Assassin's Reign: Book 4 of The Civil War Chronicles (43 page)

‘Skellen,’ said Stryker. ‘Doesn’t trust anyone.’

‘Probably a good way to be, considering the circumstances.’ Buck sucked his teeth. ‘But all’s well that ends well. Now it is just the moon and the stars and you and me.’ The knife came up for the killing blow. ‘No phlegmatic sergeants to get in the way.’

‘There’s nothin’ wrong with my phlegm,’ Sergeant William Skellen grunted as his left arm snaked round Buck’s neck, hoisting him to the tips of his toes. Buck’s mouth dropped open but no sound followed, save a small gurgle at the back of his throat. Skellen let him go, jerking his own knife free from Buck’s back, and the intelligencer collapsed on to his face. ‘And I ain’t ganglin’.’

Stryker rolled to all fours and spat a rich gobbet of blood on to the mud beside the twisted body. Slowly he rose to his feet, his guts still griping as if he had eaten a surfeit of rotten meat. ‘Thank you, Will.’

‘He’s not your only follower, sir,’ Skellen replied, wiping the dirk on his sleeve and prizing the other from Buck’s clawlike grip. He thrust one into each boot. ‘Saw you went into Skafflock’s place. Thought I’d wait outside for a bit. You looked a tad—’ he pursed his lips, searching for the right word, ‘
strange
, when you came out, so I thought I’d keep with you, check you was well.’

‘I’m glad you did,’ said Stryker. ‘And no, I’m not well. Not really. We’ve much to discuss.’

‘We’re due at the muster point in less than an hour, sir. You can tell me on the way.’

Gaudy Green, Gloucester, 21 August 1643

Two companies from Sir Edmund Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot had been assigned to Gaudy Green as soon as the pre-dawn barrage thundered across Gloucestershire’s black skies. The Royalist commanders had roused their men at points all around the city, for the suspicion had been that a rebel sally was in the offing.

‘What say you, Tom?’

Lieutenant Thomas Hood, de facto leader of the regiment’s second company while his captain was away, cocked his head to the side as he listened to the distant crackle of gunfire. It was louder than usual, not the ubiquitous coughs from individual muskets as the opposing sentries chipped away at one other from the walls and saps, but a wave of sound that rattled like a thousand spurs in the grey half-light. ‘Skirmish, Mister Forrester. Down at the Priory, by my reckoning.’

Captain Lancelot Forrester was standing at the head of his company, amid the desolate ruin that had once been the community around Bristol Road, the blocks of pike and shot waiting patiently for the order to move. He followed Hood’s gaze. ‘I think you’re right. Forth’s camp is not half a mile from here. Let us see whether they require assistance.’

The redcoats marched. Within the space of five minutes they could see the smoke rising from the land around Severn Street and Llanthony Priory, the great river writhing like a black snake beyond. The sun was only just shedding light across the eastern horizon, and yet a major firefight was already underway.

‘We’ll make for the main artillery redoubt,’ Forrester said as they marched.

Hood looked across at him nervously. ‘You think they intend to take it?’

‘Absolutely. Even if Massie’s entire force had come out of the city, they could not rout Forth’s men. They must have a target, and I’d wager it is the battery.’ He saw the strain on the young officer’s face. ‘You’ve done well these past days, sir. Stepped into the breach, if you pardon the expression.’

Hood forced a smile. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Forrester glanced back at the long line of redcoats. ‘You have their loyalty, Lieutenant, and that should stand you in good stead.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Keep Barkworth by your side and you’ll be just fine. He may look like a dwarf, but he fights like a demon.’

Hood nodded rapidly. ‘I will, sir.’

Forrester reached across and slapped Hood’s shoulder. ‘That’s the spirit! We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’

‘
Henry the Fifth
, sir?’

‘You’ll do just fine, Tom!’ Forrester exclaimed in genuine delight. ‘Now, let’s go and kill some Roundheads!’

Below the South Wall, Gloucester, 21 August 1643

The fight had already started by the time Stryker and Skellen’s boat slid on to the bank of the River Severn. The two men waited for it to judder up the smooth slope alongside the rest of the craft, and jumped out to join the sally party, wading the last few feet through the frothing water. The raid was Massie’s most ambitious enterprise yet. It was a two-pronged attack, designed to spike the Royalist guns in front of both the south and east walls, the first part of which would see a large detachment of Stamford’s bluecoats take to the river and land between the strong enemy leaguer at Llanthony and the Severn Street artillery position. So far the plan was working, for they had made it to dry land under the Earl of Forth’s nose, but the leading groups, under Captains Blunt and White, had now run into resistance somewhere in the direction of the battery.

‘Think they’ve reached the guns?’ Skellen asked as he and Stryker rushed north-eastwards with the rest of the bluecoats. Neither had muskets, but Skellen’s halberd seemed all the more fearsome in the gloom.

Stryker had been thinking about James Buck, his body tipped over the side of the wall to rot in the filthy moat, and looked up, startled. ‘Sergeant?’

‘The cannon, sir.’

‘If they have,’ Stryker said, ‘then we need to hurry. The plan is to roll up the sap system until we meet the others at the East Gate. If we don’t join Blunt and White soon, they’ll overreach themselves and be cut off.’

The group forged on, running across the muddy ground until they reached the redoubt. The advance party was there, and at first Stryker thought one of the cannon had exploded, such was the devastation. Corpses lay strewn about, including that of one high-ranking Royalist officer, to judge by his gold-fringed scarf, but it was quickly apparent that the ordnance had not even been fired. Blunt and White had taken the battery unawares, storming it with speed and brutality. Now their men set about spiking the iron barrels as the sally party regrouped.

‘Captain Lieutenant Stevenson,’ the dour-faced Blunt shouted, ‘leads two hundred of our lads out of the North Gate. They will sweep down to the East Gate, immobilize the artillery, and destroy the trenches. We will move towards them, meeting on Gaudy Green. We will destroy what we can before the enemy can muster a proper response. Understood?’

Stevenson saluted in agreement, and the blue-coated force marched to the east.

Forrester and Hood took their companies to one of the old roads that ran between Severn Street and Bristol Road. There had been a vibrant neighbourhood here before the siege, but the houses, mostly timber-framed and thatched, were among those Massie had ordered to be destroyed lest they offer protection for the king’s men. Now this whole area was a wasteland. A few walls persisted, the crumbling and blackened remains of those buildings built in stone, but they simply jutted up from the muddy morass like gigantic tombstones, a sad reminder of a once lively area.

‘We’ll hold them here!’ Forrester bellowed. A terrified and bloodied gunner’s assistant had come sprinting through the shredded streets, bolting straight into the red-coated ranks. He had told of a large amphibious raid coming from the west that had already overrun his redoubt. Many had been slaughtered in the skirmish, the mattross claimed through racking sobs, including the battery commander, Major Wells, and now they were headed this way. Forrester drew his sword and held it high, thrusting the tip out towards his great standard. It was getting lighter now, and the men would be able to see the red flag with its quartet of white diamonds. ‘Keep your ranks!’ He caught the eye of his second in command, Reginald Jays. ‘You take the pikes to the rear, Lieutenant.’

Jays’ face sagged. ‘But, sir, I would fight.’

‘Christ’s robes, Lieutenant, do as you’re damn well told! They’ll have muskets. How much good will men carrying long poles be in a firefight?’

Jays flushed. ‘Not a lot, sir.’

‘Not a lot,’ Forrester said witheringly. ‘Get them into the saps. You’ll protect them if the enemy gets through us. Living storm poles, eh?’

Jays turned to his work. ‘Understood, sir.’

Forrester looked along the red line to find Hood. ‘Are your men ready, Thomas?’

Hood’s own sword was drawn. ‘They are, Captain. Pikes in the trenches, muskets with me.’

‘Mowbray’s Foot, have a care!’ Forrester shouted again. ‘There’s a parcel o’ bluecoats heading this way, and I mean to stop ’em!’

The men cheered, though the anxiety was stark in their collective voice, and Forrester turned to face the west. To the left was Llanthony Priory, and he could already see a swarm of men mustering around its ramshackle buildings. But, though Forth had made his camp there and would have a huge number of men at his disposal, they were taking an age to organize. Behind him, back at Gaudy Green, there were more Royalist troops, but they had been ordered to stay put to guard the main batteries, while further east at Barton the bulk of Astley’s brigade would be doubtless readying for deployment. But none of them would reach Forrester’s position before the rebel sally, and he arranged his men for volley fire.

Somewhere away to the north, more musketry ripped apart the dawn. It whipped up like a sudden squall, furious and dense, and he had the vague notion that perhaps the rebels were attacking on two fronts. ‘Jesu,’ he muttered, stepping briskly to the side of his seasoned fighters. ‘Prepare to give fire, boys!’

‘You should have killed him.’

Stryker, marching in time with the fast pace set by Captain Blunt, glanced across at Skellen. ‘I didn’t need to. Your dirk in his lungs did the job well enough.’

They had subtly found their way to the rear of the column so that they would have the best chance of avoiding king’s men when the surprised Royalists regained the front foot, but Skellen nonetheless kept his voice quiet. ‘Not Buck, sir.’

‘I considered it,’ Stryker said, knowing full well who Skellen had meant.

‘Then why didn’t you?’

‘Partly because he would probably have killed me first.’

‘And the other part?’

Stryker waited for a barrage of cannon fire to blast down from the bastion on Gloucester’s southern wall. Massie was keeping his vow to soften the enemy entrenchments in advance of the raid. ‘When I said he was like a father to me,’ he said when the ringing in his ears had begun to subside, ‘I meant it.’

They had reached a point along the road where the remains of buildings were more substantial, the occasional stone wall or tottering gable having resisted the blaze that had consumed the neighbouring streets. The column was slowing, the men at its head becoming more cautious now that the Royalists could employ those shattered gable ends as makeshift breastworks. ‘But he means to murder the King, sir.’

‘Would you kill the man who raised you, Sergeant?’

‘I did, sir,’ Skellen replied.

The volley took them by surprise. It roared out from the ruins of a line of charred homes fifty paces to their right, and the entire sally party disintegrated as they scattered in search of shelter. The head of the column bore the brunt of the storm, and blue-coated casualties littered the road in their wake. Stryker and Skellen were far enough back to escape the shower of lead, and they kept low, scrambling behind a cart that had been flipped on to its side by a shot from the defenders’ cannon.

Stryker peered over the side of the cart. A large body of men had stepped out from the rubble. Their front rank was still obscured by the smoke from their volley, drifting lazily sideways to roil like an army of spirits amongst the crumbling suburb, and he could hear orders screamed by unseen sergeants and corporals, preparing the second rank to fire. Already the bluecoats along this side of the road were offering sporadic shots in return, but theirs was a desultory affair, the disunity of the sudden retreat having spread their ranks too thinly for Blunt and White to organize.

‘What now?’ Skellen growled, wincing as a musket-ball clipped the cart’s wheel, sending it into a mad spin in the air before them.

‘We wait,’ Stryker said. After all, they had no muskets with which to enter the fray. He hoped one side would withdraw soon, for he did not wish to be compelled to fight the Royalists, but that did not seem likely. It was only when the two bodies seemed to be settling into their positions, both groups pressing up against the jagged walls, neither willing to break cover, that he saw it. ‘Oh Christ,’ he said in a whisper.

Skellen looked across at him. ‘Sir?’

Stryker jerked his chin to indicate a point along the Royalist line. ‘See it?’

Skellen gingerly poked his head above the splintered dog cart. ‘Shite.’

And from up on Gloucester’s walls, trumpets sounded.

The East Gate, Gloucester, 21 August 1643

Edward Massie leant against the stone rampart. ‘Sound it again.’

‘Sir?’ a teenager from the Town Regiment called from a little way along the wall.

Massie rounded on him. ‘I said sound the retreat again, damn you! Get them back before we lose them all!’