Free Marston Moor by Michael Arnold Page A

prompted.
    ‘The high roads are not safe in their entirety. Not yet. Thus I require a sturdy fellow to oversee my munitions. I hear tell you are currently employed as Lord High Gaoler of Bolton. True?’
    Stryker laughed. ‘True.’
    ‘You enjoy the duty?’
    ‘Nay, sir, I do not.’
    ‘Good. Then you, Major Stryker, will command my convoy.’

Chapter 4
     
    Lathom House, Lancashire, 29–31 May 1644
     
    The candlelight was enchanting. It danced along the walls, casting tremulous shadows across the tapestries so that the colourful depictions of saints and sinners, monsters and heroes, seemed charged by magic to play out their scenes for the assembled throng. And a welcome throng it was, declared Charlotte Stanley, Countess of Derby, from her high seat at one of the great hall’s soaring gable ends. Before her – beneath her – the audience tittered and clapped as she accepted their praise, one bejewelled hand twinkling as it waved, the other cradling a large goblet of spiced claret sent with the compliments of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. But it was her husband’s gift that took centre stage. From her dais, the countess peered over a snub nose to regard the standards of Alexander Rigby’s routed regiment, arrayed in two great columns at either side of the room, each held by a stiff-backed ensign. There were so many of the huge taffeta squares that her guests, Lathom House’s most senior inhabitants, joined this night by Sir Richard Crane and the Lifeguard of Horse, were almost draped in the colours of Parliament.
    Stryker, standing at the very rear of the richly upholstered crowd, allowed himself a wry smile as a servant filled his proffered goblet. The man, dressed in the Earl of Derby’s livery, had been reluctant to approach, and now, as the last drips rippled the surface of the wine, he shied quickly away to meld into the rows of bodies.
    ‘You frightened him, sir,’ Thomas Hood, standing at Stryker’s right hand, said in a low voice.
    ‘I have that effect on folk.’ He lifted the cup, gulping back the claret.
    Another liveried servant appeared and handed Hood a goblet. He took it, looking furtively at Stryker as it was filled, then sipped with deliberate slowness. ‘Lady Derby basks, rather.’
    Stryker ignored the wine in his lieutenant’s hand. ‘She has earned it. The house has been under close siege for most of the year. She held it with honour. Fortified it well to resist bombardment.’
    Both men raised their goblets as one of the officers at the front proposed what might have been the tenth toast of the evening.
    ‘I thank you, sir, for your gracious words,’ the countess said. She was probably in her mid forties, Stryker guessed. Plump and pale, with dark, determined eyes and black hair that was styled with ringlets in a pastiche of the queen. Indeed, she reminded Stryker a great deal of Her Majesty, Henrietta Maria, for the women both spoke with the exotic tones of France. ‘Now I must make mention of Monsieur Tipper,’ purred Charlotte Stanley, who had been born Charlotte de La Trémoille. ‘You will know that my success is due, in no small part, to the militia of expert marksmen who garrison my home. Tipper is chief of them.’ She raised her cup, nodding to a spot within the crowd where Tipper evidently stood. The audience drank and cheered.
    ‘Does she not put you in mind of Madame Lisette, sir?’ Hood said, tilting back his head to take a long draught.
    Stryker did not drink this time, but left the rim of his goblet to brush at his bottom lip. He had tried to put Lisette squarely from his mind. Now, as the rich Gallic voice wafted around the rafters, mingling with the heady fug of woodsmoke, beeswax and lavender, the final word of the incantation had been articulated: her name. All at once she was there, hair like spun gold, eyes like flaming sapphires, her image crowding his mind’s eye, unwilling to let him see anything else. There was nothing left but the memory. He blinked