firearm looked to be of fine enough quality, but was old-fashioned in style, with a barrel that reached at least four feet in length, and would, Stryker guessed, require a rest on which to place it when firing. In short, he supposed the fellow was one of the city’s volunteers rather than a member of the better-trained garrison men Massie had inherited from Lord Stamford’s regiment, and that was a blessing indeed.

From the corner of his eye, Stryker saw Skellen’s big hand move to his sword-hilt, and he shook his head rapidly, staying the sergeant’s movement without a sound. Instead he indicated a piece of wood that nestled against the palisade a couple of feet from where Skellen stood. It was the length and girth of a man’s forearm, and Skellen darted forward with impressive agility to snatch it up.

The lookout was still diligently studying the eastern terrain when Skellen thrust the makeshift club into his lower back, aiming for his fleshy side and the kidneys beneath. The impact sounded like wet meat slapping a butcher’s block and the man doubled over, air gushing from him like giant bellows in a foundry. He tried to twist back to face his assailant, gasping for breath, face horribly contorted, but Stryker was there, knocking his high-crowned hat free and grasping a fistful of lank, sweaty hair. He hit the man once in the face, pulling the blow to protect his own fingers, but allowing enough force to knock the terrified guard senseless. In that instant he feared his victim would scream, but his lips, peeled back in shocked anguish to reveal long, yellow teeth, simply flapped mutely. He gave one final shudder and keeled forwards, his face colliding with the dusty timbers of the walkway.

Stryker looked around as Skellen tossed the club aside and dragged the inert body behind a row of soil-filled bushels. No one came running, no screams sounded from the packed lanes below them, and no boots thundered along the wall, yet his heart sounded like an ordnance volley inside his skull.

‘Reckon he saw us?’ Skellen asked.

Stryker shook his head. ‘God-willing, he won’t be found any time soon. And we’ll be long gone before he wakes.’ He breathed deeply, noting the sun was high and strong before them. ‘Glass.’

Skellen fished in his snapsack. He had surreptitiously knocked one of the larger jars from the apothecary’s crammed shelves soon after they had woken at dawn, making great play of his own dull-witted oafishness when the alarmed Corporal Dodd had burst through the door, musket in hand. Embarrassed laughter and profuse apologies followed, during which performance a wicked shard the size of the sergeant’s palm had been secreted amongst the cold detritus of the hearth, to be collected once Dodd had taken his leave. It was this shard that Skellen now produced, gripping it carefully lest its keen edges nick a finger. He rubbed it against the hem of his buff-coat to clean away the smears of ash, and handed it to Stryker.

Stryker leaned against the cool stone, lifting the glass in front of his face and adjusting its angle until he was certain it caught the sun. When he was happy that the glint would be unmistakable, he tilted the shard gently, letting it reflect the bright light in the direction of the hills. Five signals, Killigrew had said; five flashes to let him know that Edward Massie intended to defend the city. After he had sent the message, he waited for perhaps thirty seconds, though it seemed like an age, exposed as they were on the platform, before repeating the sequence.

And then it was over; his mission was complete. A gush of relief poured through his veins, and he let out a long breath that he had not known he had been holding. ‘Let us take our leave, eh?’ he muttered, looking up at Skellen.

‘Or praps not, sir,’ the sergeant said, staring over his shoulder, his hooded eyes as wide as Stryker had ever seen them.

Stryker turned slowly, expecting to see a blustering Corporal Dodd, but instead he found himself looking into another face he knew. This one was that of a man in his twenties, dressed in a green coat, with dark eyes, clean chin and auburn hair below a green montero cap. The man grinned broadly, but it was an expression of predatory triumph rather than mirth.

‘You,’ was all Stryker could think to say.

‘Stay your fucking flam, sir,’ the greencoat growled. He was flanked by two others who wore the blue of Lord Stamford, and they snorted their delight at his insolence. The man ignored them, instead looking at Skellen. ‘How’s the leg, Sergeant?’

‘Why, you goddamned—’ Skellen began, stepping forward quickly, hand falling to his hilt, but one of the greencoat’s companions instantly levelled his musket at the sergeant’s chest, halting his advance. Skellen seethed, balling and unballing his fists manically. ‘I should have killed you in the woods, you poxy little hector.’

‘Peters, was it?’ Stryker said suddenly. He thought back to the skirmish at Hartcliffe where they had driven a brazen group of greencoats into the forest after a sharp firefight. He remembered the lad clearly, the fear in his eyes as Stryker interrogated him. ‘Musketeer Peters.’

‘Port,’ the man said, and now the grin was gone, replaced by a tight-mouthed expression of pure malice. ‘Richard Port. And I remember you, sir. Oh, how could I forget your ugly fucking face.’ He lifted an arm, and Stryker noticed that the wrist and hand were tightly bound with grimy bandages. ‘Broke my fucking arm,
sir
.’

‘We have turned our coats, Port,’ Stryker said quickly, hoping to assuage the man’s ire. ‘We are up here—’

‘I don’t care a rat’s privy member for what you’re up to!’ Port snarled. ‘You could ’ave been made governor and I’d still expect my debt paid in full. Bones?’

One of the bluecoats, a burly, lantern-jawed man with no neck and fists like bear paws, stepped forward eagerly. ‘Aye, Dicky?’

‘Ding the culls.’

Bones nodded, reversed his musket so that he brandished it with the heavy wooden stock out in front. ‘Right you are, Dicky.’

Off Bishopsgate Street, London, 8 August 1643

The building was silent, save for the tapping of heavy boots as the sentries paced the path that encircled the entire complex like a flagstone moat. Thirty yards to the south, in a stand of withered trees that cast shadows the shapes of elderly, stooped men, two pairs of eyes glinted from behind the low hanging canopy. They watched the musketeers as they marched in groups of three or four, gauged their pace and numbers, searched the soaring walls behind for weaknesses.

‘This is it?’ Lisette Gaillard asked, not turning to look at the man who crouched at her right shoulder. ‘You are certain?’

‘Of course,’ Christopher Quigg muttered indignantly. He reached out to ease aside a branch that obstructed his view. ‘The old hospital o’ Saint Mary without Bishopsgate. Private buildings now, naturally. All sold up by King Henry.’

The wide thoroughfare of Bishopsgate Street Without cut through the land immediately to their left, and the ominous rumbling of a cart made them both flinch. They shrank back into the shadows, barely breathing until the creaking of the wheels had died away.

‘You had better be right,’ Lisette hissed testily, turning her attention back to the ancient monastic estate’s formidable stonework.

‘You see the damned guards,’ Quigg shot back. ‘Do you believe they are here to take the air?’

Lisette grunted but offered no argument. Quigg, she knew, had tracked her quarry here himself. They might have been moved again, but the presence of the granite-faced sentries suggested otherwise. And these were no ordinary musketeers. The afternoon sun was high, and must have been baking their woollen-coated backs without mercy. Trained Bandsmen or raw recruits would have left their posts to search for shade. These men had not so much as flinched, despite the sweat she could see gleam at their cheeks. No, these were soldiers of a high calibre. The kind who might report to a man of power. And she knew just who that man would be.