‘In France, yes! Never in England? This is impossible.’ King Richard’s heart, the beating heart of the Kingdom, stopped at the thought it might be possible. He clutched his chest; there was something more unthinkable; colour fled from his face, chased by frightful shock. Throat dry as Jerusalem, he found it difficult to speak the words: ‘What of my mother Sudbury? She’s … out … there.’
‘I dispatched Sir Robert and the Poor Knights to locate her and escort her to the Tower.’
‘Sir Robert?’
‘The best man for the job, I thought.’
‘Yes, indeed! God’s speed to him.’
Chancellor Sudbury hoped the peasants piked and gutted Sir Robert before the banneret rescued the Fair Maid, but if the mission was accomplished it would still be expedient, and he would be credited with its success as much as the executor. One of those rare true win-win situations in politics, and he was rather proud of himself.
II
The Canterbury Road was blocked by two wagons, big hay wains, and Wat had posted Harry and Nick and Nobody as part of the picket to stop pilgrims and recruit them.
They had a Sleeping Giant as an aid to recruitment. Three thousand crudely armed men sprawled in the tufty grass on the verges of the road, most of them napping, snoring, hungover from the celebrations the night before, taking what shade they could from the hot sun. As Wat put it: ‘Who in their right mind wouldn’t join us?’
Jack was sat on his arse in the deep shade of an elm, watching pilgrims being stopped with one eye, anxious of the low buzzing coming from a wasps’ nest hung high above them on the bough of the elm tree. He hated wasps! They weren’t noble like bees, which do the decent thing and die after they sting a man. Wasps sting once, twice, three times. He had been only four years old: their stings on his arm were his first burning memory. He wiped his sweaty brow with the dagged cuff of his jacket. ‘It’s already noon. How long are we going to wait here?’
Wat shifted on the bones of his arse and sighed. If Jack was hung-over and in a foul humour, he was worse, tongue like a leather strap. ‘We’ll wait until John gets back before beginning our little pilgrimage – if that is all right by you.’
Jack scowled, ploughing a deep furrow between his eyes. ‘Man of action, our John! Hah! It shouldn’t take five hours to get to Canterbury and back by horse. The dead travel faster.’
‘Give it a rest, will you Jack? You know fine well he went to find Sudbury—’
‘And muster the townsfolk, and pilgrims, all the sheep there for the march to London, I know.’ Jack kneaded his temples. ‘I’d love to give it a rest, I really would, but I have a Frenchie drummer marching round my head.’
Sophia asked: ‘What will John do if he finds Archbishop Sudbury, father?’
Wat weighed up whether he should tell her what John’s plans were. ‘Sophia. John has drawn up a list of fifteen traitors. Our Archbishop and Chancellor is on it – as are the other Regents, Treasurer Hales, John of Gaunt, Chief Justice Cavendish, and Sir Robert Knolles—’
‘Think of the satisfaction in that, Wat,’ Jack said, ‘You chopping Knolles’ big head off!’
‘That’s horrible.’ Sophia did not want to think about that. It reminded her of what had happened at the farm – the severed head in the dung. She picked herself a daisy. Looking over at where Nick stood guard by the wagons, she pulled out a white petal from the bright yellow head. He loves me …
Wat knew women always contrived a way to fix the outcome to “He loves me!” His younger sisters, Abby who had died of the plague, and lovely little Lilly who died in childbirth, always did that – or quickly sought the truth from another flower. They were so romantic, loved all the travelling minstrels’ songs of brave knights and fair maids and passionate marriage. They were always talking about kissing boys. It seemed so odd to think of them here and now on the Pilgrim Road. Usually to get back to them – the memories of his childhood – he had to trek back across battlefields clotted with blood, strewn with offal, dancing with Death behind the shield wall, warding off killing blows and meting them out. It pleased him to think that some vestige of his sisters – their beauty, their spirit, their joy – survived and was alive in Sophia.
III
Three pilgrims approached the picket. Freemen. London merchants, wealthy it looked like by their fine robes and their shiny leather boots. All were armed with rondel daggers.
‘Stop right there!’ yelled Harry. He had Wat’s kidney-dagger slipped into his belt but wasn’t at all sure he looked the part of a sentry and could boss his betters. He smelt of wood smoke, ale and puke. He’d woken that morning in an over-generous portion of his own vomit, had had to daub and scrape drying gobbets of it off his tunic. Bad ale, or bad grub, had to be. The stains still showed on his right shoulder and arm, to his eternal shame.
‘What the Devil’s the problem here, man?’ demanded John Baker, a lanky London chandler.
Nick yanked Nobody back on his lead before he could sniff the man to death. ‘Stay boy.’
Harry put on his gruffest voice. ‘You’ll find out soon enough. What’s your name?’
‘John Baker.’
‘Pilgrim Baker. Where are you headed this fine day – back to London from Canterbury?’
‘Yes. We went to St Thomas’ on pilgrimage.’
Harry nodded. ‘Spoken like a true Christian! Are you and your companions true Englishmen?’
‘What sort of question is that?’ asked one of the other pilgrims.
Nick couldn’t contain himself. With his face all bruised like a fighter, holding his bow stave, he felt like a soldier, a King’s Man, being entrusted with this task. ‘Will you swear an oath of allegiance to King Richard and the True Commons?’
‘Why would we need to swear such an oath?’ Pilgrim Baker asked, at an utter loss as to why his loyalty was under suspicion.
‘To join the True Commons in rising up against the lords who would seize the crown and bleed us all dry as death.’
Pilgrim Baker scoffed. ‘I will not join you, boy. I wish to be old and grey, and in bed, when I die.’
Harry pointed over to where Wat and Jack were sat under the elm. ‘You will swear – because all those who don’t swear the oath are traitors and are taken to our captain over there to have their heads cut off.’
‘We’ll take the oath,’ said the other pilgrims, as one.
‘You can do it this time,’ Harry told Nick, a gleam in his eye.
Nick raised his right hand, all excited. ‘All of you – raise your right hands.’
Harry folded his arms and watched as the pilgrims grudgingly obeyed his son: a good shepherd and his wayward sheep.
‘Do you solemnly swear to be faithful to England, the Rightful King and the True Commons, and to strike down the traitors who would destroy the realm?’
All four men replied curtly: ‘I do.’
Harry went and picked three pole-arms and a pitchfork out of the nearest wagon. He handed a weapon to each of the confused-looking pilgrims.
Pilgrim Baker asked: ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
‘Defend England,’ answered Harry with a shrug. ‘You’re one of us now. The True Commons. Faithful pilgrims on their way to the Holy City. Brave crusaders fighting to bring Kingdom of Heaven down to Earth.’
‘Are you pulling my leg?’ Pilgrim Baker asked. ‘Is this a summer game?’
‘Believe,’ Harry smiled. ‘Anything can happen if we all just believe.’
IV
“Amor vincit omnia”. Princess Joan read round the inscription on Genevieve’s silver ring brooch: ‘Love conquers all’. It was true. Love conquered even death, reached beyond the grave. Love bound Earth and Heaven together, under God. She still loved Edward. She could not stop. On her knees in front of the altar, she had implored St Thomas, the martyr archbishop, to impart her love to her Black Prince. She begged him for her prayers to be taken to her husband on the wings of angels. The requiem mass had broken her heart, again. Amor vincit
omnia. Half of her love lived, was flesh and desire, and half of it was dead, a ghost wrapped in the shroud of his ghost, already in heaven with Christ. One cannot love with half a heart on Earth. One cannot hope to live a life this way. Better to die, and be reborn in heaven, whole, and in love again.
Sir Thomas Holland, the second Earl of Kent, saw the road ahead was blocked by wagons and a mob. He ordered the driver: ‘Stop the carriage!’
The carriage slowed to an abrupt stop, momentum jolting the two women within nearly out of their seats. There was a rap on the door. ‘Mother?’
‘Oui, attendez.’ Lady Genevieve pulled back the curtain.
There was Thomas. Like father, like son. Princess Joan was always surprised at how her first-born son was the double of her previous husband, the first Earl of Kent. Blonde, with dark, hawkish eyebrows. Those piercing blue eyes. They even shared the same name: Thomas Holland. Both her sons were the ghosts of their fathers haunting her. ‘What is it, Thomas?’
‘Mother,’ Sir Thomas said. ‘There is a large crowd blockading the road up ahead. I recommend we turn back.’
‘We must turn back sir,’ Serjeant Fordham, second-in-command, insisted.
Princess Joan was incredulous. ‘We cannot. We must get back to Windsor!’
Sir Thomas was regretting agreeing to escort his mother to honour the Black Prince. Firstly, she had journeyed to Canterbury to mourn the man who had married her after his father’s death. And now this embuggerance! ‘Mother! We only just made it out of Canterbury as trouble rode in. We are a single lance. These villeins number in hundreds. In all honesty, and it pains me greatly to say this, but I cannot protect you.’
Lady Genevieve tried to hide her alarm. If needs be, she was armed and could protect her mistress.
Princess Joan looked her son straight in the eye. ‘This is a royal coach, marked as such with our crest and colours. They will not dare hamper us. Drive on, Thomas.’
Sir Thomas did not share her faith one bit. ‘Mother you can be such a fearsome, stubborn, prideful pig at times.’
‘Drive on,’ Princess Joan said.
Sir Thomas shook his head, it was stuck to the leather in his helmet. He sighed deeply. A man spent much of his time around women in an abject state of exasperation. Women possessed no reason, and had no thought of responsibility. Everything was emotion. Want. Need. Now. Now. Demands. As the saying goes – a man only ought to listen to a word spoken by a woman when wrens carry sacks to mill or when pigs fly or sparrows build churches way on high. ‘Drive on!’
V
‘Stop that carriage in its tracks!’ Wat ordered. He mounted a heat-dozy Sleipnir and spurred him to trot down from the verge, into the middle of the road, in front of the two wagons.
The six-horse carriage trundled closer. It had an escort of eight outriders, knights in full plate, long red robes, weapons drawn. This was no ordinary lord’s carriage! It was flying the royal colours, the Three Lions on two red quadrants, the fleurs de lis on two blue. Could it be the traitor Sudbury fleeing Canterbury for London, having given John the slip? Too much to hope for, surely?
‘Archers! Make ready!’ Jack joined the two hundred or so archers on either side of the road, scrambling to make ready, to mass in coherent shooting lines.
Harry and Nick and the other four pickets milling by the wagons braced themselves for a charge. ‘Steady lad,’ Harry told Nick, who was trying desperately to string his bow.
The six black horses in harness moving at a steady canter, the carriage crash-rattled over a deep pothole in road. Alarm spread along the roadside as it came in to the blockade, galvanising thousands out of torpor, into a frenzy of activity.
‘Woah there!’ Wat shouted, and levelled his lance at the lead rider’s chest.
Sir Thomas thrust the royal colours on the end of his lance high into the air. ‘I am Sir Thomas Holland, brother to the King. This is a royal carriage. Let us pass, thief, or it will be the death of you!’
Wat told him: ‘Order your men to drop their weapons and put their hands on their heads, Sir Thomas – or these archers will loose on my command.’
Jack took a few paces forward to make sure the stroppy cunt got the message loud and clear. ‘Yield!’
Sir Thomas glared at Wat. It was his job to safeguard his mother. Thanks to her stubbornness there was now only one way to ensure her safety. Something he had never done. Surrender.
‘Hands on your head, Sir Thomas!’ Wat barked.
Sir Thomas dropped his lance and thrust his hands up to Heaven. ‘Do as he says, men!’
The rest of the escort dropped their lances and put their hands up in the air.
The archers kept a watchful eye on them, including Nick, who had strung his bow, notched an arrow – split grip, with the arrow held between two fingers – and was ready to draw, take the strain. It was the first time he had drawn in anger.
‘And your swords and shields,’ Wat shouted.
‘Then we will be defenceless.’
‘Do it!’ Jack yelled. ‘Or die.’
‘We are an honour guard.’ Sir Thomas reluctantly laid down his arms, and his men followed his lead.
Wat had to ask: ‘Who is in there? Is it Sudbury?’
Sir Thomas looked away in disdain. ‘See for yourself what your crime is and what your sentence will be.’
Wat dropped his lance to the rutted road, dismounted Sleipnir and strode up to the door of the carriage. If this was Sudbury he would drag the wicked old bastard out and throw him onto the road. There would be such a cheer. He grabbed the handle and yanked it open.
‘How dare you! I am the King’s Mother!’ Princess Joan yelled at the intruder.
‘Majesty?’ It was indeed Joan Wake, the Fair Maid of Kent. Wat had seen her at Dover when the Black Prince’s fleet had disembarked for France in 1371. She was still a beauty, even if there were wrinkles round those violet eyes, and white streaks in those long, honey-blonde tresses.
Princess Joan was struck by the ferocity in the rebel’s stare; here was a formidable man. ‘What manner of thief robs pilgrims?’
‘We are not thieves.’
‘Then why do you detain us? This is the Princess of Wales, returning from Canterbury after mourning her beloved husband’s death.’ Lady Genevieve had not heard her own voice sound like this, unhinged into an English screech. It frightened her.
‘We are stopping everyone in the name of King Richard and the True Commons.’
Princess Joan gasped. ‘Misusing the King’s name is treason.’
‘Majesty, we are loyal King’s Men.’
‘You are rebels!’ cried Lady Genevieve and stabbed her dagger into the intruder’s face.
Battlefield reflexes. Wat easily parried the thrust with his gauntlet and batted the weapon out of the lady’s slight fingers. ‘That wasn’t very clever, girl. Don’t do it again.’
Her rage spent, Lady Genevieve burst into tears, her nerve gone, utterly gone.
Princess Joan redoubled her attempts to achieve an authority. ‘What now, rebel? You intend to kill us?’
‘Not you.’ Wat slammed the door of the carriage and walked away.
Princess Joan leapt up and thrust her head out the window. ‘You will take us hostage then? Is that your plan?’
Wat turned to face her. ‘No, Majesty. An ignoble lord might imprison you, threaten to kill you, to force his terms. But we are not False Nobles and traitors. We are loyal King’s Men. The True Commons. You may tell that to the King when you see him.’
When the rebel captain turned his back on her, Princess Joan fell back into her seat, her head flushing, heart fluttering, thoughts reeling. He was letting her go? This rebel captain was a fool to let her go. Either that, or he was the most chivalrous man she’d met since Edward died. She took a deep breath, deep as her lungs would allow, and busied herself with comforting the hysterical Lady Genevieve.
Wat bent as low as his armour would allow, snatched up the fallen lance, of Sir Thomas. ‘I will send rid
ers ahead. No one will stop you now we know you are carrying the King’s Mother.’
Sir Thomas nodded. ‘I would have my sword back just the same.’
‘It’s a magnificent weapon.’ Wat picked up his sword, and smiled. ‘We need good weapons.’
‘So – you are common thieves after all!’ Sir Thomas said.
‘The spoils of war, Sir Thomas. The spoils of war.’ Wat turned on his heel, and shouted over to the pickets: ‘Let them pass! Let the Princess of Wales pass!’
‘The Princess of Wales?’ Nick said, too excited to help Harry and the other pickets roll the wagons out of the road. He wanted to catch a glimpse of her.
The six black horses took the strain and the royal carriage rolled off.
Once they heard who was the passenger in the carriage, folk all along the roadside began cheering as it passed by. ‘Long live the King’s Mother. Long live the Princess of Wales! Long live the Fair Maid of Kent!’
VI
King Richard led the Royal Household out of the Norman Gate. He was in the foulest of humours in spite of being on the back of his favourite black Arab stallion, Bucephalus, gifted from his late father. He adored riding Bucephalus! Nothing in life compared to a knee-jittering gallop on the beast. The Black Prince had of course named the charger after Alexander the Great’s horse. The message was clear – you too will be a conqueror, my son.
A conqueror – fleeing his own home.
His father would be turning, no, twirling on a spit, roasted by shame, in his vaulted grave.
‘Woah, girl.’ Chancellor Sudbury cantered up to join King Richard. ‘Majesty. The scribes are packed and ready to go. All is proceeding according to plan.’
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