About half past three of the clock, on the 23rd of October: Butlers Marston, the bell-tower of St Peter and St Paul – Cromwell and Edmund, eyes to telescopes, north toward the rolling smoke, the anger of the stuttering guns.

Horsemen – singly, or two to five together – hurtling north and west, past Kineton. Hats and helmets lost in their haste, pistols and swords and orange sashes – the colors of Essex, the army of Parliament – flung aside.

And the horsemen pursuing them abandoned the chase, surged into a wagon-park: leapt from their mounts and plundered: hams, bottles, boxes, coats, cloaks, guns – they drank, waving swords, fired pistols into the air, staggered and threw their hats into their air, de-cohered into a mob little different from that they’d chased from the field.

Cromwell clapped Edmund’s shoulder. “Look,” he said.

Edmund turned his glass east. He could just see, through the smoke, two bodies of foot – pikes leveled, marching slowly, terribly, toward each other.

Muskets clattered, pikes clashed – a great groan seemed to rise from the earth.

“If their horse is there,” Cromwell said, pointing to Kineton. “Then they’re not there.” He pointed at the battle.

He jumped, caught the bell-rope, slid down it as the great bell boomed.

Edmund stowed his glass and followed – down the rope, through the church and into the churchyard, where the troop waited. Cromwell already in his saddle, pulling on his helmet.

“Where?” Edmund said. “Where?”

Cromwell laughed. He threw back his head and laughed.

“Toward the guns, Lieutenant!” he shouted. “To the guns!”