by Barbara Kyle
Behind him and his cavalry, the field was a scene of confusion. Where the road funneled into the trees a rut had snagged the wheel of a fletcher’s cart, toppling it, and infantrymen were picking their way around the spilled litter of arrows and longbows. Others were jammed up behind the bottleneck. The cavalry, clear of the mess, was waiting—Carlos’s swift orders had resulted in a reasonably orderly falling in of their ranks—but this rabble of infantry was hopeless. No one was moving out.
Irritably, Carlos scratched his neck above the steel cuirass. It was too small. The breastplate was on loan from Abergavenny, like the horse, sword, and demilance—and like his freedom, Carlos thought bitterly. Abergavenny had made it clear that any hope of a pardon depended on the success of this engagement against Isley.
Carlos glanced around at the thick trees. From here he could no longer see Wrotham Hill to the north. He pulled away from the cavalry ranks, edged around the chaotically milling infantrymen, and trotted out into the middle of the field again. Nearby, Abergavenny and a young captain were badgering the scout. Carlos looked back up at the hill. No movement there. The enemy must still be somewhere in the woods between this field and the hill. It was not too late to pursue them. If only Abergavenny would move.
“How could you possibly lose his trail,” Abergavenny ranted at the scout. “He’s got five hundred men trampling the earth!”
“Not lose him exactly, my lord,” the scout said. “But there’s three or four tracks in the trees yonder. They branch out beyond where I saw he’d passed. He might be on any one of them. His people are from hereabouts. They know these woods.”
“My lord,” the young captain ventured bleakly, “Isley might even be over Wrotham Hill by now. If so, we’ll never catch him with a lead like that.”
“Christ on the cross,” Abergavenny growled, “he’ll be halfway to Rochester by the time we stumble on his cold trail.”
A shout came from the wreckage at the bottleneck. A mule had got loose and was running for the field. Men picking up broken arrows stumbled out of its way.
In exasperation Carlos threw his head back to suck in a furious breath. And then, from the corner of his eye, he caught the wild splashes of color on distant Wrotham Hill. Threads of red that flicked like viper’s tongues. Pennons.
He tugged the reins to bring his horse around for a clear view. There was no mistake. Not quite at the crown of the hill—edging just above the treetop fringe of Barrow Green—were eight or nine red pennons, snapping in the breeze above a company of soldiers.
Carlos did not hesitate. He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks as he called out to Abergavenny and pointed at the hill, “There!” He bolted past Abergavenny and galloped to his waiting line of cavalry.
“Don’t be daft, Robert,” Martin said with a laugh. “Of course we must be married by you.”
Martin sat his mount beside his brother who marched at the edge of the company as it moved up Wrotham Hill. They had reached a broad plateau and settled into an easy stride on the flatter ground. About a quarter-mile ahead the slope rose again to the hill’s crown. “Isabel wants you to officiate,” Martin said, “and so do I.” He smiled, his eyes on the fluttering red pennons ahead, his mind on Isabel.
“Nothing would make me happier,” Robert said, “but you must face facts, Martin. To the present English Church I am an outcast because I have a wife. If I conduct the ceremony, will your marriage be legal? Will it be sanctioned? This is what you must consider.”
“You’re one of God’s priests,” Martin said definitively, turning his helmet in his free hand, about to put it back on. “You were anointed with holy oil by the Bishop. No half-Spanish papist can undo that fact, Queen or no.”
Robert’s admonition was stern. “Parliament can.” He sighed and shook his head sadly. “And I confess, I know not what God’s word on your union would be.”
“Getting married are you, sir?” the man marching beside Robert asked, looking up at Martin.
Martin grinned. “That’s right. Just as soon as you and I have swept the Spaniards out.”
“Well, sir,” the man replied scratching his chin stubbled with silvery fuzz, “marrying looks good to the man that’s roaring to get into it. But marrying can be a trial for the man that’s been some time settled in it. Now, if there’s a chance that the vows you’re about to take be not fast in the eyes of the Lord, like the good Father here says, my advice is, jump at that chance.” He winked at Martin. “There’s many a man would dance and sing, waking up of a morning to find his marriage chain’s been broke.”
Martin laughed. “I’ll never be one of those, you can—”
He did not finish. An odd sound was carried on the breeze—or rather, it was no sound at all, more like a stopping of all the noise of the hill. Martin twisted in his saddle. The company behind had halted. Martin stood in his stirrups, still looking over his shoulder. The rump of the column on the slope had halted too. In the silence a low, deep thudding reverberated. Martin felt the vibration tremble up his horse’s bones and tingle his backbone. Then the dull drumming blended with another low sound from the soldiers at the lip of the plateau—a hum of fear. Martin yanked his horse around. As he saw where the thudding was coming from, his helmet slipped from his grip and hit the ground. Enemy cavalry was storming up the hill.
“Archers!”
Martin yelled the command, his voice clashing with the shouts of a half-dozen other officers. “Archers!” they cried.
In the forest of frozen foot soldiers, only scattered hand-fuls of men were obeying the order. They whipped arrows from their quivers, pulled taut their bowstrings, and let the arrows fly. But the paltry barrage fell like a sprinkle of water on a house afire. The cavalrymen’s charge came on unbroken. Their line thundered up the slope, swords high, lances out-thrust—a bristling, monstrous wave rolling implacably uphill. There was a moment more of stunned immobility from Isley’s foot soldiers. And then they broke.
They ran sideways across the plateau in both directions. Even Isley’s horsemen galloped headlong to escape. Martin tried to hold steady his panicked mount as the tide of stampeding men streamed around him. He could no longer see Robert.
The enemy cavalry burst over the lip of the slope. On the flat ground their advance became unstoppable. The man leading the charge shot out his lance to the right in a gesture of command, and half his horsemen swung around in an arc to contain the foot soldiers running toward that eastward side. Cornered, Isley’s men turned on their heels and started to tear westward across the plateau. The horsemen stormed after them, reached the fleeing men, and their swords came hacking down. They were merciless. The victims staggered, toppled, wailed, and bled.
Martin’s ears rang with the screams all around him. He held high his sword while trying to tug his horse around. He looked frantically for Robert. If he could haul Robert up behind him they could gallop out of this massacre. The westward slope led down to forest. The horsemen would not follow into those dense woods.
As Martin finally turned the horse, a foot soldier stumbled toward him, his arm severed at the elbow, and crashed into the horse’s chest. Crimson jets spurted from the elbow with the regular rhythm of heartbeats. Terrified by the smell of the blood, Martin’s horse reared. “Martin, look out!” It was Robert’s voice.
Martin twisted in the saddle. Robert stood behind him. Unarmed, he was pointing in warning. Martin twisted back to look. A horseman was bearing down on him with a lance outstretched. Its tip glistened with blood. Martin knew he had to move fast, but he could not leave Robert unarmed. He whipped around and tossed Robert his sword. Robert caught it. Martin kicked his horse, making it spring sideways out of the path of the attacker, then he swung around to go back for Robert.
But the horseman, too, was now heading for Robert, his ramrod-stiff lance aimed at Robert’s chest. Robert stood erect and raised the sword—a strong man whose early martial training surfaced automatically. He watched the oncoming horseman, ready for him. Then he loo
ked down at the blade as if with a sudden, horrified realization of what he was about to do. He tossed the sword to the ground. Martin heard the horseman’s grunt of surprise and saw his lance waver downward. It plunged into Robert’s belly. The horseman expertly yanked the lance out from its target of flesh, twisting Robert’s body around like a weathervane, then galloped on. In a moment the horseman was engulfed by his flailing cavalry and their falling victims.
“Robert!” Martin bounded toward him. His brother was rocking on the spot, his hands spread over his bleeding abdomen. Martin came alongside him and reached down. “Take my hand! I’ll pull you up!”
Robert lifted one bloody hand, but a spasm made him double over, both hands again gripping his belly. Martin snatched a handful of Robert’s collar but it was impossible to haul him that way up onto the horse.
Martin swung his leg over the horse’s neck and jumped down. Keeping hold of the reins with one hand, he threw his arm around Robert’s waist. He was trying to lift Robert’s foot into the stirrup when Robert lurched back in pain. The reins slipped out of Martin’s hand. His riderless horse reared up, disoriented, and bolted out of the fray.
Holding Robert, Martin looked about wildly. All around them their comrades were falling and writhing and screaming under the cavalry’s savage attack. But a good number had broken free and were running, spilling down the westward hillside. Martin and Robert staggered after them. They made it over the lip of the plateau and started down the slope, stumbling over rocks, slipping in icy gravel, desperately heading for the sanctuary of the forest at the foot of the hill.
“Wentworth!” Carlos yelled above the clamor of the slaughter. “Halt your men!”
“Impossible, sir!” the young lieutenant called back. “I’ve tried!”
Carlos had tried, too. He felt almost hoarse from yelling the order to capture, not kill. There was no need any longer to kill. The rout was complete. Abergavenny would soon be along, and if he wanted to execute the prisoners, fine. Carlos’s job was to capture them.
But the loyal gentlemen of Kent were out of control. Though less than fifty of Isley’s foot soldiers remained standing, the killing went on. A pair of horsemen had pinned a helpless soldier between their mounts and were taking turns maiming and blinding him. One horseman slowly chased an exhausted soldier who ran in zigzags like a stunned hare. Another, dismounted, stood over a dying foot soldier and hacked at his legs.
Carlos spat out some grit. He knew there was no way to stop the carnage. He had not had enough time to establish his authority with these inexperienced men. Besides, he’d seen this kind of thing before—nothing was more vicious than countryman killing countryman. The frenzy had to run its course.
He cantered to the westward edge of the plateau to investigate. Many of the enemy were escaping down the hill to the woods. As he watched, several more disappeared into the trees. Carlos cantered back to Wentworth and told him totake some men and go after the escapees. “Capture,” Carlos ordered. “Kill if they resist.” The lieutenant rode off.
Carlos looked back at the butchery with contempt. He was unsettled, too, by an incident during the attack. A foot soldier he had charged had stood firm, sword in hand, but then, at the last moment, had tossed away his sword. Too late, though, for Carlos to break his charge. With just a heartbeat until impact Carlos had tried to lower and draw back his lance, but had only succeeded in deflecting his strike from the man’s heart—a quick kill—to his belly. Carlos scowled at the recollection. Inflicting the needless suffering of a belly wound was novice’s work. He did not like making such mistakes.
He caught sight of the horseman who’d been chasing the exhausted soldier in circles. The victim had collapsed on his back over a dead mule, and lay in impotent terror while his tormentor ripped open his breeches with his lance-tip and prodded at his genitals. Carlos kicked his horse and charged. Pulling up beside the horseman, he lifted his foot high and kicked him out of the saddle. The man thudded to the ground and thrashed in the mire of muck and blood.
Carlos looked around. The mayhem was finally abating. The battle was over. And despite his disdain for the pointlessly cruel aftermath, he was satisfied with the outcome, an unqualified victory. He had earned his pardon.
Martin had never known such merciless cold, nor such desperate darkness.
For hours he and Robert had been hiding in the forest, huddled in the V of two huge fallen tree trunks. Hardened snow lay around them, its crust as brittle as glass. Above, dense branches and denser clouds blotted out the moon. A ghostly sheen of its silver light limned the woodland undergrowth like a film of cold, white ash.
Martin’s back was pressed against the icy tree trunk and Robert lay sprawled in his arms, his back against Martin’s chest. Martin’s body no longer responded to the commands of his mind. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, and every muscle twitched in ceaseless shivers. But he knew his misery was nothing compared to his brother’s. He had pulled Robert between his legs and thrown his arms around his shoulders, hugging him, hoping the heat of his own body might dull the edge of Robert’s suffering. It had not.
Robert lay back, his head lolling on Martin’s shoulder. His agony was terrifying to watch—a constant shivering punctuated by spasms wrought inside his belly that made him buckle and writhe, groping his abdomen. After the spasm he would lie in exhaustion, gasping for breath. But soon the gasping itself brought another spasm and he would buckle again in agony. And so it had gone for hours, an endless circle of anguish, with no rest, like a torment conceived by Satan himself.
“ … and Willy’s birthday is next month, isn’t it? He’ll be two?” Martin’s voice was hoarse from carrying on his desperate monologue in Robert’s ear. For an hour he had babbled on about Robert’s children and other family matters, praying such talk would soothe his brother’s fevered mind. It had not.
“ … and I know Isabel has sewed Willy a lace cap.” Martin heard the slurring of his own words from the cold. He raged inwardly at this further loss of control. He needed strength to watch over Robert until dawn. In the light, he would surely be able to find some woodsman’s hut where he could get help to carry Robert back and tend his wound. But not tonight. In this darkness he would get lost, and then Robert, left alone … No, tonight Martin dared not move.
His head thudded back in exhaustion against the iron-cold bark. With every breath, cold air stabbed his lungs. Inside his icy leather boot his right foot felt frozen. Earlier, he had taken off his stocking and used it to plug Robert’s wound, trying to stanch the incessant flow, the blood oozingover Martin’s hands. Now, the stocking was soaked, Martin’s right toes were numb, and his hands were ice cold with Robert’s blood.
He looked up at the black branches and tried not to listen to the frightful sounds among the trees. The woods were full of the groans of wounded, dying men. Martin had passed some of them when he’d hauled Robert to this spot: one with a snapped lance shaft jutting from his thigh, one dragging a mangled foot, one covering his blinded eyes as if in some macabre version of a game of hide-and-seek. Now, the wounded all lay hidden, sprawled throughout the snow-deadened forest, but their moans drifted to the treetops that creaked in the wind. Martin closed his eyes and tried to block out the piteous sounds.
But another sound kept tormenting him, this one inside his head, a memory of the slaughter. He heard, over and over again, the voice of the horseman the moment before he’d rammed his lance into Robert’s belly. The man’s fierce, furious grunt had been an unmistakable oath, but not in English. Something foreign. Something Spanish. Recalling it, Martin’s teeth stopped chattering, so tight was the grinding of his jaw. Before today he’d merely felt scorn for the Spanish, for their arrogance and errors in religion. Now, he detested Spaniards above every evil on earth.
“ … at the pond!” Robert wailed. “ … lost her rosary! Meg … catch her!”
Martin jerked upright. His arms wrapped again around Robert. He cradled Robert’s head between in his hands, and rocked h
im to soothe him, to stop his delirious cries. He caressed his brother’s face, willing him to endure. But his fingers, slick with cold blood, slid over Robert’s clammy cheeks.
Robert’s head lolled again, his fit of delirium past. He lay still. Too still. A sweat of panic pricked Martin’s upper lip. He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, and tasted blood. His brother’s blood. He almost gagged. Then Robert’s body shuddered again, convulsing. Martin watched the agony, unable to help. It passed. Robert lay gasping.
In helpless exhaustion, Martin pressed his cheek against his brother’s cold hair and listened to the dirge of wounded men’s moans around them.
27
Test of Loyalty
Been straggling in all morning, they have, m’lady. Had a bad time of it yesterday on Wrotham Hill. An even worse night in the woods.” Tom, the grizzled guard, led Isabel into the great hall of Rochester Castle and said again in quiet dismay, “A bad time.”
Isabel stopped and stared open-mouthed at the scene before her. On their way up from the Strood Bridge Tom had told her the bare facts of the disaster—how Sir Henry Isley’s company of five hundred, marching from Sevenoaks to join Wyatt’s army here, had been cut down by Lord Abergavenny’s cavalry. But nothing he’d said had prepared her for what she saw now.
Scores of wounded and frostbitten men lay sprawled around the hall. Some lay on the floor, shivering. Some sat propped against the walls, staring. Some stood mumblingtheir stories to knots of soldiers who crowded around to hear and to help. Some shuffled forward in a lineup at the hearth where a cook ladled broth into their bowls. Castle soldiers handed out dry clothing, and boys tore fresh bandages and gaped at the survivors’ wounds. There was activity everywhere, but it went on in hushed whispers above the moans of the suffering. The very air of the dank hall seemed heavy with despair.
