‘I must reward him.’ King Richard beckoned to the servants for a cloth to dry himself with.
‘Richard. Before you make awards, I must tell you of our peril. We were captured by the rebels.’
King Richard stopped towelling under his arms. ‘You were what, mother? How in the name of God did my dearest brother, the Marshal of England, let that happen?’
‘There was nothing Thomas could do. The rebels stopped our carriage. Their captain could have taken us prisoner, but he let us go.’
‘How very chivalrous – for a villein!’
‘He was no villein, my son. He struck me as a soldier, a veteran. He told me to tell you they were loyal King’s Men. They call themselves the True Commons.’
‘The True Commons?’
Princess Joan took a cloth from a servant. ‘Sit down, son. Let me dry your hair.’
King Richard sat down. ‘The True Commons? True – as opposed to the False Commons of Parliament, no doubt …?’
Princess Joan stood over her son and massaged the lank black strands of his hair dry. ‘Genevieve tried to stab him in the face but he parried the blow with the ease of a seasoned soldier.’
‘She didn’t draw blood then?’
Princess Joan stopped her gentle towelling. ‘No. He was far too quick.’
‘More’s the pity.’ King Richard sighed. The hairs on the nape of his neck were standing up and it had nothing to do with the way his mother had dried his hair.
XI
London was but a smear of smoke on the horizon, but Wat could almost smell the stink from here.
The ferry zigged and zagged across the Thames, sail puffing and sagging in the shifting wind; two stick men were aboard, one on tiller at the stern, one on the port side, poling down into the muck for purchase.
It was clear from watching, the ferrymen knew the sly and sleek tidal pulls, currents and eddies of the river, the sandbanks and shallows, like the knotted veins on the backs of their hands. Wat stood on the wooden dock and awaited the barge with Jack, Nobody the big mutt, Ed Smith and six other archers. He’d handpicked this lance from Tonbridge and Maidstone; needed capable men for the job he had in mind.
‘Listen up lads,’ Jack said. ‘Wat’s going to tell us what we’re going to do. Did you like that – Wat we’re going to do?’
‘Side-splitting,’ Wat said.
Jack laughed. ‘It’s not my fault your name is a question.’
To recapture the full attention of the men from a japing, drunken Jack, Wat drew his sword, stabbed the tip into the muck by the dock and removed the tip. ‘That hole is London. We cannot afford to lay siege to the city. We have to overwhelm it, take it by force, stealth or subterfuge but whatever we do, we must take it quickly. The threat of force and fire should be enough to convince the Londoners to open the gates. For this to work we need Essex to march on London as well.’
‘Not the Short-Arses!’ Jack sneered.
The men laughed.
‘Yes, the Short-Arses.’ Wat scraped two ellipses in the muck, one on either side of the dot that represented London. ‘All of Kent is on the move but we need to surround the city, to throttle it north, south, east, west. That is why I am sending you men to Essex. If John Ball is right and the rumours are true, the Short-Arses are in open revolt. You are to tell them we’ll meet in the streets of London this Thursday, the feast of Corpus Christi.’
‘There is one flaw with your plan,’ Jack said. ‘The Short-Arses are too stupid to understand it, simple as it is.’
Wat sheathed his sword, winked. ‘That’s why they need the good men of Kent to lead them, Jack.’
The laughter was followed by more good-natured banter about how thick-headed and loose-hipped Essex women were.
Nobody started barking at the ferry as it glided up to the dock. One of the ferrymen flung a line at the shore. ‘Ho ashore, lend a hand!’
Wat went after the rope, tied it off round a post.
Ed used his muscle-bulk and hands of steel to haul the barge in tight to the dock. ‘Heave-ho, lads!’
The other men lent a hand.
The older ferryman stood on the prow, hands on hips, looking over the armed Kentish. ‘So it’s true, you Long-Tails are finally up in arms too!’
‘Fuck off!’ Jack said. ‘We were up in arms before you Short-Arses!’
‘Everyone knows Brentwood is where it all started, mate.’
‘You’re talking balls,’ Jack said, “Tonbridge is where it started! We revolted first!’
Wat nodded. No smoke without fire: Essex was risen indeed. ‘What happened in Brentwood?’
‘Last Whitsunday Commissioner Brampton summoned the fisher-folk of Fobbing, Corringham and Stanford-le-Hope to Brentwood to be judged for non-payment of the poll tax. The tosser tried to arrest Elder Thomas Baker and that did it – they chased the fuckers off. They sent the trailbaston under that cunt Sir Robert Bealknap packing too after they rode in to arrest Baker.’
‘Good for them!’ Wat said. The second of June. Five whole days before he’d rebelled. It was amazingly comforting to know that other men had stood up and said “No more!” long before he had. Good for them!
‘Brentwood sent runners to all the villages and towns around. Chelmsford, Billericay, Wickford. Basildon. They all joined the revolt. They say there are fifty thousand who have risen up. They are burning all the lords’ manors and killing any fucking nobles and lawyers they can find.’
‘Hear that, Jack? You have an army waiting for you. That should make your job easier. Find this Thomas Baker. Lead him to London.’
Jack fell silent and remained so as they loaded the horses onto the ferry. It irked him that Essex had stolen their thunder. And to add injury to insult, he was sobering up, had no more wine left. ‘Nobody, get your big arse over here!’
Nobody loped onto the ferry to join his master.
Wat cast off the line, walked over to Sleipnir and mounted up. He waved at the ferry as it slid away. ‘God go with you, lads!’
Jack waved back. ‘God damn you, Wat! You’ve condemned me to a fate worse than death – Essex!’
XII
Everything was rotten. His chamber reeked of the city and the city reeked of the sewers. King Richard needed some fresh air. It was hard to find any fresh air in London. To that end he marched all his ministers up to the top of the White Tower.
Sir Robert escorted him, in full plate, up the steep spiral staircase, only beginning to puff right at the top.
Out on the battlements, where the royal ravens made their nests, the wind was brisk and moist, blowing up from the south-west, Bristol-ways.
King Richard peeled the crown – pawned so many times to London bankers as to be worthless as anything but a symbol of power – from his forehead, and tossed it to Sir Robert before he leant out over the battlements. Looking down over St Katherine’s he could see shrunken monks scurrying around the hospital grounds, tending for the sick, the poor, the destitute of the city – all the scum who might leap like wraiths from their death beds, like the Romans’ Furies, turning against him in an instant, to kill their lords and the King. These people had no gratitude.
‘Majesty?’ Chancellor Sudbury said.
King Richard stood up straight and replaced his crown. ‘Spit out your latest intelligences on the enemy, Simon-Says.’
Chancellor Sudbury cleared his throat. ‘Twenty thousand Kentishmen are massing on Blackheath, Majesty. Our scouts report a similar number of Essexmen arrayed at Mile End. They have many, many archers amongst them.’
‘So, the enemy now numbers forty thousand.’ King Richard turned, replaced his crown on his head. ‘I would have your counsel, Treasurer Hales?’
Treasurer Hales, full of the snottered cold, mustered all the authority of his position in government, and spoke up: ‘With these numbers, they will march on London and lay siege, Majesty.’
‘Obviously!’ Sir Robert looked to the heavens. What did the Prior of the St John’s Hospitallers know of war?
It had been a military order in the time of the Crusades, but this fool in skirts had never lifted a sword in anger in his life. God, save us from your conniving priests! That scheming heretic Wyclif was right to say the government should be run by statesmen not churchmen.
‘What word of the Northern army, Simon-Says?’ King Richard demanded.
‘Your uncle, the Duke, should have his marching orders today, Majesty,’ reported Chancellor Sudbury. ‘The letters were sent when we left Windsor.’
Sir Robert sighed deeply. ‘The Duke’s troops are massed on the Scottish Borders. Even if he force-marches his troops day and night, they will not be here for three days.’
‘That’s if he will come to our aid at all,’ King Richard muttered. ‘He has no love for London.’
‘He will come,’ said Chancellor Sudbury. ‘He has to come.’
King Richard was not convinced that his uncle would come. After the Londoners under Mayor Walworth had raided the Savoy Palace to take his head, he had sworn never to set foot in London again. There was also the succession to consider – the Duke was next in line to the throne. The King is dead. Long live the King!
Sir Robert laughed. ‘If the Duke leaves Roxburgh, in haste, his negotiations with the Scots will founder. They will see weakness instead of strength, and they will invade in his wake. Majesty, we must not recall the Northern Army! We do not need them to quell a rabble of peasants anyway. Send a messenger to rescind Sudbury’s order.’
Treasurer Hales gave his good friend Sudbury a nod of reassurance. Amicus verus est rara avis: a true friend is a rare bird. ‘I do not think that at all wise counsel, Majesty.’
‘What else are we to do, Hales?’ King Richard scratched his knuckles. ‘We have no other men-at-arms or archers to call upon. The Earl of Cambridge has already weighed anchor from Plymouth to sail for Portugal.’
Sir Robert thrust his right gauntlet into his left. ‘We have two hundred men in the Tower, seasoned veterans. I have my retinue of one hundred. Other lords will ride with us. With three thousand men we could strike out against the Kentishmen and rout them.’
‘No, no, Knolles!’ Treasurer Hales felt his face flush crimson. He despised hotheads: emotions were dangerously contagious, especially pride, the love of one’s power. ‘You do not have enough men for a decisive victory. They have archers in their thousands. They will cut you to pieces.’
‘There are ways to confound archers.’ Sir Robert glared at Hales. ‘We must fight. Knightly honour demands it. The Duke of Orleans and the Count of Foix fought against the Jacques and won the day. It can be done.’
Chancellor Sudbury shook his finger at Sir Robert. ‘The pragmatic approach is to play for time. Cold nights. Hunger. Thirst. These are our friends and they will encourage the rustics to disperse before the city walls. We can guard the gates and wait for the Duke’s relief army to arrive.’
‘Agreed.’ Treasurer Hales sneezed, once, twice … blew cords of snot from his red nose in a lavender-scented handkerchief.
A bell began tolling.
King Richard knew it would ring six times. The sixth hour, Sext, when we should meditate on the crucifixion of Christ, which they say happened at noon, a terrible darkness at noon which would last until the ninth hour. ‘Leave me, all of you. I will seek higher counsel on this.’ He got down on his knees, clasped his hands together and bowed his head.
XIII
The summer house was the home of a soldier, a stout-walled redoubt, with a central crenellated tower, surrounded by a moat. The short drawbridge spanning the weed-greened moat was as narrow as it was short. Wat reined Sleipnir, champing at the bit, to a dead stop, to allow the line of three messengers on horseback, trotting from the manor house, each carrying scrolled letters, to cross.
Sir John Newton bid his steed halt, wondering where these harbingers of sorrow were riding to. ‘You do realise this is Sir Robert Knolles’ summer house?’
‘You’ll never know how pleased I was to find that out,’ Wat replied. He walked Sleipnir across the drawbridge into the courtyard and dismounted. He fed the hungry stallion a handful of oats from his pocket.
Sir John slid out of the saddle, carefully mind. He winced as his feet met the cobblestones, had gout flaring in his ankles these past two years. ‘Sir Robert is not a man to steal from.’
‘Sir Robert is the biggest thief in all England and France. I know him all too well,’ Wat said with a wicked chuckle. ‘That is why when I leave here, this house will be burnt to the ground. By right, I should have it razed stone by stone.’
‘A man who makes powerful enemies is a man not long for this world,’ Sir John said.
‘I have faced six Frenchie lords in battle. Killed four. Ransomed two.’ Wat shrugged. ‘Tell me, what’s the difference between a Frenchie lord and an English one?’
‘Manners,’ Sir John said, making light of the threat.
‘Indeed. The fucking Frenchies have some. I’ll give them that. They call it chivalry, don’t they?’ Wat smiled thinly, and led Sir John into the vaulted hall of Sir Robert’s fancy manor.
John was sat at the head of banqueting table, with four other priests, Franciscans in brown robes all scribbling away furiously; the weird scratching of quills on parchment, the magic of words, thoughts being born into history.
John looked up from his letters, squinting, finding focus. ‘Ah, our illustrious Captain, back from raiding the rich!’
‘How goes it, John?’ Wat said.
‘Write the things which thou hast seen, the things which are, and the things that shall be.’ John stabbed his quill into the inkpot, and shook cramp from his hand. ‘Revelations. I’ve been composing letters to the good aldermen of London all morning.’
‘Good for you,’ said Wat. ‘A word—’
‘I have writer’s cramp.’ John flapped his aching hand at the four fellow priests. ‘And these saints here have been writing to summon the men of Everywhereshire –Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire. Letters. Letters. Bloody letters.’
‘You’ll be glad to know you don’t need to write a letter to the King now.’ Wat clapped Sir John Newton on the shoulder, twice, good winding blows. ‘We have a herald who will certainly be granted an audience. Sir John Newton, the Crusader.’
John rose from his seat, calmly advanced on the herald until they were face-to-face. ‘Sir. John. Newton. Indeed it is. Do you recognise me?’
Sir John Newton shook his head. Although, the face was vaguely familiar, beneath all that unpleasant peasant dirt and grime.
‘The Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound: to proclaim the coming of the Lord. Isaiah 61, verses one and two. Ring any bells?’
‘Not even jester’s bells.’ Sir John Newton sneered. He had only ever read the scriptures in Latin. English was such a crude language.
John nodded, glanced over at Wat, then swung a thumping right hook into the cheek of the knight, who reeled off, forced to the floor.
‘Steady on!’ Wat stepped into John, pushed him back from Sir John, who lay clutching his ear, reddening, puffing.
‘John Ball is my name! Remember now?’ John yelled down at Sir John. ‘You had me thrown in gaol four years back for preaching the word of the Lord in the churchyard of St Mark’s.’
‘John Ball?’ Sir John Newton rose to his knees, glaring up at the priest. ‘You were preaching sedition. You are a heretic. One of Wyclif’s devils.’
‘I am no heretic, Sir Sinner. And I preached my message all over England long before Wyclif began writing his English Bible at Oxford!’ John launched a kick at the knight when he was down …
‘Woah!’ Wat held John off, no mean feat; he was a meaty big fellow. ‘Don’t kill our messenger, John.’
‘Messenger? John looked at Wat; the zealot fire in his eyes dimmed.
‘Yes. This is our new royal herald.’
&
nbsp; ‘Him? How can we trust this so-called knight to relay any message to the King?’
Sir John pushed himself up to his full standing. ‘I am a Knight of the Garter. Bound by honour. And I have given my oath to serve as herald.’
‘I took an oath in gaol not to wash till the men of England are free!’ John sneered. ‘Yet, I’ll warrant my arse is cleaner than your knightly conscience.’
‘John!’ Wat took a hold of the priest’s sleeve and tugged him away from the knight. ‘A word to the wise.’
Fury blazed in John’s eyes, but he did as bid.
Wat spoke low, fatherly like, to calm him. ‘John, John. Anger makes men stupid. And we need to be very clever. Sir John will deliver your message, word for word. He is one of them and his fear will become their fear and this is how the wise wage war.’
‘You are correct.’ John turned, folded his arms high on his chest. ‘Heed what I am about to say well then, Sir John—’
Sir John sniffed blood, copper tang. ‘I am listening.’
John paused, tempering his thoughts, making of his tongue a honed sword. ‘The King himself is to come parley with us tomorrow morning, at Prime, on the Blackheath. He will be granted safe passage to discuss our terms.’
‘May I ask what your terms are?’
Wat patted Sir John on the back, making him flinch. ‘We’ll tell the King what we want from him tomorrow.’
‘All the King need do is listen,’ John said. ‘I will bring the peoples’ grievances to his notice in English, the common tongue of his people. He does speak English, doesn’t he?’
Sir John nodded. ‘The King, though still a boy, speaks many tongues.’
‘Best get going, Sir John,’ Wat said. ‘Use the river. Less trouble on the water. Get the boatman to wait for you to return from the Tower. We want the King’s reply tonight.’
Sir John sniffed. ‘Tonight?’
‘Yes, tonight, knight!’ John yelled. ‘Or I’ll cut off your head. You better run! Run, run, run, like the fox.’
Three Lions of England Page 9
