Robert Adams by Castaways in Time Castaways 1

Author:Castaways in Time Castaways 1 [Castaways 1, Castaways in Time]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-10-28T16:19:49+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

With the capitulation of the last and largest force of foreign Crusaders, the counties of the south and the east were a-ripple with the sound of turning coats. Those few men too honest or too stubborn to decide that Arthur was lawful king after all spurred lathered horses for the safety of the walls of London. Some made it. Some did not, and full many a tree and gate lintel and gibbet throughout the realm was decorated with the bird-pecked corpses of churchmen and Church's men, swaying and rotting and stinking under the hot summer sun.

With no less than three captured siege trains, the Royal Army invested London--last remaining stronghold of Church and Pretender--late in May. They still were ringed about the city in December, warm and dry and adequately supplied in well-built encampments, patiently awaiting the order to attack but, meanwhile, seeing to it that no living creature left the city and that no supplies of any sort reached it.

Of scant value to the besiegers, the Royal Cavalry had spent the summer and the autumn riding hither and yon, putting down brigandage, hunting down stragglers from the various foreign armies, and flushing out Church's men and other traitors. But as autumn merged into winter, the Lord Commander of Horse recalled the wide-ranging units to the old campground near Manchester, and after issuing orders that all be ready for instant summons but in any case report to the present encampment no later than the first day of April, he dismissed them to their homes. Then, accompanied by his faithful attendant and along with a score of Borderers, he set out to the northeast, where old friends, wife, and infant son awaited him.

The little party clove to the coast as far north as Kendal, then northwestward up the valley of the Eden River, due west over the northern foothills of the Pennine chain, over the ancient Roman Wall, and so into Tynedale, being welcomed at every hall and hamlet they passed. But there was no welcome for the travelers at Heron Hall.

The smashed gate hung drunkenly on but one hinge, swaying and creaking dolefully to the strong, frigid gusts howling down from Scotland. Most of the outbuildings were but heaps of old ash and tumbled, sooty stones, and the hall itself, wherein had been dispensed so much cheer from year to year, was a smoke-blackened ruin. The windows gaped like the empty eyesockets of some ancient skull, while the soaring chimneys and charred roofbeams now gave roost to a flock of cawing crows which rose in an ebon cloud, loudly shrieking protest, when a trio of dragoons clambered through a front window and drew the rusty bolts so that their officer might enter.

Foster saw that half of the stone stairway still stood, mounting upward from the desolation below to end abruptly in the empty space above. Small vermin scuttered squeaking before his advance, and his boot struck a roundish object that rolled over in the cold, wet ashes to grin

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