Walter drops back from the cart. He is carrying four bags of arrows. He gives one to Thomas.
‘Try to keep ’em dry,’ he says. ‘You’ll need ’em first thing tomorrow.’ He looks around for a moment. ‘Where’s that streak of piss Hugh?’ he asks.
Thomas shrugs. Walter glances at her. She shrugs too, but differently, and Walter understands. He steps off the road and peers back along the lines.
‘Silly fucker,’ he says. ‘Hope to God the prickers don’t get him. They’ll hang him from a branch soon as look at him.’
They walk on.
So that is Hugh, she thinks, gone, and will she ever see him again? Ever find out what happens to him?
Some cows in an orchard watch them pass.
‘We should take one,’ Dafydd says. ‘Never know when you’re going to need a cow.’
‘Touch one of them and the Earl of Warwick’ll have you drowned in a puddle.’
‘What about a swan?’
‘Same thing.’
‘But look about you,’ Dafydd exclaims. ‘Look! There’s so much here. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s all orchards, everywhere. Pear trees. Plum trees. Cherry trees. What’s that? A bloody chestnut tree! And all those birds! Partridges and pea-fowls and pheasants – and that’s without even talking about the sheep!’
‘Sheep!’ Owen says.
‘And where is everybody? It’s like it all goes on without anyone looking.’
There are fat chickens loose in every village, and well-kept inns where they serve beer brewed from imported hops and serve it in pewter cups, with cheese pies, and buttered peas, and every step she takes only brings her nearer the gallows.
Just then there is a blaring of trumpets and shouting from behind them.
‘Make way! Stand aside there!’
It is the Earl of Warwick riding past in full armour, his visor up, followed by a body of men in armour, their hooves throwing up the mud as they pass. As they pass, though, men begin to lift their heads. They start to stride forward. Katherine shakes her head. Why they cannot see him for what he is, she does not know. A moment later the Earl of March rides past, languid, with less of the bustle, and then came the others, Salisbury and Fauconberg and their household men, their banners held stiff despite the rain. Then the Bishop Coppini, and last, Lamn.
‘Late for their supper, I bet,’ Dafydd sneers.
That night they camp on the common land outside the silver grey walls of Canterbury and in the still of the night, such as it is, Katherine gathers her things: her knife, her few clothes, the spare hood; and she puts them in her bag, and waits.
16
THE SOUND OF trumpets and men shouting in the dawn.
‘Stand to. Stand to. Come on, you lazy dogs. Get up and stand to.’
It is Walter, at the tent flap. Fleeting shadows cross the canvas as men go about their business by the fires’ light, scuffling and cursing in the gloom. Thomas rolls to his feet and straps the bracer on his forearm. He forces his still raw fingers into his blood-stiff glove.
Katherine is already awake, her eyes open in the dark.
‘Good luck,’ she says. ‘And God be with you.’
‘You too, Kit. You too.’
She throws her blanket off and stands, smelling of sleep and warmth.
‘No, Thomas,’ she says. ‘I mean it.’
She grips his hand. He smiles. The way she behaves can still surprise him.
‘Me too,’ he says.
She is unblinking in the dark. He has to pull his hand free of hers and he feels her stare following him as he leaves the tent. Something is wrong, but what?
Outside Geoffrey is shirtless, his hairy belly silvery like a moon in the dawn. He is emptying a jug of ale into his mouth as two boys march past, one hoisting a banner, the other beating a drum like a heart, boo-boom, boo-boom. Men are falling in behind them, their faces black and smoke-smutted from the fires they’ve tended through the night. There is a strong smell of horses.
‘Archers, to the front,’ a man shouts from his saddle, though they all know what is expected of them. ‘Archers to the front! Find your mark. Quickly now.’
Thomas finds his spot. They are in a grass meadow a little way off the road, the ground under their feet soggy, copses of elms and oaks to both sides. Behind them the men-at-arms and the billmen are forming up, rattling in their armour plate, five or six deep. Some of the billmen are carrying just farm tools: a hayfork, a knife lashed to a pole to make a glaive; all of them on the lookout for better weapons for the next time. These are the naked men, the scrapings of the recruitment barrel, the men who make up the numbers for the Commissions of Array.
Others are carrying bills, hammers, axes, swords, mauls, pikes and spears. Most have a helmet, and some have gauntlets. None of it matches and most of it has been looted at least once before, if not twice.
Gathered under their banners are the armoured knights and the men-at-arms, the household men of those who can afford to pay them. The men of the Earl of Warwick take the central division, straddling the road, and those of March take the left flank while Fauconberg’s men occupy the right. It is easy to see March. He is the tallest man on the field, his banner long and fishtailed.
‘A Fauconberg!’
‘Come on! Lively now!’
The day comes slowly. What has been invisible in the dark becomes discernible in the light and they find themselves facing the town walls across a ditch and a stretch of broad water meadows. Before the gates of the city, to one side of the road, is a small hamlet clustered around the squat tower of another church, and beyond are some earthworks from which a man with a donkey and a spade moves off sharply when he sees what is afoot.
In the city men are moving between the battlements of the gatehouse and there are more on the walls too. Thomas imagines them staring back out at the besieging army, trying to estimate their number and deposition, gauging their banners, waiting and wondering.
The bells begin a steady toll.
‘Easy now, lads,’ Geoffrey is telling them. ‘Check your equipment. Take the time to make sure you’ve got everything you need. Check your arrows. Check your bow. Then take a drink.’
Ahead of them in the hamlet they can see a number of men in livery, some of them horsemen. They can hear the slide of harness and the stamp of horses’ hooves.
‘Here they come,’ Dafydd says. He bends and makes a sign of the cross on the mud beneath his feet. Then he takes a piece of earth in his mouth and nocks an arrow. So do all the other archers. A priest walks ahead of them, intoning the paternoster, blessing them as he goes.
They all kneel. Thomas can hardly swallow.
‘I hate this bit,’ Red John says next to him. Even in the gloom Thomas can see John’s eyes are unnaturally bright. He wishes he had a wineskin with him, or a mug of ale. It is easier with drink.
‘Wait for the order,’ Walter murmurs. He licks his finger and checks the wind. There is none.
A party of well-mounted horsemen ride forward from their lines up the road and into the hamlet.
‘Who are they?’ Thomas asks.
‘Heralds,’ an archer at the front says. ‘Warwick Herald, there.’
They relax. Red John stabs his arrow back in the ground. The horsemen, about five of them in different coloured tabards, dismount and leave their horses for a servant.
‘Parley, it is,’ Walter says. ‘See if we’re going to fight.’
Thomas finds his lips moving in prayer. Minutes pass. The light grows stronger. Someone is sick. Men laugh. Thomas holds out his hand and watches it tremble. It will be better when it starts. He wishes he’d had something to eat and he still craves something to drink – anything.
Then, suddenly, instantly, he is no longer afraid: he is bored.
He thinks about Katherine. She has been behaving strangely since they returned to England. Perhaps it is being so close to Canterbury. He looks across at the spire of the cathedral and thinks about returning to orders again. He lo
oks at his hands: how they have changed their shape. They are calloused and square now, firm with muscle, and all that remains to mark his former life is a dent in his forefinger where he held the reed. His arms must have doubled their girth.
Now he tries to imagine the Prior of All, just beyond the city walls, seated over some wine in a room very like the almonry. He can see him receiving Katherine back into the order, and then what? Here the picture becomes vague. He cannot imagine her standing before the Prior in her stained jack, her hacked-off hair, with her hose sagging around her ankles. He cannot imagine her bowing her head to some old man.
Perhaps he will have to find her some sort of dress and headgear? It will be the least he can do. And the last thing he can do, for once they say goodbye, that will be the end. He will never see her again. He remembers suddenly her feverish grip that morning, and her heartfelt wishes.
He hawks and spits on the ground. Dafydd has found something to eat and his fingers are greasy with meat juices. He offers a bone to Thomas, then quickly drops it as he sees something moving. He snatches up his bow again.
‘Here we go.’
The heralds emerge from between two cottages in the hamlet and canter across to where Warwick waits with his men under his banner. There is a brief conversation. After a moment, Warwick forces his horse forwards so that he is alone in front of the army. Then he turns and faces them, stands in his stirrups and tips back his visor, so that they can see his face: a pale square. He raises his arm and gestures. Thomas cannot make it out but those who can begin cheering.
‘Bloody hell’s he up to?’
Trumpets and horns begin too, and then the bells in the cathedral begin a celebratory peal.
‘He’s done it!’ someone shouts. ‘They’ve opened the gates!’
Along the line the men begin cheering.
‘A Warwick! A Warwick!’
Another party of horsemen ride out from the hamlet: more heralds. Up the road the city gates are pushed open from within. Canterbury and the Archbishop have declared for the Duke of York. There will be no fighting. Not today at least.
Thomas feels a mix of emotions. Relief, of course, but now he will have to say goodbye to Katherine.
They disperse back to their tents and Thomas goes to find her. His heart is heavy with what is to come, what he must say, but he has imagined this part many times: he thinks he knows what he will tell her, and how.
‘Where’s Kit?’ he asks.
No one has seen her.
He helps Geoffrey with dinner, one eye out for her, but she does not appear. When the food is ready they sit on the earthwork wall, yawning with fatigue, spooning stewed mutton into their mouths. Above them their jacks hang from the branches of a hawthorn tree, drying in the weak sunlight.
‘Anyone seen Kit?’ Geoffrey asks. ‘Richard’s asking after him.’
No one has seen her since they’d been called to stand to.
‘Probably found an inn somewhere,’ Brampton John says, though there are none to be seen.
‘See if you can find him, Thomas, will you? Tell him Richard needs him.’
Thomas nods. In the tent there is no sign of Katherine’s pack.
Trumpets begin blowing in the camp again. Drums are beating. Horses cross the meadows. A Te Deum has been sung in the cathedral and the Earls have paid their respects at the shrine of St Thomas, and now Walter returns to the camp.
‘Come on, come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s get cracking,’ and they get up and begin the wearying process of breaking camp once more.
There is still no sign of Katherine.
Carts are already starting to wheel along the road and in through the city gates when a handful of horsemen come riding through the chaos shouting that they are looking for Sir John Fakenham’s company. They are Warwick’s men, on good mounts.
‘That’s us,’ Walter tells them.
‘Found a boy of yours,’ their vintenar says. ‘Making his way across country. Hardly worth the trouble keeping him, he’s so skinny, but the Earl wants examples set. Anyone slipping away gets theirs.’
He gestures towards a party of men threading their way through the breaking camp. Between them, Katherine, hands bound, dragging her feet. She looks so small, so round-shouldered and miserable, that even Thomas mistakes her for a boy.
Walter stands with his hands on his hips.
‘Christ,’ he spits. ‘What d’you want us to do with him?’
‘Hang him.’
Thomas feels a chill grip him. The atmosphere hardens. Colours spring to life; lines sharpen.
‘Hang him?’
‘What the Earl wants.’
Katherine stares at the ground. She has a bruise under one eye.
‘What were you thinking, Girly?’ Walter asks.
Katherine says nothing.
‘He’s just a boy,’ Thomas tells the vintenar. ‘You can’t – We can’t hang him.’
The vintenar looks down from his horse.
‘Who’re you to say?’
Dear God.
‘Look, he’s right,’ Geoffrey says. ‘Kit, how old are you?’
Katherine will still not talk.
‘He’s fourteen, for the love of God,’ Thomas says.
The vintenar lifts his hand from the saddle.
‘Could be two for all I care,’ he says. ‘The Earl of Warwick wants an example.’
The men look at one another. Others are stopping to stare.
‘Oh Christ!’
‘But there must be some – I don’t know – mistake,’ Thomas says. ‘Kit’s no reason to run.’
‘He’s nowhere to run to,’ one of the men says.
‘Why d’you do it, Kit?’
She will not answer.
The vintenar is growing impatient.
‘You’re not listening,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it. Either you do it, or we do it.’
One of the horsemen has a rope. He is surveying the hawthorn for a suitable bough.
‘Thomas,’ Walter mutters, ‘go and find Sir John. He’s the only one can get Kit out of this.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Try the Watch tent. He’ll be near Fauconberg.’
Thomas tries to catch Katherine’s eye before he turns and runs, tries to reassure her that he is doing something, but she remains staring at the ground, acknowledging none. He runs through the camp to its centre. Fauconberg, March and Warwick have all been to the cathedral to hear the Te Deum and are riding north together. No one has seen Sir John.
A bell rings in the city.
Time is passing.
He begins a prayer, his footfalls punctuating the Latin lines. He abandons it halfway through. He is sick with panic. Where is he? Where is Sir John?
He thinks of Katherine. A rope around her neck. Legs kicking in mid-air. Hanging in the hawthorn branches with the laundry.
Oh Christ! He cannot stand it. He runs through the lines and back again, looking where he has already looked. Where is the old man? Surely he cannot have gone far without Geoffrey’s help?
‘Thomas!’ he hears a man cry.
Half the men in the camp are called Thomas, but Thomas recognises William Hastings’s voice. He is at the head of a table with some men Thomas does not recognise. They are drinking wine and there is a pie on a board and a small dish of salt.
‘Thomas Everingham! Hero of Newnham! Come and join us in a drink,’ Hastings calls.
‘I cannot, sir, I am looking for Sir John.’ He explains his hurry.
‘Not because of the surgeon fellow? I thought Sir John’d managed to sort that out.’
‘It’s not that. They’ve caught him trying to run.’
Hastings springs to his feet.
‘But he’s – Christ. What a waste. No. No. We can’t have that. Lead me to him. My word counts for something, enough perhaps to delay the inevitable.’
When they find her again, Katherine is standing under a tree in her shirt with her hat pushed back. She looks pitif
ully thin and in the watery sunlight her skin is translucent. One of Warwick’s men stands behind her, bending the damp rope to form a noose. Walter is still arguing with the vintenar. Katherine will still say nothing. It is as if she has already left them.
‘Hold fast! Hold up there!’
When he sees Hastings, the vintenar touches his knuckle to his helmet.
‘Sir,’ he says.
‘You can’t mean to hang this boy?’
‘Earl of Warwick’s orders, sir. Caught him the other side of the village over there. Put up a fight. Saved us a deal of time and trouble if we’d killed him there and then but his lordship wants an example made. So.’
Hastings turns to Katherine.
‘Is this true?’
Still Katherine says nothing. She will not even look at him.
‘Kit, you must say something in your defence. Otherwise—’
‘Get on and hang him,’ someone in the crowd jeers. The soldier throws the rope over the tree above her head.
‘Lucky he’s a little’un,’ he says, finding the branches thin.
Hastings holds out his hand.
‘There’ll be no one hanged here,’ he says.
The vintenar is surprised.
‘You’ll take responsibility?’
Hastings nods, but he is anxious. To countermand the Earl of Warwick is no small thing.
‘I will,’ he says. ‘I will.’
Thomas feels his heart beat again.
The crowd is disappointed.
‘Piss off, all of you,’ Walter snarls.
The vintenar nods to his men. The one with the rope pulls it down again and folds it into a sack. It is difficult to read his face: is he disappointed or relieved? The others mount their horses.
‘I don’t suppose this is the last we’ve heard of this,’ Hastings tells them. ‘But keep an eye on the boy and don’t let him wander off again.’
Walter nods.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he says.
‘I’d better find old Warwick before he finds me,’ Hastings says. His gaze lingers on Katherine, who will still not speak, and whose expression has hardly changed. ‘A handsome lad, you are, Kit, if only you’d fill out a bit, but you’ll never do that if you’re hanging by your neck from a tree.’
Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims Page 21
