Kingmaker: Broken Faith

by Toby Clements

  Thomas finds Jack by the oven and leads him down the steps and out, trudging back up through the muddied paths of the outer bailey, watched by the sheep and their armed herders. There are a few tents to one side, from which oily smoke billows, and at their openings, their inhabitants, dirty-faced men and women, a few children, are hostile. Beyond are a few stalls such as you might find in a market, where there are feathers and linens for sale, shoes, old clothes, bundles of rushes and mattresses already made up, and candles. Thomas can smell vinegar, rotting meat, wet stone, the cesspit.

  And now he can hear the rhythmic tonk of men practising their fighting, something Jack enjoys, both participating in and watching, and next to him the boy picks up his pace, walking on his toes, since someone told him this is how fighting men walk. They pass through the inner postern gate, and then up into the inner bailey, where sure enough they find men in various livery jackets going at one another with various weapons, and the noise and the smell reminds Thomas of some days before – before when? Something comes back to him, another fragment of time: in a small castle on a hill above the sea, and loosing arrows endlessly, all day, every day, falling asleep over supper with his back knotted and aflame. He remembers being shouted at, forced to run, forced to loose his bow. But he remembers laughter too. And something else. Something that leavened it all. A lightness like sunlight, something like that first moment when you realise from one day to the next that spring is really here.

  ‘You all right, Thomas?’ Jack asks and Thomas returns to the here and now.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’

  Jack pats him on the shoulder. Thomas is grateful the boy is there, is grateful that he did not kill him in his brother’s orchard all those months ago, grateful that he saved him from Elizabeth’s vengeance.

  Around them billmen are being drilled in companies, small groups of men-at-arms in harness are making elaborate and simultaneous moves across the worn grass of the bailey, past others fighting with weapons swabbed in cloth. Others crowd around, shouting the combatants on, and there is a pack of archers gathered at the far end, taking it in turns to send their blunts into targets pinned to butts set against the curtain wall. Horner would be happy to see this lot, Thomas thinks, but who are they all, in their various liveries?

  ‘Them is Lord Hungerford’s men there,’ Jack tells him, ‘and them belongs to Lord Roos. That one is Lord Tailboys. Them I don’t know. But look. There are the King’s men.’

  And Thomas looks over. They do not look that different from the other men there, but in their buff coats with their St George’s Cross badges, they hold themselves slightly apart, as if they may be special, and again, they feel slightly familiar and he has to shake his head to invite further revelations, or clear it entirely.

  They walk on, hard-packed earth under their feet, into the shadow of the keep, its lower facade pierced with arrow loops and narrow windows, a spitting guard peering down through the merlons at the top. They pass the keep and enter a service yard where the kitchens are and there is a hubbub of raised voices, and a crowd of men is gathered, all in their various livery coats and badges, many more of them than before, many of whom Jack has never seen, all of them waiting with their backs turned, waiting impatiently for something to eat. And as Thomas walks towards them, he sees something and his heart starts thumping, and his ears roar. He stumbles.

  ‘By Christ,’ he mutters.

  ‘What’s wrong, Thomas?’ Jack asks.

  Thomas is breathing as if he has run a hundred paces. What is it? What is it? His eyes are fixed on the backs of the men in the crowd, and then there it is. He recognises it: a flash of something pale, white, with a pattern of dark shapes. He knows what the shape is: it is the rough approximation of a bird, a crow. But no, now that he knows more of these things, he knows that is more properly the rough approximation not of a crow, for who would have that? No. Instead it is a joke, a heraldic witticism, a play on words, for the bird is not a crow, but a raven.

  Riven.

  ‘Thomas? Bloody hell! What is wrong with you? Oh, Christ! Come on.’

  He feels Jack’s hand on his arm, and shakes it off.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘No.’

  There are two of them in the livery, more besides.

  Part of him is terrified. He knows he must get away, knows that these men will harm him, but part of him is thinking, calculating. Jack has a pail for the ale and a probably blunt eating-knife. Thomas’s eating-knife is definitely blunt. One of the two men in the raven livery carries a bill with a polished blade, the other has a sword bound to his hip, and though he cannot see them, Thomas supposes each must have a dagger too. No, part of him thinks, this is not the time for fighting, and nor are these the men to fight.

  They carry on up towards the knot of men, Thomas sidling towards the two in the livery, though now there are more of them, definitely a gathering. Christ. He feels they are closing in on him, trapping him, as if they know who he is, but his steps seem to be taking him towards them. He cannot stop himself. He starts to feel faint. He had not expected this. He looks for ways out, means of flight, but still, on he goes. And now all around him are armed men in that white livery with the black birds: some full jacks, others sleeveless tabards, grubby, travel-stained, and they are weary-looking men, too.

  ‘It’s all right, Thomas,’ Jack says. ‘It’s all right. All we’re here for is the bread, eh? Bread and ale. That’s all. Then we’ll get you back to Kit. He can see you right. Bread and ale, eh?’

  Thomas finds himself in the queue with the other men. They have not noticed him. Jack is there, talking still. Thomas ignores him. He wants to hear what the men are saying. They want meat and ale, and are complaining to someone, then they are given something, and they step aside, only grudgingly. There is an obscure threat of sudden very bad violence. Thomas’s hands are shaking. Breathing is hard. Standing upright seems more difficult than falling flat. He concentrates on the grit under his scuffed toecaps. And now, a few shuffling paces, and there is a half-door, as in a stable, and behind it, a woman, thickset, rough green dress, white headdress, brown apron, and behind her a man, could be her twin, her husband, both, neither given to suffering fools, though fools themselves, probably. The woman speaks. Asks a question. But the words are at a remove, as if from a distance, not meant for him, and he cannot stop himself turning away, staring at the two men, five paces away now, turned back towards the woman behind the door, and beyond them, there are others likewise dressed. One of them has a disc of something brown that he bites with bad teeth. The other has ginger hair under a felt hat just as flat as his oatcake. Thomas cannot look away.

  Jack is at his shoulder. He leans across Thomas, getting between him and the men, and he holds out the bag to the woman behind the door, and says something, and the woman replies with something sharp and dismissive and throws handfuls of the brown disks into the bag’s depths. Thomas cannot help but keep staring at the men. And then the first man turns. He catches Thomas’s gaze and jerks his head back. He says something Thomas does not understand. A challenge. Within a moment he is stepping up to Thomas, chest out, chin jutting, hand on the hilt of the knife Thomas can now see, and there is probably another one he can’t. The man barks the same phrase, a question, to which Thomas does not know the answer. The second man, ginger, face leaner than a blade, moves forward. He too has a knife, hanging from a leather strap across his chest, and the sword. His eyes are uncannily blue, even in the wet grey light of late afternoon, like one of those dogs. Other men drop back instinctively, delightedly, forming a loose ring, eyes lit up with anticipation. The woman behind the door swings it shut with a bang.

  Thomas is still, unable to move, but Jack turns and manages to get between him and the two men.

  ‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!’ he calls. He has his arms outstretched, holding them apart. ‘We’re just getting bread, sirs,’ he says. ‘That is all. My friend, he means no harm. He has had a bang on the head. Look at him. Look at the white patch. There is
a hole behind there through which you may touch his brains, if you’ve a mind to pay. He looks at people funny. Sometimes he is out of his wits. Come. Come, for the love of St Columba, let us calm ourselves, eh? Reserve our passion for our real enemies.’

  Another man appears. A captain.

  ‘The boy’s right,’ he says. ‘Stop pissing about. First man to draw his blade’ll have his neck stretched before the sun sets.’

  There is a tense moment. Still Thomas cannot speak, nor help staring at the two men. Very slowly, Jack turns and guides Thomas away. There are disappointed groans from the crowd and some entreaties to stay and fight, but Riven’s men are silent, staring, recording, and their hands do not stray from their knives.

  ‘By Christ, Thomas,’ Jack breathes, ‘what are you doing picking fights with men like that?’

  Thomas briefly wonders where Jack learned about men like that, living on a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere, but the boy is quick, and without him, he knows he might well be lying bleeding to death in the yard while men stepped over him to collect their oatcakes and ale.

  ‘We must get back,’ Thomas says. ‘We must tell Kit.’

  When he tells her, she can scarce believe it.

  ‘No!’

  ‘But I saw them,’ he tells her. ‘They are here. In the castle.’

  ‘But Riven was in Cornford! He cannot have come up here! He would not.’

  Thomas shakes his head. She is right. Why would he?

  ‘Unless he has men in both camps?’

  ‘Is that possible? Did you see any captain or vintenar with them? Anything to suggest they were here in someone’s retinue?’

  Thomas shakes his head.

  ‘But there were enough of them,’ he says, and he tells her about how he felt when he saw them. ‘It was as if I was suffocating.’

  ‘He went proper pale,’ Jack adds. ‘And he was staring at those two – by Christ, you should have seen them, Kit. They were fierce as ferrets. Scotch I reckon.’

  The day wears on. Horner sends some men – not Thomas or Jack – out to comb the beach for driftwood, and others with a few pennies to buy more ale, since without it they will parch and wither to nothing. Both parties return with meagre success: the ale is thin and the few sticks and the length of silvered trunk will not burn without throwing off a fat cloud of black smoke and a foul stench. So they sit and they eat their oatcakes and they drink their ale gathered around the smoking bread oven while Devon John sleeps on, alive but senseless. They hear nothing of Grey, and Thomas imagines him in the keep at the board with King Henry and his earls and lords and so on, and all of them talking as if they are like to win this war, but after a moment his mind returns to those two men in Riven’s livery, and what they are doing here. Across the room, sitting hunched in her cloak next to Devon John, Katherine is pressed to the warm stones of the oven, and she too is frowning in thought.

  In the evening the bell in the church tower rings time, and it is their turn to go up the steps into the night to take a watch around the tower’s top. They have a bull’s-eye rush lamp to guide them, and when they emerge on to the tower, there is a strong cold wind off the sea that smells good and there is nothing to be seen except the glimmer of lights from similar lamps in the castle’s other towers and faint glints from the windows of the keep.

  ‘They are as desperate as ever we’ve been,’ Thomas says. ‘They cannot afford to feed themselves, let alone their horses, and there is little or no wood for watch fires …’

  Katherine grunts. She is in no mood to speak, but remains deep in thought. Thomas shines the light out to sea. Pointless. Someone signals to him from another tower. He signals back. They are just as bored. He wanders the tower. Some parts are more malodorous than others. He peers into the night. Then, quire an hour later, Katherine clears her throat and he turns the lantern on her, its ochre light revealing chin, nose, cheekbones and brow, leaving her eyes in darkness.

  ‘Thomas,’ she starts, ‘what if those men you saw today weren’t Edmund Riven’s?’

  ‘But they were,’ he says. ‘I promise. I did not know the badge, or I didn’t know that I knew it, but when I saw it again, I knew who they were. I knew they were Riven’s men.’

  ‘I’m not saying that,’ she says. ‘I’m not saying they weren’t Riven’s men.’

  ‘Then – what?’

  ‘What if they weren’t Edmund Riven’s men? What if they were Giles Riven’s men?’

  ‘Giles Riven’s men? The father’s, you mean? But how could they be? He is dead.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘You told me he was.’

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I know. But – but only because we thought it so. We did not see or hear of him surviving that day at Towton, and so many were killed, it was natural to assume he was, too. But, but what if he wasn’t killed? What if he survived the day?’

  ‘You mean, what if he is alive?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I know you went up there to – to make sure he was killed, Thomas, but you are one man and there were many thousands there that day, weren’t there? And you can remember none of it. I think we assumed that because you were dead, or so we thought – I mean, it is absurd, but that is what I thought – we thought he was dead too. I don’t know why. It made it easier to accept, I suppose. But what if you were knocked down before you managed to kill him? What if that happened? I mean, that is more likely, isn’t it?’

  He says nothing. He sometimes gets flashes of snowflakes in the dusk; of lying face down on a jawless man with a beard of gore thickening into a glaze on his ripped steel plate. He feels cramps of pain, too, in his back and on the side of his head, and sometimes he wakes with his ears ringing with screams, and the tooth-jarring din of steel edge on steel edge.

  ‘You are saying that because I am not dead, nor is he?’

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I do not put it like that. All I am saying is that it could be that neither of you is dead.’

  Of course this makes sense. Why should it be otherwise? But it does not explain why there are men wearing his livery in the bailey below.

  ‘But then, why are they here? They should be with Edmund Riven.’

  ‘Unless, unless they are with Giles Riven.’

  ‘But that means,’ he says, ‘that means, what you are saying, is if those men are Giles Riven’s men, then Giles Riven is here. In this castle. He is in the keep even now, with Grey and with King Henry?’

  And she nods, and he feels a warmth come over him, despite the coldness of the wind and of the stones that surround him, and suddenly he is sure of it. My God, he thinks, Giles Riven is here.

  14

  THEY ARE ON watch at Prime, standing to in the grey dawn, listening to sheep bleat and gulls cry, witnessing the world emerging through the murk of cloud out to sea, watching light fill the castle and reveal its contained world: a tented village from which hearth smoke whispers in trembling ribbons. A thin rain persists. Soon the bell in the church in the village rings the angelus, sounding hollow in the morning’s cold, and Katherine cannot stop herself shivering, like a greyhound, and Thomas tells her it is a good sign.

  ‘It is when you stop shivering you must worry,’ he says.

  It is all right for him, she thinks. He seems immune to the cold. She wonders if it is because he was brought up on that farm, in those hills, or because he is so big? Surely it is no accident that you only see thin people – and thin dogs – shiver? Thomas is solid with muscle, and always, even in the direst circumstances, he looks to be thriving. He is almost impossible to feel sorry for, in that regard at least.

  Of course, he looks miserable now; they both do. They have spent the night awake, pacing the walkway, wracking their brains, trying to remember what happened that day at Towton, trying to envisage a set of circumstances that might place a dead man alive at the centre of the court of an exiled king. In the early hours she persuaded herself she must be mistaken about him, and that Riven must be dead, must be interred with all the other
s who in the weeks that followed the battle were rolled into huge stinking pits, just as he deserved, but now, at dawn, she believes she is right: that Riven is alive, and that she – and Sir John and Richard Fakenham – have lived these last few years in a fools’ paradise, basing their belief that he was dead on flimsy hope and wayward supposition, on an absence of proof rather than a presence.

  She watches as a couple of oxen pulling carts of steaming night soil are lashed through the inner postern gate; there are lines of men on the walkway pissing over the curtain walls, and she looks for any in white livery with that distinctive spread of black birds, but sees none.

  ‘But if Giles Riven is alive,’ Thomas starts as if in reply to something she’d said, ‘he would not be here, would he? He would be with his son. He would be at Cornford.’

  It is a question they have gone over again and again, all night, and yet they remain incredulous.

  ‘But then what are those men doing here if he’s not?’

  ‘Perhaps that livery is all they have left to them? It looked worn.’

  She nods.

  ‘It is possible,’ she supposes, ‘but surely they would have taken up with another lord? One who would look to their welfare and give them his livery to wear in return?’

  Now Thomas nods.

  ‘But if Giles Riven is here, that means he is with King Henry, while his son is with King Edward. A father against his son? It is unnatural!’

  ‘But perhaps,’ she says, ‘perhaps they are not against one another? Perhaps they are waiting to see which way the tree will fall?’

  Thomas considers this and shakes his head. It is too cunning for him.

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘that is too much, surely? And would King Henry trust the father while knowing the son stands with King Edward? No. Nor would King Edward trust the son while the father stands with King Henry. They can only have – have taken up arms against one another, however unnatural that seems.’