Authors: Michael Arnold
Sir Henry Vane leaned in, placing his thick elbows on the polished walnut surface. ‘Or a message that Prince Robber is on the move.’
Sir Thomas’s father, the elderly Lord Fairfax of Cameron, had brought a small pouch with him, and now he opened it on the table to reveal a nest of sugar plums. ‘He remains at Liverpool,’ he said dismissively as he popped one into the corner of his mouth.
His son seemed to wince. ‘It is dangerous to underestimate the Prince, Father.’
‘Tish and pish,’ Lord Fairfax muttered, stuffing more of the treats past cracked lips.
Vane stifled a wry smile. He could see why men at Westminster whispered of an ineffectual general in the north, holding his rank and dignity by right of birth while leaning heavily on his son’s skill at arms. ‘Do you believe he will move against us?’
Sir Thomas nodded. ‘I fear it, Sir Harry, aye.’
Leven folded his arms. ‘Our spies say nothing of the sort. Pray God he consolidates only.’
‘But he may make a play for York,’ Sir Thomas argued. ‘His army is strong, and after Liverpool their morale will be high.’
Vane interjected before the others could respond. ‘The Committee writes thus …’ He glanced down at a scroll unfurled beneath his nose, pinned at top and bottom by small weights. ‘That the Earl of Denbigh is to muster his forces and rendezvous with Sir John Meldrum at Manchester.’
‘The same Sir John Meldrum,’ came a derisive voice from beside the Earl of Manchester, ‘so utterly outwitted by Prince Robber at Newark?’
Vane looked at Lieutenant-General Cromwell, holding his cool gaze with difficulty. ‘The same.’
‘He is a good man,’ Leven said, louder now, in an apparent effort to regain his authority. ‘A Scot. He will do well, I’ve no doubt. Additionally, I understand that Colonel Hutchinson, the governor of Nottingham, has been ordered to join forces with Lord Denbigh. Together they will stop the Bohemian viper slithering o’er the Fells.’
He raked his pale gaze around the table. ‘For our part, I say we continue our efforts here. Rupert will not come.’
‘He will come.’
Leven’s eyes darted back to Oliver Cromwell. ‘General?’
‘He will come, my lord,’ Cromwell replied with measured calm. ‘Because he is clever, and because he is brave, and because he is driven by the devil.’
Leven shook his head. ‘I will not break off this siege, sirrah.’
‘And nor should you, my lord,’ Cromwell said. ‘But mark me well, for God hath granted me a dream so vivid I thought it as real as this very meeting. The Cavaliers will come for us, my lords, and we will scourge the earth of their vile turpitude.’
A silence followed, each lord and his second keeping private council. Vane studied their faces, marvelling at how such different men could work for the same goal. After a minute or two, he stood. ‘If you’ll excuse me, my lords, I should make my report to the Committee.’ He looked at Leven, the man who believed, at least, that he held overall command. ‘What is your next move, my lord?’
Leven stood too, the others following suit. ‘A coordinated attack, Sir Harry.’
‘Your mines are ready?’ Vane asked.
‘They flood daily,’ Leven said, then let his gaze slide towards the Fairfaxes.
Sir Thomas swept a hand through his black hair. ‘I need more time. It will be ready to spring within the week, my lord.’
‘My charges,’ the Earl of Manchester interrupted, his voice smug, ‘are in place.’
Vane looked pointedly at him. ‘Where, my lord?’
‘The Manor. Originally the abbey abutting the city walls to the north-west. It was built in the abbey grounds following the Suppression. We have a mine dug beneath the corner tower, St Mary’s, and our battery has made a breach in the wall adjacent.’
‘Impressive,’ Vane mused.
Leven nodded. ‘But we must wait for Sir Thomas’s mine to reach conclusion. Spring them together, attack the walls at as many points as possible. They will be so alarmed by the twin explosions that our storming parties will be up their ladders before Newcastle knows what has become of his grand fortress.’
Vane studied their faces. Fairfax seemed happy, but Manchester was clearly disgruntled. He stepped back from the table before an argument could erupt. ‘Thank you again, my lords. I shall leave you to dig your mines, and will make the Committee aware of your plans. Pray God you will break the city soon, for storm clouds gather in the west.’
Edward Montagu, whose proper title was Second Earl of Godmanchester, had taken leave of the campaign room and now stooped below the lintel of Middlethorpe Manor and stepped out into the night. The air was crisp, the clouds thin. He stretched, worked his jaw until it cracked, and planted his hat atop his head. He looked due north, towards the battered city. The glow from the Minster was impossibly bright against the black cloth of night. It emanated from up on the highest tower, alive with tremulous flame, and he wondered exactly what game the Marquis of Newcastle was playing. He turned away to stare along the cinder path that stretched from the main doors to watch Sir Henry Vane dissolving into the night. ‘We shall lend a juicy morsel to your Committee’s report, Vane,’ he muttered to the big man’s retreating back.
‘My lord?’
Manchester – name shortened to avoid blasphemy – did not look round. He knew the voice well enough; had expected it. ‘The vain Master Vane,’ he said softly, ‘writes to the Committee. I say we give him a tale worthy of the telling, General Crawford.’
Out of the gloom stepped a man swathed in a long cassock, silver buttons glimmering at chest and sleeves. ‘The men are ready,’ he said, his accent coloured by Lowland Scots. ‘I have six hundred itching for the assault.’
Manchester felt his cheek twitch gently. ‘The breach is practicable?’
Major-General Lawrence Crawford nodded enthusiastically, blue eyes sparkling in his thin, cleanly shaven face. ‘The malignants have barricaded it with soil and dung, and Lord knows what else, but once the tower’s been blown they’ll forget the breach is even there.’
Manchester looked back at the manor house, making sure there were no prying eyes at the windows. ‘Do what you must.’
Lawrence Crawford grinned excitedly. He was forty-three years old, but his demeanour was akin to that of a schoolboy. ‘Does Cromwell know?’
Manchester shook his head. ‘You do not like him, do you?’
Crawford screwed up his face in disgust. ‘He’s nought but a country ploughman. A turnip tugger. I should be at Council, not he.’
‘If it comforts you, I do not hold with Independents in high places. It breeds mutiny amongst the men. I trust you, Lawrence, because you are as staunch a Presbyterian as I.’ In truth he knew he should chastise the ambitious Crawford, but Manchester was well accustomed to such feelings himself. It was he, as senior Englishman in the York alliance, who should wield overall command. Everyone knew it. But the doddery old Fairfax cared more for sweet treats and sweeter young girls than he did for the etiquette of warfare, and Leven – dour and decrepit and barely literate – possessed the most powerful of the three armies in situ. There was nothing Manchester could do.
‘Thank you, my lord.’
‘But,’ Manchester went on, ‘Cromwell is a natural soldier. Keeps a level head under fire and commands the respect of his men. His moral austerity makes for perhaps the best troops I have seen. They do not steal, do not swear, do not terrorize the common folk.’
‘He has served nowhere,’ Lawrence protested bitterly. ‘He is a novice. Claims he was commanded to war by God Himself.’
‘Were we not all of us commanded by God?’ Manchester patted Crawford on the shoulder. ‘I do not hold with Cromwell’s burgeoning power, so perhaps on the morrow you will give the Committee reason to supplant him with a man more suitable?’
Crawford’s head bobbed in the moonlight. ‘I will, my lord.’
‘And Lawrence?’
‘My lord?’
Manchester turned away, boots crunching loudly. ‘Breathe a word of this conversation to another soul and it will be the last breath you draw.’
Chapter 12
Liverpool, Lancashire, 15 June 1644
The Royalist army took respite at Liverpool. It had been a frenetic and dangerous few weeks as they had fought their way across Lancashire, and the capitulation of Colonel Moore’s garrison marked a logical moment for Prince Rupert to take stock. The men still talked of York, but they talked, too, of joining the Oxford army – the king’s main field army – and combining to destroy threats further south. None knew what was to come. It was their duty simply to wait and wonder as to the machinations of their Bohemian chieftain, who galloped in and out of the shattered town on matters of high business, flanked always by grim members of his Lifeguard. The fighting column had suffered heavy casualties at Liverpool, and expended vast quantities of powder and ammunition, which meant they had to wait for more to come up from the magazines at Bristol and Worcester. Moreover, there were new recruits to be enlisted and trained, more horses to be purchased and supplies to be hoarded. In the meantime, the men revelled in their rest, savoured the stability of steady billets with dry roofs and hot hearths. They played Queenes and Hazard, bragged of the spoils they had plundered and toasted their success. With the exception of the stoutly held town of Manchester, all of Lancashire was now under Royalist control, and with the conquest of Liverpool, the king’s men had secured a crucial landing place for the expected troops from Ireland. Reinforcements that would soon sail across the sea to counterbalance the unholy alliance of Scotland and Westminster.
Stryker paced through the battered town. It was Saturday, market day, but no vendors lined the streets with their wares. Almost four hundred soldiers and citizens had died in the final attack. Though the garrison had fled on to the waiting vessels with most of their valuables, the victorious Royalists had been intent upon wreaking revenge for the days of toil. Some Parliamentarians had been killed in small groups, stubbornly defending positions that conscience would not allow them to vacate, while a few of the Scots had failed to reach the safety of the castle in time, finding themselves overtaken and overwhelmed. Most of the death, however, had been wrought by wanton violence. It had not been as bad as Bolton, but buildings were still burned, homes still robbed, men slain and women raped. Aldermen had banded together beneath a white rag and begged the conquerors to cease, and Rupert had theoretically agreed, but still the destruction had continued in unseen alleys, attics and cellars. Now only a few ventured on to the streets; haggard, stooped wraiths working in gaunt-faced silence, loading waxy, bloated bodies on to creaking wagons.
Stryker skirted round one such team as they dragged a pair of stripped, mottled-blue cadavers from the doorway of a house. One was a male, his throat gaping open from ear to ear, the bloodless flesh flapping like the mouth of a fish. The second was that of a woman, her neck horribly blackened, the bruises shaped like fingers. He looked at the corpses, feeling a pang of guilt, but shook it off. This was war.
A hundred yards on and he reached the bakehouse that was his temporary home. He paused outside, checked he had not been followed, and knocked on the heavy, studded door. It opened to reveal Simeon Barkworth’s yellow eyes. Stryker stepped over the threshold. It was gloomy inside, despite the bright day, and not for the first time he felt a stab of discomfort for bringing Faith Helly to a place full of ovens, given what had come to pass at Bolton. But the girl had taken it in her stride, and he could hear her light, almost musical voice chattering from the next room.
‘There is no infallible interpreter,’ she was saying. ‘Not Pope in Rome, nor Archbishop in Canterbury.’
Stryker weaved his way past an upended worktop, his boots leaving prints in the layer of flour that dusted the stone floor. He tossed his hat at a hook set into the wall, and nodded a greeting to the faces that turned to him. Skellen loomed in the shadows, methodically running a whetstone along the cutting edges of his halberd, while Hood sat opposite Faith, staring intently.
Faith was as usual clutching her Bible. She smiled at Stryker, before returning her gaze to the lieutenant. ‘You see, Thomas,’ she continued, ‘no church, no priest or saint, can be interposed between the soul and God. There is no ordained pathway to Grace. The only interpreter of God’s Word is the individual. You or I.’
Hood frowned. ‘How would I know that what I interpreted was right?’
‘You pray,’ she said, as though it were the most obvious answer imaginable. ‘Pray that you are guided by the Holy Spirit. Read the Word.’ She tapped her fingertips on the small book’s leather cover. ‘And follow your inner voice. Your conscience. Why should a robed bishop tell you how to listen to God’s wisdom? How does that man – an imperfect, sinful son of Adam – have the right to style your belief?’