Skeleton Hill

Начало книги

Two men lay dead on a battlefield and one said ‘Hey!’

The other stayed silent.

‘I’m talking to you.’

There was no response.

‘You with the head wound.’

Now the other one stirred. ‘I’m dead,’ he said through his teeth like a ventriloquist.

‘Me, too. So?’

‘So we’re not supposed to talk.’

‘Get real. No one’s looking at us. The action is all over there.’

Both were in the royalist army commanded by Lord Hopton. The re-enactment of the Civil War battle for Bath had moved closer to the spectators, some distance from where the pikemen had first clashed, leaving the so-called dead and dying as background decorations. The setting was spectacular, high on Lansdown, seven hundred feet above the city of Bath and with views across three counties. Unconstrained by even a breath of wind, the July sun belted down, catching the flash of pike, sword and armour but overheating everyone.

The one who had spoken first was on his back on the turf and the other was face down two yards away. The stage blood on his head wound was drying. ‘Some of us had to fall, I was told.’

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