The King's Falcon (Roundheads & Cavaliers Book 3) (12 page)

‘Good.
 
Then you can inform the captains that the King will be leading his men out of the Sidbury Gate any minute – at which point, we join him.
 
Hamilton, meanwhile, will ride out via St Martin’s against Perry Wood.’
 
Ashley paused, his mouth curling in something not quite a smile.
 
‘We’re hoping to catch Noll with his breeches down.
 
So if anyone wants to pray, now would be the time.’

Francis went off without a word.
 
But later, as the regiment swung into motion, he turned an oblique glance on Ashley and said, ‘Where’s Leslie?’

‘Don’t ask.’

There was no time to talk further.
 
The moment came to charge and the Royalist cavalry streamed up the hill towards the New Model’s lines.
 
The Fort Royal guns gave them covering fire for as long as possible but still the ground around and amongst them exploded with answering shots from the Red Hill artillery.
 
Even in those first few minutes, some men died or fell, horribly wounded.
 
The rest thundered relentlessly on over the torn, vibrating earth.

The clash came with discharging pistols and savage yells.
 
The Foot came in at push of pike … and then the real struggle began.
 
The terrible, bloody business of hand-to-hand combat in which there was only one basic rule; kill or die.

It was a long and bitter contest during which Ashley concentrated, minute by minute, on encouraging, steadying and re-grouping his men.
 
He glimpsed the King, hacking and slashing with the best – apparently without thought for his personal safety; and, nearer at hand, Francis Langley – his face set hard and his left sleeve soaked with blood.
 
Of Nicholas, he saw no sign at all.
 
Nor was there time to look.

Slowly but surely, Cromwell’s fellows started to give ground before them, falling back from their lines and away up the hill.
 
Cheering hoarsely, the Royalists pressed on with renewed vigour. Ashley forced his way to the King’s side.

‘One good push now and we could rout them,’ he shouted.

Dishevelled and streaked with sweat, Charles nodded.

‘I’ve sent for Leslie.
 
Again.
 
I doubt he’ll come, though.
 
I wonder if he ever meant to.’

Time passed.
 
The ammunition ran out and men fought with the butt-end of their pistols.
 
Exhaustion set in and the battle became a sort of stalemate.
 
Despite their retreat, the New Model lines never quite disintegrated; and General Leslie’s Horse – those desperately needed reinforcements which could have made all the difference – failed to materialise.
 
Instead, after three hours of the hardest fighting Ashley could remember, what
did
materialise was Oliver Cromwell and the three regiments he’d led across the Severn against Pitscotty’s poor, decimated highlanders.

Ashley’s stomach turned ice-cold.
 
They had come so close … so
close
.
 
Success had been almost within their grasp.
 
But now the scales were tipping again.

‘Holy
Christ
,’ he breathed.
 
And, with feverish haste, started bellowing orders.

His men formed up fast and as best they could.
 
They even withstood the first shock of Cromwell’s offensive.
 
But they were exhausted, disadvantaged by having to fight uphill and badly outnumbered.
 
Retreat was inevitable – first back on their entrenchments and then beyond them.
 
Ashley tried to keep it tight and orderly but, in the face of the waves of enemy troopers crashing down on them from the slopes above, it couldn’t last. And worse was to come when Cromwell’s forces over-ran Fort Royal to tear down the King’s standard. Gradually Ashley’s men started breaking from their units to turn and run.
 
And the retreat became a rout.

The Royalists pelted down the hill towards the Sidbury Gate but the stone archway was too narrow to admit them easily and, within seconds, men and horses were jammed in it like a cork in a bottle as those behind pressed forward in an attempt to escape the pursuing pikes of the Ironsides.

Finding Francis beside him, Ashley yelled, ‘This is suicide.
 
They’ll be massacred!’

They?
thought Francis wildly.
 
And shouted back, ‘Leave it.
 
You can’t rally them.
 
No one could. They’re past listening.’

Although he knew it, Ashley couldn’t help trying.
 
He was still trying when their own guns in captured Fort Royal were turned against them. Then the Roundheads swept down like the wolf on the fold … and all hell broke loose.

Exhilarated by triumph, the Army of Saints prosecuted the Lord’s work with merciless vigour.
 
They descended on the children of Amalek and cut them down where they stood.
 
Suddenly the air was full of screaming and within minutes the ground beneath and around the Sidbury Gate began to resemble a charnel house.
 
Bodies of men and horses lay in tangled, grisly heaps, their blood staining the cobbles bright red and running sluggishly into the gutters.

Francis and Ashley were amongst the few dozen who defended themselves.
 
Ashley, indeed, would have gone on mechanically fighting had not he suddenly caught sight of the King who, with total disregard for his own life, was frantically exhorting the demoralised Scots to make one last stand.

‘Hell and the devil!’ swore Ashley.
 
And, yelling for Francis to follow, started hacking a path to Charles’s side at precisely the same moment that an enemy trooper swooped down from the other direction, bawling ‘
Belial!
’

For an instant, it seemed that the King was a dead man.
 
Then someone dragged an abandoned ammunition cart into the oncoming trooper’s path … and somehow, His Majesty simply disappeared.

‘Where the --?’ began Francis.

‘There,’ pointed Ashley.
 
‘That gap between the walls and the Commandery.
 
Leave your horse and let’s go.’

The passage was narrow. At the end of it, the remains of the Royalist cavalry were fleeing down Lich Street while the King, throwing himself on the nearest loose horse, beseeched them to join him.
 
Buckingham hovered nearby and Wilmot, his plump face overflowing with distress, grasped Charles’s bridle and begged him to stop.

‘It’s over, Your Majesty.
 
You must see that!’

‘It’s not over,’ snapped Charles.
 
‘If Leslie will make one last charge --’

‘Don’t you mean one
first
charge?’ sniped Buckingham.

‘Don’t be clever, George.
 
There’s no time.
 
I must get to Leslie.’

‘No, Sir,’ said Ashley from behind him.
 
‘With respect, you must
not
.
 
If Leslie wouldn’t fight before, he certainly won’t do so now.
 
And your duty is to save yourself.’

Charles stared at him in mutinous silence and Wilmot said swiftly, ‘He’s right, Sir.
 
Poor Hamilton is dying. Montgomery, Pitscotty and Keith are all taken and the enemy is breaking in all around the city.
 
You must fly – now.’

Intensely weary and awash with despairing bitterness, the King said violently, ‘I’d rather you shot me than let me live to see the consequences of this day.
 
Thousands have died.
 
I
can’t
let it be for nothing!’

‘Then go, Sir,’ urged Ashley.
 
‘You can’t stay here.
 
And you’d be better employed destroying any papers you don’t want ending up in Cromwell’s hands.’

It was, perhaps, the only argument that could have swayed Charles.
 
His face twisted and he said, ‘Oh God.
 
I hadn’t thought of that.
 
Letters, lists – everything!
 
I must get to my lodging.’

‘And from thence, God willing, out through St Martin’s Gate,’ murmured Buckingham. ‘What a good idea. By all means, let us go immediately.’

Charles looked at Ashley and Francis. ‘You’ll come?’

‘Presently.
 
First we’ll see what resistance may still be offered to cover your retreat.’
 
Colonel Peverell smiled briefly. ‘Go, Sir.
 
And God speed you.’

The answering smile was crooked.

‘Amen to that.
 
Because the truth is that I’m better dead than taken.’

*
 
*
 
*

As the light began to fade, pandemonium ruled over Worcester.
 
The citizens who, earlier in the day, had come out to watch the fight, now bolted themselves into their homes and looked down on the carnage through chinks in the shutters.
 
Cromwell’s Ironsides continued to pour into the city like avenging angels while their defeated foes ran hither and thither, hammering desperately on locked doors in a vain attempt to escape capture or death.

Only two forlorn pockets of Royalist resistance were left.
 
Lord Rothes continued stubbornly defending the Castle Mound; and, in the High Street, the Earl of Cleveland attempted to rally the last vestiges of the King’s cavalry for one final charge.
 
Ashley and Francis caught spare horses and joined the latter … and found themselves unexpectedly reunited with Nicholas. There was no time for more than a brief nod of acknowledgement. They had barely got their meagre troop formed up, when Fleetwood’s Horse pelted down upon their rear.

The encounter was short and bloody. Caught between the devil and the deep, the Cavaliers made a fighting retreat into the side-streets and then separated to pursue the only course left to them.
 
Flight.

Musket-fire punctuated the din of iron-shod hooves and manic voices. Reaching Friar Street and still miraculously unscathed, Ashley shouted to Nick to join himself and Francis – and had just succeeded in making himself heard when a party of Roundheads emerged behind them.
 
Nicholas nodded and wheeled his horse to obey.
 
Then he jerked oddly in the saddle, his mouth contorting into a surprised grimace before he toppled sideways to the ground.

Ashley started forward and then realised the hopelessness of it.
 
He couldn’t reach Nick before the enemy did. Furthermore, Francis’s arm was a blood-soaked mass and his face a greyish blur which said that he wouldn’t make it out of the city without help.
 
Sick to his stomach, Ashley made the only possible choice.
 
He grabbed Francis’s bridle and hauled him down the nearest alley.

*
 
*
 
*

From a window overlooking the street, Verity Marriott stared down on Captain Austin’s unconscious, crumpled body. Eviscerated by helplessness, she saw it semi-trampled by advancing cavalry and kicked viciously aside by a passing infantryman.
 
She kept her eyes fixed on it until the chaos outside started to abate a little.
 
Then she fled down the stairs and was within two steps of the door when Barbara appeared and asked where she was going.
 
Because she couldn’t tell the truth, she had to concoct a plausible lie and then suffer the torments of the damned for the best part of two hours before she could slip out of the side door unobserved.

Once clear of the house, she ran straight to the spot where Captain Austin had been lying … only to find that she was too late.

He was no longer there.

~
 
*
 
* ~
 
*
 
*
 

The battle of Worcester ended later that evening when Lord Rothes finally surrendered the Castle Mound on Cromwell’s terms.
 
Out of the fifteen thousand-strong Scots army, only a couple of thousand managed to escape. Roughly three thousand lay dead at Wick or around the Sidbury Gate and, of the ten thousand or so prisoners herded into the Cathedral, more than half were wounded.
 
For the next six days, with the stench rising vilely from the streets, Colonel Maxwell and his fellow-officers strove to deal with the multitude of corpses before turning their attention to the demolition of the city’s defences.
 

Eden’s first sight of the carnage at the Sidbury Gate made him sick to his stomach – less at the grisly sight itself than at the unnecessary viciousness and lack of proper discipline that had created it. The shambles in front of him spoke of slaughter for slaughter’s sake and, when added to Ireton’s activities in Ireland – not to mention the execution of the late King – Eden was left feeling, not just disgusted, but besmirched; and for the first time, he started to truly appreciate some of Gabriel Brandon’s strictures about the Lord-General.
 
In an attempt to repair some of the damage along with his own self-disgust, he immediately ordered a detail of men to start removing those who were still alive.

Two days after the battle, Captain Sir Nicholas Austin awoke in Purgatory.

He knew it was Purgatory because of the putrid smell, the uncertain light and the terrible moaning of the other tormented souls. The only thing he didn’t know was how he came to be there and how long he’d have to stay.
 
He tried to calculate the weight of his sins … and was still doing so when the darkness came again.

The next time he regained consciousness, the screaming agony in his arm and shoulder suggested that he might, in fact, still be alive.
 
Since his surroundings still resembled the ante-chamber to hell, this possibility took some getting used to; but eventually he realised that he was lying on the stone-flagged floor of Worcester Cathedral … and that the stench and groans arose from the countless other casualties packed in there with him.
 
At this point, recollection returned, swiftly pursued by bitter depression; and that was when he decided that if the future held only a ride to London, followed by prison or worse, it wouldn’t really matter if he didn’t recover.

Sliding in and out of awareness, he didn’t know how long it was before a surgeon came – or even that the man to his right had died waiting and lain there a day before being carted off for burial.
 
Nick’s head was full of heat and noise and wild, unpleasant fantasies.
 
So when a blurred face peered beneath the reeking mess of his coat and a distant voice calmly remarked that his arm would have to come off before it killed him, he failed to take any particular notice.

Being out of his mind with fever, he mercifully knew nothing of the pain and horror which followed.
 
Neither did he know that he’d missed being sent south with the first two batches of prisoners … or that the surgeon who had amputated his arm didn’t expect him to live until the departure of the third.
 
And even when, against all expectation, the fever finally abated, he continued to lie motionless on the pallet to which they’d eventually moved him, staring unseeingly up at the vaulted ceiling of the cloisters above his head.
 
With care, his mind blanked out first the pain … and then everything else.

He was completely unaware that Verity Marriott was braving one official after another in a desperate attempt to discover what had become of him.
 
And even if he’d known, he wouldn’t have cared.

*
 
*
 
*

A week after the battle, Parliament offered a thousand pounds to anyone who succeeded in apprehending a man about two yards high and whose near-black hair had recently been cut short.
 
It was a great deal of money and certainly enough to tempt somebody – even possibly a loyal somebody – into betraying the fugitive King.
 

Joshua Vincent, however, was intent purely on bringing the witch to court without further delay – preferably while any of the other city officers who might conceivably stand in his way were fully occupied with the devastation and chaos around them.

Using powers to which he was not strictly entitled, Joshua managed to arrange Deborah Hart’s trial for the 12
^th
– and, in so doing, wrought better than he knew because half the town was busy watching Cromwell ride away to make his report to Parliament.
 
Even so, word concerning the witch-trial had spread and the court-room was packed.
 
Joshua conducted the opening formalities whilst taking a good look at his audience, most of whom were men.
 
Then he settled back in his seat and commanded that the accused be brought in.

An expectant hush fell as, bruised, filthy and bedraggled, Deborah was half-dragged to the dock.
 
The crowd expelled a sighing breath and devoured her with its eyes. Then, still staring, it composed itself to listen.

Leaning heavily against the rail, Deborah scarcely heard the charges being read or knew anything except that her worst nightmares were about to be realised.
 
Horrible as it had been, the evils which had befallen her in the gaol were as nothing compared to what was going to happen now.
 
And she wasn’t sure her little store of strength was equal to coping with it.

Witnesses were called.
 
The blacksmith’s wife, described in minute detail how she had suffered as a result of being over-looked … and Zachary Paine gave evidence concerning the mysterious ills which had afflicted his livestock within hours of him repudiating the woman Hart’s lewd advances.
 
Two more of Deborah’s neighbours came forward with vague but damaging accusations of
maleficium
; and the guard who’d been present at her questioning told the court of her inability to recite the Lord’s Prayer without vomiting.

Finally, the proceedings arrived at the all-important question of witch-marks.
 
Uneasy excitement rippled through the onlookers and the slight trembling in Deborah’s limbs turned into violent shudders.

‘Bring the woman to the floor of the court,’ ordered Joshua.
 

Anticipation was making his palms sweat but he hid his eagerness beneath a veil of austerity while Deborah was hauled, stumbling, from her place.
 
Then, with a careful lack of expression, he told the guards to examine her flesh for the devil’s mark.

They knew where to look, of course.
 
But they also knew that both the magistrate and the public benches would be disappointed if they completed their task too quickly … so they started from the top and worked down.

Her gown fell to the floor, leaving her with nothing but her shift.
 
Shaking from head to foot and being ripped apart by a silent scream, Deborah shut her eyes tight and tried to block out the touch of rough, intrusive hands and the knowledge that she was almost naked before fifty or sixty avid spectators.
 
With the departure of Cromwell, more people arrived from outside to see the fun.
 
They jostled each other in the doorway and thronged the corridor outside.
 
Warming to their task, the guards played to the crowd and were rewarded with a mixture of gasps, shocked whispers and sniggers … while, humiliated
 
beyond endurance by the pulling up of her shift, tears slid through the dirt on Deborah’s face.

Joshua waited until the mole was found before leaving his seat to examine it more closely.
 
The courtroom fell silent, holding its breath. Then, turning and exhibiting the witch-probe to his captivated audience, he said sternly, ‘If this is Satan’s mark, it’ll be immune to pain and it won’t bleed.
 
If it’s no more than an ordinary blemish, it’ll behave thus.’
 
And, without warning, he plunged the sharp steel pin deep into the unmarked flesh of Deborah’s flank.

Her eyes flew open and, unlocked by the pain, the scream she had been unable to voice tore its way from her throat to echo, high-pitched and anguished, around the room.
 
Half of those on the public benches flinched.
 
The rest craned their necks to see the blood.

‘The reaction of innocent flesh,’ observed Joshua, shifting both his own position and, with practised deftness, that of the probe in his hand.
 
‘And now we will test the devil’s mark.’

Deborah’s breath was coming in raw gasps and a pulse hammered in her throat, threatening to choke her.
 
She couldn’t see what the magistrate was doing but anticipation of the pain throbbed through every nerve.
 
She braced herself in readiness for it … but felt only the touch of something cool and flat.

A strange murmur arose from the crowd and Joshua stepped back.

‘Proof!’ he thundered. ‘The accused felt nothing – and there is no sign of a wound.
 
What else can this be but the devil’s work?’

A rumble of agreement flowed around the room. Many of those present made the sign against the evil eye and someone shouted, ‘Burn her!’

Subduing a smile, Joshua held up his hands for silence.
 
He didn’t get it.
 
Some sort of commotion was taking place in the doorway while, nearer the front, more voices shouted for the witch to be burned.
 
The order of the last hour was disintegrating into confusion.

‘What in Hades is going on here?’
 
Without apparent difficulty, a crisp authoritative voice from the back made itself heard over the rising tumult and successfully quelled it.
 
Then, ‘Well?
 
Is this a court of law or a bear-pit?’

Joshua looked down the length of the court-room into the lightly-scarred face of the Army officer who had just forced his way in, accompanied by half-a-dozen troopers.
 
Swallowing, he replied carefully, ‘It’s a court.
 
And though I don’t doubt you mean well, your presence isn’t needed.’

‘Not needed – or not wanted?’
 
Stripping off his gloves, Eden walked unhurriedly towards the magistrate.
 
Then, his expression hardening as he absorbed the state of the petrified woman in the hands of the guards, ‘I am Colonel Maxwell of Major-General Lambert’s company … and I repeat.
 
What’s going on here?’

‘A witch trial,’ snapped Joshua.

‘Indeed.
 
And you are?’

‘Magistrate Vincent.
 
And you’re interrupting the due process of law.’

‘Oh?
 
From the noise, I thought it was a riot.’

‘Yes – well, passions are running high,’ came the grudging reply. ‘The accused has just been found guilty.’

‘Has she?’ Revulsion stirred the hairs at the back of Eden’s neck but he kept his tone perfectly level.
 
‘I would very much like to hear how.
 
And while you tell me, I suggest that the woman be allowed to cover herself.’

A protesting murmur arose from the crowd.
 
Joshua hesitated and then, with a sullen jerk of his head, indicated that the guards might step back from the prisoner.
 
Released from their grip, Deborah swayed and almost fell.
 
Then, her expression dazed and uncomprehending, she reached for her gown and started to struggle awkwardly back into it.

Withdrawing his gaze from her, Eden strode to the corner farthest from curious ears and waited for the magistrate to follow him.

‘Well?’ he said.

Irritably and as unexpansively as possible, Joshua explained about the accusations and the indisputable evidence of the witch-mark.
 
And when the Colonel remained apparently unimpressed, he added, ‘This is the Lord’s work.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!
’

‘If,’ agreed Eden mildly, ‘she
is
a witch.
 
But the testimony you’ve described is scarcely conclusive; and for the rest … hopefully we have learned something from the excesses of Matthew Hopkins.’

Joshua lost a little of his colour.
 
At home in Friar Street was a well-thumbed copy of Hopkins’
Discovery of Witches
.
 
Unfortunately, after hanging nineteen witches in a day at the Chelmsford Assizes, its author had become violently unpopular and later died under mysterious circumstances.
 
It wasn’t a fate Joshua wanted to share.

Keeping the probe carefully concealed in a fold of his robe, he said belligerently, ‘If you’re suggesting this trial hasn’t been properly conducted – you’ve only to ask them as have watched it.
 
Everything’s been done openly for all to see.’

‘Yes.
 
I’m sure it has,’ came the arid response. ‘The unfortunate truth, however, is that people all too frequently see what they wish to see.
 
There again … one hears rumours of over-zealous officials and even, upon occasion, of probes being cunningly constructed in order to give the required result.’
 
Eden waited, holding the magistrate’s frozen gaze.
 
Then, when no reply was forthcoming, he said, ‘I’m sure you take my point.’