Almost frantic now, Anthony reached the carriage's door and tried to pry it open. Finding it jammed, he drew his sword and used it as a lever. Thankfully, it was one of his everyday swords, not the expensive one he kept at Liz's lodgings for ceremonial occasions. He was quite likely to break it, since swords were not designed to be tools for such use.
Indeed, it did break—but not before it finally snapped whatever obstruction was keeping the door jammed. Anthony tossed the hilt onto the ground and, using both hands, pried the door the rest of the way open.
Peering in, he couldn't determine anything at first. It was a dark day because of the overcast and very little of what light there was made its way into the carriage. To make thing worse, the interior was in a state of sheer chaos. The trunks must have been flung open and had scattered their contents everywhere. At first glance, the inside of the carriage looked like nothing so much as a huge, half-filled laundry basket.
Then something pale moved, coming up from under the blanket that had been covering it. A face, Anthony realized.
The king's face.
"Help me," Charles whispered. "My leg . . ."
Hearing a call, Anthony looked back. To his relief, he saw that Patrick had arrived with his Irish skirmishers.
"Just a moment, Your Majesty, I'll be right there," Anthony said hurriedly. Then, to Patrick: "I need three of your men up here. Have the rest tend to whatever else they can—but don't shift the carriage about yet."
Hearing the horse scream again, Leebrick winced. "And put that animal out of its misery, would you?"
That done, he lowered himself into the carriage, being careful not to step on the king's body. Wherever that body was, since all he could see was still just the royal face, staring up. He had no idea at all where the queen had wound up.
Once he got to the king, he slid his arm down into the tangle of blankets and cushions to cradle the man's shoulders and lift him. But the moment he did so, the king started to shriek. "My legs! My legs! Stop, damn you!"
Anthony left off immediately. He'd thought from the king's first plaint that he'd suffered a broken or wounded leg. But "legs" probably meant something worse. He didn't dare move Charles at all until he could see what the problem was.
One of the Irish soldiers was at the window, now.
"Come down," Leebrick ordered. "But make sure you put your feet over there." He pointed behind him, to a part of the carriage that seemed safe enough. He still didn't know where the queen was.
While the skirmisher lowered himself into the interior, Anthony shifted himself a bit and began carefully removing the items that covered the king's body.
"Where's my wife?" Charles asked. He seemed more puzzled than anything else.
Leebrick decided to ignore the question, for the moment. He had no answer, and that was more likely to panic the king than anything else. He just kept at his labor.
"Where's Henrietta Maria? Where is she? Why isn't she here?"
Thankfully, it was clear from Charles' tone of voice that the king was in a daze. He wasn't really asking a question aimed at a specific person, he was simply uttering a confused query to the world. He sounded more like a child than a grown man.
Finally, Anthony cleared enough away to see most of the king's body. By then, he knew the situation was a very bad one. The last blanket he'd removed had been blood-stained.
Charles' hip was shattered. Anthony could see a piece of bone sticking up through the flesh and the heavy royal garments.
He tried to restrain himself from hissing, but couldn't.
"What's wrong?" asked the king. Still in that confused little boy's voice.
"Everything's fine, Your Majesty. It'll just take us a moment to get you out of there."
Leebrick wondered if he even dared move the king at all, until his men had cut away most of the carriage. If Charles' hip was shattered, there was a good chance he had a broken back also.
But he decided he didn't have any choice. If the only problem had been the king, he'd just wait. But even after spending several minutes in the carriage, he'd still seen no sign of the queen. He had to find her, and probably very soon—if it wasn't too late already. The carriage had landed on her side, not the king's. If the impact had caused this much damage to Charles, it was likely to have caused worse to her.
A second skirmisher had made his way into the carriage.
"All right, lads. Here's the way we'll do it. Tell Patrick to have two men—no, it'll likely take four—to start cutting away the side of the carriage. And tell him, for the love of God, to do it carefully. This carriage is half-shattered already. We just need enough space to lift His Majesty out using a sling of some sort. A big one, that'll cup his whole body. We can make it out of these blankets and what's left of the harness. Understood?"