I, Richard Plantagenet: Book One: Tante le Desiree

by J. P. Reedman

  The weightless sensation, the long distortion of time, vanished as armour struck against armour. Now it was as if time had speeded up and everyone moved in a great mad frenzy, hacking and hewing with abandon. I struck hard into the enemy mass, assailing their line with fury, laying around me with all the strength of my arms. I could sense the two Toms near me, one on each side, protecting me as best they could while fighting their own quarter. A man went down before my rush, hacked through near the neck, his head hanging off; his cheap, inferior armour had buckled and could not save him.

  At first, the Duke of Exeter’s men were stunned by my unexpected assault; the fog and the element of surprise served me well. The enemy ranks fell back several paces, confused by the ferocity of the flank attack, and I pressed the slim advantage, slaughtering many foes before they truly realised what had happened.

  But their confusion and dismay did not last. Exeter rallied them, using all his garnered skills, and they retaliated against my vanguard with fury, trying to claim ground they had lost when we drove into their flank. The fighting was fierce, with neither side giving any quarter, and my men were falling as well as Exeter’s. Despite increasing mounds of bodies before me, I refused to give way, not a solitary inch, not now that I thought I had the advantage…and I pressed that advantage home, hurling myself into the midst of the fray repeatedly, taking down men both taller and larger than me with my swiftness and agility.

  It was here, caught within the deadly melee, that the point of a sword slipped in beside the join of my arm and body and cut me, not deeply but enough to cause blood to flow. Smashing the skull of my would-be killer with my battle-axe, I flung the bloodied corpse into the path of another would-be slayer that charged out of the mist and battled on, ignoring the slow, warm trickle beneath my arm.

  Gasping, I ploughed on over the blood-soaked terrain, mud and gore sucking my legs up to the knee. I could sense a strange desperation in the enemy now, a lack of sure strokes and confidence: they were rapidly losing ground, being forced backwards towards a small dark stand of trees.

  Desperation made them fiercer, though, and suddenly a veritable giant of a man burst from their ranks and thundered towards me. I felt like David before Goliath as I swung my battleaxe at him…and missed. He bore a war-hammer, its beaked head a lethal dead weight, and he swung it with menace as he came at me. I struck at him again, not missing my quarry this time, but my axe merely dented one of the plates of his armour. He rounded on me, the war-hammer with its shattering point upraised…

  Then Little Tom, fool that he was, leapt into the knight’s path, planting himself firmly between my adversary and me; his body my shield. My squire, always loyal. If I could have pulled Tom back, I would have done, but it was too late; that huge hammer cleft his helmet and one side of his skull.

  I winced as Tom fell in front of me, down into the churned mud. As his body hit the ground, he dragged his visor up and gazed up at me. His face was ruined; blood seething from his nose, and his eyes had grown strangely misted, rolling back in his head, the colour of twilight. “My…my lord…help me…it’s going so dark,” he murmured, then redness belched from his mouth and he was gone.

  There was only one way I could help him now. I killed his foe. Anger at poor Tom Parr’s death surged over me like a hot tide and I assailed the huge warrior before me with many blows, delivering them two-handed for greatest impact. I had no idea who the knight was, but he wore Warwick’s colours and must have had some wealth, for his armour was good, and did not fail as quickly as it might beneath my furious onslaught.

  As we strove amidst red death, with the mist cold on us like ghost-breath, the knight struck out at me many times but I was quicker, lighter on my feet; the one advantage of being small and slight.

  His great weight seemed to tire him, his movements grew slower, more cumbersome, his blows less frenzied. Glad was I to sense his failing strength, for I also grew weary; when I am long active my breath sometimes grows short and my ribs hurt as if squeezed. I could not keep up the fury of my assault for much longer.

  The man stumbled towards me, gathering for another full-fledged onslaught, his war-hammer upraised. Pulling a dagger from my belt, I launched myself against him, striving limb to limb, our breastplates clashing together as we struggled, and I drove the dagger deep under his arm in much the same place where I had earlier taken my scratch. The warrior cried out, his voice muffled within his helm, and I think he begged for mercy—I could not quite hear his words.

  He would have no mercy from me. I thought of Little Tom, brave, loyal Tom Parr with his head riven, and I ripped my adversary’s visor open and stabbed him swiftly and surely in the face. He screamed and crashed to his knees, groping at the gash that went straight through his cheekbone, and as he knelt, I took my axe and smashed his skull asunder, just as he had smashed Tom’s.

  As his body slumped to the ground, I stepped back, panting. I was aware, all too horribly aware, of a new emptiness at my back where there had been a presence not long before. Big Tom…ah, Christ, no…not him too!

  Big Tom Huddlestone was sprawled the ground, one hand outstretched as though grasping for life, for a day he would never see. A man was hacking furiously at him with an axe, crudely, as if he were a block of wood. One leg was gone; I tried not to gaze on that bloody mess of bone and flesh. Seeing the devastation of his body, I was glad that Big Tom was already dead.

  His slayer was so engrossed in venting his fury on my squire, he failed to see me turn and stride towards him. My own axe descended like a thunderclap, shearing through his arm. It fell into the mud, fingers contracting grotesquely. The man whirled around clumsily with the shock, and I struck him again, taking him down to his knees. I pulled back my weapon in a welter of dark blood and he fell over Tom’s outstretched body.

  I staggered away from the scene, the rush of anger abating, leaving me almost weak, my eyes hazy and my heart thudding. The ground tilted downwards, and there was a patch where the battle thinned as it swayed in its dance of death toward the dark line of trees on the horizon. A bleak and blasted oak loomed out of the mist; a dead man lay slumped against the bole, his arm severed at the shoulder. I clutched the tree trunk, the most steady, real thing in that nightmarish world, as I regained my equilibrium.

  As I leaned on the tree trunk, taking deep breaths, I spied one of my brother’s messengers picking his way through the mist, his Sunne in Splendour badge bright in the gloom.

  “You!” I shouted, stepping forward with my axe trailing from my gauntleted hand, blade dripping. “What is your business? What news do you bring?”

  The man hurried over to me, making a swift, perfunctory bow. He was blood- smeared, gasping. “Your Grace, I have been seeking you this past hour. My Lord Hastings….he was put to the rout by Oxford’s men.”

  I groaned, my gut writhing in sickly knots. My chest tightened with strain. The most evil of tidings on this foul, fog-bound day. Oxford! A skilled general if ever there was one, and the staunchest of Lancastrians.

  “Oxford’s forces chased Hastings’ men halfway down to the nearby village!”

  “Is the day lost then?” I asked, raising my visor slightly so I could speak more freely. My voice emerged harsh as gravel; my lungs burned as if on fire from exertion, tension and the smell of the gunpowder that mingled with the mist. “What of my brothers, Clarence and the King? Are they unharmed? Speak, man; hold anything back at your peril!”

  The man looked a little afraid; maybe it was the harshness of my voice, the sternness of my visage. For all that I am small in size, men say I have a fierce look about me when roused, as do all who bear the Plantagenet blood

  “No, your Grace, not only is the King unharmed, the day is not lost. When the Earl of Oxford’s men returned from chasing Lord Hastings…” he began to grin now, and suddenly hope flooded me, where, moments before, doom seemed near certain, “the fog that has plagued us became our friend. Returning to the field, Oxford’s soldiers mistakenly set upon those of
Montagu, their allies. In the gloom, they saw his ‘star and streamers’ banner and mistook it for our Lord King’s Sunne in Splendour, and so they hewed at each other, crying that they had been betrayed! Oxford and his captains could not halt the slaughter and fled the field at great speed, hurrying to the north.”

  “Fled!” I yelped the word. “Truly?”

  “Aye, my Lord. And Montagu, my lord of Warwick’s brother…he is slain!”

  “Thanks to gentle Jesu, this Easter day,” I breathed, turning my eyes towards the mist-shrouded heaven. A sliver of reddish light was staining the mist-helm, weaving through it like a tendril of blood. “So where is my brother the King?”

  “He hunts for the Earl of Warwick. Warwick’s line broke after Montagu fell and he has fled towards the woods behind this field. The King has sent men to capture him; he wants him alive.”

  I glanced towards the sentinel rows of trees, capped by fleeting shreds of white, a corpse’s shroud. The battle lines were splitting apart, growing ragged; I could see it happening before my very eyes…the enemy lines breaking and soldiers fleeing wildly in every direction, fearful for their lives.

  Buoyed at the thought of impending victory, I raced down the slope towards the woodland, friend and foe alike churning around me in the maelstrom that signalled the disintegration of Warwick’s forces. Although I was elated that the day was now ours, a small frisson of doubt ate at me. It bit deep. Warwick. What would we do with Warwick once he was taken? A traitor, a foul traitor who tried to put old Harry Six back on the throne…and yet, he had done much for Edward once, and he had for a few years been almost as a father to me, when my own sire lay dead, his head rotting on the gates of York, food for crows.

  I bit my lip, as I often did when uneasy or perturbed. Warwick would have to die, there was no helping it, but I could not pretend the thought did not twist a small knife in my heart.

  There were men from the enemy forces flying here and there like leaves blown on the wind as I entered the forbidding stand of trees where Warwick had fled. They cast down their weapons and ran, crushing greenery before them in a panic. The smells of sap mingled with the iron tang of blood as many of them were cut down, screaming, by soldiers from the Yorkist side.

  I was no longer interested in them, however, though I still kept my weapons close to hand. I wanted to find Ned, my brother. The King. And Warwick, treacherous Warwick. I wanted him to look us in our faces and tell us why he had betrayed us.

  Of course, it was not just Ned, and the House of York that he had harmed with his treachery, his faithlessness. Anne, he had taken poor gentle little Anne and wed her to the Lancastrian heir, Edward of Westminster. Son of that bitch, Marguerite, who I hold responsible for my father’s murder; the one who had ordered his body and that of Edmund mutilated.

  Anne Neville was Warwick’s younger daughter and once, when there was amity between us, he had spoken of the possibility of her becoming my wife. Anne and I had dwelt at Middleham castle together, and though I certainly was not wont to play with girls, I had liked her more than most. She was in the shadow of her older, more confident sister, Isabel, just as I lay in the shadow of my two elder brothers; we had something in common and it wrought a childish bond.

  I remembered well the night we both attended George Neville’s inauguration feast as Bishop of York at Cawood castle. I, a gauche boy of near thirteen, sat with Warwick’s Countess, Anne Beauchamp, and his two daughters, Anne and Isabel; just as if I were member of his close family.(I am Warwick’s cousin but that counts not; everyone is everyone’s cousin or so it seems at times!)

  I was the only male seated upon that table, and Isabel side-eyed me and giggled (we were of similar age, and I fancied she liked me) while Anne had looked disdainfully upon her sister’s coquetry in the prim way only an eight-year-old maiden could. I got drunk on hippocras, ate too many venison pasties, custards and jellies, and felt quite ill when, at the very last, I gorged myself on the porpoise specially imported for the new Bishop’s table.

  I was noisily sick in the rushes, and it was little Anne, all quiet dignity, who knelt at my side and wiped my mouth with a kerchief. Isabel merely tittered; their mother the Countess of Warwick glanced away in obvious disgust. With youth’s folly, I decided without further ado that I would marry Anne some day, if she stayed so resourceful and sensible…and of course, when she was older and had bumps upon her chest like her sister Isabel.

  But Edward had forbidden such a match once Warwick’s loyalties began to waver; Ned had other ideas for George and I, and that had increased the growing rift between him and the Earl. Richard Neville could not accept the clandestine marriage my brother had made with Dame Grey, the former Elizabeth Woodville. Widow of a Lancastrian knight, she was eight years older than Edward and had two sons already. Not only had the marriage shocked Warwick, it had brought him shame, too; he had to abandon the match he was negotiating for Edward with Bona of Savoy.

  And so the die was cast for my lord of Warwick; his relationship with Ned became frosty, then he rebelled, snaring my gullible brother George in his plans. He had tried to ensnare me once too, I remembered his words well, whispered in my ear as he poured me yet another goblet of wine: “With me, Richard, I will see you have all you want and deserve. Lands, wealth…my daughter Anne. You like Anne, don’t you; it is written in your face. I would be glad of you as a son-in-law. Edward…well, he gives his Woodville allies what should rightfully be yours; you are just his lackey, to do his bidding maybe to die for him. Listen to me, Richard…”

  I refused; I knew where my loyalties must remain. Warwick stormed away from me and went about his treacherous business, and soon news came that, against Edward’s express orders, George had wed Isabel Neville in a swift ceremony in Calais. Shortly thereafter, the Earl fled the country. Isabel delivered a dead child aboard a ship, George, dreaming of promised kingship, was thrust rudely aside by Warwick…and the fickle Earl threw in his lot with Marguerite of Anjou and sought to replace Harry Six upon the throne. With a bonus for himself—he arranged a marriage between Anne and Marguerite’s son, the so-called Prince of Wales…

  That action forced me to the realisation that a union with Anne was now truly out of the question… my childhood fancy was lost to me forever as wife of one of my bitterest enemies. One year younger than me, Edward of Westminster was rumoured to be fierce and cruel despite his youth; men said his mother Marguerite had allowed him to preside over executions at eight and that he loved nothing more than to prate of torture and killing.

  Up ahead, I heard raised voices and saw horses, men, torches milling in confusion. Thrusting soldiers out of my way, I hurried towards the activity and saw Edward, head bare, holding his helmet in his hand. He had dismounted his steed and looked upset and angry, this huge giant amongst the smaller men who bustled about him.

  Near his armoured feet, a figure lay stretched out, white and strangely shapeless on the blood-drenched grass. Stabbed, stripped and despoiled, a pool of blood clotted around the head, which hung at an odd angle.

  Dead.

  I knew immediately who it would be.

  Pulling off my own hot, heavy helmet, I took great gasps of air and stumbled to where Warwick lay fallen. Helm in hand, I stared down at his naked corpse, robbed of armour, robbed of dignity. Richard Neville, my cousin, my one-time mentor—stabbed through the eye into the brain, a lifeless husk where I had known only strength and power.

  “They disobeyed me!” cried Edward, his voice rolling out like thunder, though he spoke to no one in particular. My brother George was loitering in the brush behind him, but unlike Ned, he seemed little moved at Warwick’s death, despite being married to the dead man’s daughter. George was always a dissatisfied soul, caring for himself only, and well, after Warwick had dangled the carrot of Kingship before his face then struck him with it, he could find no forgiveness, hence not one shred of regret or sorrow at Warwick’s death.

  “How dare they defy my order?” Edward continued, his voice
rising. “I wanted him alive. Alive!”

  Edward rounded toward me, red spots burning on his cheeks. He looked terrible and wonderful in his fury, as comely as an angel but holding the vengeance of Michael in his steel-clad hand. As his gaze came to rest on me, his angry expression faded like the mist that was now burning off on Barnet field.

  “Gloucester, you are here! The day is ours and I have heard many great tales of your prowess. You have done well.” My presence seemed to calm him, and then I was in his massive embrace and he kissed my hot, sweaty and bloodstained cheeks. He was like that, Ned. Terrible and yet wonderful.

  “Warwick…” My voice came out a dry croak from parched lips. My gaze slid back to the crumpled form, the blood oozing amid the leaves; suddenly my knees turned to jelly, and I thought I might weep and disgrace myself.

  Edward shook his head, touched my shoulder. He knew, as Ned always seemed to, that thought I abhorred what Warwick had done, that he had also been kind to me, and, once, to Edward too. “I ordered that he be taken prisoner, but the scum listened not to their king and let their passions run high. They pursued him as he tried to flee the field and took him down, and stabbed him through the eye. We will take him and Montagu back to Saint Paul’s in London and display them in the usual way, so that all shall know they are dead, and then they shall be buried with all honour in their family vault at Bisham Abbey.”

  “Now…” he looked at me sharply, “are you hale, Dickon? You are white as a winding sheet.”

  “I have taken a small wound. Only small.” I tried to smile; it came off as a grimace.

  “Get you to the surgeon, brother,” ordered Edward. “No delay. You must be made well, for I can assure you, that although we have won this day, the battle for this kingdom is not over yet. Marguerite is coming, sailing from France…and her bastard of a son is coming with her.”

  I walked to the surgeon’s tent accompanied by George, who had also been injured during the fighting. He was helmetless now and holding a bloodied cloth to his head. He had taken a scraping scalp wound—unlikely to be serious, but messy. He would not like that; it might mean he had to have a patch of hair shaved off and he was proud of his darkly gilded curls.