Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [478]
It was just as he was turning that the Royalist colonel whom Edmund Ludlow was fighting tried to make a dash for it across the market place to Castle Street. Ludlow did not mean to let him go. Wheeling about, he kept at his side, heading him off towards the centre. Locked together, the two riders raced over the ground.
They were bearing down upon him. Both men’s faces were set, concentrating only on each other. Neither saw, in the failing light, that there was a small figure standing helplessly directly in their path.
How huge the horses seemed. They were almost upon him, but he was so petrified he could not move. He closed his eyes.
It was the Cavalier who saw him. Frantically he jerked the reins, swerved and almost turned his horse completely into Ludlow’s. There was a confused crash of hooves as the two horses collided. They were so close to the child that he was conscious of their smell and one of the horse’s tails whisked across his face.
The manoeuvre was so sudden that Ludlow was caught completely by surprise. As the Cavalier wheeled away, his own horse slipped and fell and he was thrown to the ground.
Ludlow never saw the child. Half-dazed himself, and intent on his prey, he seized his horse’s bridle almost as soon as it had struggled up and swung himself into the saddle, wheeling the animal about. He had picked up his sword in his right hand. As he turned, he swept it low in a great arc, and did not know there was a child in its path. Indeed, so intent was he on his pursuit that he never noticed the end of the blade had encountered human flesh or that the little fair-haired figure below him had crumpled on the ground. A few minutes later, in Endless Street, he succeeded in taking the Cavalier colonel captive.
In the close Edmund Ludlow was in a hurry. The prisoners, including Colonel Middleton whom he had just taken in single combat, were being pushed into the belfry. It could not be long before the Royalists regrouped and advanced again.
Twelve more of his men had arrived from Harnham Hill. He could only hope that, in the darkness, he could now make them look like fifty.
It was tiresome about the woman and child. A fine, handsome woman too. She had been frantic, pestering the men even as they rushed their prisoners through the gate.
“No, ma’am.” he cried. “I have seen no child.”
But his prisoner had.
“In the market place,” Colonel Middleton had called, “A fair-haired child.” He had grimaced. “I fear he was struck down,” he said.
Now the woman wanted to go out and look for it. He had to forbid that. The Cavaliers would be there at any moment.
It was silent in the market place.
Samuel Shockley lay near the centre. There was a shallow wound on the top of his head where Ludlow’s sword had grazed it and he could feel something warm and sticky dripping from the place. Fifty feet away, two large bodies lay very still.
He was too shocked to cry.
He got up slowly. From Castle Street he could hear sounds, but the market place was deserted. Where had everybody gone?
The sounds were coming closer. He must get away. The alley that led to the Poultry Cross was dark, but he feared the shadows less than the approaching sounds. He stumbled towards it.
Inside him, for the first time in his life, a small voice warned: there is no one to save you.
He reached the Poultry Cross just as the Royalists reentered the market place from Castle Street. Suddenly he noticed that he was shivering violently.
The Poultry Cross was a small six-sided structure, each side consisting of an open gothic arch. It was roofed over and had a low wall around it. It seemed a good place to hide. Yet as he saw the roops massing in the market place, and guessed they might approach his way, he realised that he was still exposed. Gingerly, he began to move.
There was a faint light upon the Poultry Cross from a nearby upper window and by it, a trooper in the market place could see that a