Rufus twinkles with pleasure.
‘But what – what if Robin of Redesdale’s army beats King Edward’s?’ Thomas asks. ‘What then?’
‘Well,’ Katherine says. ‘We will have to pray.’
‘Much good that’ll do you,’ Liz says.
‘Well’ – Thomas turns to her – ‘what do you suggest?’
‘You could kill one or two of ’em now,’ she says. ‘That one there. Only got to look at him to know he’s a bastard with a blade up his sleeve.’
He turns to where the straggling tail of Horner’s column roll past and he sees she is gesturing at Taplow.
‘You could follow them with that great bow of yours and you could pick ’em off, one by one.’
He absently tries to imagine this. How long would it take? How many arrows?
But Katherine is right. The only thing he can do is to warn Hastings and King Edward of what is coming. If he can bring men such as John Brunt – Rufus’s godfather – to the fight, then there is a chance he and King Edward can beat this crowd of village murderers.
‘All right,’ Thomas says. ‘All right. But we must go now then. Down to London to find Hastings. And we’ll have to ride fast to overtake this lot, and Redesdale too.’
‘And how shall we manage that?’ Liz asks.
‘We? ’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘We. Unless you mean to leave all this here’ – she stamps a clog on the coffer – ‘and do not mind if I take it to market and set myself up as a fine lady?’
He looks at the cart. It is the sum total of his – their – worldly goods.
‘You’ll not move fast enough with it in tow,’ Liz goes on. ‘So you must take it somewhere?’
‘Marton,’ Katherine says. ‘We must take it back to Marton.’
Liz looks pleased someone is making sense.
‘Right,’ she says. ‘Where is this Marton place? Is it far?’
They tell her.
Thomas knows what must be said and done next, but he cannot bring himself to suggest it. Liz can though.
‘Will you be coming with me then, goodwife? You and Rufus? We can leave Thomas here to find his fine lord on his ownsome? Quicker that way, and safer too.’
Katherine cannot help smile at Liz.
‘You have arranged it all so well,’ she says.
‘No point messing, is there?’
Thomas stands wondering what else he need add.
‘I bought a loaf,’ Liz says. ‘Two, in fact. One for you, and one for us. The boy Jack left me his money. D’you want it back?’
And she holds out a palmful of coins. The same that he gave Jack. And with that, she cements his trust.
Thomas says goodbye to Katherine and Rufus while Liz turns her back and pretends to do something with the horse attached to the cart.
‘You will be all right?’ Thomas asks.
Katherine rolls her eyes at Liz’s back.
‘I expect so,’ she tells him. ‘I feel we have been commandeered.’
He offers to ride with them back to Marton.
‘No,’ Katherine tells him. ‘She is right. You must find Hastings, and quickly. London is how many days’ ride? Five? Six?’
He shrugs. He is not sure. Something like that.
‘And anyway,’ she goes on, ‘there is no telling if Isabella, or her sons, will have us back.’
She leaves hanging the thought that they are less likely to do so if Thomas is there with them, and Thomas nods, accepting the truth of it.
‘You know the route?’
‘We follow this lot south, to Doncaster, and from there, I think I know the way by now.’
‘And you will explain to Isabella? Tell her what’s happened?’
‘Of course.’
‘She will have you back, I know it.’
‘She is a good woman.’
‘And once I have found Hastings—’ he starts, but then stops. He does not know what Hastings will say when he finds him, though it is not hard to guess.
‘I will come for you there,’ he tells her. ‘As soon as I can.’
She nods.
‘I will wait,’ she says. ‘Every day. Rufus and I. We will come to the road to keep a lookout for you.’
Thomas laughs.
‘Thomas,’ she says. ‘Don’t get drawn into anything for William Hastings’s sake. Don’t get drawn into any fighting. It is not your fight. And God forbid anything should befall you – I will not be there, and you will not help Jack and John and Nettie that way.’
It is his turn to nod.
‘So go now,’ she says. ‘Go, and come back safe. And may God go with you.’
PART THREE
After the Visitation, Summer, 1469
11
Thomas takes a different road to the one that Horner and his army take, one that swings him westwards, so that he may overtake the column, and – he hopes – Robin of Redesdale, before rejoining the London road further south. Thomas rides quickly, and soon the city drops away behind him, but as he goes he is overtaken by a creeping horror. He rides for a while with tears in his eyes that are nothing to do with the wind, and he thinks it is because he has left Katherine, but nor is it that. It is when he looks around him at the furlongs and fields, at the trees and the softly undulating land that he feels it most, and when he comes to the crest of a rise, he is almost struck from his horse, and can hardly find the strength to breathe, for his chest is crushed.
He finds himself climbing from his saddle and staggering along the road, westwards, towards the edge of the escarpment, where it drops into a steep little valley. The grass is lush and long underfoot and he stands there with these tears flooding his eyes and pouring down his cheeks, and he stares into the valley, at the winding beck that fiddles its way through twisted hawthorns and alders; a soft wind blows from the south, and there are fat crows and rooks in the treetops, but he sees nothing of these, only feels a desperate sorrow of the sort that might press him to his knees and make him pray aloud. And it gets no better the longer he stays, so he turns and makes his way back to his horse, stumbling, stricken. He trips on something in the grass and falls to his knees, and then turns to pick it up. It is a twisted strip of rusted metal – a piece of old plate – with a great pock in the middle. As it comes free, it releases an old, old smell. He looks about him: at the low sloping field and the single hawthorn, and then he tosses the metal aside, climbs into his saddle, nudges his horse into a trot and rides down the hill, away from the dismal spot towards a hamlet gathered around a tiny church.
There is a boy to tell him the name of the village is Lead.
‘And what is up there?’ Thomas points to the fields through which he has just ridden.
‘That is Towton way,’ the boy says. ‘We don’t go there. Not any more.’
Thomas reaches Doncaster in the late afternoon, and hears news of Robin of Redesdale from the White Friars who give him a bed for the night.
‘How many men?’ he asks their almoner.
‘Five thousand,’ the man tells him in return for one of Thomas’s last coins.
‘That is in all?’
‘That is just fighting men. In all, perhaps ten thousand.’
Thomas doesn’t know whether to believe him, but there is no reason not to.
‘Where are they bent?’ he asks.
‘How should I know?’ the man says. ‘But they left by St Sepulchre’s on the road running west.’
West? Thomas does not understand why Redesdale would go west, when his objective must be to the south, but he is pleased, anyway, for it means the road is clear for him to find Hastings, so he rides through Doncaster’s southern gate, and out on to the London road, following a small party of pilgrims on their way to Lincoln, trying to puzzle it for himself. Horner said something about someone – Tudor? Was that it? The name is familiar – raising Wales in rebellion against King Edward and so perhaps Robin of Redesdale and this Tudor intend to combine and move on London from the west? Is that likely
? Possible, even? Thomas has no idea. William Hastings will know, he thinks, or he will know someone who does.
The pilgrims turn east towards Gainsborough, on the same road that leads to Marton, but he continues south through the early afternoon until he reaches Newark, where he thinks he will have to change horses. But even before he crosses the new wooden bridge, he can see there is something afoot: there are men hoisting a flag in the castle battlements and at the bridge’s far end is a clot of men in blue and murrey livery, more than might make up your usual city Watch, and far better armed. They are King Edward’s men.
Thomas is half-relieved, half-disappointed. He wanted his news to come as a surprise, but it seems King Edward must already know.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asks. There are five or six of them, big, useful-looking men, of the type he knows well, and they are heavily armed, but there is also something leisurely about them, as if this is a Sunday in the butts, not as if they are coming north to suppress an armed rebellion against their king.
‘Might ask the same of you,’ one of them – the one they defer to – asks. ‘You want to get down off there?’
Thomas swings his leg over the back of his horse and drops down. They are all in new-made jackets, and their helmets are polished as if new-minted. Perhaps this is how it is with King Edward’s men? One of them raises his chin to point at Thomas’s bow and pollaxe.
‘Fighting man, are you?’ he asks.
Thomas tells them that he is William Hastings’s man.
‘Well, he is not here,’ they tell him.
‘Where is he?’
They don’t know, and are even puzzled to be asked. But he should be, Thomas knows, if King Edward is moving up to fight Robin of Redesdale.
‘But King Edward is here?’
‘He is,’ the man says. ‘If it is a concern of yours?’
Thomas tells them he has ridden from Doncaster that morning.
‘I have seen Robin of Redesdale’s army.’
Another laughs.
‘Oh, that villain! We are set to spank his arse for him!’
‘How many of you are there?’ Thomas asks.
‘Over a thousand,’ the youngest boasts. ‘With more coming.’
‘But Robin of Redesdale has an army of five – no – seven thousand. Men-at-arms and bowmen.’
There is a moment when their mouths are as open as their eyes.
‘Blood of Christ! You are – not serious?’
‘They are just the other side of the river,’ Thomas tells them. ‘Did you not – know?’
Now they are more active. Thomas is taken to find an officer – a tall man, young, well dressed, indoor skin, someone’s son – who greets his news with incredulity that gives way to scepticism, then becomes flailing panic. Thomas is passed up a line to some sort of steward, who walks accompanied by six bored men in blue and murrey livery, each armed with an identical bill. Again his news is met with derision, then doubt, then panicked acceptance, and so he is passed on up to another steward – younger even, very richly dressed in tight red hose, piked shoes and billowing silk sleeves, who reminds Thomas of one of Isabella’s sons – who tells him King Edward is spending the afternoon with his hawks.
Ten men in pristine blue and murrey livery accompany Thomas back to his horse and then out to the water meadows upriver to find King Edward. He is nervous, of course, seeing King Edward. He has seen him before, has spoken to him before – been hugged by the man, he has been told – but he cannot recall any of this and now, as they ride out through boggy flood plains to find him, Thomas is gripped by anxiety.
They find him on horseback, on a reed-fringed, black-mud islet, surrounded by a clutch of gentlemen, with, some way apart, another clutch of less important gentlemen, and, further off still, a small army of servants carrying bags and wicker boxes and those frames for the hawks. Dog-handlers stand about, too, and their muddy charges are swimming through the turbid waters and emerging on the banks to shake themselves; while some are finding this reasonably amusing – who is going to be soaked? – others are intent on the sky, following the distant dots of the hawks as they go about their business. The afternoon is heavy and warm, and insects make clouds in the air.
Thomas is told to wait where he is, for he must not approach the King, and he waits while various negotiations are undertaken with members from one group going to the next and each time he sees their disbelief and their craned heads as he is studied and then successively finer gentlemen come splashing over to him to ask him the same questions until at last someone finally alerts King Edward, who is up there in the saddle of his beautiful mud-spattered horse, taller than them all, gauntleted hand shading his eyes, and on his head a cap the size of a woman’s cushion with an extravagant feather.
He turns in his saddle when he hears what is said, and he demands repetition before he looks over; he has to shade his eyes again, and when he sees Thomas, he sort of starts, and then gestures that Thomas should come into his presence, now, and all the servants and lesser gentlemen and finer gentlemen step back so that an avenue is cleared between them; Thomas splashes forward through the mud, and King Edward meets him halfway there, leaning forward, the hawks forgotten, his expression intent and fierce.
‘Dear God!’ King Edward says. ‘I know you.’
Thomas nods, because he knows this to be true, though he cannot remember it himself.
‘Your grace,’ he says, and he knows to remove his hat and clutch it to his chest while bowing his head in imitation of all the other servants and less fine gentlemen. King Edward swings his leg over the front of his saddle and drops heavily into the mud. As he does so, everyone else dismounts. He is a tall man, King Edward, taller even than Thomas, and broad-shouldered, and he is well padded with muscle but also a skim of fat that tells of time spent at the dinner board. His eyes are little in his broad face, and his mouth, small and soft, pursed slightly, as if in the middle of a self-deprecating joke. And yet he is the victor of Towton, a warrior king, Sir John used to say, to rival the victors of Agincourt or any of those other battles won in the French wars.
Yet does he also look like a bastard? Thomas wonders. The son of a man other than his father?
‘Thomas Everingham,’ King Edward says. ‘Dear God. I am glad to see you alive.’
He stretches out a gloved hand, studded with rings, and Thomas does not know if he should shake it or kiss it. He opts for the former and King Edward seems happy enough. A circle of faces has formed around them and King Edward arches an eyebrow.
‘Well?’ he asks. ‘What have you for me?’
Thomas tells him about Robin of Redesdale’s numbers.
King Edward is startled, as are the others, who look to one another seeking someone to blame.
‘That is more than three times as many as we were told!’ he says. ‘How is this possible?’
No one says a thing.
Then: ‘It is merely worse than feared,’ one says.
‘More than three times worse!’ King Edward shouts. ‘Three times! Dear God!’
‘We can raise more men, your grace, if we move quickly, and we can smash this Robin of Redesdale and have his head on a spike before the month is out.’
King Edward looks at this man a long moment, calming himself down, drawing encouragement from him, and then thanking him for his certainty, calling him William. He’s a big man, with a full beard and weather-chapped cheeks that seem unusual in such a gathering of smooth-skinned gentles.
Another speaks: a dapper little man with a silk hat and dark eyes that he fixes on this first bearded man with dislike.
‘How many men can my lord of Pembroke hope to raise in so short a time?’ he asks.
The big, bearded man – Pembroke – says he has already sent orders to his estates for two thousand men, yet learning now the severity of the crisis, he undertakes to raise a further one thousand, making three in all.
‘Men-at-arms?’
‘In the main.’
; ‘Then I will match that number with bowmen,’ the dapper little man says with a sort of bow to King Edward.
King Edward is again grateful and thanks him, calling him my lord of Devon.
Others offer their own men, but few can match such numbers; after a moment Pembroke begs to be excused, since he wishes to set off at once, and King Edward allows it. The dapper one, Devon, does likewise.
‘Hurry,’ King Edward tells them. ‘We will gather at Nottingham ten days from now, unless I send message otherwise.’
Thomas watches Devon and Pembroke splash away, each detaching a retinue from the group of lesser gentles and the servile commons.
King Edward turns to another man.
‘Send letters this day,’ he says. ‘Send them now. To everyone you can think of. Cities too. Coventry. Gloucester. Norfolk. Everywhere. Tell them to send men to meet me at Nottingham. I need bowmen. A hundred each and more if they may, to be sent to me at once. Fuck the cost. You know what to say.’
The man nods and passes his hawk to another and he hurries away followed by three servants.
‘What of my lord of Northumberland?’ King Edward asks. ‘He has not come out against this – this villain Redesdale, and nor has he sent message.’
‘They say he is sitting on his hands,’ Thomas tells him.
‘Ungrateful bastard,’ King Edward says. ‘I will put him back where he belongs.’
The sun is oppressive now and the birds are returning with beating wings, lured back by their keepers, and they have been capped, and the news that the day’s sport is over has spread. But it seems they know nothing of Warwick’s involvement.
‘Men of his livery pass freely among Robin of Redesdale’s men,’ Thomas says. ‘It is almost as if he is with them.’
King Edward is startled.
‘No!’ he says. ‘Can this be true? My lord of Warwick’s men go among them?’
Thomas looks at him for a long moment, trying to read something in those evasive eyes. He remembers Hastings telling them, what seems like many years ago now, that King Edward did not want to hear anything ill said of the Earl of Warwick, and so perhaps no one has told him? Does he even know that Warwick has married his daughter to the Duke of Clarence, King Edward’s own brother? That Warwick is going to send a proclamation telling the country to rise up against King Edward’s councillors? That Warwick is going to land in Sandwich and raise the men of Kent? Has no one told King Edward anything?
Divided Souls Page 14
