Katherine can feel the blood rushing to her face.
‘And is this proof – to hand?’ she asks.
Horner frowns.
‘Not quite,’ he admits. ‘But we are looking for it – and we are close to it. When it is found, it will be presented to the Lords and the Commons and it will show that Edward is not fit for the throne. And who, then, should take his place? His brother, George, Duke of Clarence, to whom, of course, Warwick has married his daughter.’
He laughs at the cunning of it.
Katherine can think of nothing to say.
Now, it seems, Horner’s loyalty to the old King has worn thin as his cloth, and he has attached himself to the cause of unseating King Edward, not caring who takes his place.
‘So you see?’ Horner says, turning back to Thomas. ‘You had best join us! Be here at the start of things and there is no telling where you will end up! A knight! A lord! An earl!’
Katherine’s mind is racing.
‘But if that is so – if Warwick can dethrone Edward that way, then why are you marching south with an army of this size?’
Horner is thoughtful.
‘I don’t think – I don’t think Warwick knew Robin of Redesdale would be so – so busy? I don’t think he knew we would attract such numbers and be able to move so swiftly. When he suggested Redesdale come out against King Edward, I think he thought he might stay in Richmondshire, and his presence might force Montagu’s hand, one way or the other. Besides, despite our efforts we have not found this record yet, to prove Edward’s bastardy, so . . .’
He trails off with a shrug. Katherine feels a stone in her throat and she cannot swallow, but Thomas asks what steps are being taken to locate it, and when Horner tells them that Edmund Riven is tasked with finding it, he makes the connection.
‘He’s the son of the man Kit cut when we were in Bamburgh! Do you remember? Sir Giles Riven, do you remember? A nasty piece of work, you’d think, but the son! God deliver us, he is from a nightmare. He has some old wound – here – that weeps stinking pus, and when he speaks, there is something cut loose in his cheek that flaps, some piece of skin. Kit would’ve stitched it up in a moment, I am sure, but no one has done anything for him, and it has made him bitter as bark.’
It is growing dark now and the light of the fire outside glows against the cloth of the tent, and the rush lights ought to be lit. Horner leans forward, takes another drink and goes on.
‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘Riven is now looking for the proof – this ledger – among those who were with Ralph Grey in the last days at Bamburgh,’ he tells them. ‘That is where it was last seen.’
They are silent for a long moment. Then he looks up with a frown.
‘But – so you were there, too?’ he asks. ‘I mean, you went back, didn’t you?’
‘We did,’ Thomas agrees. He is very casual.
‘And did you see any – any ledger? Anyone with anything like that?’
Thomas shakes his head.
‘What did Grey say it looked like?’ Katherine asks.
Horner tuts.
‘They say he was out of his wits. So he could remember almost nothing about it. He could only tell Warwick that he had it, but had lost it. He could not even tell him where he had got it. Well, he did, he said he’d got it from Giles Riven. But of course, that cannot be the case because then surely Edmund Riven would know of it? But that is what he said, apparently.’
Hearing these words, Katherine feels a great swelling of relief. If Grey had told Warwick that he had got the book from his surgeon, then he would have passed this on to Edmund Riven, and Edmund Riven would have known to come looking for Thomas Everingham, and this ‘surgeon’ whom he assisted. But what Grey had said was true: he did get it from Giles Riven, but only because Giles Riven had, in effect, stolen it from her. She spares a moment to thank the Lord for Grey’s ill-sprung memory. It seems that He is protecting them after all, in His own way.
‘It’s a mystery,’ Thomas says, as if that might end the matter, but Horner is less gloomy.
‘Oh, he’ll find it,’ he says, ‘if it has not been burned or anything. And even if it has, Edmund Riven will find it. He has been going among Robin of Redesdale’s men as they mustered in Richmond, you know? So many of them are Hungerford’s and Roos’s, who were there with Grey at the end.’
He looks at them carefully now.
‘I am surprised he has not come looking for you,’ he says, ‘but you will have the pleasure when we reach York.’
10
‘Riven’s in York!’ Katherine repeats.
It is the next morning and they are washing themselves in the stream above the camp, the first time they have been alone long enough to exchange anything more significant than the swiftest of meaningful looks.
‘He can’t be,’ Thomas says. ‘He just can’t be. He’s in Pickering.’
But in a way he hopes he is wrong. If Riven is in York, then at least Jack and John and Nettie will have evaded capture; but then he and Katherine – and Jack and John – are riding straight into his net.
‘We can ride with Horner until York, and then slip away,’ he supposes. ‘Horner has accepted we are not intending to join him.’
‘Has he? You saw his expression? And that man – with the hatchet face – he has been ever present. He’d rather kill you than see you go.’
Taplow has been at hand, it is true, but can Horner have asked him to keep an eye on Thomas? Or is it personal? Something Thomas said that warrants revenge? But anyway, surely they’ll be able to absent themselves from Horner’s column in the jumble of lanes and alleys that lead off the road from York’s north gate. That will be the best place, so long as Taplow is not there, on their shoulder, watching.
So they ride with Horner as the column he is commanding moves south through the Vale of Mowbray at the speed of the slowest oxen pulling the heaviest load: a great gun that takes eighteen men on ropes to lift. Food is plentiful, as is ale, and more men join them as they ride. They are gathered at the roadside as if by previous appointment, and by the time they see York, their numbers are swelled to two thousand or more who might be called upon to fight, and the same number attending behind. The journey has been enlivened by fighting among the various retinues, small though they are, and Horner has had to intervene daily.
‘I’d hang a few if I thought it would help,’ he says.
They are a ragbag of men, with few sharing the same livery, and though they mostly look like men who can fight in wayside inns and so on, that is not the same as soldiering, and Thomas wonders what will happen to this lot should they take the field against King Edward’s household men. He hopes they will run without a fight, even Taplow, who has hardly left their side, though not perhaps his sidekick, who is staring at Katherine now as if he means to pull her limb from limb. Thomas still does not quite know how he will evade them when the time comes. But as they approach the city walls a messenger arrives for Horner from Robin of Redesdale. Still in the saddle, Horner takes it and reads it without moving his lips. When he’s finished he looks bleak and he returns the paper to the messenger for re-use.
‘He’s already moved on,’ he tells them. ‘South.’
Horner is downcast, puzzled even, but Thomas cannot stop himself smiling: Riven is not in York.
They camp that night on common ground to the north of the city, under some windmills which delight Rufus, outside the Bootham Bar with the river on their right, and at Angelus, they all stop what they are doing to listen to the great bells of the city ring out across the water meadows.
The next morning, after the bread and ale has been given out, and Mass said, Thomas finds Horner dressed in full harness, readying himself to play his part for the townsfolk of York; the boy is just tying the last points of one of Warwick’s red livery coats around Horner’s steel-cinched waist.
‘Nice,’ Thomas says.
‘Thank you,’ Horner replies.
‘We will leave you here, John, if you do
not object?’ he asks.
Horner looks at him very solemnly. It is the effect of wearing plate. Thomas has seen it before: Horner even speaks with added gravitas.
‘If you must, you must, Thomas,’ he says. ‘But I hope to see you again. Robin of Redesdale is moving to Leicester. I know you wish to deposit your wife, and I envy you that luxury, but it would mean a great deal to me if you were to join us there. I always felt safe with you at my back when we were in Bamburgh, Thomas.’
The boy finishes his tying and Horner straightens the coat over his hips and then lets the boy strap on the two belts from which he will hang his various swords and daggers, and then he extends his hand and grips Thomas’s. Thomas feels almost as emotional, and grips his back just as firmly. They look one another in the eye.
‘Promise me, Thomas,’ Horner says. ‘Promise you will be there. Swear on it by God and on St George and on the life of your child.’
Thomas is caught out. On the life of his child? On the life of Rufus? But there is no room to wheedle out of this. No room to lie. Horner is too close. He will see it in his eyes if he looks away even for a moment. So what can he say?
‘I do,’ he says. ‘I will.’
He feels a free-falling panic. I do not. I will not.
And Horner nods sharply.
‘Good,’ he says, and he turns and swings up into his saddle. From there he looks down at him. ‘God bless you, Tom, and see you in Leicester.’ And he rakes his horse with those long spurs – new-bought in Ripon – and rides out of the camp.
Thomas watches him leave before going to look for his own horse. He feels the ground is no longer so solid under his feet. To hold a man’s eye and make an oath like that . . . but, dear God, what choice did he have? When he finds his horse, Taplow is standing there, one hand on its rump, proprietorially examining the pollaxe, which he has removed from its oiled linen bag.
‘Fucking do a man some damage with that,’ he says.
‘Get your hands off my horse,’ Thomas tells him.
Taplow drops the bag on the ground.
‘I meant what I said, you know. You can swagger around here with Horner’s protection like you own the place, but give me just one moment and I will fucking gut you like a pig at Martinmas.’
Thomas looks at him. He is as simple as a dog.
‘Taplow,’ he starts, ‘why does it always have to be like this? Why can’t you just – I don’t know. Be normal.’
Taplow looks at him up and down with small, pale eyes.
‘You think you deserve it all, don’t you?’ he asks. ‘Your horse, your woman, your clothes, all this, and you think everywhere you go, you deserve to go safe, like you’re in the palm of God Himself. But what about the rest of us? What about me? What about Gradle there? We’re no more than bushes to you and your sort, are we? Just fucking scenery. Things to be got around. Or over. Or through.’
Thomas hardly knows what to say. He had not imagined Taplow capable of such thoughts – so proving him right, of course – but also . . . Christ! Imagine anyone thinking of him that way, with his borrowed horse and his empty purse.
‘If you knew—’ he begins.
‘Oh, fuck off,’ Taplow interrupts. ‘I don’t fucking care. But just remember me when we take the field.’
This is more like it, more expected: a simple threat.
‘You know what happened to the last man who threatened me?’ Thomas asks.
‘You told your priest about him?’
Thomas thinks of Giles Riven’s Scottish murderers whom he and Jack had to kill in that foul little guardroom of the outward postern gate at Bamburgh Castle. He remembers a spray of blood on the stone ceiling and the man in twitching agonies on the flagstones.
‘I did,’ Thomas says, ‘but only after he was dead.’
Taplow is delighted.
‘You fucker,’ he says. ‘But just remember: when it comes to it, I’ll be there. Just me and this.’
A third knife appears in his hand, again as if from nowhere: a short dark blade, good for one thing only. He grins at Thomas and does something with his tongue that Thomas does not quite understand. Then he tucks the knife away, and walks away backwards, still leering, his teeth long and yellow and in surprisingly good condition.
Thomas wonders if a man like Taplow threatens everyone he meets, and if he has become so vicious because he already looked so vicious, or if he has come to look vicious because he is so vicious? Does his face tell his character, or his character his face?
Horner’s army of camp followers gathers itself for the off. The carts are loaded and fastened to the oxen, and everyone is a little more intent this morning for few have seen a city like York before, let alone been within such walls. As they approach they are all but silenced by the solid and convincing bulk of the minster, but then confused by the number of church steeples beyond.
‘Where is your parish?’ they ask. ‘Where does one hear Mass? Where does one go to pray? To see one’s priest? Is it here? Or there? Is it St Martin’s? St Helen’s? Or is it All Saints? You just don’t know, do you?’
Thomas has set Rufus on his saddle, and he walks alongside, leading the horse through the tight streets and the thick air of the city, and the townspeople have turned out to watch them pass, but they remain unswayed, for this is the second time in a week they’ve watched an army pass, and this one is smaller than the first, and suffers by comparison. The abiding emotion seems to be pity.
‘They seem very – accepting?’ Thomas suggests. ‘As if they care neither one way nor the other.’
‘I suppose they have seen it all before,’ Katherine tells him. ‘This was where everyone came after Towton.’
He, of course, does not remember that.
He starts looking for Jack and John when they are across the river, in Micklegate, which leads down to the bar where they stick the heads of the executed. It is where the Duke of Somerset stuck the heads of King Edward’s brother and father. Thomas wonders if Horner will remember that when he thinks about the Duke being killed in the market square at Hexham.
‘What if they are not here?’ he asks Katherine.
‘We shall have to get lodging,’ she says, ‘and wait for tomorrow.’
Thomas winces, thinking about money again. Another anxiety to gnaw at him when he has other things to worry about.
Micklegate is only a few hundred paces long, and by the time they reach the bar, and pass under the shadow of its gate and out into the barbican, he knows Jack and John and Nettie are not there.
‘It is not yet noon,’ she says.
And that is when they see the aproned sister. She is standing on the bed of their cart, complete with the coffers and sacks and everything else they own, at the side of the road, alone, waiting. She looks tired, and there is a bruise under her right eye; her apron is gone, and when she sees them she seems to take a step back, and swallows; and Thomas thinks: Oh Christ! They are dead.
But they are not.
‘Riven took ’em,’ the girl tells them before they can even ask. ‘He were on us before we got to Kirby. He was out after that book of which he always spoke, and Jack said he didn’t know what he were talking about, but Riven had a man with him who recognised John – recognised his stump. Said he’d been in some castle and had seen the arm taken off by a boy with a kitchen knife. Said he’d seen it with his own eyes. And that is when the book he seeks was lost.’
‘But they said Riven was with Robin of Redesdale!’ Thomas says.
‘Well, he might have been, and he might be now, but he weren’t that night. He were on the road to Thirsk with that bloody bastard giant of his.’
‘He has a giant?’ Katherine asks.
‘Aye,’ the girl says. ‘He keeps him like a bear, only he smells worse than a bear.’
‘His father kept one likewise,’ Katherine says. She’s turned ashen at this memory. ‘He was a monster.’
‘It cannot be the same one, surely?’ Thomas asks.
‘He is youn
g, I’d say,’ the girl tells them. ‘But a monster, too.’
‘Why does he keep him?’ Thomas asks.
‘To do his bidding,’ the girl shrugs.
‘But then where has he taken them?’
‘To Middleham,’ the girl supposes. ‘That is where he keeps his prisoners.’
‘What about you?’ Katherine asks. ‘Why did they not take you?’
‘Riven knows me,’ she admits. ‘Knows my father.’
‘So what happened to your cheek?’
The girl compresses her eyes and tilts her chin at her. She looks fierce up there on the cart, despite her torn dress and bruised face.
‘He did what his kind always do,’ she tells them.
There is a long silence.
Then the girl smiles down at Rufus.
‘Hello, boy,’ she says.
‘Hello, Liz,’ Rufus says.
So that is her name.
‘What is Middleham like?’ Thomas asks.
‘I’ve never been there, of course, as why would I? But my father says it is like any castle, save perhaps bigger.’
‘Is it – easy to come and go from? In and out, I mean.’
He is not sure what he means. He can only think of Jack and John and Nettie in a castle, there because of him, suffering on his behalf.
‘Thomas,’ Katherine says, ‘you cannot mean to . . . You cannot mean to go and – what? Rescue them?’
‘You will not succeed in that,’ Liz tells him. ‘No.’
‘No,’ Katherine agrees, almost pleading. ‘You must not even think of it. Dear God. You know what these places are like. We can only – we can only hope that – that Robin of Redesdale is defeated, and that Warwick is defeated, too. Only then. Only then can we hope to see them come out.’
‘But they’ll be dead by then!’
‘Aye, mebbe,’ Liz agrees. ‘But there’s shit all else you can do about it now, and on your own.’
They stare at her. She stares back at them, and then turns and smiles down at Rufus again.
‘Have you been having a nice time, boy? Did you see the windmills on the way in? I saw ’em meself, and I thought of you.’
Divided Souls Page 13
