Assassin's Reign: Book 4 of The Civil War Chronicles (12 page)

‘It is not that we lack trust, Captain,’ Killigrew had explained once the horses had been tacked, ‘but I have other tasks that must be carried out within the city. Messages to convey, and suchlike. My man will see to those, while you and your sergeant look to the mission at hand.’ They were in a vast stone barn on the outskirts of Bristol, and he let his small eyes dart from Stryker to Skellen, who waited patiently close by on a bay mare. Killigrew’s eyes narrowed as he examined the tall sergeant in the gloom. ‘This is the man you chose?’ he muttered dubiously.

Stryker had given a terse reply of confirmation, though he doubted the sergeant would have taken no for an answer, had he selected another for the task.

‘Well I wish you all success,’ Killigrew said as he released the bridle of Stryker’s loaned gelding and stepped aside. ‘You are comfortable with your mission?’

Stryker kicked a little harder than was necessary so that the huge chestnut beast lurched forward more quickly than Killigrew had anticipated. He tried not to smile as the aide struggled to keep his feet. ‘I am. Turn my coat, enlist with the rebels and discover Massie’s intentions.’

Killigrew had responded with a sharp nod. ‘And if he means to surrender?’

‘Come and tell you.’

The aide sighed heavily. ‘If you cannot break out?’

‘Make for the ancient wall to the east of the city. Wait for mid morning, and catch the sunlight upon a piece of glass.’

‘How many times?’

‘Thrice for surrender. A fourth and fifth if he is like to defend.’

Killigrew had set his jaw. ‘I’ll be watching.’

‘See that you do.’

Thus, the trio of cloaked riders cantered out through the pale meadows to the east of Bristol and never looked back. Stryker wore his usual feathered hat, though the red ribbon he had fastened to it at Bristol had been replaced with one of plain black. Skellen and the third man, one James Buck, ordinarily wore Monmouth caps, but Stryker had convinced them to don hats with wide brims so that, come the bright morning, their venture into the rising sun would not prove too blinding.

Desertion, it transpired, was surprisingly easy. Stryker did not know what he had expected. Some stoic pickets, perhaps, challenging them in the darkness. Poised black gun muzzles thrust in their faces, metal locks gleaming in the moonlight like cut coal. But this army was too big to be contained by Bristol’s smouldering walls – being a fighting force of near ten thousand men, all needing food and shelter – and it had spilled out across a huge swathe of the Severn Valley. The comings and goings of infantry squads or the thundering evolutions of mounted troopers were commonplace, the army’s perimeter security necessarily fluid. Moreover, the king’s grand horde did not suffer the same tribulations that had seen the Earl of Essex’s rebel force thrust so low. They were a winning army, flush with confidence after Stratton, Lansdown, Roundway and Bristol, and – now that the restless Cornishmen had marched their cold feet back to the south-west – not many in their number were yearning to abscond. As the sun rose to illuminate the dawn, Stryker, Skellen and Buck forged east without hearing so much as a whisper of challenge.

James Buck, it transpired, was an intelligencer. An ardent Royalist, he had joined Ezra Killigrew’s carefully constructed network of spies, enforcers, runners and code-breakers as a low-ranking informant, made useful by dint of his knowledge of Somerset and Gloucestershire.

‘The terrain, sir,’ he had said when pressed on the subject. ‘Father was a drover. As a stripling, I’d follow as he drove herd or flock to market. One town this day, another tomorrow. Soon I knew every hillock, ford and shortcut for a hundred miles.’

Stryker could well imagine that such an intimate knowledge of the landscape had proven invaluable to Killigrew’s covert machinations. ‘In time,’ he said, ‘other, more complex tasks were entrusted to you.’

‘Quite so, sir. And now here I am, serving the great Ezra Killigrew.’

Expendable pawn, Stryker thought. ‘A deal of responsibility held by young shoulders,’ he said pointedly.

‘I have recently reached my nineteenth year, sir,’ Buck replied with a half-smile.

Stryker looked across at him, assessing this new compatriot keenly. Buck seemed a plain sort, of sallow complexion, sad eyes and greasy hair that was the same colour as his mount’s liver coat. He appeared a trifle moody, certainly for one whose career apparently excelled with the deepening of war. Not badly natured, as such, but somewhat aloof. Perhaps, Stryker wondered, he felt aggrieved to have been assigned a mission that would involve following orders given by a one-eyed, battle-worn soldier, rather than the smooth-tongued spymasters to which he was evidently accustomed. ‘Did you see the escalade?’

‘Bristol?’ Buck asked. ‘Aye, sir, I did. From the inside.’

‘You were in the city?’ Stryker replied, unable to hide his surprise.

‘Mister Killigrew’s business, sir, as ever. I went in to coordinate efforts with our people amongst the defenders.’ He shrugged as though it no longer mattered. ‘The Prince stormed the walls before I could work my way free.’

They reached a narrow stream, its clear water gurgling over grey pebbles, stretching ragged tentacles of green weed horizontally. One by one they led their tentative horses down the gentle slope to the grassy bank, paused as the beasts drank, and urged them across.

Stryker had been first to cross, and he halted in order to wait for his companions. His long hair had been tied tightly at the nape of the neck with a thin length of leather so that it fell between his shoulder blades like a tar-coloured tail, and he lifted a gloved hand to play at the fastening knot. ‘How fares that leg, Will?’

Skellen was safely across by now, and he let his horse lumber up to whicker at Stryker’s mount. Instinctively, he peered down at his damaged limb. ‘Hurts like hell’s flames, sir.’

‘How did you come by the wound, Sergeant?’ Buck asked when he had joined them.

‘Stabbed by a crop-head.’

‘I’d wager he didn’t live long enough to wipe his blade, eh?’ Buck said in a strained attempt to sound jovial. When Skellen failed to respond, he added, ‘Rather you than me, Sergeant. I prefer my fights to be cloaked and shadowed.’

‘Curious, then,’ Stryker interjected, ‘that your blade is so well used.’

Buck followed the captain’s interested gaze to his sword-hilt. ‘This thing?’

Stryker nodded. ‘The grip is nicely worn, by way of a man’s fingers.’

Buck’s eyelid twitched for a moment. He blinked hard. ‘Borrowed, sir. I am no swash-and-buckler man, I can assure you. Intelligencing is my life, and I would not change it.’

At midday, the party turned north. Killigrew had said that a military presence, from both sides, was heavy on the coastal road. Thus they had pressed a number of miles eastwards before joining the highway that would take them near Nailsworth and Stroud. It was a small detour, but one that was doubtless worthwhile, and now, finally, they were travelling in the right direction, for this rural conduit would lead directly to the rebel city.

They made good progress through forests and meadows fairly bustling with wildlife now that, and even the horses seemed to keep a high-kneed pace, as though the fresh air of this relative wilderness were a welcome antidote to the sulphurous miasma of Bristol. Civilization was scarce. They passed the odd hamlet, the comforting scent of wood smoke lacing the air, but didn’t encounter a living soul. Stryker imagined parents ushering their offspring into their homes with fingers pressed tight to lips, urging silence lest the strangers were out in search of loot – or worse. Crossing the brow of a low hill, they looked down upon a farmstead that appeared utterly deserted. Its grounds were overgrown, the enclosures untended, and one of the outbuildings looked to have been ravaged by fire, judging by its blackened roof timbers. The three stared silently down at the scene as they rode by. Perhaps the owners had fallen victim to marauding soldiers not too dissimilar to themselves.

As they reached the rolling foothills of the Cotswolds, they noticed a small cavalry unit crossing the horizon. The troopers trotted along the crest of a far-away hill, their helmets like a string of tiny pearls against the blue sky. The three would-be turncoats dismounted, coaxed their horses to the edge of the road where they would be obscured by the low-lying branches of oak and ash, and scanned the distance for further danger. Nothing came, save for the cavalrymen, who seemed not to have spotted them and were instead content to continue their progress behind a little fluttering cornet.

‘What shall we do if we are sighted?’ Buck enquired when they were back on the road.

Stryker shrugged. ‘There is no safe way to turn one’s coat, Mister Buck.’

‘I thank God,’ Buck replied earnestly, looking Stryker up and down, ‘you saw sense, and discarded your company coats.’

Stryker smiled briefly. ‘When Sir Edmund raised his regiment,’ he explained, ‘his funds went towards the purchase of arms and armour rather than the pristine, matching garments you will see elsewhere in the army.’ It had been one of the reasons why Stryker had been so comfortable in accepting his commission, for he reckoned the colonel was clearly a man of sound judgement, compared with many of the Whitehall cockerels who had courted him upon his return from Europe. ‘We were quick to establish ourselves as a solid fighting force, reliable in both garrison and tertio. But the colonel always harboured the ambition to have his men march in one, uniform colour.’ Indeed, thought Stryker, it was no secret that Mowbray had always felt the prickle of jealousy when his men were compared with the smart-coated ranks of the King’s Lifeguard, Rupert’s Bluecoats or the men enlisted with Earl Rivers. ‘Upon Cirencester’s fall, we captured divers stores of cloth. Enough for many units to replenish, replace and repair their kit. Since then, we have been in red, in the main.’

‘In the main?’

‘Utmost in Sir Edmund’s mind is the comfort of his fighters. Those of us wishing to remain in our chosen clothes were given leave to do so.’

Skellen thumbed his own threadbare coat that had, if Stryker remembered rightly, started life the colour of seaweed, but which was now more a garment of brown, due to the many patches it had endured. ‘This old thing’s been with me right across the Low Countries. Killed a Bavarian dragooner for it.’

‘Surprising a colonel would allow it,’ Buck said.

‘A good commander,’ was all Stryker said, for it was all Buck needed to know. In reality, he reflected, it was the intervention of Prince Rupert that had secured Mowbray’s reluctant acquiescence. Upon hearing of Sir Edmund’s plan to purchase red cloth, the fearsome young General of Horse had insisted that a select few of his men remain in their neutral colours. Stryker had become a valued tool for the prince. His ban-dog, Forrester often wryly observed. A man to order upon certain tasks; those of a lethal kind that most other men would shirk. Stark red would not do for such operations.

‘I am told you join us for your knowledge of the city, sir?’ Stryker said, steering the conversation away from his own brand of intelligencing.

Buck nodded. ‘Aye, sir, you’re in the right of it. A Gloucester man, born and raised.’

‘And now rallying to the defence of his home town,’ added Stryker, ‘even at the peril of his king.’

‘Quite so. Once I am given my liberty, I can execute my duties for Mister Killigrew.’ He seemed to sigh; a soft, wistful sound. ‘It will be pleasant to see the old place again, though she is at low ebb.’

‘Does any village or town thrive?’ Stryker replied bluntly. ‘I think not.’

Buck looked at Skellen suddenly, perhaps as uncomfortable with this subject as Stryker was with the last. ‘You mentioned the Low Countries, Sergeant. So you are soldiers of fortune?’

‘Aye,’ Skellen answered with a glint in his eye. ‘Mercenaries.’

The young man shot a cautious glance at Stryker. ‘That is how—’

‘How I came by this?’ Stryker replied quickly, tapping his forefinger at the ravaged hole where his left eye had once been. ‘Indeed. Black powder and lit match is not a poultice I would recommend for one’s face. But that was long ago. We were called home by war.’

‘And not stopped fighting since,’ Skellen droned.

Buck stared at the desultory clouds. ‘The logical choice for this mission, I suppose.’ He flushed suddenly. ‘Er, beg pardon, sir. I spoke out of turn.’

Stryker waved him away. ‘No matter. You’re right enough. What better than a local man and two soldiers of fortune? The King does not pay well enough, so we seek to offer our services to Massie. He did the same, I’m told. Preferred the royal cause but was not offered high enough rank, so he went over to the rebellion.’

Buck nodded. ‘Hence, he can hardly condemn us for plotting the same course.’

‘That is the idea, Mister Buck, certainly.’

It seemed as though dusk would never end, the high summer sun lingering above the Severn far to the west, but eventually the jagged shadows lengthened, softened, melded into one, and lay like a dark blanket over the rolling Cotswolds. Those hills were where Stryker led his companions, for they climbed towards Stroud, Gloucester looming like a storm cloud beyond, both beckoning and defying them. But first they needed rest, and the verdant slopes and valleys would offer the most protection during the impending night.