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 up at him with broken teeth—a human skull, a wide, jagged crack running from just above the brow to the crown.
His troopers poked about here and there, but between the Scots and the fire, nothing worth the looting remained in the empty shell of Heron Hall. They soon mounted and rode on northward, a good bit more somber than before, until the banner-crowned keep of Whyffler Hall came into view.
The silken banners snapped taut in a stiff wind from the northwest, and Foster reined up on a knoll to study them through his battered binoculars, with the now-instinctive caution born of the long months of war.
There was the royal banner, of course, as the hall still was reckoned a fort and still housed a reduced garrison; there was Sir Francis’ family arms, and Foster’s own. But there were several other banners as well. One of them he was dead certain was that of Harold of York, though he could not imagine for what purpose the Archbishop had left his comfortable
palace for the long, rugged journey to the northern marches. Beside the episcopal banner floated what could be none but that of Reichsregent Wolfgang, and there were two others, one of which bore a striking resemblance to the arms of the Kingdom of Scotland; as to the last, Foster knew that he had seen it before but could not say where or name it.
The alert sentries spotted the mounted party long before they reached the ring of outer fortifications, and they were greeted at the south gate by a well-armed quarterguard and there halted until their identities had been established to the satisfaction of the guard officer. Only then were they escorted to the hall, wherein Sir Francis and his guests sat at meat.