Chapter Fifteen #2
Cannons went through without direction, the men having either attended sieges before or benefiting from prior instruction.
Every man moved with enviable resoluteness, even as shouts came from the castle; Robert’s men awake and barking for their master.
Soldiers nodded at him with muskets in their arms, serious as they rushed through the entrance, commands shouted between them.
Dermot envied them, to have found camaraderie and honour while he’d languished in the kitchen.
Shots were fired as soon as the siege began.
Dermot couldn’t guess whether his comrades had already been spitted with bullets or Robert’s soldiers had been shot off the ramparts.
Men shouted unintelligibly until at last one soldier led Dermot to the ram.
He could not understand what they were doing but took it in hand with them.
The group pushed through. Dermot had no time to consider the gunfire and screaming.
The Colonel and Birch ran with them in a mad sprint forward, each man willing to risk his life.
An onslaught of thunder man once thought could only be mustered by gods became their choir.
Daring to look ahead, Dermot saw nothing but stone.
They were directly in front of the portcullis.
The men at his side retreated, and Dermot was so overcome that his feet naturally moved in tandem with theirs. It was only then, mimicking the soldiers, that a premonition struck. Glimpsing the castle as they fled, he witnessed one man kneel and, aiming his musket across the bloody scene, fire.
What came next was akin to a nightmare; Genesis brought to life.
A blast resounded, the castle swallowed by hellfire as the portcullis fell.
It rocked the place so the edifice might’ve crumbled, everyone inside crushed under hated walls.
Robert’s men screamed like women. Stragglers fell from the ramparts, their bodies twisting as they hit the ground.
Dermot heaved, clutching what remained of the walls.
Tristan flitted through his mind; the way his neck had contorted.
Surrounded by men trained in the art of war, he was the only true murderer amongst them, for he doubted there was another soldier in their company who’d rutted a lord before slitting his throat.
‘Up the ladders!’ Birch shouted. ‘Drop your musket, Dermot, it’ll be no use in close quarters!’
Doing as directed, Dermot ran with his comrades.
Cannons fired in synchrony with their heartbeats.
Grasping the ladder, he shook with the weight of their task, only ascending as another soldier shouted for him to do so.
Never had he imagined such a contraption, so tall as to reach the ramparts.
With every step, he was terrified of falling to his death as Robert’s men had.
‘God help us!’ screamed one of the men at the top.
Dermot’s fingers clutched stone as he hauled himself up. He saw it plainly; the ramparts ran red. One of the parliamentarians had dealt with the man who shouted. The royalist soldiers were being slaughtered without mercy.
Dermot stood stupefied, staring down at the courtyard where he’d once worked.
Screaming came from within the castle, finally audible over the roar of gunfire.
Parliamentarians scaled down, skewering anyone who stood in their way.
Every man had been made equal by way of the sword.
Faces flitted through his mind as he realised his friends could be lying dead, slain by men who killed for their wages.
A shout came from behind; his only warning. Diving forward and kicking his leg out, Dermot unsheathed his sword and cut through his attacker like a helping of meat. The castle being the last royalist stronghold, Robert’s mercenaries were woefully ill-equipped.
He ran, terrified of lingering lest he be shot off the ramparts.
His Egypt was destroyed with but one master remaining.
Knowing not what to do, he made for the staircase.
The aristocrat who’d designed them hadn’t thought they’d be bypassed by ladders.
None of them realised they’d be usurped by men without princely forebears, their king executed.
His knees, used to torment, heeded him well.
Storming into the courtyard alone, he realised much of the work was already done.
Portraits of Stanley lords had been thrown to the ground, some ruined beyond comprehension.
Men fought still, some tussling with their fists, others outright butchering one another.
Noting a man in Robert’s colours eyeing him, Dermot struck.
With no time to draw his sword, he swung.
His punch landed with such force that spittle flew before the man’s head struck stone.
Dermot put him to the blade, slitting the throat clean as he’d done with Tristan, blessedly without an erection.
Parliamentarians cheered, naming him as their foreign charm.
‘Dermot?’ called a familiar voice.
‘Look here, Mr Hatfield!’ said one of the men. ‘This royalist is asking for you. An old acquaintance, is he?’
Dermot glimpsed four soldiers standing over a beaten form, their feet firm on their victim’s back. They’d been beating him as Dermot came downstairs.
‘Will!’ Dermot cried, horrified.
Incredulous, he watched as one of Robert’s mercenaries was brought forward. A parliamentarian shoved the man into the well, its covering tossed unceremoniously to the side. Dermot could not guess how far the man fell, but his screaming was soon stifled by water.
‘This one next?’ a soldier said, gesturing to Will.
‘No!’ Dermot shouted. ‘Please, this man is my friend.’
‘Friend?’ one of the men echoed. ‘He flew at me. I still bleed from the cut! Hardly a sympathiser.’
‘You make friends with royalists, soldier?’ said another. It was the same man who’d marvelled at Tristan’s death on the road.
‘No doubt he thought himself in danger,’ Dermot said, licking his chapped lips in thought. ‘He has been badly used and doesn’t know what he does. Please.’ His breath hitched so every man present might’ve guessed his condition.
‘Let him go, then,’ one soldier said. Just as Will began to rise, he kicked him again for good measure. ‘But we will take him prisoner. He is not with us, Mr Hatfield.’
Having secured Will’s life, Dermot was content. Gesturing to the storeroom cupboard, he said, ‘I think he knows more than he lets on. I’ll question him alone.’ Every man gave his consent as he hauled Will inside and slammed the door.
‘Here to gloat?’ Will hissed. ‘And I thought you’d be happy with your new beau. Did he allow you to kidnap him, or are you as everyone says?’
‘I suppose by everyone you mean Robert,’ Dermot said, disappointed. ‘Give him up, Will. Where is he?’
The room was a blur of cutlery and jars. Dermot’s face struck stone, and he thrummed with hurt as he pushed Will onto the ground. His former friend’s eyes were accusatory.
‘How should I know?’ Will said. He inclined his head in a sad imitation of nobility.
‘Because I saw you,’ Dermot said. ‘The night I rescued Aubrey. You and Robert together, saying the vilest of things.’
‘As if you can talk there!’ Will cried. Dermot blushed, hopeful the men outside wouldn’t hear what was to come next.
‘Stroking your prick every night to some new name. Aubrey, Tristan, the witchfinder of all people. Taking a boy prostitute to the servants’ quarters!
And all that time I was your friend, friend to a beast who poisoned the food of his masters.
We can only thank God you failed to hurt anyone, that no one got so much as sick.
Because you’ve never succeeded at any task.
Even Béchard hates you, a mere scullion in his twenties.
And now you rampage and tear the castle apart with envy, just like all your new brethren. ’
‘Tristan is dead,’ Dermot said, wanting to hurt. ‘I slit his throat.’
‘Good riddance. If only you’d done the same to yourself,’ Will spat.
The two of them once met for lunch every day. They were strangers now, if not worse. Closing his eyes to hide the hurt, Dermot grasped Will’s shirt, searching for what he knew to be there.
‘What… what are you…!’ Will shouted, kicking and groaning with the pain of it.
Feeling the shape underneath cotton, Dermot secured the keys to the upper chambers. He knew them immediately. Robert’s great weapon; how he’d locked Aubrey away.
‘No!’ Will said. He tried to push himself up, gasping with shock.
‘I know,’ Dermot said bleakly, startled by the sudden realisation. ‘You love him.’
Will stared back at him. Worse had been done to him with that comment than any attack on his person. He turned away, ashen.
Dermot got to his feet, knowing this to be their last meeting.
He shivered with the weight of it, then pushed his shoulders back in a shrug.
‘I won’t kill him,’ he said. He daren’t turn childish thoughts to words, that Robert had left his lover to die downstairs while he hid in his chambers.
His own bitterness went unsaid, that Will had been capable of loving another man, but hadn’t chosen him.
Dermot stumbled out, turning the handle and stepping safely into the courtyard.
‘Nice talk?’ one of the men said. He gave no indication of having heard. ‘We’ll put him with the other servants. The Colonel says we aren’t to kill them unless they cause trouble. Which your friend did, by the way, but we’ll ignore that for your sake.’
‘My most sincere thanks,’ Dermot said, cold and weightless. ‘Do you have any news of the maids? Have they also been taken prisoner?’
‘You randy bastard!’ the soldier shouted, turning Dermot’s face as red as the bloodied walls. ‘There’s no sign of any maids. I think they might’ve got the better of us there.’
Marvelling at their good sense, Dermot ventured upstairs, struck by the lack of portraits. No longer would lords eye him imperviously from the walls. Whether Robert would shortly join them in hell rested on him, a scullion.