Traitor's Blood (Civil War Chronicles)

by Michael Arnold

  TRAITOR’S BLOOD

  MICHAEL ARNOLD

  www.johnmurray.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by John Murray (Publishers)

  An Hachette UK Company

  © Michael Arnold 2010

  The right of Michael Arnold to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  All characters in this publication – other than obvious historical figures – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN 978-1-84854-405-5

  Book ISBN 978-1-84854-402-4

  John Murray (Publishers)

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.johnmurray.co.uk

  To John, who always believed it would happen

  CONTENTS

  Traitor’s Blood

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  February 1642

  Lisette Gaillard watched the skiff bob into view, waves buffeting its fragile hull. There were three men aboard, sailors who had come from a ship anchored out beyond the dangerous shallows. Three men to transport the most precious cargo imaginable.

  ‘Girl!’

  A man and a woman, both wrapped in long, fur-trimmed cloaks, stood behind her. It was the shorter of the pair that had spoken. His fine shoulder-length hair flowed loosely in the wind, and his pinched, shrewish face was white against the elements. His companion was hooded, with only her face exposed to the inclement weather.

  ‘My horse.’ The man’s voice was querulous and pitched high.

  Lisette looked past him, her gaze scanning the ridge beyond the beach where a crowd of mounted figures hovered, their dark forms spectral against the horizon’s dying light. She raised a hand and a single rider kicked away from the group, leading a large, white charger behind his own horse down the steep dune.

  ‘Jesu, but it’s cold!’ the man cursed through gritted teeth.

  The woman dipped her chin, hunching against the wind’s bite and pulling the cloak’s warm ermine-fringed hood further down her brow. She stared at the swirling belts of sand around her feet, brought fleetingly to life by the salty breeze. At length, she looked up and rolled her eyes.

  ‘No matter,’ the man murmured quickly, catching her expression. ‘Greater trials lie ahead.’

  The woman set her lips in a stern line. ‘They do, Husband. They should not. But they do.’ She sketched the sign of the cross in the space between them. ‘If God wills it.’

  The man lifted a dainty hand to his chin, thin fingers worrying at the precisely trimmed russet beard. ‘God wills such things?’

  ‘Truly. England is a realm of heathens, Husband. Heathens and rebels. God placed you on His great earth to turn that tide. To crush rebellion and to lead the common man back to the true faith.’ Her upper lip quivered. ‘You did neither. Now you are punished. We,’ she hissed, ‘are punished.’

  He turned abruptly to the sea. Lisette followed his gaze. Did he pray for the cold depths to lurch up and swallow him, she wondered? When he finally turned back, she saw that he kept his eyes fixed on the ivory buttons at the top of his wife’s cloak, never summoning the courage to rise beyond the tip of her proud chin.

  ‘I will redeem us, Hetty,’ he said quietly.

  She nodded. ‘You must.’

  The sailors were now wading in the shallows, dragging the bucking boat in their wake.

  ‘Your Majesties,’ Lisette said earnestly, ‘we must depart.’

  The queen did not look round. Henrietta Maria, Princess of France and Queen Consort of England, would leave when it pleased her and not a moment before.

  The boat would wait. So would Lisette.

  ‘Make haste to your kin,’ King Charles said, ‘and pray for your husband.’

  ‘Pray, sir?’ Henrietta Maria smiled fiercely. ‘I shall do more than pray. I will petition my brother and Pope Urban. By the year’s end you will have coin and men. Cannon. Horse.’ She reached out long fingers to touch the king’s cheek. ‘My family, the church, they will not abandon you. Nor shall I.’

  Charles glanced beyond his queen’s shoulder, to where the sailors stood knee deep in the surf. ‘I fear for you.’

  ‘Do not, sir. Have strength. You are God’s appointed. Chosen by Him and no other. Parliament’s jackals cannot touch either of us. Be king, sir,’ she said, softly now, pleading. ‘For me, if for no other. Be king and lead your country. A monarch must command, my love. Others must follow.’ Her mouth twisted, as though tasting rotten meat. ‘Puritans. By God they would not thrive so in my brother’s land. He crushes them beneath his heel before they would grow in number. Before they infest his kingdom as they infest yours.’

  The queen’s fingers tightened on Charles’s arm. ‘Do not fret. All is not lost. Gather your strength, Husband. Call your forces. Destroy the rebellion and prove, at last, that you are your people’s rightful liege lord. I will make haste in my mission, sir. And I will return to your side, as God is my witness.’

  They kissed, and Lisette marvelled at the tenderness they were unashamed to show.

  ‘Come, Lisette,’ the queen snapped, as she pulled away.

  Lisette bowed and waved to the group that still waited on the ridge. At once a dozen riders, the queen’s retinue and the royal children, began walking their mounts down the dusk-veiled beach towards them. At their head was a tall young man with broad shoulders and a perpetually amused gaze. ‘Let us reach the safety of the ship before dark, Aunt Henrietta,’ he said. His mouth twitched upwards. ‘Damned if I am to swim to Holland!’

  ‘Take my arm, Rupert,’ the queen commanded. She waded without hesitation into the chilling surf. Lisette followed tentatively, gasping as the water licked up to her knees. In less than a minute the party was aboard the vessel, crammed on to low benches, and the sailors had pushed off.

  Lisette Gaillard screwed her eyes shut as a stinging ribbon of spray leapt from one of the oars. She glanced across to her queen. She had not flinched.

  As the skiff rode the first choppy breakers, the queen shrugged off Prince Rupert’s restraining hands and stood, staggering slightly as her boots fought for purchase on the slick wood.

  ‘Be king!’ she cried back to the shore. King Charles raised a hand, then he leapt up on to his horse and urged the beast into a gallop. He headed towards the great cliffs that stood as sentinels, guarding this corner of England against sea-borne foe. Lisette guessed he would watch them until their ship had vanished on the horizon.

  Long fingers fastened gently but firmly around Lisette’s wrist.

  ‘I am ready to do my du
ty. Are you ready to do yours?’

  Lisette nodded. ‘Yes, Majesty.’

  Queen Henrietta Maria’s eyes gleamed in the fading light. ‘Find it. Return it to me. Our lives depend on your success.’

  When Lisette Gaillard replied, her voice was a whisper on the winter wind. ‘I will not fail you, Majesty.’

  CHAPTER 1

  October 1642

  It had snowed the previous night; not heavily, but enough to dust the fair-meadow so that its surface crunched beneath latchet shoes and bucket-top boots.

  The captain stamped his feet to beat some life back into deadened toes. He squinted across a chaotic scene littered with the debris of torn flesh and shattered weaponry, toward the distant village of Kineton, its thatched roofs obscured by dense rows of pike thrust high above the enemy units. He tried to count the iron-clad heads that gleamed in the wan sun like grey pearls, but the ranks were too deep, the army too vast.

  ‘Hot work!’ A voice suddenly split the captain’s thoughts like a warship’s broadside. ‘I said hot work, eh, Captain Stryker? Bloody chilly day, I grant you, but I’d wager Satan’s goddamned britches it’ll be scorching once the big guns cough!’

  Lieutenant Colonel Sir Stanley Balham continued to bellow excitedly through his thin white whiskers as he drew his mare up alongside Stryker. The captain heaved himself up into his own saddle, the big sorrel-coloured beast twitching nervously beneath him, steam rising steadily from its flared nostrils into the cold evening air. ‘I was just telling Butterworth that you and the lads have been up to your armpits already.’

  ‘Aye, Sir Stanley, that we have,’ Stryker replied, though he had no clue who Butterworth was. The lieutenant colonel’s nose wrinkled as he studied Stryker’s less than savoury appearance. The captain’s buff-coat and breeches were shabby and daubed with crimson patches that hinted at the deaths of several men, while his long hair jutted from beneath the wide brim of a tattered hat in great sweat-darkened clumps.

  ‘Nothing you ain’t seen before though, I’d wager,’ the older man said gruffly.

  Stryker cast his gaze over the chaotic tableau stretching across the plain in front of them. ‘I have seen plenty as you’d say were similar, sir, yes. But . . .’ he paused.

  ‘But?’ the lieutenant colonel prompted. ‘Go on, man, you may speak plain.’

  ‘It is a rare and terrible thing to be facing one’s own countrymen.’ Stryker shrugged and looked back toward the battlefield. The push of pike he had been watching was dissolving in the deadly melee, and men were slaughtering one another in the packed ranks of bodies. It would be infernally hot in those ranks, and bloody. The air would stink of flesh and sweat and shit. Eventually it would turn sickly sweet. Blood and death. ‘I never thought I’d live to fight an army of Englishmen.’

  Perhaps not an army, needled a little voice from the back of his conscience, but he had certainly fought against Englishmen. Killed them even.

  ‘Tragic.’ Sir Stanley nodded gravely. ‘But necessary, Stryker.’

  ‘My men and I won’t let His Majesty’s cause fail,’ muttered the captain.

  The lieutenant colonel grinned. ‘Capital, sir. Admire your courage, Captain, damn me, I do.’

  Stryker nodded at the compliment, though he knew admiration for his particular talents would stretch only as far as those talents proved useful. A professional killer engendered more fear than respect in the upper echelons of society. He was dangerous, a man whose morals and appearance were considered more akin to those of common bandits plaguing Balham’s estates than to a comrade-in-arms.

  Worst of all, there was the scar; Stryker knew it would likely be turning Sir Stanley’s stomach. The lieutenant colonel’s careful approach on Stryker’s right-hand side, in order to view the part of his face that remained intact, had not passed unnoticed.

  Stryker watched Sir Stanley make the sign of the cross and wondered if he was asking God to smite the rebel horde or to protect him from another kind of demon closer at hand.

  ‘Yes, sir, war is crucial!’ Sir Stanley barked. He drew a wheezy breath and leant across to slap the younger man on the back, the leather glove making a dull thud against the captain’s crusty buff-coat. ‘Someone must stand beside our king in his time of tribulation. The rebellion must be stopped. Cut out like the festering canker you and I, good Christian men that we are, know it to be!’

  ‘Praise God.’ Stryker forced a smile as Balham hauled on his reins, urging his horse back down the lines.

  ‘Praise God, Captain Stryker!’ Sir Stanley called over his shoulder. ‘And long live King Charles!’

  Stryker twisted in his saddle to scan the escarpment that dominated the landscape behind them. His gaze rested upon a small group of figures, barely visible in the gathering dusk. ‘What now?’ he whispered, ignoring the twitching horse and creaking leather beneath him.

  ‘What’s that, Captain Stryker, sir?’

  Stryker’s body twisted back to face the massed ranks of humanity across the expanse of ground between Radway and Kineton. His one good eye, however, slid down to the man standing beside him. ‘I was asking him what we should do now, Sergeant Skellen,’ he clarified.

  Skellen’s uniform bore no demarcation of rank, but his bearing was confident. He was tall and lean, the owner of a dour leathery face and a deep voice that frequently dripped with sarcasm. His big, gloved hands wielded the vicious halberd, the only official token of his status, with an ease that denoted a man familiar with weapons and their deadly purpose.

  The sergeant glanced up at Stryker to show he had his full attention, but was careful not to allow his dark eyes, sunk deep in their sockets, to meet the officer’s gaze directly. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but who?’ he said in an accent common to the rough taverns of Portsmouth and Gosport.

  ‘His Majesty, the King,’ Stryker replied, with a jerk of his head to indicate the ridge behind them.

  What should they do? The opposing armies had been locked in combat for the better part of the afternoon. Both sides had made gains; both conceded losses. It was now growing dark, and the snow had been trudged and pounded by hoof and foot into a blood-red slush during the battle.

  ‘Aye,’ said Skellen knowingly. ‘Men won’t stand for it, Mister Stryker.’

  In an instant Stryker lurched down to lean over his sergeant, the muscles in his thighs protesting as they gripped the creaking saddle. ‘They will stand for it, Skellen,’ he growled dangerously, having to raise his voice above a fresh salvo of cannon fire that was being unleashed from the battery to his left.

  The sergeant whipped his head back to face front. ‘Aye, sir,’ he grunted.

  ‘They will stand for it as long as I bloody well tell them to, and I’ll tear the goddamn throat out of anyone who so much as farts his dissent.’

  Skellen clamped his mouth shut, fixing his gaze on the distant enemy formations. He knew that his captain was right. Yes, his men would stand – they’d follow him into the mouth of hell itself if he asked them – but the rest? The raw recruits and the farm-hands, only here under extreme duress? They would be away as soon as the dusk could cover an escape, dissolving into the night as if they’d never been here at all.

  Edgehill itself was a ridge, a growth jutting out from otherwise low-lying land to form a long mound running north to south, seven hundred feet above sea level. It stood like a great barrier between the towns of Stratford-upon-Avon in the west and Banbury to the east.

  Nestled snugly beneath this great escarpment – on the Stratford side – was the village of Radway, and running north-westwards from Radway was a wide plain. It was at the end of this fair-meadow that Kineton could be found, perched on the edge of the River Dene.

  Stryker knew how different it would have appeared just two or three days earlier. The fair-meadow, punctuated by rough scrubland and flanked by ancient hedgerows, would have been a serene patch of unadulterated countryside. At its centre there was a ploughed field, which, though tough work at this time of year, would be subject to th
e toil of a farmer and his oxen.

  But not today.

  The battle had raged for much of the afternoon, ebbing and flowing like the great tides Stryker had seen dash the North Sea coast when he’d shipped out to the Low Countries thirteen years previously. It had begun with an hour-long cannonade, though the relentless pounding of infantry positions on both sides had had little effect.

  As woeful as the Roundhead aim had been, Stryker had still heard the screams while iron balls skipped off the granite-hard earth and crashed through the Royalist ranks as if they were skittles. The wicked shot would cut a man in half. If it just took him at the knee, he was accounted fortunate.

  Maddeningly, fewer of Parliament’s troops went down under the Royalists’ attack. Essex was either a clever man, or a lucky one, Stryker judged, for arranging his infantry behind the ploughed land in front of Kineton had been a crucial stroke. The Royalist cannon balls had, more often than not, sunk into the turned earth, nullifying the lethal ricochet that put paid to so many of the King’s men.

  ‘Which would you rather?’ Stryker said, glancing down at Skellen. ‘Fight a clever man or a lucky one?’

  ‘Lucky, sir,’ Skellen replied immediately. ‘His luck’ll run out. Now your clever cully makes his own luck. That’s a man to be feared, sir.’

  They were startled by a splatter of mud and snow, kicked up from the hooves of an incoming gelding. The rider, one of the colonel’s aides-de-camp, wrenched on his reins, bringing his steed to a skidding halt.

  ‘Captain Stryker, sir!’ the aide shouted over the battle din, before Stryker could rebuke him for his impertinence. ‘Compliments of Sir Edmund and you’re to intercept yon blue-coated fellows,’ he said, indicating an advancing pike formation. He evidently could not precisely identify the unit, though it was clear from their pro-Parliamentarian field chants that they were not friendly.

  ‘He means us to advance?’ Stryker asked urgently.

  ‘I think not, Mister Stryker, sir. Think not. Rearguard action is all.’