Kings of Albion

by Julian Rathbone

  About mid-morning we heard trumpet calls and drum-beats and, Here we go. I thought, but, no. it was for a parley that they sounded. Out of the more distant ranks now serried in front of the forest to the south came twenty or so horsemen with a herald's trumpet in front, carrying big banners covered with the complicated devices all Europeans carry into battle as means of identification. Though how an ordinary soldier is meant to distinguish each from the other, to know friend from foe in the heat of battle, without a dictionary of heraldic devices as part of his battle-kit, defeats me. Probably defeats him too.

  Our popinjay, now mounted since the ground on the rise was firmer than below, shaded his eyes and spoke to a couple of similarly mounted and armoured young men who had come up to join him. 'Oh, Christ, it's the Godgang,' he exclaimed.

  'Godgang, Justin? What's a fellow meant to make of that?'

  'Bishops, dear Maurice. There's old Bourchier there, Archbish of Canterbury, can't mistake his white beard. Cousin of York's, ain't he?'

  'Brother-in-law, son of. And that's Salisbury with him." the third chipped in.

  'You're talking through your arse-hole, old chap. Salisbury's even longer in the tooth than the Archbish.'

  'God, Maurice, what a wanker you are. It's the Bishop of Salisbury not the Earl. And that swarthy character with him must be Coppini. Pope's legate. Wop. Eyetie.'

  'Question is, what are they up to?'

  'I reckon they'll try to get to the King and say it's not him they're after but the Queen and all her people, and if he'll come quietly there won't be a battle.'

  'Well, it might work. The old fool can't stand fighting. Nasty men bashing each other with axes. Gives him a headache.'

  'Old Staffers won't let them through, though, will he?'

  'Not a chance. With this hill in our favour and the cannon, we can't lose. Staffers is spoiling for a battle. Get them out of the way and we can get down to London and sort out poor old Scalesy. He's been locked up in the Tower since Christmas.'

  'I say. though, those chaps do seem to have an awful lot of chaps with them. Must be getting on for twice our lot.'

  'Don't worry, Maurice. We've got the cannon, right?'

  'Sure, you're right. No need to worry then. I'd better be getting back to the headman.'

  And the one called Maurice trotted off with a great jangling and clanging of armour, leaving our man and Justin behind.

  'Who's Morrers with, then? And why is he wearing that black stick thing on his helmet?'

  'Lord Grey of Ruthin. Local chap. Joined the King because he reckoned he'd get help in a land dispute with his neighbour. Don't trust them an inch. If Warwick offers him a better deal he'll change sides.'

  'Still. We do have the cannon.'

  'Oh, yes. We have the cannon.'

  It began to rain again.

  It was all over by four o'clock. Peter and I had a good view of it and what we couldn't see we pieced together later.

  First, the bishops rode back at about one o'clock, and since there was no reaction we supposed rightly that they had failed in their mission. Then Peter started hollering and shouting, 'Kick it, you stupid bastard, pass, pass the ball. Oh, he's lost it, the silly fucker…' and a lot more of the same and I could feel his hands tugging at mine so he wrenched my back into the trunk of the apple tree then gave my shins a jolt as he tried to mime kicking with his feet. I truly thought the battle had started, that the Yorkists had somehow got behind the King's lines and were rampaging along the river bank behind us, but, no, it was the footballers. I have to tell you, Mah-Lo, many Inglysshemen, and some of their women too, take these games very seriously indeed.

  Then: 'Oh, no, the bastards, what are they doing?'

  'You tell me.'

  'The King's rearguard are seeing them off They've – I do not believe it – they've taken their ball from them… They're all going home! They can't believe it's all over… But it is, for now.'

  And he went on shouting and swearing about it so I wasn't able to tell him what was happening in front.

  First there was another blast of trumpet calls, then the Yorkists below began to move forward. The man called Justin and our popinjay trotted off through the rain, which was now coming down like rods or the lances of the advancing army. I could see them moving about the cannon, and even how they were blowing on the fuse, trying to get a spark going, and indeed there was a puff of smoke and a glimmer of a flame, but instead of a bang a sound like nothing so much as a loud fart. The ball almost rolled out of the muzzle, trundled a few yards down the slope before it stopped and sank into the mud a clear hundred yards in front of the Yorkists. They gave a great cheer and quickened their movement up the slope as fast as the mud and rain would let them. Which was not very fast.

  Going uphill, through the mud, the horses could not make it, not with the weight of their own armour as well as their riders'. The knights dismounted, or slid off their high-pommelled saddles, and waded up the hill with their men. They were a strange sight, like giant mechanical dolls such as I've seen at Byzantium. On their helmets they had huge crests in the forms of animals' and monsters' heads, trees, eagles with spread wings, castles, ships, even, giving them two or three feet more in height over the rest. If they stumbled and fell it took four men to get them up again, yet few were hurt. A well-placed arrow might find the chain-mail in their crotches, or a joint in their armour, but otherwise their plate, rounded and pointed, never presenting a flat face, turned the missiles.

  And, of course, when they finally got amongst the ranks of the enemy, if they ever did, they were ruthless executioners of everything that came their way, smashing all the common soldiers in their slighter armour, with huge blows from maces, axes, or broadswords four feet long, which inflicted terrible wounds, crushing skulls, slicing through shoulders into ribcages, causing blood to fountain up everywhere and severing arms thrown up in supplication.

  Below me, the fight was even since the cannon were useless in the rain: the Yorkists had more men, but the King's side had that hill, which on account of the thick, greasy mud was even more of an advantage than ever.

  It was a different story, however, on the eastern side of the field where the marsh and brook were. Here, the advance was held up by the waterlogged ground; here, too, the lords and knights had to get off their horses, which could carry them no longer, and wade with their men towards the rampart and the stakes. As they came they faced salvo after salvo of arrows from those wicked longbows and men began to fall. And right in the middle and at the front, with arrows bouncing off his shield, waving a huge sword and shouting at his men to follow him was an awesome figure of a man. Somehow I knew who he was, even at that distance. Something in the way he held himself, something about the way he flourished that sword made me certain I had seen him before: Eddie March? Maybe.

  The cannons had failed but the longbows, the clinging mud and the rain were doing their work. It looked for a few minutes as if the Yorkists were not going to make it to the ramparts and certainly not over them, not for as long as the bowmen had arrows to shoot, but then it all went wrong for Stafford, Duke of Buckingham and the King.

  The line between the bowmen dicing March and the cannon just below me was held by a thousand or more wearing that black stick badge. Lord Grey of Ruthin's men. Hardly any arrows had been fired from this sector and as the first Yorkists, led by a lord in full armour, tramping and clanking up the hill, reached the rampart. Lord Grey's men leant over it and helped him across!

  Well, that was that. Grey's men turned themselves round, save those who continued to help the Yorkists, who were soon flooding through the gap and tanning out to the left and the right on our side of the fortifications. The King's men realised they were beaten and ran for it round the ridge and back to the Nene.

  Now it was Peter's turn to tell me what was happening.

  'Oh, the poor buggers,' he exclaimed. 'They can't get across the ford – the river's too full and fast and the bridge is too narrow. They're cutting them up l
ike – like – so many bushels of rye in July. Ugh! Blood everywhere. The river's running with blood. It's a shambles. I can see the Duke. Stafford. Duke of Buckingham. He's trying to rally them, make them turn and fight. Oh, no. He's down. Oh, the poor sod. His standard's down too. There's about six men hacking at him. He doesn't stand a chance. Oh, that's it. They've got his head off, stuck it on a lance. Jesus, there goes the King. Ducking and weaving like a chased fox, heading for the bridge. There's men of his letting him through. He'll get away. Yes, he will. Oh, no, he won't. He's run up against an archer. Drawing his bow at him. Ooops, that's it, the Yorkists have got him, they're taking him back to his tent… Well, at least they haven't cut his head off. Yet.'

  At this moment a Yorkist knight came puffing up on to the crown of the hill and, seeing us and our predicament, assumed we must be enemies of the King and therefore friends of York, so cut us free.

  He stood beside us as we rubbed our chafed wrists and ankles and, indeed, supported me for a minute or so, since my knees were buckling under me. We told him we hadn't eaten for twenty-four hours save a crust of bread, so he scouted about a bit and came back with bread and cheese and a canister of milk. Nice lad, for all that the surcoat over his breastplate was splashed with blood, not his own.

  Now there was a sudden stillness over all the field for in the entrance of his tent stood King Henry, lean and gangly, pale, his head shaking and his fingers twining in and out in front of him as, no doubt, he considered, as best his fevered mind would allow, how to behave. Should he fall on his knees and beg for his life?

  But no. It was the Yorkists who knelt, and such was the silence that even at that distance one felt one could hear the creak and clang of their jointed armour.

  'Odd behaviour for the winners,' I muttered.

  First they unbolted their visors and lifted off their plumed and absurdly crested helmets so when they now stood I could clearly discern the one I knew: Eddie March, yes, it was he, his light brown hair darkened with sweat, his face still red from the heat inside the helmet and the effort of fighting while shut inside a hundredweight or so of metal. The heraldic devices on his shield were similar to the ones on the King's banner: gold lions on red, quartered with silver lily flowers on blue. I wondered if there was some magic in this, or calculated insult, but forgot to ask about it until the reason for it became obvious.

  On this occasion, before I could give the matter any thought, Warwick, dark, big, handsome, a man in his prime in contrast to Eddie, who was not yet eighteen, having made the obeisance due to the man who was still king, the Lord's Anointed, as they said, threw back his head and bellowed like a bull: 'So Where's the fucking Queen, then? And the bastard they call the Prince of Wales?'

  At this point Ali, whose speech had been getting slower and slower, yawned and fell silent.

  The rain had begun to ease as dusk gathered; the Burmese returned from the bushes and leapt into his lap. He tickled her under the chin.

  I heard a doorlatch click and looked across the pool and into the verandah. His two wives, veiled in muslin but as lovely with rounded breasts and slim waists as their aunt, were coming towards us.

  'Come back tomorrow, dear Mah-Lo,' said Ali, 'and we'll hear what had been happening to Uma.'

  PART IV

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I create something of a stir as I walk through the countryside in my robes, for most people know and venerate the idol whose raiment I have assumed. 'Venerate' is not the right word, for she is more than a goddess, the mother of god. she is a familiar, a friend. There is a world of difference, I soon discover, between the way the dignitaries of the Church approach their icons and that pursued by the common sort. The former make obeisances, offer formal prayers, incense, magnificent jewellery, much of it real, and precious metals. Thus they hope to make these images remote and unapproachable, objects of awe, inspiring fear, even. Through these means the images become legitimators of their own authority and rule, justifications for the taxes and tithes they impose on the poor.

  The latter, however, in spite of all this, endeavour to keep in their hearts the particularity of their most local image of the mother and therefore the particularity of the mother herself. The Virgin of Coventry is not the same as the Virgin of Nottingham or Walsingham: she is theirs alone, and no one else's, someone they recognise, can talk to and confide in, adore rather than worship, and who may be capricious, unreliable, but is part of their lives, is the reason why their crops grow, their wives are fertile and, when the time conies, their deaths repose in her arms.

  And so, when they see her walking down the lanes, across the hills, on the banks of the river, through their fields and villages, wearing her high gold crown, her blue mantle, her black dress and the jewelled accoutrements of her goddesshood, they welcome her, with some solemnity, some awe, but mostly with a childlike desire to please her… and a childlike faith that she will sort out whatever problems are pressing them at this moment. In all this they share with the people of our own country a genuine religion unmediated by the contrivances of the bosses.

  For my part I am, at this time, in a dazed and confused state of mind. Weeks of torture followed by months of deprivation of everything but life itself and the determination to live have left me weak in mind and body. I seem to float slowly but almost effortlessly across the ground, I hear a voice chanting in high, flute-like registers songs of love and gratitude to Parvati and hardly dare believe, it is so beautiful, that it is mine. The villagers strew cherry and apple-blossom petals in my path and moan with pleasure when I solemnly sway and turn and let them see my golden slippers as I dance to their wailing pipes, drums and tambourines, or signal the way to heaven with my twisting arms.

  They feed me too: on cream and cheeses as the meadows fill with grass again; on last year's honeycomb, on fish, on bread, butter, coddled eggs and, as the month turns, waxy beans from wool-lined pods then peas, and salads made from sorrel shoots and hawthorn buds. And they are not surprised when I refuse the flesh of newborn lambs, rabbits, hens or pigeons.

  I never outstay my welcome – or, rather, I never stay in one place long enough for the magic to wear off, in case what are human and woman in me become more evident than the goddess. And while their faith remains I can perform miracles. Old women on their death-beds rise up… or, if they do not, they sink into sweet, easy sleep with soft smiles on their faces; a young child, who in all his seven years has never said a word but grunts and mews, says the Hail Mary before lapsing back into meaningless splutters – or so his grandma tells us all; a man who fell out of an apple tree at harvest time and has not walked since hops out of bed to get a better view of me as I pass; and a pony that was almost lame walks almost straight when I ride on her back.

  And through all this I prosper. The flesh gathers in my breasts and buttocks again…

  At this point Uma leant back in her chair and gave her breasts, beneath her bolero, flame-coloured today, a proud and joyful shake. I have to remind myself that the mature lady who is talking to us was once the winsome creature, still in that borderline country between late girl and full woman, she is telling us about.

  … my skin regains its creamy fresh smoothness, the shadows of pain and loss that lay round my eyes recede. I revel in the return of spring and summer, the heaped-up snow of hawthorn smelling like the cunts of virgins just at the moment when they take their first cocks between their lips, the drifts of parsleys and chervils beneath them, Solomon's seal with its white waxy testicles dangling below its fleshy leaves, then later the dog-roses, honeysuckles, and tall stands of foxgloves, meadows sheeted with golden buttercups…

  Why are you looking so bored? You have heard all this before from Ali? I am sure he cannot speak of it all with the knowledge I have, or bring to it the love I felt… these northern springs. We have the glory of our gardens, fields and forests, but they do not change in the same way with the turn of the year, it is not the same glory. Grander perhaps, but not the same. You were not bored? The
imagery I employed to describe the hawthorn smell? Well. Well. Take me as you find me. Never mind. I'll push on. Where was I? Getting better…

  Yes, indeed. By the middle of the year, when the villagers are partying beside their midsummer bonfires, when the hay is cut and the wheat beginning to yellow and the rye is five feet tall and, when the breezes breathe across it, shot with blue like watered silk, and behind every hedge and in even- woodland clearing boys have their hands on young girls' breasts or under their bums, and the girls wind their thighs around the young boys' hips and cling to their necks with arms like the boughs of beech trees or poplars and the swallows and white-rumped martins swoop along the rain puddles skimming the water-skin for drink and gnats' eggs, I grow tired of my Virgin's garb, the adulation of the mostly old and feeble that goes with it, and the awed respect of the men I meet. And, anyway, I am bursting out of it as my body returns to its usual shape. It's time to seek a new persona. And maybe Eddie March as well.

  I have been of two minds about where to head. Some days I have been pulled to the south by a longing for Eddie, on others I have headed north and west knowing that in that direction lay the place where Prince Harihara's lost brother might be found and to find him might well mean reunion with Ali and the rest. Anyway, I am somewhere towards the north-west of the country, not fir I think from the borderlands between Ingerlond and Gwalia, of which more later, when, in a fertile undulating plain of forest and farmland laced with small rivers, with a castle in the distance on a low hill called Malpas, I spy a young knight pricking down the winding track on the back of a very big orange-coloured gelding. And, to be frank, I feel a sudden urge to have this lad as a surrogate for Eddie. I also have at the back of my mind the thought that if I can get him to get his kit off and maybe take a nap, I might get myself a new disguise.