Think nothing else of the man, she told herself.You are not allowed to think anything else of the man!
Her heart, a fragile and protected thing, wasn’t listening.
This night, to her, would forever be the night that she betrayed the man she loved.
*
A week afterbeginning the siege of Manchester, Kenton and his army was beginning to make ground.
Their attack had come from the northeast and was designed to allow the town’s inhabitants to escape the carnage before the real show of force began. Kenton and his men gave the town exactly one day before they began to launch their attack in earnest, and on the dawn of the second day, they plowed into Manchester and began to sweep the city, subduing those who didn’t flee and flushing out soldiers and other armed men who didn’t belong there.
The Earl of Derby, who had been encamped to the south of the city, put up a serious fight on the third day when Kenton and his men were midway into the city. There was terrible fighting in the streets, alleyways, and even in houses. De Russe and Wellesbourne, always the advance team, got into a serious battle alongside the two hundred men they were commanding with a contingent of Derby’s men just past Market Street, to the southwest on King Street. Derby had set up an ambushthat ended up killing about ten of de Russe and Wellesbourne’s soldiers, which spurred the knights into a bloody frenzy. No man was safe at that point, and de Russe in particular drew upon his bloody reputation and single-handedly put down eleven of Derby’s men that he caught in a bathhouse. The bathhouse became a blood house.
The bloodshed continued to roll into a fourth and a fifth day after that. Fighting upon a field of battle versus fighting in close-quarters combat in a city was much different, and more exhausting, Kenton believed. As he had Gerik hold the northeast section of the city, he moved parallel to de Russe and Wellesbourne. While those two moved to subdue the southern part of the city, Kenton and Ackerley moved into the western section of the city and even secured the two main bridges over the River Irwell.
With the bridges secured, Kenton personally moved into the small portion of the city that was to the north of the river and struggled for two days to secure it. There were many people willing to fight back in this portion of the city and Kenton met with serious resistance. It was a brutal onslaught of attacks and counterattacks.
The sixth day of fighting saw most of the city under Kenton’s control although there were pockets of fighting that seemed to move around throughout the city, making them difficult to quell. The biggest blow came when Ackerley took an arrow to the neck, a mortal blow that saw the man bleed to death as Kenton and a few other soldiers struggled to save him.
There was nothing anyone could do even though they tried, going through the motions of trying to save a man who was beyond help. Kenton, his hands covered in Ackerley’s blood, held the man’s hand as he had drown in his own blood, speaking quietly to him and assuring him that his wound wasn’t mortal. He assured the man that he would be saved and that they wouldenjoy some time in London when the battle was over. Ackerley had died with a smile on his lips, thinking of alcohol and round women and the pleasures of London.
It had been a difficult death for Kenton to accept. Now, the trio of Trouble, More Trouble, and Lucifer’s Brother was without Lucifer’s Brother– the three friends of Conor, Gerik, and Ackerley were no more. Gerik had been informed of his friend’s passing when the man’s body had been sent back to Kenton’s encampment on the north side of town. The wagon bearing Ackerley’s body had passed by Gerik as the man held his post, and he had stopped the wagon a moment, touching his friend’s still face one last time before waving the wagon onward. After that, it was back to his duty bearing a broken heart. But war was war and he accepted that men died; it was just difficult to accept that one of those men had been Ackerley Forbes.
Ackerley’s death greatly affected Kenton and Gerik even though they tried to pretend otherwise, but those who had fought alongside them for any length of time could tell. Even Wellesbourne and de Russe could tell. More than that, they understood and they stepped up their service. Wellesbourne took Ackerley’s place next to Kenton, carrying out even the smallest order that Kenton may have had, while de Russe remained in control of the southern portion of the town.
Day seven dawned to see Kenton nearly in complete control of Manchester thanks to his skill as a commander and also thanks to his knights, who had worked very hard to ensure victory. The death of Ackerley seemed to spur something in them, something deep, and even though his men as a whole were exhausted and physically beaten, their spirits were good and the casualty rate had been surprisingly low. Of the nearly one thousand men he’d brought with him, having left two hundred in Rochdale, he’d only lost sixty, which he considered rather lowfor such a bloody battle. Finally, by the end of the seventh day, Kenton was confident that he could declare victory.
But there were details in that victory, both good and bad– Derby’s men had been chased off and their encampment to the south end of town raided and burned, and Kenton now found himself with several very fine horses, tents, clothing, rugs, and even coinage from Derby’s camp. He was quite pleased with the booty and allowed his men to divide most of the treasure trove among them, although Kenton kept the horses and the coinage. As evening finally fell on the seventh day and the fighting, for the most part, had ended, Kenton set up a perimeter around the majority of the town and declared Martial Law. People began coming back into the town, into their homes, to see what was salvageable. Kenton had not permitted his men to raid homes so what possessions that hadn’t been inadvertently destroyed were still there, and the citizens were grateful for small mercies.
A peaceful night followed, a night that saw Kenton sleep heavily for a few hours with dreams of Nicola on his mind, until he was awoken before dawn by a panicked soldier. It would seem that a large army was already on the southern side of town and had managed to break through their perimeter. Kenton’s soldiers were dying, now fighting for their lives against a fresh army, and de Russe and Wellesbourne were already riding to the south side of town to assess the situation.
Assessment or not, Kenton knew that the introduction of a fresh army against his exhausted one was a very bad thing indeed. He was dressed in a flash, with mail and plate armor, and he and Gerik began organizing their men to resist whatever army was now invading Manchester. Exhausted men, and wounded men, began forming lines against what was coming. There was a palpable sense of doom in the air, of coming death, but Kenton’s men were ready for it. With le Bec leading the charge, their courage was limitless in the face of adversity.
Even so, Kenton wasn’t fully prepared for the news that de Russe and Wellesbourne ultimately brought back to him; an army flying the standards of Edward and Fitzalan and Saxilby was now tearing through the southern end of town, with several mounted knights and men who hadn’t been fighting for a week solid. Kenton’s soldiers were dying left and right, and Wellesbourne had ordered the entire southern perimeter to retreat and fall back to Kenton’s base camp. Based on that information, Kenton knew it was about as bad as it could get.
Mounting his heavy Belgian warmblood, a fat rouncey who was bred for battle, Kenton charged southward and straight into the mouth of hell.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Babylon
It started witha fire off to the northeast, a fire in the distance on the cold and snowy night that immediately created a brilliant spot of light across the barren landscape.
The gatehouse of Babylon faced northwest; therefore, the men at the gatehouse were turned away from the main gate by the sight of the fire in the distance. It was an extremely odd occurrence, one that had every man on the wall peering at the blaze in the distance, wondering what it could be. There were a few farms up in that area, farms that helped supply Babylon with cattle and other products, and there was also a small forest that they could see clustered up on the horizon. Other than those few landmarks, there was nothing else of note and certainly nothing that would create or otherwise warrant a fire the size of the one they were seeing.
Conor, wrapped heavily in wool and furs, watched the fire from the battlements. He had both of his scouts on the wall with him as well as the soldier who had originally come to give him the scouts’ report. Word had spread through the men that a largearmy had been sighted well to the south, heading to Manchester, so the men knew that there was activity in the area.
The very air at Babylon was tense, knowing that danger was lurking about but uncertain as to what, exactly, that danger was. All they knew was that they could feel it in their veins and as the bright moon shone down upon them, a silver disc in the freezing night, there wasn’t one man at Babylon that didn’t sense the approach of something wicked and deadly.
Something terrible was coming.
Conor could feel it most of all. He had been charged with the safekeeping of Babylon, after all, and he wasn’t a man to fail at his post. He suspected that the fire in the distance was meant to draw them out, to see what was happening, and he had no intention of opening the gates to send out scouts. Therefore, he remained on the wall, watching the fire as it burned steadily. His curiosity was great, of course, but so was his sense of suspicion. Greater still was his sense of self-preservation. The fire in the distance wasn’t a natural phenomenon; therefore, it would stand to reason that someone had created it.
So he stood there with his men, monitoring the fire in the distance as well as keeping watch over the gatehouse and the walls. The wall walk reached around the entire perimeter of the castle, including back near the slope of the hill where there were trees and a path from the river up to the kitchen’s postern gate. The gate was heavily fortified, with an iron grate on the exterior of the wall as well as the interior of the wall, and it was very small, so much so that only one man could pass through it at a time and even that man had to be crouched down to go through it. It was purposely built to make movement difficult so any enemy trying to pass through would immediately be at a disadvantage.
When one passed through the postern gate, they were immediately in the outer ward, literally an area of space betweenthe outer and inner walls that was no more than fifteen feet deep. Then there was a second opening cut into the interior wall that led to the kitchen yard beyond, which was the vast open space between the interior wall and the keep.
Conor kept men not only on the battlements, but also patrolling the space between the inner and outer walls. A soldier checked the postern gate with regularity, but this was where Conor made his grave mistake– he had the same man check the gate repeatedly, a solitary sentry who roamed alone because most of the men were on the wall. When that man was knocked unconscious by Nicola with a large fire poker so that she could unlock the postern gate and allow the Conisbrough men inside, no one knew anything about it until it was too late.
