“I still do not know about this plan…” Francis was shaking his head. “I know it is your will, but I should be with you on the field. At your side.”
I glanced up, staring into his face. His eyes, pale against his sun-bronzed skin, looked glassy, strange. “Francis Lovell, I do not wish to command you. Do it because I ask, because of the love I bear for you.”
“Christ!” He suddenly made a slashing motion with his hand. “I hate the way you sound, Dickon! What is wrong with you? You make it sound as if…as if you truly think… Richard, you do not have anything stupid planned, do you?” He eyed me suspiciously, fear, anger, frustration playing across his features. “You are not…not throwing yourself into danger deliberately, because you really wish…to…to…”
Shocked by his vehemence, by the awfulness of what he was suggesting, I stared at him for a moment and then cried, “Of course not! I want to live. I want to win. I am going to win. I am just leaving nothing to chance, Francis; above any man, I have seen how the Wheel of Fortune twirls! Although I am confident in my ability against this untried Welshman, I am not a prideful fool either. Disaster can happen, even to the greatest warrior. Look at the history books; look at my father at Wakefield!”
I placed my hand on his shoulder, “Now, listen to what I want you to do. Watch the battle but make sure you have an escape route open behind you. If fate plays against us, ride with all speed into the east, to Tyrrell’s house at Gipping. You will know the boy, even if there are other lads there—he looks much like Ned and he has a birthmark on his back. Make sure he is dressed in humble clothes and take him to Colchester, not so far away. The Abbey of St John is there; the Abbott will assist you—he has helped the cause of York before. The Abbey stands near the river, the one that flows to the docks where ships leave for the Low Countries. Get the boy upon a ship and away….and yourself too, if that be your wish.”
Francis stood just staring at me, as if I had slapped him across the face. He knew he could not argue and he did not intend to defy his King, but he was struck dumb in that moment, by the enormity of what I asked.
I squeezed his shoulder; cast him a weak, crooked smile. “Go now. God be with you, Francis Lovell. May we both be celebrating tomorrow at this time.”
Frank said nothing, just took my hand and kissed it with a fierce, desperate fervour. Then he went off into the darkness, like a wraith.
Gone from me.
I returned to my pavilion. The embers in the brazier were dim, but the night was too warm for a blazing fire anyway. The squires had prepared my couch, turning back the rich coverlet ready for me, sprinkling fresh herbs so the tent was pleasantly scented.
However, I still felt no desire to sleep. Taking up my prayer book, I knelt upon the prie dieu and opened to a page I knew well, having thumbed on to it many times in the last two years. A prayer of sorrow…
Most Merciful Lord Jesus Christ …deign to release me from the affliction, temptation, grief, infirmity, and peril in which I am held, and give me aid. Extend Thine arm to me; pour Thy grace over me, and free me from all the distresses and griefs by which I find myself troubled….
I ask Thee to keep me and defend me from all evil and from my evil enemy, and from all danger, present, past, and to come…
Peacefulness fell upon me, an acceptance of Fate. What would be, would be on Redemore field in the dawn. The die was cast.
I went to my battle-couch and lay down. Surprisingly, I fell into slumber almost at once and did not dream.
That night I slept a sleep near as sound as the sleep of the dead.
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN: REDEMORE PLAIN
The sound of birds twittering woke me—that sweet noise and then the clangour of the camp coming to life. Darkness still reigned outside my pavilion but the eastern horizon was tinted a lighter blue; the morning star hung above it, a white flame. Lucifer’s star.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. So it was written in the Bible, in Romans; so it would be today.
Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I sat up on my couch, called for a little bread and wine; I would fight on a mostly empty stomach to avoid the ill affects of sluggish digestion.
Once I had eaten, the esquires of the body came to me, bringing my armour; the finest money could buy, adapted for the unnatural shape of my back and right shoulder. First, they put upon me no shirt, but a doublet wrought of satin and filled with holes to allow air to circulate, with extra padding behind to protect my weaker side. Plain dark, thick hose were drawn onto my legs to prevent chafing from the armour, and the sabatons were affixed and tied to my shoes with unbreakable cords. These were followed by greaves, cuisses, breeches of mail and the cuirass that covered my torso—again designed so as not to press upon the uneven ribs that jutted from my right side. The pauldrons were set upon my shoulders next, then rerebraces, couters and vambrace. Finally, gauntlets were placed upon my hands—my small, fine hands, ringless now, became metal-encased instruments of death.
I did not take up my helmet yet, though. Upon this morning of destiny, of final determination, I had another plan. My reign had been tainted by the uncertainty of its beginning, by the deaths of Rivers, Grey and Hastings and the disappearance of my brother’s sons.
In the presence of the men who would fight and die for me, I would cleanse myself of those stains. Before the assembled soldiers of England, I would wear the crown of Edward the Confessor and swear an oath that should I win the day, I would take the Cross and go on Crusade against the Turks. When the Silesian Von Popelau visited my court, I had spoken of this wish to him; now I would make it truth. On holy Crusade would my sins, real or imagined by the populace, be washed from me.
My chaplain, Father Roby, came into me, and Mass was said; I made my peace with God in the dark before true dawn. Briefly as I knelt, the Communion wafer, Christ’s body, dry upon my tongue, I thought of all that had gone before…of those I loved who were dead, Edward and George, Little Ned and Anne, and of those who still lived—my son John of Gloucester and my daughter Katherine, maybe holding the future in her. Dear sweet Jesu, keep them from harm, no matter what may befall…
I shook my head to clear away fearful and unwholesome thoughts. I must not dwell on dire possibilities. I was a warrior. Tydder was not.
I would win!
I left the pavilion and a groom brought White Syrie to me, arrayed in his own horse armour—crinet, chanfron, peytral to protect his front, flanchard on his sides, crupper across his rear. With assistance I mounted, the high pommel before me and the cantle closing tight behind me, holding my body firmly in place and adding support to my back.
Followed by my knights, now mounted and ready, I rode out at a slow trot before the gathered ranks of foot soldiers, the pike bearers and halberd men, the stout English archers with their tall bows and armour-piercing arrows. A priest walked out in front, bearing aloft a gilded, ceremonial Cross decorated with Yorkist suns and painted images of the Four Evangelists on roundels, while other priests and monks strode alongside him, chanting, swinging censers that billowed incense.
As the sun lifted a thin, blood-hued rim over the eastern horizon, making the head of the Cross flow with fire, I reached a small, quiet clearing amidst the camp’s frenetic activity, and summoning the esquires to my side, dismounted again.
The world waited, anticipating. The soldiers were silent; a hush fell across that vast force, that sea of brave men, the men of England. Kneeling on the trampled grass, sparkling with dew, I bowed my bare head in reverence. The wind whistled, plaintive, over Redemore plain, tossing my hair like the wheat and barley that grew in the nearby fields. In that moment, I was one with those ripened crops, one with the earth and sky.
I was not just Richard, Third of that Name—I was England.
There was a rush, as of bird wings, a sense of displaced air above me. The crown, th
e ancient Crown of Edward the Confessor with its gemstones fixed in cruciform shape, descended on my bare head as the sun rose higher and all the world was bathed in incarnadine light.
A gasp rose from the assembled warriors, as from the throat of one man.
They saw before their eyes their King reborn anew, a new era dawning.
Still wearing the Confessor’s crown, I walked in glory before the gathered men, and in a great voice swore to Christ Jesus that should I have the victory that day I would fight the Turks in the east and drive them from Europe’s borders. Cheering and praises rose to the sky, gladdening my heart and filling me with exhilaration.
They believed in my just cause…
Then I knelt again and the sacred crown was lifted from my brow and carried back to my pavilion under armed guard. Now my battle helm was brought to me, itself with a golden circlet welded on to it, to mark that I was King. A tabard was draped over my armour bearing the Arms of England, the lilies and the lions.
As I remounted Syrie, Rob Percy, riding near me in the company of household knights, leaned over his steed’s neck and hissed, with no hint of his usual jesting in his voice: “The circlet on your helmet, Richard! Is such a token wise? It will mark you out clearly to the enemy.”
“So be it,” I retorted. “I will not shirk open battle with my foes. Let them see me. Let them come.”
After the crown wearing, I felt renewed in power and in grace, just as I had hoped…but one doubt still clung. Thomas Stanley. The herald I sent to his encampment had only just returned to camp and I knew not what Stanley’s message to his King would be.
“What word from Thomas Stanley?” I shouted as the herald appeared in his bright surcoat, the crowds parting around to let him through. I leaned on Syrie’s armoured neck as the herald reached my stirrup. “Is he with us or nay?”
“Your Grace.” The herald’s face was peaked from lack of sleep, his eyes bleak caverns in his young face. “He says he cannot commit to your cause, but neither will he commit to Henry of Richmond’s. As Henry is kin to him through his wife, he would not gladly fight against him; neither would he gladly fight against his King.”
Rage gripped me; I fought for control. I should have expected his disloyalty; all signs were there long ago. “Did you remind him I have his son, Lord Strange? And what would befall him if he played me false?”
The herald nodded. “In no uncertain terms, your Grace.”
“And what did he say? Surely the man has a care for the wellbeing of his own offspring?”
The herald squared his shoulders, his voice wobbling a fraction. “Your Grace, his reply to you on the matter of Lord Strange was this… ‘I have other sons.’”
Scarcely able to believe what I was hearing, I gaped at the herald. Then the anger kindled in my breast again, terrible in its intensity, stoked by the treacherous words of Stanley, the words I had long feared, cast so lightly, so mockingly, so dangerously. He would not fight for me. “If he has so little care for his own, Strange shall be executed. Now! Catesby!”
Catesby had been placed in charge of George Strange, who was kept shackled in a nearby tent, soldiers stationed at the entrance. The lawyer glanced at me, anxious, almost disbelieving. “Your Grace?”
“You heard me. Execute Lord Strange. His father has spoken; he cares for nothing for his life. Strange is an admitted traitor. Find a block of wood on which to do the deed!”
“Your Grace.” Catesby licked his lips nervously. “Is this the best time for such an action? After your glorious wearing of the crown….” He dropped his eyes, stared into the trampled grass.
My rage withered. I understood what he could not, dared not tell me with words. If I allowed my anger to make my hand heavy and had the traitor headed instantly, the very thing I had tried to accomplish by wearing the crown would be tarnished. If today was the first day of my reign renewed, I must think only of the matter at hand—the battle against Henry Tydder, the pretender to the throne. Lord Strange would face a trial later, and receive his just deserts then.
I nodded to Catesby. “So be it, I spoke in haste. Let the traitor live a few more hours and make his peace with God.”
The time was now. The hour had come. I committed my cause to God and the Blessed Virgin, and gave the signal for banners to advance. Bathed in the early morning light, the army marched down the ancient Roman road across Redemore, Jockey Howard in the van with the archers, and Brackenbury captaining my household knights. He was also in charge of the guns that he had brought from the Tower. Far to the left was Northumberland’s wing; Percy’s standard with the Lion Passant Guardant shivered in the morning wind, beside long pennons bearing his family’s White Crescent.
Sir Percival Thirlwall, my standard-bearer, rode alongside me, holding aloft my banner, which streamed out in full glory. Trumpets were ringing and the drums rolling.
I surveyed the scene before me; Henry Tydder’s men had now taken on a battle formation. Oxford, my most fearsome opponent, was on the right with Sir Gilbert Talbot and a large contingent of French rabble; Henry, with John Savage, was in the van, partly obscured by the wider range of the Earl of Oxford’s forces. The hated Edward Woodville, stealer of the treasury, was somewhere in the mix, and the lying Bishop John Morton’s nephew, Robert. The Stanleys were both still massed in the background, their armies standing motionless upon the slopes of the hill where they had encamped.
The guns went off, booming into the clear sky, scattering birds from all over the plain and from the top of the hill; they soared against the sun, wings casting dark shadows. Smoke rushed over Redemore, coiling upwards in foul-smelling clouds. A volley of arrows from Norfolk’s archers followed the upwards flights of the birds, as they aimed at the Earl of Oxford’s exposed right flank.
Hastily the enemy archers retaliated, their own arrows descending like black rain upon Norfolk’s front lines. Explosions tore into the morning as Tydder’s lesser artillery returned fire with mine.
Yelling and shouting in foreign tongues, the undisciplined French and Scots on Oxford’s left broke rank and charged John Howard’s flank, their movements covered by flying arrows and gunfire from their comrades. The first wave of this rabble carried long deadly pikes, which they thrust into the front lines of Jockey’s soldiers with unbridled fury.
A momentary panic ensued amongst John’s men, for the foreigners used their pikes in new, ingenious ways, but then the Norfolk soldiers rallied and hand-to-hand fighting commenced. Walls of men melded together, screams sounded and steel clashed on steel. The pikes were like forests of trees, rising, falling, tumbling. Men were dropping, dead or injured, while others fought back with desperate fury, hacking, slashing, stabbing; yells and shrieks sounded into the morn as the first blood showered upon the soil of Redemore.
Initially Jockey’s men held out well against the onslaught of Oxford and the foreign mercenaries. The undisciplined French began to be pushed aside. John de Vere could not get the advantage, despite repeated volleys of arrows from his archers and a fierce forward attack with foot soldiers.
But then, unexpectedly, Jockey Howard’s line began to waver. The enemy were making inroads, slaying all in their path as they attempted to break through. Through the narrow slit of my visor, I strained to get a clearer view but could see little except struggling, striving bodies and the smoke of the cannons.
“Jesu!” I suddenly cried as the wind ripped the gunpowder smoke upwards in a stinking, acrid cloud, and the view before me cleared. I sought to find Jockey Howard’s banner, the noble Silver Lion; it was no longer there! John’s banner was down. It was down!
Christ, it could not be so! That would mean the enemy had broken through, had reached him, felling his standard-bearer or even…
Frantic, ashen-faced, a herald pushed to the fore of the men, his tabard smoke blackened and daubed with the blood-hued mud of Redemore. “Your Grace, I bring news, dire news! My Lord of Norfolk has fallen!”
“Fallen?” The word slurred from my lips; I
was incredulous, almost disbelieving. My stalwart old friend, almost a second father, experienced in the arts of war, a teacher in my youth, a supporter in my manhood. Christ, he could not be…
“He is dead.” Tears trickled down the herald’s begrimed face. “When he engaged with Oxford’s men, his visor was torn off in the violence of the fray. An enemy arrow then struck him full in the face.” He raised his hand to his eyes, overcome by what he had witnessed.
My heart plummeted like a stone; but I swiftly fought to replace my sudden despair with a fury for my fallen comrade in order to subdue the thin dagger of fear that pierced me. My most loyal captain was down.
Keeping my voice composed, I nodded in the herald’s direction. “God rest the soul of the good Duke of Norfolk. I trust that his son Surrey, his lieutenant, is equally competent in war. Tell him to hold fast for his King and fight on in his father’s memory!”
“Your Grace.” Ratcliffe rode up beside me, his horse dancing nervously as the cannons roared. “This is dreadful news indeed…”
“You don’t have to tell me, Dick.”
“And…I fear I must bring more.” His voice was muffled within his helmet. “Northumberland….”
“What about him?” Apprehension lanced through me. Percy had always been a slight worry, his family long-time Lancastrian supporters, but overall he had been loyal, though he seemed more sullen than usual at last night’s council.
“He…he has not moved. Despite the calls to advance he has not moved!” I could hear the fear in Ratcliffe’s voice, irrationally wanted to strike him; his fear heightened my own growing doubts.
I lifted my visor slightly, careful not to reveal much of my face, mindful of poor John Howard’s fate. Northumberland had indeed remained in his initial position on the edge of the rank marsh near to our encampment. His men were crammed almost to its stagnant, reed-lined shore; from my position I could not tell if the bog impeded his soldiers’ march or if he deliberately held back, as treasonous as the Stanleys. The times he had tried to assert the old Percy power in the north and been thwarted by the men of York’s dedication to my causes came back to haunt me. He had not forgotten, he had waited nigh on thirteen years to wreak a revenge on the House that had removed his almost regal stature.
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 42
