When we came out through the inn gates, hefty fellows in murrey and blue, wearing the boar badge, forced back the crowd on either side with their pikes. The drummers and trumpeters played us down the street upon a fanfare. Northumberland had brought his pipers, and the sweet drone of the Northumbrian pipes gave us airs as old as battles long ago, of Chevy Chase and Otterburn, and of the blood feud of Percy and Douglas. I love the pipes, so does Richard, but the people of Leicester did not know the tales of Border tragedies they tell.
I rode with Norfolk, Surrey and Northumberland; Richard was a little ahead of us, his heralds in front of him. The citizens gazed their fill of martial splendour that morning. Apart from the size of the army that marched endlessly through the streets, they had the sight of the King going to war wearing his crown. Richard was as magnificent as any imagined Arthur of Albion, in shining steel, his hair circled with gold. It was a coronet really, quite narrow, worked in fleurons, and studded with precious stones. He’d had the pigeon’s egg ruby that was the Black Prince’s set in front, in memory of Harry the fifth, who had worn it fighting at Agincourt. I hoped it was an omen of victory, though it reminded me unpleasantly of painted crimson blood-drops welling from thorn wounds on the head of a crucified Christ in an altar-piece; I half expected it to break loose and roll down his forehead.
The grooms had left White Surrey unarmoured, and his coat shone white as snow in sunlight. His harness was so gilded it looked as if it were made of solid gold, and his tail had been plaited up with gold ribbons. Richard rode very straight and at ease in the saddle, as if he and the horse were cast in a single mould, and he looked neither to left nor right. I don’t think he saw the crowd, or heard their voices. His stony, unsmiling look seemed to make them uneasy. They raised a few cheers, but did not warm to him, gazing more out of curiosity and awe, not untinged with fear.
It was when we reached Bow Bridge, the second narrow bridge out west over the Soar, that the commotion began. An old beggar squatted there, on his favourite pitch, oblivious to the army passing so near. As Richard drew level with him, he wailed suddenly, a piercing, woeful sound above the noise.
White Surrey reared up, ears flat back on his head, and came down swivelled right across the road. People scrambled to get out of the way of those enormous hooves. The horse leapt crabwise, in panic, and sparks flew from the stones. We all had to halt, and watched in alarm as the King fought his horse. I don’t know how he pulled White Surrey down the second time, he reared so high, but in hauling his head round hard to avoid trampling the old man to pulp, Richard brought him down too near the side of the bridge. An excruciating scraping of metal set the air on edge as the King’s steel-shod foot hit the parapet and chiselled a white scar in the stone.
By then, a couple of pikemen had seized the beggar. He began to babble, in a thick quavering voice like an old nanny-goat. I made out part of it — some adage about the moon: ‘Beware the day the moon shall change twice.’ I couldn’t understand the meaning. Then something more frightening: ‘The foot,’ he said, ‘shall become a head.’ He began to wail again: ‘See, how it bleeds — it bleeds.’ Did he mean the King’s foot? Pray God it was not his head he saw bleeding.
Richard told the soldiers to let the old man go, to do him no harm. Then as he staggered gropingly away from their rough hands, I saw that his eyes were milky all over. He was totally blind. Richard crossed himself, and I knew he’d seen it too.
I spent the next hour puzzling on the meaning of this strange prophecy. How could that old blind thing have known Richard’s foot had scraped the bridge? Why did he see blood, whose eyes had no sight? Richard said nothing. I couldn’t nerve myself to question him.
John Howard said to me, ‘Well, the moon is almost full, it can’t change until the end of the week. As for feet…! That’s so much moonshine too. I reckon we’re safe enough, boy.’
I was distracted by one of Northumberland’s pipers riding across my vision, in his russet and tawny Percy colours. The badge upon his sleeve caught my attention like a mirror flashed directly in the eyes. It was a silver crescent, the moon lying upon its back. If that moon were to change — the commander of one third of our army would have turned his coat. It was hard to believe that he contemplated so monstrous a betrayal. I looked straight at Percy then, but he would not meet my stare. He was red as a brick.
I said to Norfolk, ‘It’s the waning moon I fear, when it becomes a thin and useless crescent.’ He took my meaning and laughed, a very sour barking noise.
‘Spit on it,’ he scoffed, ‘and it’ll fizzle out!’ But Percy never rose to the bait. He contented himself with looking superior, as if he could expect nothing better from a pair of upstarts like Howard and myself.
After that we saved our breath. It grew too hot for conversation. Mounted scouts had been sent ahead to reconnoitre the enemy’s position. They were moving towards us from the direction of Atherstone. We’d not fight that day, but encamp for the night in open country and bring them to battle early Monday morning.
Richard did not speak, except when he had to give a few curt orders. He stared fixedly ahead between White Surrey’s ears, his brows drawn into a frown, eyes narrowed to slits. It might have been the dazzle of the sun, or the pressure of his thoughts. I did not know. The sun made my head ache until it thumped with every beat of my horse’s hooves; the reins grew slippery between my fingers. Also, I was very careful not to allow my bare skin contact with metal that had taken the sun’s full heat. It could bring up a weal like a scald. I wished Richard would not wear that crown; the ring of gold must have burnt his skin. He gave no sign, though, of any greater discomfort than the rest of us, less rather, not even caring to shake the trickling annoyance of sweat from his face.
The army kept as far as possible to the road, to avoid ruining the harvest. Where the rim of the fields met its wide verges, dusty thistles and yellow ragwort choked the grain, and scarlet poppies rioted like whore’s garlands. Soldiers were offered ale in earthen pitchers by the reapers, who wore straw hats and little else, and paused only a moment in the rhythmic slash of their sickles to straighten, mop their faces and watch the King’s army go by. I think they were sorry for men who, like themselves, suffered dust and heat, and worse, might live only one more day. The men were lively enough, though, to whistle the brown-legged labouring women with their skirts kilted up knee-high. Down the line, someone burst into ribald song:
‘Sing dyllum, dyllum, dyllum, dyllum,
I can tell you, and I will,
Of my lady’s water mill…’
Bawls of: ‘Shut thi great gob, our Wullie!’, laughs and farting noises put an end to his tale. The women were placid, paying little attention, though a few shrieked back-chat, or waved and blew kisses to us. No one dared fall out of line for a bit of the miller’s fun. It only needed one to start that game, and they’d be breaking each other’s heads to get a tumble in an itchy cornfield.
To our relief, we halted no more than a dozen miles from Leicester, at a village called Stapleton, a huddle of mud-walled cottages astride a track rooted into choking, ankle-deep dust by hogs. Scouts brought information that the rebels had set up camp on the plain just south-west of Market Bosworth. Upon their advice and the King’s decision, we encamped on open heathland a few miles east of the enemy. By splitting our army into its three separate commands — the King, Norfolk and Northumberland — and stringing out their camps from north to south along a ridge, it would be possible to occupy the highest hill in the area, early in the morning.
This little hill overlooked a few miles of flattish ground known as Redmore plain. It was a sour, featureless terrain, with only its openness to recommend it. Recent hot weather had baked the soil hard in places, so that the rust-brown, dusty ground had cracked open like a split stale crust. Elsewhere boggy patches testified the wetness of the earlier summer months; rushes grew there, and the heavy clay sucked at the horse’s hooves. A few scrubby bushes were dotted around, mostly hawthorn, that had flowered
white in spring, but now merged with the faded greens of late summer. South of our camp was a stream, handy for watering the beasts, one of several that flowed sluggishly across the plain. Its rim was marshy, fringed with low-growing sallows and rushes. When I learned its name, I laughed at the sheer effrontery; it was called the Tweed. Well, we wouldn’t need Berwick Bridge to cross this Tweed!
It was vile ground on which to pitch a tent. Curses mingled with the thud of wooden mallets as peg after peg split on the iron ground. Men who were already tired, struggled with recalcitrant folds of hot canvas, pummelling and heaving it into submission.
As soon as I had a tent to retire into, I got my squires to strip me and throw water over me from a bucket, before they had a chance to extract ewers and basins from the baggage. It was a luxury, and I was reluctant to be towelled dry, allowing the water to trickle down and cool on my skin. The quilted arming-doublet, when it came off me, had been soaked right through from one side to the other. These discomforts survived, I made a good supper of fresh-roasted fowl, bread bought in Leicester that morning, and good, if slightly tepid wine.
Later, as dusk was beginning to thicken palpably into darkness, I rode through the camp to the King’s tent. My surroundings seemed so ordinary, so familiar and homely, that I began to feel a little cheered. The baggage wagons had been lumbered into a tidy circle round the camp; the oxen and horses rested gratefully in their lines. I listened to them munching and stamping, as they switched their tails angrily, for though the flies of daytime had departed, the night midges were out, humming and darting in swarms over the patches of wet ground.
Smells of cooking wafted tantalizingly from iron cauldrons hoisted over the fires. Men squatted on their heels, turning the sizzling contents of frying-pans, their faces reddened by the glow. I caught the acrid whiff of wood-smoke and spitting fat as I passed. Bodies moved in front of the firelight, throwing giant shadows, all arms, legs and huge hands. A long procession of men filled earthen costrels and leather bottles from the great tuns of beer set up on carts around camp. They went off tipping up the vessels, guzzling down pint after pint to wash away the dust that clogged their teeth — they must have had throats like the Israelites in the desert after that march.
A cluster of lanterns had gathered in front of the pavilion of painted and gilded canvas that was the King’s tent. Some squires hung about, their lords’ badges on their sleeves: the white lion of Norfolk, Surrey’s silver sallet, Lord Ferrers’ silver hood, Scrope of Bolton’s Cornish chough, and that ominous Percy crescent.
I went inside. A score of men grouped round a table of trestles and planks; others were arriving. Richard stood at the head of the table, resting his hands upon it, as if to prop himself up, his head bent, greeting no one. Under canvas it was stiflingly hot, even in a tent so large, with the door kept open; outside, air hung sultrily over ground baked by a long day’s sunshine. Lamplight formed a wide yellow arc, encompassing faces sheened with sweat. Men bent forward, occasionally mopping their brows, without relaxing their attention to the King’s words.
On a sheet of paper, he sketched out our situation, tomorrow’s disposition of troops, the possibilities of alternate manoeuvres. The tactics were always — attack. The enemy should be allowed no advantage in time or terrain. I watched the men who commanded our army. Norfolk’s grey eyes followed, appraised, and he nodded his approval; at sixty, he had the most experience. Surrey was tapping his thumb-nail on his teeth, alert as a little dark ferret; he’d fought at Barnet, Tewkesbury, and in Duke Charles’s Burgundian wars. Northumberland, approaching forty and a year or two Surrey’s elder, had never fought a pitched battle. Standing with his loose limbs arranged in their familiar slouching posture, he was the largest man of the four.
Richard’s instructions were brief, but notable for their simplicity and clarity. I was glad to see he had not lost his ability to create confidence in the captains by ensuring each one was in no confusion over his own role. When he’d finished, he brought the meeting abruptly to a close by taking the battle-plan and tearing it up with great deliberation, before throwing it away, crumpled into a ball. To the startled onlookers, he said, ‘Since you all now carry this plan in your heads, it is useless on paper in my possession.’ This followed, but it was a disconcerting action.
Northumberland, who since his late arrival the day before had made himself singularly unobtrusive, leaned forward and said, ‘In the event of an adverse — er — an indecisive issue, will your Grace withdraw towards York? More men might be raised in the north parts than are put into the field now.’
Richard looked at him. He might have been looking at some petty official who’d offered him a bribe. The sun had reddened Percy’s balding forehead and massed freckles on his skin; his nose gleamed. The mellow light turned the hairs on his big-boned wrists to a golden fuzz.
‘No.’ Even taking account of Richard’s usual disinclination to offer unnecessary explanations, this answer was short to the point of rudeness. Northumberland contented himself with a shrug, and sat fiddling with his signet-ring, though his face flared like a bonfire, and he began sweating profusely. I opened my mouth to remark that any deficiency in the muster from the north was due to his own negligence, but thought better of it. Frown-lines had gathered between Richard’s brows, and his mouth thinned ominously.
Others, who had assumed that the contingency of an indecisive battle would be met by a planned withdrawal into the north, were clearly startled. But they kept quiet, knowing that a retreat was only a last resort, which the King need not consider unless events took some unexpectedly disastrous turn. At any rate, it was evident after this snub delivered to Northumberland, that Richard had no further contribution to make, and that the meeting was dismissed.
Except for myself, Norfolk was the last to depart. At the tent door, a tow-haired squire hovered anxiously. The young man handed over a paper. ‘This was found pinned to your Grace’s tent,’ he mumbled, blushing. Howard read its contents, puffed out his face like an enraged bullfrog, and turned the colour of raw horse-flesh. He passed the paper over to Richard, who read it without comment, though his mouth began to resemble a cranny in a dry stone wall. He held it out in my direction, and I took it. In large, illiterate capitals, a rhyme had been scrawled:
‘Jack of Norfolk be not too bold
For Dickon thy maister is bought and sold.’
I thought: we have our noses shoved into the mire. Everyone suspected it already, and Richard knew better than any of us that his army ran the risk of being hamstrung by treachery. At the last moment, some fool was trying to scare Howard into betraying him.
Jack of Norfolk, however, could be provoked to no more than the sour and laconic remark: ‘Bought and sold…? Huh! silver — thirty pounds’ weight of solid gold, more like!’
Richard said nothing. He stood looking at the floor, jiggled the dagger at his belt in its sheath maddeningly, then rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead, pushing aside the sticky hair.
Howard shrugged, and took the paper back from me. ‘Since it’s addressed to Jack,’ he said, ‘I’ll hand it over to my squires. It can go in the jakes for arse wipes.’ Even Richard had to grin at this horrible pun. Howard had a talent for taking the sting out of a bitter situation.
I left with him, and turned my attention to the ordering of my own men. When I had seen them settled for the night, I returned to the King’s tent, for I intended to sleep there, in the outer compartment with the squires. They said Richard had lain down to rest, and that they all but one had crept out and left him, so I dropped in my clothes on the truckle-bed. I couldn’t have slept more than an hour before waking suddenly, thinking I heard someone talking. My senses were unnaturally sharpened that day. It was Richard’s voice, though I could make out no words. I got up and went through to him.
A lamp still burned on the table. Its light jumped and swung across the dark cavern of roof, as a moth madly circled the flame, intent upon self-destruction. He lay upon the camp bed f
ace down, in an awkward, uncomfortable position. Though obviously asleep, he still talked, the words muffled by the pillow. He was trembling and twitching too, exactly as a dog does when it lies by the fire and dreams of hunting. I feared waking him too suddenly, but such strange, disturbed sleep cannot be good for anyone. I knelt down, wondering what to do. His shirt was of Rennes cloth fine enough to see hairs on your arm through, and it stuck limply to his skin; there were big wet patches down the middle of his back. God knew what he dreamt of, but he tensed and groaned like a man put on the brake. I thought it best to end the dreaming, and shook him slightly. He woke with a jerk, flinching from me.
‘Francis…?’ he muttered, in a daze, rolling over and struggling to open his eyes, ‘what are you doing here?’
‘I came back, to keep watch. You were dreaming. It looked as if all the devils in Hell were hauling you to and fro. I didn’t like to see it.’
‘Some nightmare. I’m hag ridden. Now, I can’t remember much of it.’ He sat on the edge of the bed, beside me, elbows on his knees, holding his head, as if it ached. Holy Mary! His breath came deep and dragging as a spent runner’s. I think the dream had been worse than he would say, something incommunicable. He should have gone back to bed, tried to get some proper sleep. I sent away the squire, who had woken and got up from his pallet in alarm, and poured wine into a silver cup, gave it to Richard. His teeth clinked against the rim, his hands were so unsteady.
He said, ‘It was my brother — I wanted to beg his forgiveness. He would not see me. They kept saying he refused to see me. Like Harry Buckingham… I…’ He leapt to his feet then, as if unable to stand it any longer. ‘Francis, come with me round the camp. I want to go among the men, feel air on my skin. I can’t sleep.’
Some Touch of Pity Page 30
