When they get there Tailboys’s men are busy loading his baggage on to mules. Heavy bags that set the animals staggering. Everyone else – all the women and the children and the cripples and the old men – is pressing along the river downstream, following its turns, a thousand paces or so, hurrying to where the trees thin and the ground rises, and there is a view of the hill to the east where the men will be. When she is there, she climbs up on a tree stump, awkward in her skirts, with John readying his arm to catch her should she fall, and she shields her eyes against the rising sun and watches the figures of men hurrying up the slope to the crest. After a moment John Stump climbs up beside her. More of the women from the camp join them, craning their necks. What can she see? What can she see? There are hundreds of men struggling in a swarm like ants up a hill. There is little sign of any organisation, but there are banners and standards and there are groups of men in similar livery gathering across a front that runs away from her where she stands.
While they wait, she wonders if there is any woman to ask for advice about her sickness. Behind them, along the river a little way, is a chapel attached to a small gatehouse or castle, not unlike Bywell, she thinks, only even smaller, with one small turret, filled just then with a crowd of men and women watching, just as if they were at an entertainment.
‘By God, look,’ John shouts, pointing. ‘He’s bloody well done it!’
And there is a burble of approval and admiration. Somerset and his men have made it to the top of the hill. There are still plenty hurrying to join them, but enough have made it up and now their banners and flags are raised on its crown, and she can hear the drummers and the trumpeters are up there too, going at it, and now, at the foot of the slope, she can just see more flags coming into view, and she supposes this must be Montagu and his men, though for the moment they are hidden behind the rise.
She remembers the only other battle she has watched like this – outside Northampton, standing with all the women and that Italian bishop, by the stone cross in the rain – and she sees there is a rhythm to these things. Once the men are placed, there is a pause for prayers and then a moment for something else. Reflection? Reconsideration? Regret? What? She does not know. Then when that is over, the commander might say something to encourage the men and instil within them a certainty as to the justice of their cause and that God is on their side and that He will look over them. Then the archers will stride forward and the battle will commence.
She thinks of Thomas up there, and how he must be feeling, and she prays without praying for him. Around her all the women seem to know which flags the knights carry, and they are collected in groups themselves, so that all Tailboys’s men’s women stand together, and all Roos’s men’s women stand together, and they seem knowledgeable about almost every aspect of what is to come: dispositions and wind direction, vantage points, where the pressure will first be felt, then where it will most be felt. They have a low opinion of Roos and Hungerford’s men – despite the presence of their women – and are unrestrained in voicing it.
‘Cowards,’ one of them says. ‘They’ll break today, that is for sure.’
‘Let’s hope they run the other way this time.’
And heads are turned and there is some ill feeling.
She is surprised to find they are not especially concerned for the safety of their men. Or perhaps they do not talk of it? But they are on tiptoes, faces craned, like children watching a mummers’ play, and then one of them says: ‘Here we go’ and there is a collective drawing in of breath, and after that there is total silence as they watch the arrows fly. From this distance the shafts merely smudge the distant sky, an impression, like smoke in autumn, but the women know how crucial these moments are, and Katherine remembers Walter – was it? – telling her that any battle was decided in these first moments. If everything else was the same, he said, whoever loosed the most the fastest would win.
Today those loosing downhill with the sun behind them, and even – is it possible? – the slightest wind, might be expected to prevail, to inflict such damage on those coming at them up the slope from below that the battle will end almost before it has begun, and one of the women, an old one – stained apron, green dress, sleeves rolled up to reveal arms like legs, and a great wrap of linen tucked in tight around her face – says you always know who will win the day about now, and she snaps her fingers, and though John Stump says that is rubbish, Katherine watches the woman’s expression, and sees her wrinkles deepen as she frowns at what she’s seeing, and then as she comes to understand it, she shakes her head and sucks her remaining teeth.
‘Run out of arrows,’ she says.
And she says no more. Everybody understands. Somerset’s archers have loosed all they have – too few – and they have let Montagu’s men off the hook, and now it is Montagu’s men who keep up their attack, and it easy to imagine what that will do to Somerset’s archers. There are groans among the women. Wailing too.
‘We should be ready,’ the old woman says. ‘There will be plenty of wounded.’
But there is nothing to ready. This battle was not supposed to happen today, everybody said so, and there has been little time to collect urine and make bandages and so on. John Stump is quivering and bright-eyed with excitement, fuelled with a strange sort of lust, flapping his stump as if it were a wing. He does not want to go and cut cloth for bandages. He wants to watch the battle.
And now there is a swelling roar from the hill, and another great drawing in of breath around her, and she looks back and she can see that Montagu’s men are moving forward in that same way they did at Hedgeley Moor – implacable, organised, relentless – and she can see their banners and standards waving, and she wonders for a moment if she can see in there among them that white flag with the black ravens, but she is imagining it, she supposes, and anyway, she is too far away to see details such as that. She watches the Duke of Somerset’s men moving down to meet Montagu. They are less even, more ragged. Many fewer. Then two lines meet and a moment later she hears a slow rippling crash that breaks in her ears like a wave collapsing along the length of shingle.
Prayers are begun by the river now, a gentle hum, and hands and rosary beads are wrung. A pale-faced boy – he might be eight, and still too young to carry arrow bags, if there were any to carry – constantly crosses himself, over and over and over again, while a girl next to him kisses the cross on a wooden beaded rosary. The paternoster is begun and joined in with.
But in the end it is not enough.
Not all Somerset’s men commit to the defence of the hill, and though she cannot understand it, or make it out herself, she can detect the tone of the questions the women are asking one another. Natural incredulity turns to forced incredulity as they refuse to accept what they are seeing, and then it turns to anger.
‘They are! They are! Look. Oh, the bastards! They’re breaking. The cowardly bastards!’
She sees first one man come running over the back of the field. He streaks away from the fight, comes running around the hill, blundering through the heather and the long grass. Then there are more. All of them come from the far end of Somerset’s line, and they come racing down the hill towards the camp. She is about to ask who they are, and what they are doing, but there is sudden fidgeting among the women, and some have already turned and are hurrying back toward the camp. John mutters.
‘Those bastards,’ he says. ‘Those bastards.’
‘What is it?’
‘They’ve broken,’ he says. ‘Hungerford and Roos. Same as before.’
‘Where are the prickers?’ a woman cries out. ‘Why don’t someone stop them?’
‘We’ve not enough men for prickers,’ John tells the woman, but she only looks at him as if it were his fault.
‘Will the others hold?’ Katherine asks.
‘We’ll see,’ John mutters, but he sounds doubtful. They watch. Nothing is clear. Long moments pass. There is turmoil in the front and back of Somerset’s lines. Hundreds of men are m
illing about. Most will be archers, many will be those breaking rank.
‘Thomas will be away by now, won’t he?’ she asks.
And John nods but will not look at her.
‘Aye,’ he says. ‘Should be. Best be, anyway. He’s a big lad, but without any plate, he’ll not want to be caught up in that.’
They watch more of Hungerford and Roos’s men come running and a little further down the stream, their women begin hurrying back up towards the camp to meet them, and they look guilty but also relieved, and they ignore the muttered insults as best they can, but no one has time for any fighting now, and most eyes are on the field above.
‘The Duke’ll hold!’ a woman cries out. ‘He’ll hold!’
‘Pray to God.’
But the prayers fall on deaf ears, for the men keep detaching and coming back down the hill, and soon there are more behind the line than in it, and it becomes clear Somerset cannot hold, and the news somehow communicates along the length of the front, and within a few moments, those at the back of the divisions, from left to right flanks, are turning and streaming away while they have the chance, leaving those at the front to fight alone, and now those men on the left, Thomas’s wing, start to peel away and they turn their backs on Montagu’s men and they run, and soon the whole army is in retreat, turning the hill black with their numbers, stumbling back, canting west, back towards the camp and the rushing line of the Devil’s Water.
‘Oh, Christ,’ John Stump says. She looks down. Most of the others are gone. It is just her, John Stump and a few other women. One looks up.
‘Best be gone, love,’ she says. ‘This’ll soon be no place for a pretty girl.’
And Katherine knows she is right. Around them the women have turned and are racing for the fords over the river behind. Skirts are hauled up, and fists swing, and the weaker are shunted and pushed aside in the scramble. Women are wading through the brown waters, arms and legs pumping, to scramble up the far side, just to get away, to try to melt into the countryside.
‘We must be across before they come,’ John says. ‘Come on!’
And he grabs her hand and pulls her from the tree stump.
‘What of Thomas?’ she calls.
‘He’ll want you gone.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘I’ll not leave him again.’
‘You must! Come on!’
‘No! He would not leave you if you were there!’
She wrenches her arm free. But now the men are arriving, coming running past, just as at Hedgeley Moor. Katherine turns into the crowd, back up the hill, but then, unbelievably, here is Thomas, or a Thomas-shaped man, coming fast, his helmet tossed aside and his hair flowing, and she sees with a great flood of relief that it is him; he clutches his bow, still nocked, and his face is red with the exertion, shoulder to shoulder with other men from Grey’s company. He does not look frightened so much as intent. He starts shouting at them as he comes, gesturing with his bow, pointing southwards towards the camp, just as if he thinks they will find their horses where they left them.
‘The horses!’
He is alongside them and he hardly pauses, and he catches her hand and drags her almost off her feet.
‘Come!’ he shouts.
‘This way!’ she calls, pointing at the fords where the women are crossing.
‘No!’ he shouts and he pulls her south. John follows. They run, back up the path, the river frothing alongside. Men and women are coming the other way. They collide and rebound off one another as they go. She is breathless in moments, her skirts heavy, but if she doesn’t put one foot before the other he will drag her over. Then they are into the thicker trees and then the camp, left deserted now, everything gone save tents and cooking pots, one cart with a broken wheel. The knife grinder’s wheel is knocked over. Men come hurtling through, wild-eyed, slashing at anyone with drawn swords or knives who might try to stop them. Nor Thomas does stop. He runs on, dragging her along. He is breathing heavily now, and she can hardly catch her breath. John is labouring behind. It is hard to run with one arm.
They reach the bridge where the crowds are thickest and no one would hesitate to lash out with a blade if they thought it might help them edge ahead. Anything could happen in this panic.
‘Stay with me,’ Thomas tells her, and she clings on to his empty arrow bag as he pushes his way into the mob. She elbows out of the way a woman who threatens to come between them, and is punched for her troubles, but John is there, bristling, growling like a dog, menacing men and women who push from behind. They reach the bridge and start to cross, shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, knee to knee, a solid mass of human flesh. The smell is of moulding clothes and sweat and unwashed bodies and someone is bleeding.
‘Hurry, for the love of God!’
There is a bellow, a scream and a splash. A man laughs. Katherine watches a woman floundering in the current for a moment before she finds purchase on a sodden trunk, and hauls herself out, her clothes half-pulled off, and she turns and shouts terrible curses and gesticulates at those pushing past on the bridge above. No one listens. And then Katherine becomes hemmed in, almost in the dark, between two large men in blue-and-yellow livery jackets, and she is almost borne along on the human current just as was the woman in the river, and she places her trust in Thomas, and she clings tight and keeps her head down, and shuffles forward. Everyone is sharp elbows and foul-mouthed threats.
And at last they are across the bridge and ahead people are beginning to spread out, to walk faster, to swing their arms, and then, finally, to run again, breathlessly up the steep hill.
But Katherine stops. She lets go of the arrow bag.
‘Where is Jack?’ she shouts.
Thomas turns. He can hardly hear her above the din of the shouting, of the pounding feet, the steady roar of the water on the rocks below. He gestures ahead and reaches to take her hand once more. She tries to snatch it away but now John is there, shouting something into her face and pointing with his one good hand up the hill too.
‘What?’ she shouts.
‘He is up there already.’
And they drag and push her along up the hill, to the top, where some are striking out into the woods and others are running up the road to Hexham. At the roadside are bundles of clothes and discarded livery jackets and there are already boys from the town fist fighting to claim them for their sisters or mothers to make into something else.
Thomas hurries on. She can barely breathe now. Her shoes are loose, and she’s hobbling and she suddenly feels the extra burden of her growing body.
‘Just a little further,’ Thomas encourages.
And there among the trees are horses, waiting. Four of them. And she thinks, my God! The day’s second miracle: it is Jack. Waiting. He grins, almost broadly, and he swings up clumsily into his saddle and Thomas helps her up on to her saddle and she settles herself with her skirts hitched and has not time to care nor does she even mind the smell, and they shake their reins and dig in their heels, and they ride fast over the rough road, and men and women and children scatter before them with more foul curses and she is aware that Jack and Thomas ride either side of her, and that they all have their blades drawn and that this is not over yet.
The mobbing crowd flows mostly up the road to the gates of Hexham, but Thomas leads their horses off and down across the sheep pastures and the pig pens and the new-planted furlongs and they ride for the road the other side of the town, that cuts north across the bridge, where a thinner crowd is already condensing, but by the time they get there, the pontage collector has been knocked over and lies by the roadside, pale and possibly dead, and they ride past and across the bridge and the men and women on it shout at them as they are forced aside, and they ask to be taken with them, and if there is anything they have they might spare, but soon the crowd is behind them, and they continue along the old road northwards, until they reach a crossroads again, and Thomas looks both ways – east and west – before riding on.
After a little while t
hey slow their horses and walk two by two, breathing heavily. She is next to Thomas.
‘So what happened?’ she asks, and he sighs.
‘It was the same as ever,’ he says.
He does not want to talk very much. There is a smear of blood and a bruise on his cheek.
‘Did you see Horner?’
He nods. ‘He was at the front,’ he says.
She knows what that means.
‘He was a good man,’ Jack says. ‘He will have acquitted himself.’
But it is not about acquitting oneself, is it? Not on a day like this. It is only ever about survival.
‘So are we riding for Bamburgh, too?’ she asks. She thinks of Master Payne and his care. She cannot believe Thomas will agree, but he nods again.
‘There is nowhere else to go, just now,’ he says. ‘Montagu will send his prickers screaming up this road first of all, so we will divert westwards, and then cut northwards. They will not expect that.’
He hopes. A little later he takes them off the road, along a track, heading west, and they follow it winding through the spring green trees across the soft golden cloth of last year’s fallen leaves. They ride in silence, until Thomas stops his horse and dismounts. They are in a narrow defile, a fold in the land filled with tall grey-trunked ash trees, and the sun does not penetrate the valley’s floor where the leaves have been kicked up recently, and a long wavering muddy trail has been cut through the valley ahead.
‘Mules,’ Thomas says, straightening, and looking around as if for clues.
‘Could be King Henry on his way back to Bamburgh?’ John Stump suggests.
‘Wrong way,’ Thomas mutters.
‘Tailboys,’ Katherine tells them. ‘His men were loading some this morning, remember?’
‘He was supposed to have held the left flank!’ Thomas says.
‘Maybe,’ she says, ‘but he was definitely in the camp this morning, loading four or five mules.’
Kingmaker: Broken Faith Page 37
