Some Touch of Pity

by Rhoda Edwards

  We went out, with a word to the guard. I suppose it was about one o’clock. We stood upon the threshold of the very dead of night. Dew filmed the tent wall over its gilt fleur-de-lis, like frost rime. It hung in necklaces of crystal along hairy hempen guy ropes. His attention caught by it, Richard ran his forefinger experimentally down the canvas, leaving a dark trail that began and ended in nothing. The tent poles creaked in the night silence, that shattered suddenly, as the guard cleared his throat, harsh as the bark of a dog fox. I held up a small lantern to guide our way.

  Richard had absently picked up a leather jacket belonging to one of his squires, and put it on, for the air was cool now. It was old, with a hole in one elbow, and much too big for him. I noticed he limped very slightly, and remarked on it. He said, with casual indifference, ‘Caught between Surrey’s weight and a stone block, my foot suffered. No broken bones.’ As usual, he was reluctant to admit any injury. Well, I supposed at best we could all expect to be black with bruising for a week, after tomorrow.

  We halted at the very edge of camp, where its reek was left behind, of horses, filthy soldiery and their sweat, latrine pits, straw, old leather, wood-smoke and greased metal. It was good to breathe clean night air that smelt only of the land at late summer. The moon sailed the heavens, immensely pot-bellied and bright, a true harvest moon, coming to fullness. The sky was infinitely dark, an upturned cream-pan of liquid jet, on which a scatter of stars floated, diamond sharp. Away to the north, red glowing specks of camp fires strung out haphazardly, tiny as glow-worms on a log, and in the north-west further distant, the fires of the enemy. It was very quiet, with only the shuffle of small creatures who live at night to break the silence. I thought: we are in the very centre of England; if I listened hard enough, maybe I’d hear her heart-beat — then shook myself, for imagining something so childish.

  Richard stared north, into the dark. ‘There is a saying common in Northumberland,’ he said, ‘“No prince but a Percy”. I am not the first to witness its truth.’

  ‘The fair flower of Northumberland! More than half his men would desert and come to you, if they knew how he wavers. Families are split. To name only one, there’s that young man Gilbert Swinburn, who carries your standard. I heard him say he has a brother and cousins among Percy’s men.’ That prophecy about the silver crescent was nagging at my mind, though I said nothing; there was no need.

  ‘Let them stay. It’s too late now. Percy will not risk his position in the north. I wish I might say the same for Lord Thomas Stanley. As for William Stanley, he has not joined Tudor openly, yet I hear he has offered men. He will come to me only in a moment of victory, protesting his neutrality. He hates me. Well, I suppose it’s mutual. Francis, I can’t recall ever loathing a man as I do William Stanley, except for Dorset, when we were young.’

  ‘What about his elder brother, Lord Tom — that hatchet-faced lump of pomposity? Do you trust him?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was the slightest hesitation before this answer, that conveyed more than the stony monosyllable. I pressed the point.

  ‘Your Grace, do you in all honesty trust him? I don’t.’

  He walked aimlessly a little distance from me. When he replied, the words sounded oddly disjointed, pebbles dropped at random into a deep well. ‘He’d sell me like a hog at a fair. What can I do?’

  ‘Arrest him.’

  ‘He is Constable of England. I could have taken his office from him, but that would have made him declare outright for Tudor by now. No, leave it.’

  We walked round the perimeter of the camp, to see how the men fared. Laughter and muffled sounds among the bushes betrayed those who’d laid the whores on their backs. They fared well enough. From where the camp-followers lay the wailing chant of a travelling ballad singer drifted, a voice more at home anywhere between Bamburgh and Carlisle sands, than in the flat-lands of Leicestershire. Those women had marched with their men, Lord Dacre’s maybe, all the way from Cumberland. Whatever they sing of, the effect is a lament. Near sentry-posts, men were awake, sitting round the fires, playing at dice and shove-halfpenny, or running hones over sword blades with a monotonous, slithery ring. We spoke to those we knew, mostly of old times.

  I watched their faces in the fire-glow, how their eyes riveted on the King. In the flickering pools of light and shadow, wearing that overlarge, scuffed old jacket, he could have passed for any other soldier in camp. A friar going among them had raised his hand in benediction, not knowing him. I think this lack of the awesome trappings of royalty amazed and delighted them, recalling the young man, ‘Our Duke’, so familiar to them. His voice sounded very tired, low and husky, as if dust still tickled his throat, but they listened as if he were the archangel Gabriel bringing a pronouncement from Heaven.

  They were an ill-sorted lot. A Kendal weaver wished himself back at home; an innkeeper’s son from Penrith was too cocksure; a Derbyshire miner with arms like his own lead ingots thought himself better off fighting — I think he meant this — his speech was too thick for anyone to follow except his brother coal-miner from Nottinghamshire. A skinny boy from Nottingham, an alabaster carver, only there for a bet with his friend the smith, whittled an image of the Blessed Virgin from a bit of wood. They cheerfully assumed they’d fight, draw wages and go home afterwards — few seemed able to imagine being killed.

  When we had come almost full circle round the camp, we found a sentry asleep. He lay curled on his side, the stave of his pike cradled in his arms, not drunk, merely peacefully sleeping. He’d chosen the wrong time and place for his slumbers. He deserved to be flogged. We had enough trouble to deal with — any traitor could have walked into camp past the lazy, snoring swine. I wondered what Richard would do.

  As it turned out, all he did was bend down and take a grip on the fellow’s collar, yanking him up roughly, like a sack of meal. It was rough, too: the man didn’t know what had hit him. Rudely awoken, he swore thickly, and I think he’d have turned on Richard, if he had not been lucky enough to recognize him in time. He towered over us, more than six foot tall. That was only until he fell on his knees, wobbling like an abject, terrified jelly. He stammered, but could get no word out. It wasn’t necessary.

  ‘Get on your feet.’ There could be no mistaking Richard’s tone — though quiet, it was an order that brought even me out in gooseflesh. The man stood — how I don’t know, his knees shook so. ‘Do that again, and you’ll sleep very sound,’ Richard said. ‘You’ll hang.’ With that he swung on his heel and walked off. I left the sentry to his shakes. I reckoned he’d nearly pissed himself with fright — it was anybody’s guess what tale he’d tell to his mates of the incident.

  Richard went a little way beyond where we had stood before, and halted. For a while he said nothing, apparently staring at nothing, playing nervously with the knife at his belt, clicking it up and down in its sheath. The sound, against the rustle of leaves moved by the breath of night, set my nerves on edge. Suddenly he sighed heavily, burying his face in the crook of his arm. Throughout all the years I’d known him, I had never seen him in such a sagging, wretched attitude. ‘What is it?’ I asked, my heart lurching in anxiety.

  ‘I don’t want to die.’ He spoke barely above a whisper. ‘Not now — there’s too much work to be done. Yet if the battle is lost, I shall die. If that ends these wars, then it may be better for all of us. I can’t fight a civil war for my crown. Tomorrow, I fight, but after that…well, I’m too tired… I’ve no heart left for battles or exile. I’ll not cross the sea to Burgundy a third time. If I had a wife who would suffer by it, or a son to be disinherited, then no doubt I’d think differently. I have neither.

  ‘I tell you all this, Francis, because you and my other friends are those who might suffer. I wish I could offer you the leadership that brings certainty of victory, of future success. But I can’t offer you anything at all. The future seems a blank slate to me. I cannot free my arm from the shackles of my own misery to write upon it. Not until after the battle. I’m glad there are only
a few hours left, five — six, maybe. It’s God’s will now.’

  Without warning, he dropped on his knees in the wet grass, twisting his hands together until the tendons in their backs sprang out like wires, ramming them against his mouth, as if to stop words breaking out. But I caught his stifled prayer.

  ‘Domine,’ he said, ‘Domine Jesu, libera me a morte perpetua…’ Why did he say that: ‘Lord Jesus, deliver me, from death everlasting’?

  Every hair on my head prickled as I watched him. What could one do for a man in such extremity? When I realized the meaning of his words, my heart nearly froze in my body. He had said something almost as frightening to me as it was to him — that if victory were not allowed him, he would will the ending of his own life. A man who did that lost all hope of Heaven. I became desperate to find some words of comfort that would reach him. Kneeling at his side, I said haltingly, ‘Richard — if it should end as you say, and before God, I believe it will never come to that — you mustn’t think of it — then you will not be alone, you have friends.’

  He turned to me and gripped my arm with both hands. ‘You’re as good a friend as any man ever had, Francis.’ The lantern beam lit his eyes; they shone liquid-dark, like some night creature’s caught in a bright light, mirroring a tiny image of my own face in the swollen pupils. Then, as we looked at each other, he said, with a simplicity and honesty that astounded, ‘I’m afraid.’

  I nodded, beyond words.

  ‘Not of death,’ he explained gently, ‘but of being maimed or crippled, of endless pain, of staying alive. As a child, I never knew, when my father was taken at Wakefield, crowned with paper and mocked, when Queen Margaret spat in his face, if he were dead or living. If it comes, I’ve begged God in His mercy to let them kill me quickly.’ I saw his mouth twitch, a muscle flutter in one cheek. A drop of night-chilled moisture was slipping down his temple, under the untidy curls of hair, followed by another, and another, snail-tracks crawling over his cheekbone and round the jawline. Great glinting beads stood even on lips and eyelids. Yet he was shivering, in the small, desperate way of a snared coney; I could feel it through his hands on my arm. I touched him. He was very cold. Under the ribs, his heart raced like a prisoner beating against bars.

  ‘Was it like this before?’ I mumbled.

  ‘Yes. Before Barnet, I had to lock my hands under my sword-belt, ashamed to let the men in my command see them shaking. My strength was the sight of my brother; his head nearly touched his sun banner. I was eighteen then, but it’s just as bad now.’

  ‘You? I’ve never seen you afraid of anything. Though I’m as scared as a chicken chased for the pot.’

  ‘The steel visor on a helmet hides a great deal.’ He pushed back the sleeve from his wrist, touched it. ‘I’m flesh and blood — bone and sinew. No different from the least man in this army.’

  We got up from the ground, stiffly. I began to feel very sick. The physical, knee-knocking fear of bad wounds was on us both. In this state one had only to look at a man carrying a bill to shrink from the thought of meeting it in a belly-thrust, from the hooked prong that opens flesh simply as carving a piecrust. What he had said was an admission as much of my own feelings as his. Yet it seemed strange, to feel Richard, who had become a battle hero when he was very young, shaking and afraid as some green, waged man. With good reason — ordinary men die in battle tossed aside like winnowed wheat, but a king is a coveted prize for which every man Jack with a weapon in his hand plays. And Christ help us, our enemies played with loaded dice.

  These gripings of battle panic had the inevitable effect on my bowels. It takes almost everyone like that, beforehand. We went our separate ways into the dark bushes, weak-kneed, insides somersaulting in alarm. When we emerged, I comforted myself that the waiting would be over very soon, and our fears slaked in the turmoil of fighting.

  As if to challenge our thoughts, the restive, angry squeal of a horse at odds with its neighbour carried across the camp, clear as a trumpet-call over the sea. We both looked up, at the sky. Due cast, a thin line of greenish grey had sneaked into the horizon, revealing the black edge of earth. Our dies irae was upon us already.

  ‘It’s time to arm,’ Richard said. ‘We must be on the move by five.’ I knelt again then, and let my hands rest between his, as I had done in homage when he was crowned. He raised me up, and embraced me like a brother, kissing me on both cheeks and drawing a cross on my brow with his finger. He’d stopped trembling now, was steady-handed. ‘God keep you, Francis,’ he said.

  I was much moved by this gesture of affection and returned it, kissing my friend’s face and signing the Cross on his whole body, brow to breast, shoulder to shoulder, to protect him. ‘God keep you safe, Richard,’ I murmured. ‘God keep your Grace.’

  We walked back together, in silence.

  I entered the stuffy closeness of the tent with him, woke the squires, who, when they had shuffled out of sleep, moved about in a dither of nervous apprehension. It was their first battle. Apart from the few Border raids I had ridden, and a grisly memory of the aftermath of Barnet, it was my first too.

  I began to eat some bread, but my mouth was dry, and swallowing difficult, like trying to chew a dried-out bath sponge. I managed some, but not much, and drank a pint of ale washing down the mouthfuls. His squires tried to persuade the King to take some breakfast, but he refused to eat. This worried me; it was unwise to go without food before long hours in the blazing sun, and for days he’d not eaten enough to keep a fly alive. He drank the cooled ale they offered, and after he’d been shaved, let them arm him.

  Stripped quite naked, he stood for them within the circle of lamplight. It struck me that though his face had aged too harshly, he still had the body of a very young man, almost boyishly narrow and smooth, the skin milk-pale. The bones showed badly under it, standing out on his chest and back; especially on the shoulder that was slightly malformed from an old injury. He was well muscled though, and I wouldn’t fancy trying my strength against him, having been bettered too often. There weren’t many men past thirty who would today wear armour made for them at eighteen; if anything it would be slack on him now.

  Last night the steel had been sanded and burnished glass-shiny, yet still showed scratches like claw-marks from the battering it had taken at Tewkesbury field. It was the finest Nuremberg armourer’s work, very plain, except for a narrow border of damascening on the larger plates of gold suns and roses; the full weight amounted to about seventy-five pounds.

  The body squires did not really need supervising, though they were fumbling a little this morning. I stayed, as I felt it a duty of the King’s Chamberlain to see him made ready for war. They laced him into the thickly quilted arming-doublet of coarse cloth, the smooth, satin-lined side directly against the skin. It was sewn with link-mail patches in all places vulnerable between plates, and cut with holes to let air through, which made precious little difference when the sun on steel fairly cooked you, like an egg on a griddle.

  I saw the younger squire glance upwards, as he pulled points tight, so that the clothing fitted snugly. If it did not, it could ruckle under armour and become an excruciating discomfort. Richard had his eyes shut. The boy looked scared. He went on tying points: the plates now, each one on to the shoes, the blanket-cloth padding to prevent the joints pinching at knees and ankles. Plate by plate they built him up; the golden eyes of the lamps reflected on each fluted surface, their light shivering and running like oil as he moved or breathed. They had got as far as the buckles on breast and backplates, when the King swayed a little as he stood, as a sapling bends before a gust of wind.

  The boy knelt and clutched at one of the lax hands and kissed it, in a fervour of anxiety. I stepped forward. Richard opened his eyes, looking startled; I think he had almost fallen asleep on his feet. He must be close to that half-world, where one is so tired that the body screams for sleep and the mind empties itself even of recognition of the hour, or where one stands.

  ‘What is it?’ he said, �
��Francis?’ He disengaged his hand.

  The distressed young face gazed up at him. ‘If only your Grace would eat — I beg you — it will be such a long day.’

  ‘I cannot. Tom — don’t fuss me.’ His mouth twitched briefly into something resembling a smile. ‘The day will pass very quickly. At the end of it, Lord Lovell and I will see that we eat, drink and fear war no more.’

  ‘But your Grace looks so… Sire, you rock on your feet as if…’

  ‘I’m tired, nothing more. I’ve not slept. It harms no one. Don’t look so worried.’ Richard looked at me wryly, and ran his hands through his hair in an exasperated way, until a mass of dark curls stood out all over his head. He was edgy with tension.

  I said, ‘It’s as the King says, Tom. I’ve not slept much either, but we’ll live through another day.’

  Richard stretched his arms above his head suddenly, irritated, and stifled a yawn. ‘For God’s sake, boy, don’t look at me like that. One would think I’d kicked you.’

  Then he sighed, relenting, and turned the boy’s face up, so the light fell upon it, his hand hard under the chin. Fear was written all over it — fear and idolatry. He was about seventeen, and I knew he’d come to Middleham when he was seven, a Metcalfe from Askrigg. For all his training he had never seen men mangled and dying. It was useless to allow him to dwell on his fear, almost a cruelty to reveal it. Richard snapped his fingers sharply.

  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘arm me. We waste time. You may bear my helm and stay near me today if you wish. Quickly, now… Francis, go and get yourself armed, there’s no need for you to stay.’

  I left rather hastily, and soon had my squires moving so fast that we had no chance to brood on the coming battle. When I was ready, daylight had almost come outside. I went back to the King’s tent, passing through the press of his waiting captains, exchanging greetings. Richard was preparing to leave. The squire tested the free running of his sword through the steel ring in which it hung, the blade naked and ready for use.