‘Valuables,’ the bird-man said softly. He waited for a reply, but none came. ‘Come hither, kind sir, and be Christ-like in your generosity.’
That provoked a response, as Faith knew it would. Master Sydall, tall and broad like a great oak, rose from the dingy corner. ‘You blaspheme, sir.’
The bird-man grinned. His teeth were huge, too large for his narrow mouth, and sharp, like fangs. ‘There you are.’ He whistled as he looked up at the man dressed in the simple breeches and doublet favoured by Bolton’s strong Puritan community. ‘Geneva of the North, they call this place. Cannot fathom why.’
Sydall was the larger of the two, and he stepped half a pace forwards as his wife, three daughters and one son edged out behind him. Faith did not like the man, but she could not help but admire his bravery. ‘There are no riches here, sir. We are reformers. We detest wealth.’
The bird-man tutted, as if admonishing a child. ‘Banbury-men detest greed, my friend, not wealth.’ He tapped his boot heel on the floor. ‘Glazed tiles. Very nice. Dutch? Flemish? It is not piety that pays for such things.’
‘Never see a poor Puritan,’ one of the other soldiers growled.
‘Amen to that,’ the bird-man chimed, his voice unsettlingly pleasant, made musical with the burr of the West Country. ‘Where do you keep your plate, your coin?’
Sydall bristled. ‘I command you to leave!’ The old steel had returned to his tone. Faith hated that steel, that judgemental rhetoric that so often accompanied meals in this soulless home, and yet now she took solace in it, prayed the three girls clustered about their mother like a trio of chicks would feel the same. Young John, the family’s beloved second son, moved to stand by his father. He was fifteen, the same age as Faith, and she felt a swell of pride.
Master Sydall’s eyes drifted past the soldiers to the open doorway. ‘Leave, you villains! My older son will soon be home, and—’
The bird-man’s dark brow jerked upwards at that. ‘Son? I killed a man outside, only moments ago. You must have heard the shots. A tough fellow, granted.’ He glanced at the moustachioed subordinate. ‘Did I not say so, Sergeant Janik?’
The sergeant grunted something in a foreign tongue.
The bird-man nodded happily. ‘There, you see? Tough indeed. Took two bullets. Impressive, given his preoccupation with keeping his entrails off the road. Was it not?’
The sergeant nodded again.
Master Sydall buckled. He did not fall, but the great oak swayed as though hit by a hurricane. Behind him Mistress Sydall went to her knees and the girls, those poor girls, wailed for their brother. They were only young, eleven and thirteen and fourteen. Faith felt the tears dash down her own cheeks.
‘King Jesus, I beseech you!’ Sydall brayed. ‘Smite these invaders, in the name of—’
‘A final chance, sirrah,’ the bird-man interjected calmly. ‘Your goods. Your silver plate, and your golden flagon.’
That stopped Sydall in his tracks. The big man’s eyes widened, cleared, as if observing the intruders for the first time. ‘I understand,’ he whispered. ‘You will not succeed, Devil.’
The bird-man shrugged.
It seemed to Faith as if the massacre took a long time, though it can only have taken minutes. Master Sydall – the dour, grey-bearded ranter with the stentorian tone and accusatory stare – wailed like a lost boy as the heavy-set sergeant with the wickedly bladed staff took a surprisingly nimble stride forwards and swept his grim weapon in a scything arc just above the ground, slicing right through one of Sydall’s ankles and cleaving a ragged chunk in the other. The women screamed. Young John flushed white, deposited the contents of his last meal on his boots, and seemed almost not to notice the short-hafted axe as it dashed the side of his stooped head to smithereens. At least, Faith thought, he died quickly, for the fate to which the women would be subjected was as horrifying as it was inevitable. The men laughed as they were thrown to the ground. They used small knives to shred the outer garments, tossing them away like rags. Faith clamped her eyes shut after that. But she could not move her arms to cover her ears. The sound was atrocious. The screams and the grunts. It went on for so long, each man taking his turn, each taking his time. Master Sydall, the granite-hearted reformer who kept his emotion so utterly in check, writhed like a hamstrung calf and sobbed like a babe. And all the while the bird-man, the black-pelted hunchback with the tiny, restless eyes, watched the spectacle with blank disinterest. He could have stopped it, but he chose simply to sit on a table and gnaw at a hunk of seed-speckled bread.
All the while, Faith Helly prayed, as Master Sydall had prayed, and knew she had been ignored as he had been ignored. God had abandoned them; abandoned Bolton.
When lust had been sated, Mistress Sydall was put to the sword. Faith did not see which man slit her throat, but she heard the gurgle, like a brook crossing a pebble ford, and let her eyelids part only to see the colour drain from the woman’s battered face. The three girls no longer made a sound, so broken were they. Three mannequins, waxy and inert, lying limp on the cold tiles, blood streaking their thighs, tears streaking their cheeks. They died too, swords pushed quickly and deeply into their slim necks, thrust so hard that the tiles beneath cracked. More blood pulsed as the blades jerked free, pooling around the feet of the soldiers as they fastened their breeches and arched back cracking spines.
‘Where is the horde?’
It was the bird-man who spoke. He repeated the question, and Faith assumed he was addressing Master Sydall, but as she watched she realized that he, too, had been butchered. She wondered if there was someone else. Another of the family she had yet to see. Her eyes raked the bodies, counting them again and again, always coming up with the same answer. Then the bird-man stood, stepping carefully over the fresh corpses, and Faith thought she might expire then and there. For his eyes – those twitching black nuggets – had rested upon the oven. Upon her.
She held her breath so that her chest burned. He leaned forward, just a yard or two from the mouth of the clay dome, and peered into her hiding place. He smiled broadly, teeth big and bright. Now she saw why they were so sharp: they had been filed to points. To Faith it looked like they belonged in the mouth of a mastiff, neat rows of beautifully white daggers, made all the more luminous set between the sharply waxed moustache and tiny wedge of beard, both as black as his hair and clothes.
‘Come out, pretty thing.’ He winked. ‘We shall not harm you.’
The soldiers sniggered at that. Faith pulled her body tight, shrinking back into the ash-stained cave, knowing all was lost. Then hands were groping at her, clawing at her clothes, at her hair, hauling her from the oven with irresistible strength. She bit one of the hands, a man bellowed in pain and anger, then the fingers returned, balled into a fist, and stunned her as they cracked against her nose. She smelt blood, her own this time, tasted it, and then she was out, plucked into daylight and bundled to the floor. Immediately the blood of the Sydall children was on her hands and knees, smearing her. She tried to stand but slipped in the slick flood, yelping as she hit the tiles again with a wet slap.
Stryker stepped into a charnel house. There was blood everywhere, gleaming red in the depressed grid between the glazed green floor tiles, spattered up chair legs, dashed on shelves as though some unseen vandal had flicked paintbrushes around the expensively equipped kitchen. He had followed the crowing group of soldiers by a twist of instinct, and now, as he gazed down at the shattered remains of a family, he knew that he had been both correct and foolish. They rounded on him immediately, brandishing a formidable array of weapons, and he could see they were not raw recruits, flushed with success and brimming with ale, but men who knew their business.
From amongst the tense party a man pushed through to regard Stryker. It was the officer he had seen before, the fur-trimmed killer. ‘And you are?’
He chose not to inflame the situation, leaving his hand resting on the pommel of his sheathed sword. ‘Stryker.’
The thin face twitc
hed in recognition. ‘I’ve heard of you. Captain?’
‘Major.’
The darkly protruding brow rose in slight surprise. ‘My compliments. I am Captain John Kendrick. They call me the Vulture.’
‘I have not heard of you,’ Stryker lied.
That hit a nerve, for the muscles in Kendrick’s pale cheeks quivered. He tried to hide his annoyance by scratching his chin with a left hand that Stryker now saw was encased within a blackened gauntlet. There were gadlings set on each metal knuckle, spikes that could shatter a man’s jaw as sure as any cudgel. ‘Then perhaps you have heard of my brave hajduks?’
Stryker’s eye was instinctively taken by one of Kendrick’s men. He was a sergeant, to judge by his halberd, but he noticed the man – leering behind a bushy moustache – had a long, curved sabre hanging from his baldric. He had seen such weapons before, fought against the men who carried them. ‘Hungarians?’
‘Some. Some English, French too. My faithful hounds, blooded on the flesh of Turks and barbarians.’
‘And now tasting English meat.’
Kendrick smiled, revealing teeth filed for effect to wicked points. ‘Come now, Stryker, you understand the rules of war as well as I.’
Stryker regarded those fangs, those cold eyes, the casual ease with which Kendrick held court in the midst of such carnage. He had never personally encountered the Vulture, but the man who had enlisted with the king came with a reputation as frightening as it was impressive. He wondered how he might extricate himself from this slaughter house with his skin intact. ‘You address me as sir.’
Kendrick cocked his head to the side, as if Stryker’s bluster simply intrigued him. ‘Sir.’ He looked at the red-stained floor. ‘The fools refused terms. We took their stinking streets, and this is our reward.’
‘Murder?’
‘Plunder.’
Stryker shook his head. ‘We are not to kill innocents.’
Kendrick scoffed derisively. ‘None here are innocent, Major Stryker, you know that as well as I. They prayed for our destruction as we mustered beyond their walls. Beseeched God for our deaths. Their crimes are as heinous as those of Rigby’s soldiers. More so.’
To one side of the mob Stryker could see the pale face of a young girl whose sightless eyes were staring directly up at him. He could see, despite the blood, that her skirts were bunched high at her midriff. ‘The children?’
‘Their defeat here would only inspire them to greater mischief.’ Kendrick sounded exasperated. He looked back through the legs of his men to catch sight of one of the bodies. ‘Take the boy; he’d be wearing a tawny scarf by summer’s end. Or Scotch blue.’ He spat suddenly, the final words particularly sour. ‘And what are Puritan girls good for but whelping more Puritans? Exterminate the species before they may breed, Major. ’Tis the kindest thing to do.’
It was then that Stryker heard the mewing. Soft, barely perceptible, as though a kitten were trapped in one of the room’s shadowy nooks. He took a half-step to the side, peering past Kendrick. Movement caught his eye beyond the palisade of legs. It was a girl. Young, he reckoned, for her frame was skinny and fragile. She was filthy, her clothes smudged black and the bare forearms curled protectively about her coiffed head like twin seams of coal.
‘Have a care, Stryker,’ Kendrick muttered, his tone low and dark. His metal-clad left hand clenched slowly, the vicious gadlings glinting as the knuckles shifted beneath. ‘She is mine.’
Stryker realized his fingers had snaked around the rough shark skin of his sword’s grip. He hesitated, seeing only stupidity in anything but a rapid flight, and then the girl moved again. Groaned. She lifted her head, pushed the escaped fringe of copper hair from her eyes. He saw that she was indeed young. No more than sixteen. She looked directly at him through the booted obstacles, holding his gaze with a look that seemed to grasp his very soul. And then the sword was hissing, easing up from its scabbard so that six inches of gleaming steel were exposed to daylight.
‘Draw it,’ Kendrick warned, ‘and you’re a dead man.’
Stryker drew it. ‘Try me.’
Kendrick’s face turned from warning to disbelief. ‘You would die for this bitch?’
‘Someone will die, Captain Kendrick,’ Stryker said, levelling the tip of the blade with the Vulture’s sternum. ‘Of that you may be certain.’
Kendrick’s narrow lips parted as he regarded Stryker. His tongue flickered, serpent-like, between the gaps in his sculpted teeth as he considered whether one more murder was due this day. From his belt he tugged a broad, bone-handled knife that was at least the width of a man’s hand. He turned it slowly, examining the blade. ‘A cinquedea, Major. Took it from a Venetian after a particularly heated altercation. I gut people with it.’
The deafening noise drowned Kendrick’s words. An entire troop of horse, by the sound of them, reined in outside the house. Whinnies and shouts, clattering hooves and jangling armour clamoured in the melee of sound heralding their arrival. Orders were barked as the horsemen tethered their mounts wherever they could find a suitable place, and laughter burst in sporadic bouts as men jeered prisoners and celebrated so crushing a victory. They did not seem intent on entering the Sydall home, milling outside simply to tend wounds and inspect ill-gotten goods, but their presence startled Kendrick and agitated his men. Regardless of the day’s merciless directives and cruel deeds, none wished to be discovered in this place with so many butchered folk at their feet.
Kendrick seemed to consider the paths open to him; he then slipped the dagger back into its broad sheath. With a jerk of his head, he summoned his men, who filed past Stryker with grunted threats, making rapidly for the door. The Vulture went last, taking his time to glance back at the moaning girl. When he reached the doorway, he stopped short, looking back. ‘I’ll be seeing you, Major Stryker.’
Chapter 3
York, 29 May 1644
‘Impressive, Captain, is it not?’
Lancelot Forrester, second captain of Sir Edmund Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot, stared out at the sea of humanity that lapped against the lead-pocked defences of York. The city, proud, ancient capital of England’s north, resembled something like an island. ‘I’d wager these stout walls have not been so threatened since the time of the Danelaw.’
The man beside him, a small fellow with a puffy face, smoothed down an errant strand of heavily oiled hair with a chubby finger. ‘But you survived the night’s enterprise.’
Forrester noticed the lack of congratulation in his companion’s voice, and he smothered a wry smile, instead plucking off his wide-brimmed hat to pick at flecks of grime that he noticed – with not a little vexation – had soiled the already dishevelled feathers. ‘The sally was indeed a close run thing, Master Killigrew,’ he said, staring out at fields that seemed never to be still, so crawling with activity were their hedges and furrows. ‘We lost two men, captured some shovels and half a dozen axes.’
They were standing on the imposing edifice of Walmgate Bar, one of four great entrances into the city. Forrester replaced his hat, leaning on the crenellated stonework that crowned one of two massive towers looming over the walled barbican below. It was a truly formidable bar, set into the south-east corner of the circuit of thick stone walls, and yet even here, in this place of immovable strength, he felt vulnerable, because the armies of the new alliance had converged to conspire in York’s demise. He scanned the units that moved below them, cavalry on patrol, pike blocks at drill, musketeers escorting wagons of provisions from one village to the next. So far their efforts had been limited to hemming in the defenders as far as was possible, to patrolling the countryside, harrying the closest pockets of Royalist strength in the region, and setting up breastworks from which their marksmen could peck at the ramparts. In return, the king’s men had launched several small-scale sorties to disrupt the encroaching Parliamentarian lines, and it was one such endeavour that had occupied Forrester for half the night.
‘A commendable effort,’ Killigrew said in a
tone that suggested he was not remotely impressed. ‘But two losses? We cannot afford such a toll.’
Forrester kept his eyes on the Parliamentarian lines lest his temper bring him trouble. ‘The enemy are prone to shoot at us, sir.’
‘You took no prisoners?’
Forrester shook his head. That was why Ezra Killigrew was here, of course. ‘My apologies, sir, but there are none for your rack.’
Killigrew affected a look of horror. ‘The rack? I would never resort to such base measures, Captain Forrester.’ He placed a hand against his breast, the smell of lavender wafting out with the motion. ‘You know me better than that.’
Forrester disguised a rueful smirk by fiddling with the strands of sandy-coloured hair that sprouted from his hat to play at his temples. ‘A jest, Master Killigrew,’ he lied. Ezra Killigrew was well capable of stretching a man’s joints, or plucking out his fingernails, or branding his flesh, if that man had information worthy of the pain. For all his meek appearance, the man wielded disproportionate power within the Royalist high command, serving as personal confidante to the king’s nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, until his recent arrival at York to advise the Marquis of Newcastle. Forrester’s heart had sunk when he had first clapped eyes on Killigrew in the city, a man whose every gesture reminded him of a greasy rodent, for acquaintance with Ezra Killigrew tended to court nothing but danger.
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