Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) (34 page)

‘We are the bait!’ he yelled. ‘We will draw them close, as close as we dare, and give fire. Then we will retire a safe distance and do the same again, as many times as we can before they grow tired of it. Or until His Highness the Prince joins us.’ The Scot had already sent two men galloping off west to find the Prince, who would by now, if they were lucky, be somewhere near Oxford. Rupert would come like a hound on the scent when he heard that a Parliament army was on the move.

‘Sir Edmund will command this action!’ The Scot glared at his men. ‘So keep yer lugs open and yer heids doon.’ He glanced across and Mun nodded and turned back to watch the rebel army trudging across the vale towards them.

‘How many colours do you see?’ he asked O’Brien. The colours were yet furled for the march but their white painted silks were visible against the darker reds and iron greys of the men behind them.

‘Trooper Milward, how many ensigns have you counted?’ O’Brien bellowed.

‘Eight, Corporal!’ the young man called back.

‘And I’d wager all of ’em as pretty as those fancy drawers your wife wears, Fitch,’ Walter Cade teased, stirring a few laughs.

‘Jesus, what’s that stench?’ Fitch riposted. ‘Close your mouth, Cade, or that lot over there will think it’s the latrine pit and fill you with shit.’

‘Cade’s already full of shit,’ Henry Jones put in.

‘Now, now, ladies.’ Cole leant over in the saddle, hawked and spat onto the lush grass. ‘Let’s not get overexcited.’ Then, nodding towards the enemy, ‘We don’t want to scare ’em off,’ he said, dragging a hand across his lips.

Mun tapped his heels against Hector’s flanks and the stallion moved off towards the rebels; and the whole troop followed, horses blowing and neighing because even they knew that the
enemy were coming and that by all rights they should be riding away, not towards them.

Eight ensigns meant eight companies, pikemen and musketeers. Ideally each company would boast one hundred men, but Mun knew this rarely if ever happened in practice. More likely each of those companies coming towards him mustered forty, fifty or perhaps sixty men, because commanders preferred to maintain the numbers of soldiers in each at a reasonable level, even if to do this meant disbanding weaker companies and drafting men into stronger ones. The musketeers would number twice as many as the pikemen whose dark staves Mun now saw bristling above rebel heads.

‘They’re not short of horse, either,’ O’Brien beside him observed.

‘It’s not the dog in the fight, Clancy, but the fight in the dog,’ Mun replied.

‘Ah, so it is,’ the Irishman said, like Mun assessing the enemy’s strength and in particular their horse, for they would prove the biggest threat if they had an appetite for a fight. Parliament cavalry rode on either flank, perhaps as many as five hundred men, two hundred of which were dragoons, two hundred harquebusiers and perhaps one hundred, if Trooper Milward’s eyesight was to be trusted, heavy cavalry in the form of cuirassiers, their armour glinting in the afternoon sun.

And still Mun led them north-west, directly towards the seething mass that had marched out of Thame, his mouth drying now and his nerves jangling like the men’s tack and sword fittings all around him.

The sound of the rebels’ drums beating the March carried to them now, a sound that could put ice-cold fear in a man’s gut or even make him piss in his breeches.

‘You had better all be loaded, lads!’ O’Brien called over his shoulder, a grin nestling in his beard. ‘Don’t want you telling me after that you forgot in all the excitement.’

It was said only half in jest. Men had been known in their
panic to fire their scouring sticks at the enemy or otherwise charge their firearm incorrectly. Mun had seen troopers, musketeers too, forget the wad so that the ball rolled out of the barrel. He had seen trembling lads fail to prime the pan, seen their shocked expressions when they pulled their triggers and nothing happened.

But all those who rode with him now at a good trot were experienced soldiers, forged and hardened by war, and he did not doubt that they would perform well for him. They were arranged in three ranks, the length of a horse left between each rank, and a good pace, three feet, between the files, which would give them a wide front from which to fire but a weak body should they endure the shock of a rebel charge. Though Mun had no intention of receiving a charge and fighting hand-to-hand. Against so many it would be suicide.

They were close enough now that the enemy were more than a body of rebel musketeers with their matchlocks and stands, buff-coats or simple tunics, bandoliers and broad-hats with orange bands. They were no longer simply Parliament’s pikemen presenting a wall of wrought-iron armour – brimmed pots, gorgets, breastplates and tassets – and their great staves: sixteen feet of tapered ash culminating in wicked steel blades. Now, Mun could make out faces within the throng, skin red raw from that morning’s shave, jaw muscles tight as knots and eyes steeled by the comfort of relative safety in numbers. He could see hat plumes shivering in the warm breeze, scars on tunics and breeches where they had been oft repaired, mud spatters up bucket-top boots or white stockings, and garters flickering at the knee.

And he could see their cavalry on the move.

‘It’s just a warning!’ Mun called to his men. ‘Keep open order and withhold your fire.’ The rebel harquebusiers were riding from the flanks to the van, two hundred buff-coated or iron-breasted men placing themselves as a protective threat before their infantry. The dragoons remained on the flanks and for
the moment the heavy cavalry, the hundred cuirassiers, stayed on the rebel right, and it was these men that Mun kept one eye on as he led the King’s men onward.

‘I can smell the scum now,’ Henry Jones said off Mun’s left shoulder. ‘I always say that if I can smell ’em I’m close enough.’

‘A little further, Jones,’ Mun said, relieved to see the rebel horse out in front, for that was preferable to facing more than two hundred musketeers whom they would be unable to ride down because of the pikes protecting them.

But then the rebel horse facing them divided, forming three troops of sixty-six men in ranks of eleven and files six deep.

‘They mean to fight, Sir Edmund!’ The Scot called from the rear rank, and Mun grinned because the game was playing out just as he wished.

‘We must make them believe we are mad enough to charge home!’ Mun replied. ‘I want to see them preparing to receive us. I want to see the prayers on their lips.’

‘Then you have your wish!’ The Scot exclaimed, and Mun knew he had Prince Rupert to thank for that, because ever since the cavalry skirmish at Powick Bridge the Royalist horse had been known for audacious, fearless, even foolhardy aggressiveness. They would carry the charge to the enemy and break amongst them with swords, only making use of their firearms deep in the fray. Mun had been there on that day when they had forged their reputation. He had charged in full career beside Prince Rupert himself and seen the rebels utterly routed, many of them slaughtered by his own hand in what was his first taste of real butchery. Ever since Powick, Parliament’s horse had feared them.

They fear us now, Mun thought, even with so many.

‘Let them see your blades!’ Mun called, and the order of
blades
was repeated throughout the troop. ‘But watch the man in your front, for we will not fall upon the enemy but rather give them a volley by ranks and then retire south-west!’

The Scot repeated the order for it was imperative that every man knew what was expected of him.

‘Hold your fire!’ a rebel officer yelled.

‘Aim at the breast or lower, lads,’ O’Brien roared, which was good advice however often repeated, for pistols, like muskets, tended to fire high, and Mun hoisted his Irish hilt above his head, the blade promising blood and butchery.

‘Hold your fire!’ the rebel officer yelled again, holding his nerve.

Fire
, Mun willed the enemy.
Fire, damn you!
He gave Hector his spurs and the stallion responded, breaking from a good trot into a canter.

Any closer and they would ride into a hail of lead. The men with him must have known that too, which was why they began to scream and yell, brandishing their blades like madmen, inciting the rebels to give fire too soon.

‘Fire!’ someone screamed, but Mun already knew the rebels had fired, a heartbeat before he heard the command and the ragged salvo of cracks, as pistols and carbines spat their balls and coughed white blooms of smoke.
Damn fools!
his mind snarled as he glanced left and right to see his front rank intact and savage grins on men’s faces.

One hundred paces flashed by, another fusillade erupting from the rebel harquebusiers, and then he leant back in the saddle and pulled on the reins, bringing Hector up. A spray of blood in his peripheral vision told him that someone had been hit, as he swung the carbine round on its belt, gripping it in his right hand, Hector’s reins in his left. He gave no order, simply pulled the trigger, and the weapon roared and he could not miss for they were but thirty paces from the rebels, and thirty-four other men gave fire too.

Several rebels were thrown back. Some slumped in their saddles or fell from their mounts. ‘Traitors!’ Tobias Fitch bellowed and as Mun hauled Hector round to make way for the second rank, he saw Fitch linger a moment to spit at the enemy horsemen.

The second rank, already urging their mounts through the gaps in the first, took aim and fired and more rebels fell. Some of the rebels broke formation in order to return fire but there was no order, only chaos, and by the time Mun’s third rank released its hail of shot Parliament’s harquebusiers were bloodied and shocked.

‘Retreat!’ Mun gave the order as he turned Hector and gave the spur so that together they galloped off south-westwards, his world filled with the drumming of hooves against the ground and men’s whoops and shrieks of savage joy, and the pounding of his own lifeblood in his head, which was somehow intensified by the three-bar pot encasing it. He glanced over his right shoulder at the rebel harquebusiers who were milling in confusion, some looking to the wounded and others cursing the Royalists or imploring their captains to allow them to give chase.

‘Whoa, boy!’ Mun yelled, pushing his seatbones into the deepest part of the saddle and his heels into the stirrups, giving the reins a sharp tug. ‘Whoa, Hector!’ The stallion slowed and tossed its head, neighing, imbued with that same wild thrill that filled them all. The other troopers reined in all around him in a cauldron of steel and horseflesh and exhilaration.

‘Load your firearms and do it quickly!’ Mun bellowed, but hands were already busy with powder flasks and lead balls, wheellock spanners and scouring sticks, knees gripping their agitated mounts, wide eyes blinking away sweat and now and then glancing up towards the enemy. ‘Form up! Three ranks!’ Mun yelled, setting himself as a rock around which the avenging tide of steel and shot coalesced. O’Brien pushed into the line beside him and nodded at Mun, his horse biting at the bit. ‘Casualties?’ Mun asked, powder flask steady as he poured a measure onto the priming pan and closed the frizzen.

‘Just one,’ O’Brien said, pointing off to their left behind the third rank and Mun twisted to see a riderless horse and a man on the ground beside it, wrapping his red scarf around his
bloodied face. ‘One of The Scot’s,’ the Irishman said. ‘He’ll live but he’ll be ugly as a blind cobbler’s thumb.’

‘Heard a few of us hit,’ young Godfrey said, eyes bulging, ‘but the balls just bounced off.’ Mun had heard the clanks as rebel shot struck breastplates, and some grunts where they’d hit buff-coats, but apart from The Scot’s man, no one had received a severe injury.

‘They’ll not fall for that again,’ O’Brien warned, nodding at the enemy who were re-forming into two troops now, their dead and injured and riderless horses being taken back into the body of the infantry.

‘They’ll be riled. They’ll feel humiliated,’ Mun said. ‘They’ll want to show us that they can fight.’ With that he squeezed with his legs and gave a gentle kick with his heels, so that Hector began to trot. Back towards the enemy.

Which was turning to face them.

‘Well, it would seem that we hae their attention,’ The Scot called to Mun from his position in the third rank where he would ensure the troop’s cohesion. The third rank being the last to fire, the enemy would be prepared or even counter-attacking, which meant that holding the rank steady was as important as leading the attack. ‘They willnae like being stung again. I’ll wager they’ll send the heavy lot.’ He meant their cuirassiers, the troop of heavily armoured men on their big horses.

‘Cuirassiers are just as easy to kill,’ Mun replied over his shoulder, ‘one only has to get nice and close.’ So far there had been no sign that the rebel commander would unleash his cuirassiers, and perhaps he would not risk them in such a skirmish as this. But it would pay to keep one eye on them all the same. What Mun had said about killing such men was true enough and a pistol shot from mere feet away did stand a good chance of piercing their armour. But being so close was dangerous in itself. Swords were next to useless against cuirassiers, besides which they would be shooting at you or hacking you to pieces with their poll-axes.

‘Keep your heads, lads!’ O’Brien called above the two-beat gait of the trot. ‘And loosen up would you, Master Lidford? For the love of Christ, lad, you look stiff as a poker.’ For all his bravery, or foolhardiness, Mun knew that Jonathan was not a match for his fine Cleveland Bay, all sixteen hands of it. The beast was the same size as Hector. ‘That’s better,’ the Irishman said, ‘keep the legs unlocked and your back nice and soft. Damn it but you were making
me
look like a Rivers, and as Sir Edmund will tell you I ride worse than a strumpet on a priest after her last confession.’

Mun grinned at Jonathan, hauling his sword from its scabbard, and the young man grinned back, pulling his own blade free and raising it to the sky.

‘For God and King Charles!’ Jonathan shouted, and the war-cry was taken up by all three ranks, their horses joining in with cries of their own.