Hell had broken loose aboard the carrack. The Flemish crewmen, a motley assortment of sailors armed with clubs, knotted ropes, hatchets, marlinspikes and anything else they could snatch up in a hurry, outnumbered the pirates and fought back savagely.
Most of the fighting was on the maindeck and the aftcastle. Martin spied a group of men dressed in costly furs and silks huddled together on the forecastle, looking like a pack of frightened and rather wealthy sheep: merchants, no doubt, unable or unwilling to lift a hand to defend their investment.
Martin had just seconds to take in the scene before three men sprang at him, wild-eyed and snarling like wolves. The Breton threw himself at one and buried the wickedly sharp steel of his hatchet in the man’s skull, splattering the deck with blood and brains.
That left two for Martin to cope with. He dodged aside as the first man whipped a length of chain at his face.
Martin was barefoot, the better for keeping his balance on the lurching deck of a ship. Still, fighting at sea was new to him, and he lacked the ease of movement he enjoyed on land. His feet skidded on wet timber and he tumbled backwards, scraping his back painfully against the side.
Yellow teeth bared in triumph, the Flemings closed in. The second man stabbed his broad-bladed knife at Martin’s belly. Martin caught the blade on his sword-hilt and turned it away.
It was now he realised his advantage. Tough and brutal as they might be, neither of the Flemings was a trained fighting man. Like any gentleman, Martin had been drilled in the use of weapons since childhood.
The carrack gave another unexpected lurch. Even the Flemings were taken unawares, and staggered slightly as the deck shuddered and righted itself. Martin seized the opportunity and threw himself at them.
“A Bolton!” he roared, hacking at the one who carried the chain, “the White Hawk!”
For the first time in his life he screamed his family’s battle-cry. All the raw emotion, the sorrow and guilt that had curdled inside him since James had galloped into the yard at Heydon Court and gasped out the news of Richard’s death, was expelled in a furious killing rage.
Furious, but controlled. The heavy cutting edge of his sword bit deep into the Fleming’s neck, chopping through sinew and artery. Hot blood pumped from the fatal wound and splashed his comrade’s face, who failed to see Martin’s foot lash out and kick him in the balls.
The dying Fleming crumpled to his knees with Martin’s sword still lodged in his neck. Martin left him, drew his long dagger and thrust it into back of the other man’s head as he lay curled about his private agony. Pulling out the bloodied weapon, he thrust it back into his belt and picked up the length of chain.
He saw Philippé, fighting with the grace and poise of a dancer on the heaving deck. Two Flemings lay at his feet, one dead and the other whimpering and clutching at his guts as they oozed from a sword-slash in his belly. The Gascon fought with sword and dagger, humming tunelessly between his broken teeth as he held off two men at once.
Martin advanced on them, breathing hard as he stepped over the bodies of the men he had already disposed of. He wrapped one end of the chain around his left hand and swung the other in a circle above his head.
The men fighting Philippé had their backs to Martin. He brought the heavy iron chain down with all his considerable strength on the back of the nearest Fleming’s skull. It shattered like a rotten egg. His victim collapsed, axe dropping from nerveless fingers.
“The White Hawk!” Martin howled again. He sprang at the other Fleming and looped the chain over his head and around his throat before the latter had a chance to react.
Snarling, he drew the chain tight and started to throttle the man, whose face turned purple, eyeballs bulging from their sockets.
The Fleming’s struggles ceased when Philippé’s sword thrust smoothly into his heart. He opened his mouth in a soundless scream, puked up a stream of blood, shuddered violently, and went limp.
Martin let the body drop and dumped the chain top of it. He was trembling from so much death and violence, his nostrils full of the stench of blood, his heart pounding.
He bent to pick up the dropped axe, but Philippé laid a calming hand on his shoulder.
“No need, my boy,” he said, “they’ve had enough.”
Martin slowly rose to his full height and looked around. He had inherited his father’s great size and strength, and towered a clear foot over the Gascon.
The fighting was petering out. He counted thirteen dead or dying men strewn about the deck. Most of them were Flemings, though the pirates had also suffered. The giant Breton who had helped Martin aboard was down, his chest transfixed by two crossbow bolts.
Those Flemings still on their feet had laid down their weapons and surrendered.
“Tie their hands and take them below,” ordered Philippé, before turning his attention to the merchants. They, babbling scared and with complexions the colour of fresh milk, were forcibly escorted from the forecastle by a group of grinning pirates.
“Now, gentlemen,” he said, rubbing his hands, “my lord Warwick wishes to discuss business with you.”
Martin left them to their haggling and trudged back to the port side. The brief fight had drained him of energy. Reaction swept through him, and his legs shook as he leaned on the side for support.
The rest of Warwick’s fleet had closed for battle. Some of the merchant vessels showed fight, others simply hauled down their flags and surrendered. Either way, the result was the same.
Martin glimpsed the Swan, Warwick’s flagship, lashed to the side of another Flemish carrack. The Fleming had submitted without a fight, and its captain was being lowered aboard the Swan on a rope to hand over his sword. Warwick himself, with his ally Clarence by his side, stood waiting to receive him on the forecastle.
All that remained of Martin’s family was aboard the Swan.He picked out his brother James, with his shock of red hair, among the men gathered behind Warwick. Mary and her little daughter Elizabeth were probably below, trying to keep out of the way of the men.
For a moment, during the fight, Martin had been able to forget about his responsibilities. Now they weighed heavy on him again. He was the sole living male heir to the Bolton estates – James was a priest, so he didn’t count – and the survival of the family depended on him.
Perhaps that was why, Martin reflected, he kept putting himself in the way of danger. He had volunteered to go aboard the Saint George and join the boarding party.
He didn’t want the responsibility, or feel entitled to it. The civil wars in England had robbed him of his father, his eldest brother, and his freedom. Now it was his duty to avenge their deaths and do all he could to bring down the House of York.
“The White Hawk,” he murmured, staring at the palms of his hands. They were spotted with the blood of the men he had helped to kill.
The White Hawk. He had inherited that burden too. His brother Richard had used it as a title, during his years of outlawry in Lancashire and the Welsh marches. Ballads had been composed to celebrate his exploits.
“This hawk stoops to gather you all…”
Richard was dead, hacked to pieces on the battlefield at Empingham, where the usurper had smashed the rebel army of Sir Robert Welles. Richard’s men had died with him, or else fled the field. The outlaw known as the White Hawk was no more, leaving just a fragment or two of verse that would soon be forgotten.
And yet Martin had shouted the old battle-cry during the fight aboard the carrack. It had risen unbidden in his throat. He could not escape that legacy, any more than he could expunge the blood of his ancestors from his veins.
Martin clenched his fists. “I am my own man,” he said aloud, though no-one could have heard him.
The hollow words were swept away on the breeze, replaced by the mocking, high-pitched cries of gulls wheeling far overhead.
Chapter 3
Westminster
King Edward was in a rage. In general he was of a calm, even-tempered disposition, b
ut the latest news from France had ignited the dark passions beneath his charming surface.
A full-fledged Plantagenet rage was something to behold, albeit from a safe distance. Sir Geoffrey Malvern waited just outside the doorway of the private audience chamber where Edward was giving full vent to his spleen. Geoffrey had witnessed these rages before. They didn’t last long, and Edward usually recovered his poise very soon after the storm had blown itself out.
The king was a huge man, tall and muscular and powerfully-built through constant hunting and exercise. His presence was intimidating at the best of times, but now, with his eyes flashing fire and his fleshy face swollen with angry blood, spittle gathering at the corners of his mouth, he was truly terrifying.
“Is there no end to Warwick’s perfidy?” he screamed, brandishing the tattered remnant of a letter under the nose of a quivering, ashen-faced clerk, “no end to his treachery, his faithlessness, to the blackened depths of his perjured soul? Eh?”
The clerk mumbled that he knew not, Majesty, while keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. Geoffrey almost pitied the man, and the rest of the courtiers and men-at-arms gathered in the room. All were careful to avoid meeting the king’s eye as he hurled away the letter and called the wrath of God down on the heads of the Earl of Warwick, the Duke of Clarence, the King of France, and all who supported them.
Geoffrey leaned against the wall and mused on recent events while Edward enlarged on his theme, describing King Louis, among other things, as the dog-faced son of a syphilitic whore who ought to have been drowned at birth.
After the defeat of the rebels at Empingham, Warwick and Clarence had abandoned any pretence of loyalty to Edward, and fled the country after an aborted attempt at raising a new army. The king had pursued them all the way to Dartmouth. Geoffrey was still pained by the saddle-sores of that gruelling series of forced marches, almost three hundred miles lasting nineteen days.
The news that Warwick had attacked and plundered a Flemish merchant fleet had briefly lifted Edward’s spirits. The fleet had been on its way to Burgundy at the time, loaded down with wines and silks and other goods. Duke Charles reportedly flew into a rage to rival Edward’s when he heard of this act of piracy, and personally gone to the port of Sluys to fit out a fleet of warships, with the intention of putting to sea and hunting down the renegade English earl.
“I don’t want any wine, you God-damned scrivener,” Edward roared, interrupting the train of Geoffrey’s thought. One of the clerks hurried out and fled down the corridor, whimpering in fear and pursued by a silver wine goblet.
Edward’s fury at the King of France, known as Louis the Prudent (or The Spider by those less fond of him) for his clever policy, was understandable. When Warwick had sailed into the port of Honfleur, closely pursued by the English fleet under Lord Howard, he sent a message to Louis asking him for protection.
Louis had granted it. The potential consequences of that decision added an edge of paranoia to Edward’s rage. The exiled Queen, Margaret of Anjou was in France, sheltering at her family home at Saumur in Anjou. Her son, the now-teenage Prince Edward, was with her. What if Warwick chose to throw in his lot with the exiled Queen, and attempt to restore the House of Lancaster to power?
Geoffrey enjoyed the King’s favour, but was not quite in his inner circle of close friends and advisors. If he was, he would have advised Edward to remove one glaring problem by doing away with Henry VI, lodged these past ten years as a prisoner in the Tower. Despite being hopelessly insane, Henry was regarded as the rightful king by surviving Lancastrians. Loyalty to an anointed king died hard, and they still drank his health in remote northern castles and Welsh strongholds.
None of that was Geoffrey’s direct concern. He had come to Westminster, not to advise King Edward, but to beg him to grant a favour.
All had gone quiet inside the audience chamber. He peered around the doorframe and saw that Edward had subsided into his chair, muttering and chewing his lip, his big fists clenching and unclenching. The king was still agitated, but some of the high colour had drained from his face. His guards and courtiers stood with bowed heads. Not one of them dared to utter a sound.
Geoffrey hesitated. Perhaps he should wait? It was a risk to approach the king in the aftermath of a royal tantrum, and Geoffrey preferred to avoid risks. On the other hand, Edward’s natural generosity and affable temper usually returned in a flood.
He took a deep breath, composed himself, and strode into the chamber.
“Majesty,” he said, doffing his hat and executing a graceful bow on the carpet before the king’s chair, “I apologise for my intrusion.”
He looked up and quailed when he saw Edward glaring balefully at him. The king looked displeased.
“I did not send for you, Sir Geoffrey,” he rumbled, resting his chin on his fist, “what do you want?”
Geoffrey swallowed hard before replying. “I…I come to beg a request, Majesty,” he said, “a grant of land.”
Edward’s face darkened. “Just three manors, Majesty,” Geoffrey gabbled on. He was beginning to fear he had made a terrible mistake. “They are in Shropshire, and of no great significance. Their previous owners, the Boltons, have been attainted. The lord fought against Your Majesty at Empingham, and was killed there.”
Geoffrey recalled this satisfaction. After the rebel host fled, he had picked over the battlefield at Empingham and discovered Richard Bolton’s corpse. It was mangled almost beyond recognition by gun-shot and halberd wounds. The banner of the White Hawk had lain nearby, muddy and trampled during the rout, and now resided in a locked chest at Malvern Hall.
The sight of his old enemy, lying lifeless and torn to pieces at his feet, had filled Geoffrey with a warm glow of pleasure. He drew some morsel of comfort from the memory, and met the king’s eyes with a show of courage.
“In Shropshire,” said Edward, “your family seat is there, is it not?”
Relief washed through Geoffrey as he detected the hint of a smile on Edward’s lips. The king, by his own admission, could never resist a rogue.
“Malvern Hall, sire,” Geoffrey replied, “lies just a few miles from Heydon Court, the largest of the three manors I wish to claim.”
The tension in the room palpably eased as Edward stretched and relaxed in his chair, like a bear shaking off his troubles.
“I have never heard of the Boltons,” he said, stifling an exaggerated yawn, “so many families have been attainted. Bloody Lancastrians. Why can’t they accept that their cause is lost? You say the lord is dead, and the rest of his kin have fled the kingdom?”
Geoffrey nodded gravely. “Yes, Majesty. My steward informs me that Heydon Court stands empty. I suspect that the family has fled abroad in the company of the Earl of Warwick.”
Mention of Warwick caused Edward’s jaw to tighten. “There is good land in Shropshire,” he said, “we can’t have it going to waste, and allow crops to rot away in the fields, due to the treachery of their landlords. We must appoint men in their stead. Loyal men.”
Geoffrey stood, palpitating, while Edward weighed him up.
“We will look into the matter,” the king said at last, “and, for the present, make no promises. However, your constant loyalty and good service shall be borne in mind.”
“Thank you, Majesty,” Geoffrey said humbly, “there is one other matter I would address.”
“Name it, while our patience lasts.”
“I have a niece, Kate. She is sixteen, a woman grown, and it is time she was married. I would see her wed to a gentleman of good standing, and loyal to Your Majesty.”
Edward smiled. “I’m sure you would. And you would place the matter in our hands, as if we did not have enough to trouble us!”
He said this with the merest trace of his former irritation. “Go, Sir Geoffrey,” he said wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose and waving the supplicant away, “leave your hopes with us. Everyone else does.”
Geoffrey bowed his way out, ignoring the cynical glances o
f the courtiers. Not an entirely successful foray, he reflected, but the king’s amiable response had given him hope.
Chapter 4
Anjou, France
The heat of high summer was beyond oppressive. James had never been outside of England before, though he had often dreamed of visiting the South of France, along with Italy and the Holy Land.
Now his dream was partially fulfilled, and the reality was threatening to bake him alive. He wore light doublet and hose, with a wide-brimmed hat against the glare of the sun, which hung in the cloudless azure blue sky like a great copper shield, but still the sweat rolled off him.
He and his companion, a French knight, rode along wide dirt roads flanked by acres of vineyards, stretching away as far as the eye could see. Behind them rode sixteen men-at-arms.
Saumur in Anjou was one of the wine-producing regions that made up the Loire Valley. The sight of the vines merrily ripening in the sun was a severe test of James’ resolve. He had not touched a real drink for over eight years.
“Oh Lord,” he muttered, rubbing his dust-dry throat, “do not let my strength fail now. Banish thoughts of temptation from my mind. Banish all thoughts of sweet, sparkling white wines that soothe the throat like golden honey. Banish all thoughts of strong, heavy red wines that cloud the judgment and yet lift the heart. Banish them, Oh Lord, for the sake of thy poor servant, who yearns for nothing more than a drink. Sweet Christ, just one drop of drink.”
“There is water in your pottle,” remarked the knight, whose name was Gauvain, with a knowing grin, “slake your thirst with some of God’s natural wine.”
The knight had been James’ companion since Paris, from where they had both been dispatched with a message from King Louis to Margaret of Anjou. Five days on the road from the capital had been enough for the two men to get to know each other a little, though James was naturally cautious about the information he chose to dole out.
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