Marston Moor (9 page)

‘I was at Cheriton.’

Crane’s pale brow climbed to crinkle his high forehead. ‘As bad as they say?’

Stryker thought of that race southwards through a newly secured Nottinghamshire still basking in the stunning reverse over Sir John Meldrum’s superior force. He had been charged with delivering a message to Sir Ralph Hopton, commander of the king’s army in southern England. Hopton was advancing rapidly, pushing through Hampshire with the objective of punching rebel London in her less fortified underbelly. But the man opposing him – his dearest friend and most dangerous rival – had marched to block that confident advance. Among the rolling fields east of Winchester, at a sleepy backwater called Cheriton, Sir William Waller, with his newly formed Southern Association Army, inflicted a resounding defeat upon Hopton. Stryker had been caught up in the fight, retreating with the battered Royalist force to Basing House, and had returned north almost immediately to deliver Hopton’s doleful report to a prince incandescent with rage.

He met Crane’s eye and nodded.

Crane pushed no further, absently twisting the pearl that hung from his left ear. ‘That battle has ended the king’s ambition to take the capital. Hopton’s army is dashed to pieces, and Winchester has fallen to that dog, Waller.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘A catastrophe indeed. The ghastly rebel news-books make merry with the fact. The Roundheads have their first decisive victory against us. Their tails are up. There is no turning back now.’

‘The path has long been too narrow for this horse to turn,’ Stryker said. ‘All hope for peace was lost when the Scots crossed the Tweed. The Committee for Both Kingdoms will prosecute war. That is their mandate.’

‘You are right, of course,’ Sir Richard said. ‘Thus we are squeezed to breaking. Waller in the south, the Scots and Fairfaxes in the north. Hopton will regroup, re-engage.’

‘Leaving His Highness to deal with the northern threat.’

Crane’s head bobbed. ‘He marches imminently. Soon as he can rouse our brave drunkards from their cups.’

Stryker forced himself not to look at Hood. ‘To where will he march, sir?’

‘Bury, Stryker. A town just east of here, you know it?’ The shake of Stryker’s head did not appear to bother him. ‘George Goring is en route. The Prince plans to muster there.’

‘General Goring? He has the Northern Horse, does he not?’

‘Indeed. Five thousand of Newcastle’s very best cavalry. The only part not presently hemmed inside York’s embattled walls.’

‘Our army swells, Colonel,’ said Stryker, his mind working through the numbers as he spoke. Rupert had eight thousand men with him. Goring’s division would be a formidable addition.

‘That it does,’ Crane agreed. ‘Lancashire will be subdued before long. We intend to take Liverpool. The port will be the ideal route by which our troops might return from Ireland. Then on to Yorkshire, where the villainous Covenanters await.’

‘Forgive me, Sir Richard, but is that why you sought me?’

‘Indeed!’ Crane bellowed. ‘Your task, Major. You will know that Lady Derby lately held Lathom House in her husband’s name against Rigby’s vile rebel horde.’

Stryker did. The Earl of Derby was the leading Royalist in Lancashire, but he had been away fighting when his house at Lathom had fallen under siege by Rigby’s forces. The Parliamentarians had pressed it since January, its defenders led by the stoic Countess of Derby. Rupert’s arrival in the region had not only conquered Bolton, but lifted the siege.

‘Lord Derby would make his heroic wife a gift,’ Crane explained. ‘We have captured twenty-two Roundhead colours. Many of them, just three days ago, were proudly flourished before her house. They are to be thrust at Lady Derby’s feet, so that she may trample them and know that God is truly with us. I am charged with the delivery of said colours, Major. Additionally, there will be a convoy of munitions in the rear, for the bolstering of Lathom’s future defence, pray God it is never required.’

‘And I, Sir Richard?’ Stryker prompted.

‘The high roads are not safe in their entirety. Not yet. Thus I require a sturdy fellow to oversee my munitions. I hear tell you are currently employed as Lord High Gaoler of Bolton. True?’

Stryker laughed. ‘True.’

‘You enjoy the duty?’

‘Nay, sir, I do not.’

‘Good. Then you, Major Stryker, will command my convoy.’

Chapter 4

Lathom House, Lancashire, 29–31 May 1644

The candlelight was enchanting. It danced along the walls, casting tremulous shadows across the tapestries so that the colourful depictions of saints and sinners, monsters and heroes, seemed charged by magic to play out their scenes for the assembled throng. And a welcome throng it was, declared Charlotte Stanley, Countess of Derby, from her high seat at one of the great hall’s soaring gable ends. Before her – beneath her – the audience tittered and clapped as she accepted their praise, one bejewelled hand twinkling as it waved, the other cradling a large goblet of spiced claret sent with the compliments of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. But it was her husband’s gift that took centre stage. From her dais, the countess peered over a snub nose to regard the standards of Alexander Rigby’s routed regiment, arrayed in two great columns at either side of the room, each held by a stiff-backed ensign. There were so many of the huge taffeta squares that her guests, Lathom House’s most senior inhabitants, joined this night by Sir Richard Crane and the Lifeguard of Horse, were almost draped in the colours of Parliament.

Stryker, standing at the very rear of the richly upholstered crowd, allowed himself a wry smile as a servant filled his proffered goblet. The man, dressed in the Earl of Derby’s livery, had been reluctant to approach, and now, as the last drips rippled the surface of the wine, he shied quickly away to meld into the rows of bodies.

‘You frightened him, sir,’ Thomas Hood, standing at Stryker’s right hand, said in a low voice.

‘I have that effect on folk.’ He lifted the cup, gulping back the claret.

Another liveried servant appeared and handed Hood a goblet. He took it, looking furtively at Stryker as it was filled, then sipped with deliberate slowness. ‘Lady Derby basks, rather.’

Stryker ignored the wine in his lieutenant’s hand. ‘She has earned it. The house has been under close siege for most of the year. She held it with honour. Fortified it well to resist bombardment.’

Both men raised their goblets as one of the officers at the front proposed what might have been the tenth toast of the evening.

‘I thank you, sir, for your gracious words,’ the countess said. She was probably in her mid forties, Stryker guessed. Plump and pale, with dark, determined eyes and black hair that was styled with ringlets in a pastiche of the queen. Indeed, she reminded Stryker a great deal of Her Majesty, Henrietta Maria, for the women both spoke with the exotic tones of France. ‘Now I must make mention of Monsieur Tipper,’ purred Charlotte Stanley, who had been born Charlotte de La Trémoille. ‘You will know that my success is due, in no small part, to the militia of expert marksmen who garrison my home. Tipper is chief of them.’ She raised her cup, nodding to a spot within the crowd where Tipper evidently stood. The audience drank and cheered.

‘Does she not put you in mind of Madame Lisette, sir?’ Hood said, tilting back his head to take a long draught.

Stryker did not drink this time, but left the rim of his goblet to brush at his bottom lip. He had tried to put Lisette squarely from his mind. Now, as the rich Gallic voice wafted around the rafters, mingling with the heady fug of woodsmoke, beeswax and lavender, the final word of the incantation had been articulated: her name. All at once she was there, hair like spun gold, eyes like flaming sapphires, her image crowding his mind’s eye, unwilling to let him see anything else. There was nothing left but the memory. He blinked hard, grinding his lone eyelid down in a vain attempt to eradicate her. The servant drifted by, and Stryker thrust the vessel into the startled man’s hand, pushing his way out of the hall.

Outside, the dying light and melding clouds had turned the world a uniform grey. There were small fires around the courtyard, but this time they had been lit for the warmth of sentries rather than the cooking flames of an entrenched garrison. Lathom House was more castle than manor, with a thick stone wall punctuated by eighteen imposing towers that provided plenty of billets for all the men. Stryker’s group were quartered in a modest guardroom close to the armoury, where their trio of heavily laden wagons had been placed for the night. He made his way there, leaving Hood to doubtless sink well into his cups before the night was over.

A pair of musketeers watched him approach the armoury from up high on the rampart, and he plucked off his hat to acknowledge them. Even in the gathering gloom, they evidently recognised him, for both let him pass unchallenged through the archway below their feet. On the far side of the arch was a smaller yard serving the armoury rooms. His three carts were here, their stoic palfreys tethered to rings set into the stonework nearby. At dawn the vehicles would be unloaded, the powder barrels stored in the stout subterranean chamber serving as Lathom’s magazine, while the firearms, musket-balls and coils of match would be carefully stacked in the armoury’s cavernous rooms. It was much darker here, for the presence of black powder, despite the heavy, damp sheet that covered the cargo, made torches far too hazardous, and he had to speak softly to soothe the animals who scraped their hooves in agitation at his approach. His own mount, Vos, nuzzled into his touch. He was a powerful thing, a Dutch warhorse, trained to snap and kick at enemies and to ignore the thunder of cannon. He had been in battle many times, been shot at and stabbed, been captured at Newbury the previous March and liberated by Prince Rupert’s genius. Yet even he, Stryker reflected fondly, needed reassurance on occasion.

‘Evenin’, sir,’ Will Skellen’s voice broke the quiet.

Stryker stared into the near impenetrable murk. After several moments, he caught the ghostly outline of a tall figure, slim and bald-headed. ‘Sergeant.’

Skellen sidled out into the yard, his boots crunching on gravel. He wore nothing above the waist, revealing a bony frame that belied his immense strength. Stryker considered his sergeant as akin to a weathered tree, bowed and knotted and gnarled, but possessed of roots and boughs of seasoned toughness. ‘Would you tell Jack Sprat, sir, that we’re bound for the north?’

A second figure appeared from the doorway, as Stryker knew it would. He looked at Simeon Barkworth, childlike next to the gigantic Skellen. ‘The north it is, Master Barkworth.’

‘The north, aye,’ Barkworth croaked, ‘but to what end?’ He thumbed the air between himself and the sergeant. ‘This long streak o’ piss claims we’ll engage the Covenanters.’

Stryker shrugged. ‘I know not, except that the Prince intends to relieve York.’ The latest threat to the king’s greatest northern stronghold had come almost immediately following the heavy defeat at the Battle of Cheriton. Though the respective crises came from opposite ends of the country, their combined effect had delivered a hammer blow against the hitherto ebullient Royalist cause, and late spring had seen the sovereign’s forces frantically consolidating their positions, with a ring of new defences begun in order to protect the king’s capital at Oxford, and Prince Maurice, Rupert’s brother, charged with the swift conquest of the west. That left Rupert himself, who abandoned his operations in Wales and the Marches and set out from his base at Shrewsbury to assist the Marquis of Newcastle at York. But first they needed to secure Cheshire and Lancashire, for supply lines needed to be protected and, with just three cavalry regiments, five regiments of foot and a regiment of dragoons, reinforcements were crucial. Stockport – and its crossing over the Mersey – had already been taken, and now Bolton was in the prince’s iron grip. They would move to the next town as soon as was practicable, and all the while their army was growing. Yet the plan to relieve York was not as simple as had been first thought. Because a huge Scottish army waited for them. ‘He will tarry in the west. Gather his strength while he captures Liverpool. Then perhaps he will take the risk.’

‘Risk?’ Barkworth spluttered. ‘That’s some risk, sir. His Highness would be mad as a sack of adders to take on Leven and Fairfax at once.’

Skellen sniffed noisily, spitting into the darkness. ‘Think what you will. I say we cannot take York without fighting the Scotch. There’s no choice in it. You got the stomach?’

‘I’ve killed plenty in my time, you spidery bastard,’ Barkworth said, his yellow eyes glowing.

‘Plenty of your own countrymen?’

‘They’re no countrymen o’ mine, lad. The only true Scot is one who bends his knee to the Stuarts.’

A sneeze ended the debate. The three men fell utterly silent, alert in the darkness. They twisted round, studied the pitch-black corners of the yard, checked the horses, stared up at the rampart, but nothing stirred.