A Crowning Mercy by Bernard Cornwell & Susannah Kells

Author:Bernard Cornwell & Susannah Kells
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780061832987
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

“It’s Ebenezer! He looks so different. And the Reverend Hervey.”

Toby took over the glass. “Which one’s Ebenezer?”

“Black hair.”

Toby saw a slight, tallish young man who stood just apart from Scammell. He was dressed entirely in black, even his elegant high boots were of black leather, and Toby could see a breastplate that had been lacquered the same color. He limped as he moved, but there was a strange dignity to his movements. The third man, the Reverend Hervey, his sandy hair falling over his thin face, talked urgently to Scammell.

“I’m frightened, Toby.”

“Why?”

“They’ve come for me.”

“Nonsense.” He straightened up. “Atheldene’s in command.” He smiled at her. “They probably don’t even know you’re here.” He laughed, trying to cheer her up. “It’s natural that they’ve come. This is the closest Royalist house to Werlatton. Don’t worry. James and I will look after you.”

He spoke confidently. James was Toby’s servant, a huge young man who was the son of Lazen’s blacksmith and had inherited his father’s great muscles and easy strength. James Wright had grown up with Toby. They had learned to hunt game in the woods together and to poach neighbor’s fish together, and now they fought in the war together. Toby had often spoken of James’s prowess with a woodman’s axe carried against the Roundheads.

Yet she did worry and, to calm her, Toby offered a purse of five pounds to any man who could kill Samuel Scammell. The target was pointed out to gunners and musketeers, so that Brother Scammell, every time he appeared in the enemy lines, was pursued by musket balls as though they were hornets. Men fell to his left, to his right, yet somehow he survived. He took comfort from Psalm 91: “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee,” yet even so, he was fearful of his hours of duty and he wondered whether Campion was somehow directing the storm of musket fire that hummed and whirred about his head.

On June 11 the gatehouse fell. Its old stones were undermined by the enemy gunfire and it collapsed, sliding in dust and noise to make a heap of stone under which ten defenders were buried. The ring became tighter, the morale of the defenders lower, for though they were resisting the enemy’s fumbling attacks, the enemy would not give up and go away. There was food within the castle still and plenty of water, but thirty men had died, as many were lying in stinking, suppurating pain, and boredom gnawed at the people trapped by the siege. The guns still fired, making inroads now on the Old House, opening its northern rooms to the spring rain and the fire of the enemy.

Sir George, seeing the path by which the enemy would come into the castle and understanding that the simmering war in the north would mean no relief from the King’s army, wrote to Atheldene. He wrote despite the protest of his wife, and his letter requested the safe conduct that had been offered in May for the ladies of Lazen Castle.

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