Assassin's Reign: Book 4 of The Civil War Chronicles (44 page)

The youngster raised his battered instrument to his lips and sounded out the notes as powerfully as he could.

Vincent Skaithlocke stood with Massie. ‘Should we position another of the drakes to the north, sir?’

Massie shook his head. ‘Not enough time, Colonel. They’ll have to fight their way out.’ He lifted his perspective glass again. Messengers scuttled up and down the earthworks to bring him news of the amphibious landing down on Severn Street, and things, it seemed, were beginning to stall. But those men were bluecoats, Stamford’s veterans, and he did not worry unduly for them. From up here he had hoped to watch the second squad make their way down from the North Gate and spike the cannon at the battery immediately below his position, but something had gone horribly wrong. The men, drawn from Stephens’ inexperienced regiment, with only a small group of Devereux’s more seasoned dragoons as support, had taken a wrong turn in the darkness and now, as the sun illuminated the ambitious attack, it was clear that they had become woefully lost. Instead of engaging the battery close to the walls, they had stumbled along the streets further north, eventually wandering into the vast encampment of Darcy’s brigade out on Barton Street. The element of surprise had given them a fighting chance, and they had initially sent the king’s men into startled retreat, killing a score of musketeers in the process, but the enemy had quickly regrouped, pushed back with impossibly superior numbers, and now Massie’s audacious plan lay in tatters.

‘Stryker is down there, sir,’ Skaithlocke said, staring out over the smoking trenches.

Massie shook his head. ‘He is with the blues to the south.’

‘They’re in a fight of their own.’

‘But they do not have far to go. They’ll pull back to the South Gate under covering fire from the barbican.’ He looked up at the huge man. ‘Worry not, sir. I know he is a particular friend of yours, but they will be safe enough.’

Skaithlocke nodded and went to watch proceedings from the South Gate. Massie noticed he muttered a prayer as he walked.

Below the South Gate, Gloucester, 21 August 1643

Captains Blunt and White ordered their units to move gradually northwards. They could not very well retreat to the boats in which they had come, for by now the riverbank would be teeming with Forth’s enraged soldiers, seeking revenge for the audacious landing and subsequent spiking of cannon right under their collective noses. But the South Gate towered above their position, and from it the small artillery pieces belched down at the suburbs, forcing the Royalist infantry companies to stay hidden within their labyrinth of pockmarked rubble screens.

‘What do you reckon happened?’ Skellen asked as the trumpets repeated the order to abort.

They were still crouched behind the dog cart. Stryker shook his head. ‘I don’t know. We might have made more ground with the ordnance support.’

‘Which means Stevenson’s lot have made a ballocks of it.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Still, I’m glad we’ll be out of it, sir,’ Skellen said, raising his voice above the din as a cannonade from the city pounded the infantrymen on the far side of the road. ‘Can’t say I like fighting for the crop-heads.’

Stryker looked at him, his brow furrowed. ‘They’re all English, Will.’

Skellen chewed the inside of his mouth. ‘Can I speak plain, sir?’

‘Do you ever speak otherwise?’

‘Were you truly thinkin’ of chucking your lot in with the rebels?’

‘No, Sergeant, I was not,’ Stryker lied. ‘But I admired them. Their courage. That lad who fought with Captain Crisp’s raid, just a child really. The common folk rebuilding the walls. The women cutting the turf within musket range. They’re a rare breed.’ In truth, he had experienced moments of doubt. He had not wished to fight his comrades in Mowbray’s regiment, but beyond that? Did he care for the king any more than for Parliament? Not especially, he inwardly conceded. But his place was with the red-coated ranks, and his heart was with Lisette Gaillard, and she was the most ardent Royalist he had ever met. For her alone, he would never have really turned his coat. He had known it for days, but part of him wanted to stay in Gloucester simply to fight for its people. They had come so far that it seemed cruel to abandon them. But then he had learned of Vincent Skaithlocke’s plans and known that he must leave. He might feel no love for King Charles, but he was still the sovereign, and Stryker would be damned before he would let an assassin reign.

‘Mad breed,’ sniffed Skellen.

Stryker grinned. ‘Aye, that too.’ He sheathed his sword and watched the pockets of garrison men creep through the smashed buildings towards the big bastion and the safety it promised. Only he and Skellen were left in this part of the suburb and the Royalist infantrymen were no longer firing on their position, preferring to harass the retreating bluecoats. He stood. ‘Are you ready?’

Skellen stood too. ‘As ever, sir.’

The iron ball from a booming drake punched into the wall, demolishing the top layer of bricks. Lieutenant Thomas Hood ducked as low as he could, his scabbard becoming stuck between his legs and making him stumble. He swore, grasped the wall, and dragged himself upright. Someone called to his right, decrying their faltering defence.

‘Just hold!’ he shouted back. ‘We can’t run into their bloody guns!’

In truth it was infuriatingly frustrating, for they had caught the advancing bluecoats with a stout couple of good volleys that might have halted the attack long enough for reinforcements to come from Llanthony Priory and squeeze the rebels from behind. But the retreat had been trumpeted too soon, the covering fire from the barbican had pinned the redcoats down, and though they had lost only one man in the iron rain, they could not risk a chase. Thus, they were reduced to shooting at the backs of the sally party while they watched the brazen Parliamentarians stroll away. Hood flinched again as another plume of smoke billowed out from the city and a heavy crack signalled the imminent arrival of another lump of deadly shot. The ball found more masonry out to his right, and he chided himself for cringing like a whipped dog.

‘Keep at them, men!’ he bellowed, knowing the gesture was utterly superfluous, for no more fire came back at them from the sally party. Indeed, the scurrying activity on the looming bastion seemed to have ceased as well, and he wondered if the garrison had decided to save their powder and ammunition now that the dawn raiders had made it back to safety.

He moved out from the cover of the wall, confident that the bluecoats were now well out of musket range. Scanning the surrounding area, he was happy to see that they had suffered no more casualties and the saps had been successfully protected. Away to the north, he could see Captain Forrester corralling his sooty charges with blade still drawn. He smiled, pleased to see the officer had come through the skirmish unscathed.

It was only then that Hood caught the movement in the corner of his eye. Ensign Chase was with him, the giant red square of taffeta hoisted high and proud in his strong grip, and he saw the men too, for he nodded towards the upended dog cart on the opposite side of what once had been a busy street. Hood nodded, drew his sword, and called for a pair of musketeers to join him. They marched quickly across the road that had so recently been a thoroughfare for flying lead, and intercepted the pair of soldiers in dark clothing who now skirted round the side of the cart with hands raised high in surrender.

It was Chase who spoke first, and it was with an astonished oath that he broke the silence. ‘You seeing what I’m seeing, sir?’

Lieutenant Thomas Hood squinted at the rebels’ faces. He looked again at Ensign Chase, then back at the men beside the cart. ‘Good God.’

Near Barton, Gloucester, 21 August 1643

Sir Edmund Mowbray had a tent out to the east, on the periphery of Astley’s main encampment, and it was here that Stryker and Skellen were taken. They had requested that Hood convey them direct to Ezra Killigrew, but he was apparently down in Bristol on some business for Prince Rupert.

Hood had not known how to react when he had taken custody of the pair of soldiers who had emerged sheepishly from the temporary rebel lines. He and the other officers in Mowbray’s regiment had been aware that Stryker was on a clandestine mission for the prince, but it was still a shock for them to come face to face in the aftermath of such a bitter fight, and he had ordered his men to escort them back into the midst of the waiting redcoats at the end of primed muskets.

But any doubts were quickly erased by the men themselves. The company might have been commanded by Hood these past weeks, but it belonged to Stryker, and they converged on him and their talismanic sergeant with nothing but astonished cheers.

Forrester’s force joined them quickly, marching together out of range of the city’s cannon with a chorus of huzzahs. ‘We might have bloody killed you, you pair of bee-headed fools!’ the captain had said as they left the carnage of the abortive sally in their wake. But then he had grinned broadly, thanked God for his friends’ return, and boasted that he knew all along that they would never truly desert. Stryker and Skellen had exchanged a sharp glance, but both men kept their peace.

‘I am thankful you took your colours to the battle,’ Stryker said as they marched, eager to steer the subject on a different course.

Forrester feigned offence. ‘I cannot believe you might think otherwise, Stryker.’

‘You might have lost them in a little skirmish,’ Stryker chided.

‘It is right that the enemy sees who we are,’ Forrester said. ‘Puts the fear of God into ’em.’

‘Well I am thankful for it. Without the ensigns I might not have recognized who you were.’

‘And if it hadn’t been us?’ Forrester asked pointedly. ‘What then?’

‘We’d have thrown ourselves on the mercy of whichever unit it was,’ Stryker replied firmly, but he was far from certain. He had already decided to break back to the Royalist lines, but would he have done it in that moment? He doubted it. A secret part of him had wanted to see the ambitious sally succeed, for the men – and their innovative governor – deserved it.

‘We had expected you back earlier, Captain,’ Sir Edmund Mowbray said as he paced back and forth in the musky gloom of his tent.

Stryker, standing in the centre of the makeshift room, nodded. ‘That was the intention, sir. But we were trapped. We encountered the greencoat who escaped at Hartcliffe.’

‘S’blood, Captain!’ Mowbray exclaimed. ‘The very same man?’ He looked at Skellen. ‘The man who stabbed the sergeant?’

Stryker said that it was. ‘And he made life difficult. By the time we were rid of him, the king’s army were camped outside. We could not get out.’

‘And how did they treat you?’

‘Very well, sir. We joined the garrison.’

Mowbray’s russet brows shot up. ‘Stryker?’

Stryker felt prickly heat rise along the skin of his neck, and he forced himself to stare hard at a point just above Mowbray’s shoulder. ‘Prince Rupert instructed us to turn our coats for the good of the mission, sir, and that is what we did. We had to do it to make the signal for Killigrew.’

Mowbray rubbed his red-rimmed eyes with balled fists. ‘Well at least you were not forced to fight for the buggers, eh?’

‘Quite, sir,’ Stryker said, ignoring the sound of Skellen’s shifting feet.

‘And you say this Buck intended to kill you?’

‘Yes, sir. He’d nearly succeeded when Sergeant Skellen intervened.’

Mowbray looked at Skellen, slightly behind and to the side of Stryker, before whistling softly at the awning above. ‘Zounds. And you’re certain he was Crow’s man?’

‘Oh yes, sir,’ Stryker confirmed. ‘Quite certain. He was working for Killigrew as well, but had not been due to infiltrate the city until a day or two later. In the light of Crow’s request, it seems, he arranged to couple his mission with my own.’

Mowbray’s eyes narrowed. ‘And Killigrew? Was he involved somehow?’

Stryker wrinkled his nose. ‘I doubt he had the first inkling of Buck’s association with Colonel Crow, sir.’

‘That villain,’ Mowbray muttered, setting his jaw as his voice grew in volume. ‘That damnable villain.’

‘He wants me dead, sir. He’s never pretended otherwise.’

‘Why, I shall—’

‘Beg pardon, Colonel,’ Stryker cut in, ‘but I urge you to tread carefully. He is powerful.’

Mowbray teased the bristles of his moustache between thumb and forefinger. ‘That he is.’

‘I am alive,’ Stryker said. ‘Buck is dead. We may have to settle for that.’

Mowbray sighed unhappily. ‘And what of this murderer?’

Stryker grimaced, knowing he should have tried harder to gain more information from Skaithlocke. The reality was that the details he retained from that shocking night were sparse. ‘The plan was revealed to me only in part, sir. A man – a professional assassin – has broken out of the city with the express purpose of killing His Majesty.’

‘Name?’

‘I do not have one, sir. He is golden-haired, and is an expert marksman.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘That is all I know.’

‘That is a start, I suppose. I will petition the King. Beseech him to leave.’