Wars of the Roses 01 - Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘That will have to do for the moment, won’t it? Lead on then, Woodchurch. I presume you have a camp of some kind? My men need their rest.’

  Thomas chuckled, liking the man on instinct.

  ‘I do, my lord. Let me show you.’

  He dogtrotted along the road with the English archers, noting the way they ran without sign of weariness. Rowan reached his side and he introduced his son to the men around them. They had eyes more for Rowan’s bow than the man himself, making Thomas chuckle.

  ‘You can try your hand against my son at the archery butts, lads. I’ll put a gold noble on him.’

  The dour archers looked more cheerful at that prospect as they jogged along.

  ‘A betting man, is it?’ Highbury called from behind them. ‘I’ll wager two nobles on my men.’

  Thomas touched his forehead in acceptance. The day had started well and it would get better. He tried to forget the French army marching across the fields and valleys into Maine.

  13

  Surprise was a strange thing, Thomas thought to himself. He could feel it like coins in his hand: heavy and valuable, but something he could spend only once. He’d seen French armies before, but nothing like the neat ranks marching along a main road in southern Maine. The ones he’d known in his youth had been miserable beggars, half-starved and dressed in whatever ragged coats they could steal. In the still air, he could hear French voices singing and he shook his head in irritation. The sound offended some deep part of him.

  The English found their soldiers from the poorest parts of cities like Newcastle, York, Liverpool and London, from mines and fields and apprentices who had fallen out with their masters and had nowhere else to go. He’d been a volunteer himself, but there were many more who were too drunk to resist a tap on the head when the recruiters came through their villages. It didn’t matter how it happened. Once you were in, you were in for good, no matter what you’d planned for your life. It was too much for some, of course, with terrible punishments meted out to those who tried to run. Even if a deserter made it clear on some moonless night, he’d be denounced at home by his own relatives, out for the reward for returning a king’s man.

  Thomas’s thoughts were dark as he remembered his first months of training. He’d volunteered after giving his father a beating that was long overdue. It was either join up or risk the magistrates when the old sod woke up without his front teeth. So many years later, Thomas was only sorry he hadn’t killed him. His father had died since, leaving him nothing beyond the same violent temper simmering beneath the surface.

  He’d met Derry Brewer on his first day, when four hundred young men were being taught to march in time with each other. They hadn’t even seen a weapon that month, just endless drills for fitness and wind. Derry had been able to run the legs off them all and still knock a man down with his fists at the end. Thomas shook his head, distressed at memories that had soured for him. He and Derry had been friends once, but it was Derry who’d given away the Woodchurch land, Derry who was responsible for the diabolical deal for Anjou and Maine. Whatever happened from that point, they weren’t friends any longer.

  Thomas looked over at his men waiting at the treeline. He’d laughed at the dyed green wool they’d used, saying it hadn’t helped old Rob Hood. It had taken time away from archery practice to combine blue woad with a yellow dye that produced the rich colour. Even so, Thomas had to admit Strange had been right about that, at least. Even when a man knew where they were, the bowmen were damned hard to see as they crouched and waited. Thomas tried to find Rowan among them. He’d seen no sign of his family anger in his son, perhaps the result of mother’s milk compared to the vinegar and spit of his own line. Or perhaps he would see it come out in the killing as it had with him. That was another thing he and Derry had shared. They both had an anger that only grew with violence. No matter how hard they hit, it was still there behind the eyes, clawing away in a red room, scratching to be let out. It just had to be woken.

  Slowly, Thomas turned back to the lines of fighting men striding or riding along the road as if they were heading to a saint’s day celebration or a feast. The French had no scouts out and he saw they were dressed warm and snug and carried decent pikes and swords. There was even a band of crossbowmen, strolling along with their weapons uncocked and resting on their shoulders. Thomas clenched his jaw, disgusted with all of them.

  Further back, he could just make out the French royal party, trotting on fine grey horses with bright headpieces of red or blue. It was spring and Anjou was behind them. Every man there had spent months getting drunk and slow on stolen wine. Thomas showed his teeth, knowing they could not see him. His two dozen arrows were ready and he’d spent part of the gold he’d made from wool and mutton on having as many fletched as he could over the long winter. One thing was certain – his men wouldn’t be able to get their arrows back afterwards.

  For a moment, he considered letting the French king come abreast of him before the attack. It could only help their cause if they slotted an arrow down a royal throat and it would sound across France like a struck bell, telling men everywhere that Maine would fight. Yet the king’s personal guard could afford breastplates of thicker iron. Many of them wore extra layers of leather and padded cloth under their armour. It made a crushing weight, but then they were all big, powerful men, easily strong enough to fight under the added burden.

  Thomas hesitated, feeling the responsibility and the advantage of surprise once more. When it was gone, when it was spent, he and his men would be facing an enraged army torn out of their comfort and ease. An army with hundreds of horsemen to run them down like foxes in the trees and fields. He’d seen it happen before and he knew the bitter reality of seeing archers caught in the open, unable to defend themselves before they were cut down. He could not let that happen to Rowan, or Strange, or Highbury, or any of the others who depended on him. Thomas wasn’t exactly certain when he’d become the leader of their motley group, but even Highbury accepted his right, especially after he and Strange had almost come to blows in a discussion of their mutual ancestors.

  Thomas smiled to himself. That had been a good evening, with his men singing and laughing around a huge bonfire in the woods. Perhaps Robin of the Hood had known nights just like it, with his men dressed in Lincoln green.

  He made his decision. The king had to be a target. Just one lucky arrow could end it as it began, and he could not give up the chance. The French army strolled on, just two hundred yards away across bushes and scrubland before the trees opened out on to a vast forest. At Agincourt, England had fielded six thousand men who could hit a target the size of a man’s head at that distance and then do it again, ten or even twelve times a minute. He’d had Highbury’s archers and his own veterans practising each day until they could pass his personal test – when their right arms were strong enough and large enough to crack two walnuts held in the crook of their elbows.

  Thomas stood up slowly in the dappled shade, breathing long and slow. For a quarter-mile, men rose with him, tapping nervous fingers on their bows and shafts for luck. He raised a hunting horn to his lips and blew a harsh note, then let it fall on the thong around his neck and sighted on his first man.

  The closest French soldiers looked round in surprise as they heard the horn sound. Thomas stared down the shaft as a knight in armour rode up along the host of slanted pikes to see what was happening. Some of them pointed in the direction of the trees and the man wheeled his horse, raising his visor and staring into the green.

  Thomas could not read, even if he’d had the knowledge of it. Books blurred to his eyes up close, but at a distance he still had an archer’s sight. He saw the knight jerk as he spotted or sensed something.

  ‘Surprise,’ Thomas whispered. He loosed and the knight took the arrow in the centre of his face as he tried to shout, sending him backwards over the haunches of his mount and falling into the pikemen around him.

  All along the line, arrows punched out from the trees, the
n again in a rhythm Thomas knew as well as breathing. This was why he’d drilled and drilled them until their fingertips were swollen to fat grapes. His bowmen reached down to shafts they’d stuck into the black earth and pulled them free, slotting them on and drawing smoothly. The snap of bows was a clatter he loved to hear. A quarter of a mile and two hundred men loosing again and again into the crowded lines.

  The French soldiers bunched up in their panic, yelling and helpless as shafts ripped into them. Hundreds fell or dropped to the ground and Thomas shouted a wordless challenge as he saw the king’s own guards reel as they were struck.

  The knights around the king were battered and thumped as they raised shields over King Charles and yelled commands. Horns blew across the valley floor and Thomas could see a thousand men or more come charging in. French knights and mounted men-at-arms spurred and kicked their horses hard, drawing swords and galloping towards the strip that had been torn out of their army, the bloody slash that looked as if a giant had crushed a footstep into them.

  Thomas sent three of his precious bodkin arrows towards the king before he focused again on the men in front of him. The destruction was greater than even he had hoped, but it meant fewer targets and he saw dozens of shafts pass through scrambling men and miss completely.

  ‘Aim for knights and horses!’ he roared along the line.

  He saw a hundred archers turn almost together, seeking out the same targets. More than one knight galloping to the rescue was struck by a dozen shafts, to fall broken and dead before he hit the ground. Thomas cursed to see the king flailing in his saddle, visibly alive though the noblemen around him showed red blood on their armour. They began to move the king back through the press of men riding in and still the archers shot and shot, until they reached down and their fingers closed on empty air.

  Thomas checked his own quiver as he always did, though he knew it was empty. Twenty-four arrows had gone in what seemed like a heartbeat and by then the French army looked like some fool had knocked over a beehive. They formed up over the heaps of dead as the arrow storm began to falter.

  It was time to run. Thomas had been staring in delight at the chaos, fixing the scene in his mind. Yet it was time and he dragged his attention away from the enemy. A last glance confirmed the French king was still alive, being hustled back by his men. Thomas found he was panting and he struggled to take a deep enough breath to sound the horn.

  At the signal, his line of archers broke instantly, turning their backs on the French and racing off through the trees. More horns sounded behind them and once again Thomas knew the sick terror of being hunted.

  His breath was harsh and loud as he crashed through bushes and around trees, jarring his shoulder on a branch as he tried to duck under it and falling, only to scramble up again at full speed. He could hear the snorting of horses pounding the earth as armoured knights reached the treeline and forced their way through.

  Over on his left, he saw one of his men fall and from nowhere a French knight appeared, aiming a lance into the man’s back as he staggered to his feet. Thomas put on another burst of speed, appalled at how fast the French had gathered themselves. He hoped desperately that it was just one knight ahead of the rest. If they were that quick on the counter, he’d lose half his men before they reached the meadows beyond.

  He heard hooves close behind him, with a jingle of harness. Thomas jinked from instinct, hearing a French voice curse as a knight missed his strike. The man’s lance point dropped and wedged in the earth, though the knight was too canny to hold on to it. Thomas didn’t dare look back, though he heard a sword drawn over the noise of his own racing steps. He cringed, expecting the strike as the forest brightened ahead of him and he realized he’d covered half a mile as fast as he’d ever run in his life.

  Thomas broke out into spring sunshine, finding himself facing a line of archers with bows raised towards him. He threw himself down and they sent quick shots over his head. He heard a horse scream and, as he lay gasping, he looked back for the first time, seeing his pursuer crash to the ground at full speed as his horse collapsed with its lungs pierced.

  Thomas forced himself up and on, red-faced and gasping as he staggered to the line and the second set of quivers they’d prepared. He thanked God the younger men had been faster than he was over rough ground. The fallen knight was beginning to rise when Thomas drew a new arrow and sent it through the man’s neck.

  The meadow was wider than it was deep, an open strip of ferns and heavy thorn bushes, with a few stubborn oaks around a pond. It had been the obvious place for his men to fall back to, the fruit of local knowledge from boys who used to play and fish for newts there when they were young.

  Thomas looked along the line for Rowan and breathed in relief when he saw him standing with the others. They’d lost a few men in the mad dash through the woods, but before he could call to his son, the trees erupted, mounted knights scattering small branches and leaves as they rode hard into the sunlight.

  They died just as hard, hammered and battered as they entered the open space. The last of Thomas’s archers staggered among them, some dying from their wounds. One or two of those were killed by their friends as they shot at anything they saw moving.

  Thomas waited, trying to control his racing heart. He could hear crashing and horns blowing in the forest, but the numbers breaking through to them dwindled to nothing and he stood there, waiting. Surprise. He had used it all. The French knew they were in a fight for Maine. He cursed aloud at the thought of the French king still among the living. Just one arrow in the right place and they would have won it all in a day, perhaps even saved his farm and his family.

  He waited for a time, but no more knights came through and Thomas reached for his horn, only to find it gone, with a painful stripe along his neck to show where it had lain. He could not remember it being torn free and he rubbed in confusion at the red welt before raising his fingers to his lips and blowing a sharp tone.

  ‘Away!’ he called, gesturing with his aching right arm.

  They turned immediately, trotting as fast as they could into the trees beyond. Thomas saw a couple of men bearing a friend, while others were left behind to bleed and cry out in vain. He closed his ears to the voices calling after him.

  Margaret loved the Tower of London. It wasn’t just the way it made Saumur Castle look like a charcoal-burner’s shack in comparison. The Tower was a complex of buildings as big as a village in its own right, girdled in huge walls and gatehouses. It was an ancient fortress protecting the most powerful city in England, and Margaret had begun to explore every part of it, making it hers in her mind as she had done with the Crow Room and the secret passages at Saumur.

  London in the spring brought fresh breezes that were quite unable to carry away the stink of the city. Even where Roman sewers had survived, heavy rains summoned ancient filth to the surface, flowing as a tide of slurry down every hill. On most streets, pots of urine and faeces were thrown out into a deep slop of animal and human dung, trodden down with the rotting guts of animals and the congealed blood of slaughtered pigs. The smell was indescribable and Margaret had seen the wooden shoes Londoners wore over their boots, raising them up high so they could go about their business.

  She had been told that if the planets were aligned in some way she did not understand, poisonous vapours arose and summer plagues would rip through the population. William said there had been even more people when his father was a child, with war and pestilence taking a terrible toll. Outside the city, whole villages had been left to grass and weeds, with their inhabitants all fled or boarded into their houses to die and be forgotten. Yet London survived. It was said that the people there were hardened to it, so they could breathe and eat almost anything and live.

  Margaret shuddered delicately at the thought. On that spring day at the Tower, she could see pale blue skies and white clouds hanging like a painting above her head. Birds flew and the air seemed sweet enough up where she walked the crown of the walls, speaking t
o blushing soldiers as they found themselves under the scrutiny of a fifteen-year-old queen.

  She stared south, imagining Saumur Castle across the sea. Her mother’s letter had made their financial situation clear, but that was one thing Margaret had been able to put right. With just a word from her, Henry had agreed to send twelve hundred pounds in silver coins, enough to run the estate for two years or more. Margaret frowned to herself at the thought. Her husband was most amenable. He agreed to anything she wanted, but there was something wrong; she could sense that much. Yolande had returned to her husband’s estate and she dared not confide in anyone else. Margaret considered writing a letter, but she suspected they would be read, at least for the first few years. She wondered if she could find a way to ask questions about men that would not be understood by Derry Brewer. She shook her head as she stood there, doubting her ability to get anything past that infuriating man.

  The subject of her thoughts broke in on them at that moment, clambering up to the highest point of the walls and smiling as he saw her.

  ‘Your Royal Highness!’ he cried. ‘I heard you were up here. I tell you my heart’s in my mouth at the thought of you falling to your death. I think it would mean war within the year, all from a loose stone or a single slip. I’d be happier if you’d accompany me back to the ground. I think the guards would be as well.’

  He came up to her and took her arm gently, trying to steer her back to the closest set of steps heading down. Margaret felt a spike of irritation and refused to move.

  ‘My lady?’ Derry asked, looking wounded.

  ‘I won’t fall, Master Brewer. And I’m not a child to be shepherded to safety.’

  ‘I don’t think the king would be happy at the thought of his new wife on these walls, my lady.’

  ‘Really? I think he would be perfectly happy. I think he would say “If Margaret wishes it, Derry, I am content,” don’t you think?’

  For a moment, they both glared at each other, then Derry dropped his hand from her arm with a shrug.