Kingdom Come

by Toby Clements

  She still thinks of Rufus’s poor dead twin now and then, stillborn in a field below Bamburgh Castle, but she finds herself immune to any speculation as to what the child would be doing now, had she lived. She was baptised, so that is enough, and she has been spared the scrambled life Rufus has had to endure. She does not try to imagine how it might have been with two of them.

  They stop fairly often to let Rufus climb down from Thomas’s saddle to collect a long brown tube of a bulrush, say, or to push aside the fence of reeds to get a closer look at some coot chicks on a mere, and each time they do, Katherine hears the bald, pouch-eyed John burp softly. But she can ignore him, for Rufus is delighted by how much the world has changed in the month or so since they were last abroad, and it is impossible not to share his pleasure at the sight of nature reborn.

  They ride on, carefully keeping watch ahead, and she had hoped to try to gauge the temper of the country as they pass, to meet that needle merchant, say, with news of the south, or some pilgrims, or in fact anyone, but the roads are very quiet and they meet no one, not a soul, until at last they recognise the shape of Foulmouth John loping towards them, barefoot, with tears dried on his cheeks and an eye so black it is closed up.

  ‘Fucking squirrel done it,’ he tells them without breaking stride, and he leaves them in his wake, trying to imagine how that might be. His father bald John just shakes his head very slightly.

  Further on they meet the carrier, coming warily towards them through a long straight stretch of tree-lined road. He will know what is afoot, she thinks, since he travels from Lincoln to Gainsborough and back three or four times a week. He sits in his cart, rather than walks alongside, and behind him, unusually, come three men in helmets, thick jacks, two armed with bills, the other a bow. Up close they look unsure of their own military might, and Katherine supposes they might be recruited from the Watch on one of the city gates, and are more used to leering at nuns and warming their hands over a brazier than fighting off bands of robbers.

  ‘God give you good speed,’ the carrier greets them when he recognises them, and they return the blessing, and the carrier draws up his mule. Despite his life on the move, he’s a fat man, awkward in his seat, under layers of filthy russet, like a shuffling, shaggy bear that you see in poor fairs. He speaks with a strained whispery voice, and he tells them of his cargo that today includes three dun-coloured puppies in a wicker cage and a fierce-looking cockerel that hangs by his spurs from the back of the cart. He tells them business is bad, as he always does when you meet him, but that is to be expected at this time of year.

  ‘So have you heard anything further of the attack on Thomas Burgh’s house?’ Katherine asks.

  The man sucks his teeth.

  ‘A bad business, mistress. A bad business. Though no one killed, praise the Lord, save a servant boy thrown from a window.’

  ‘Is it known who did it?’

  ‘It is well known, mistress,’ he says, tipping his head. ‘For the perpetrator never sought to hide his sin, unlike Eve when first she tempted Adam.’

  He is that sort of man. He licks his lips and speculates on the costrel of ale on Thomas’s saddle. Thomas sighs and hands it to the man, who takes it with thanks and drinks long. A strong smell emanates from the yeasty folds of his cloth.

  ‘It was Lord Welles,’ he tells them when he has wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Lord Welles and another gentle who goes by the name of Sir Thomas Dimmock.’

  The names mean nothing to her, nor to Thomas, who looks crestfallen.

  ‘Not – not a band of outlaws?’ he asks.

  The carrier laughs.

  ‘No, no, indeed. Or not any more. The family was once attainted – after old Lord Welles was killed at Towtonfield – but our Lord Welles has regained the King’s mercy, so is outlaw no longer, though how long that will last, only God above can say.’ He raises his eyes heavenward. Thomas still refuses to believe it.

  ‘But then why is he attacking Thomas Burgh?’

  ‘Oh, they’re like Cain and Abel, that sort, aren’t they?’ the carrier says. ‘Forever at one another over this or that. Welles’s lands are mostly to the south of Lincoln, and when the old King was on the throne, his was the family to whom the whole county bent its knee. Times change.’

  So it seems both Katherine and Thomas were wrong. It was not some banditry, nor was it some piece of provocation: it was merely local rivalry between two gentles, a feud got out of hand. She feels warm with relief.

  ‘Thanks be to God,’ she says.

  The carrier inclines his head.

  ‘Aye,’ he cautions, ‘but Burgh has used his influence with King Edward …’ He holds up the costrel and raises his eyebrows for permission.

  Thomas nods. The man drinks again. His guard are shuffling their feet. The mule farts sonorously.

  ‘Fine ale,’ he says when he has caught his breath and wiped his mouth again. ‘Fine ale.’

  ‘King Edward—?’

  ‘King Edward? Oh yes. So King Edward has taken up the cause of Burgh in this, as he might, you’d think, since Burgh is King Edward’s man after all, and what use is goodlordship if it cannot be called upon? And so King Edward summoned Lord Welles and this other gentle to appear before him down in Westminster, and he has them down there still.’

  So that is it? Katherine thinks. This last month spent cooped up in the hall, taut as cloth in a tenter frame, peering out over a crossbow at any noise without, and it was – for nothing? Thomas at least has the decency to look abashed.

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘Let us give thanks to God for a swift resolution then, anyway.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ the carrier agrees. ‘Though there are …’ And he holds the costrel up again, and Thomas nods again and they sit and watch him finish the ale. There was more than two pints in there, Katherine supposes.

  ‘Though there are many who fear a wider reckoning yet. They’re saying that King Edward is preparing to come up here to see for himself the temper of our county.’ The carrier raises his eyebrows as he repeats the formal phrasing, and it is obvious he is quoting something he has heard said elsewhere. Katherine remembers Thomas’s story of King Edward claiming that he always learned his lessons, and that he would never underestimate a threat again as he had that last summer. So it seems he may be true to his word.

  ‘A friar told me he was coming to hang us all,’ one of the guards adds.

  Katherine is as surprised as Thomas.

  ‘Why?’ he asks.

  ‘Many from around here turned out for Robin of Redesdale last summer, didn’t they? Or they went over to the Earl of Warwick while King Edward was in the Northern Parts. They’ll have reason to fear his coming.’

  ‘Including this Lord Welles?’

  The carrier nods.

  ‘He was one who went over, yes.’

  Katherine has a thought. It is like being stung by a nettle, sharp at first, but its warmth spreads through her.

  ‘Did you say Welles’s lands are south of Lincoln?’ she asks.

  ‘There or thereabouts. Around Tattershall in the main.’

  And she finds herself nodding, because the word Tattershall rings familiar.

  ‘Is that where the castle is?’

  ‘The pink one?’ The carrier nods. He obviously doesn’t hold with it.

  ‘And does Baron Willoughby come from near there?’ Katherine presses.

  The carrier smiles broadly.

  ‘Baron Willoughby, mistress? Baron Willoughby? Why, Baron Willoughby and Lord Welles, they are one and the same, mistress. They are the same man!’

  The carrier’s laugh is wheezy, and Katherine can smell him even above the horses and the silent puppies in the back. He wipes each teary eye with the back of his index finger and then returns the costrel, and now the ale is gone, so too is his desire to share any further knowledge. They repeat their blessings and wish him well, and they leave him to grind his way northwards to Gainsborough, with his shuffling guard and the cockerel glar
ing at them as they go.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Thomas asks. ‘Do you know of this Baron Willoughby?’

  ‘Last year,’ Katherine begins, ‘in the summer, when you were with King Edward in Middleham, I went with Isabella to Tattershall to appeal to Baron Willoughby for the release of Jack and John and Nettie.’

  Thomas remains puzzled.

  ‘How would he have been able to help with that?’ he asks.

  ‘Because Isabella said he had the ear of the Earl of Warwick.’

  ‘But he didn’t, remember?’ Thomas says. ‘We had to go up there to get them out ourselves.’

  ‘But only because he was not there,’ Katherine tells him. ‘Only because he was with the Earl of Warwick when we came. He was with the Earl.’

  She sees it all now. Warwick induces Welles to cause an affray, knowing that this time King Edward will not make the mistake of underestimating it, and then when he comes north to show his strength, Warwick will strike elsewhere, perhaps, or cut him off from his strength in London. Yes. That is what he will do. Lure King Edward north, and interpose his own troops between him and his allies.

  ‘But – but you heard the carrier,’ Thomas says. ‘It is a simple feud!’

  ‘But Welles is Warwick’s man, isn’t he? Just as Riven was. A different tool for a different job, perhaps.’

  ‘Even so. The King has both Welles and the other one in Westminster. He has them, and the matter, in hand.’

  ‘But then – then why is King Edward coming up here to “see for himself the temper of the county”?’

  ‘Oh, that is only a rumour,’ Thomas says, but she can see him thinking hard.

  ‘But what if it is true?’

  ‘Well, then,’ he says. ‘I suppose King Edward will come and then he will hang those who have rebelled against him.’

  ‘But what if Warwick wants him to do just that?’

  Thomas looks to Jack and then the other men as if they might explain it to Katherine. They are dumb beasts, she thinks, and stubborn, too. Why can’t they see what she means?

  ‘Come on,’ Thomas says, trying to change the topic. ‘We shall be late for Mass.’

  They ride on, meeting no one until the reach the Newport Arch in Lincoln, where they find the men of the Watch looking pinched and anxious. Normally they are full of cheap swagger, but today something is up. What, though?

  ‘King Edward,’ one of them mutters when she asks. ‘He is coming up here from London, bringing with him a very great number of men to punish the county for all the riotous commotions of last year.’

  So it is not just a rumour. Katherine hears Thomas puff out his cheeks. She resists looking at him. She wonders if the guard might ordinarily use such words as riotous commotion to describe anything? She does not think so.

  ‘Who told you that?’ she asks.

  ‘It was a friar,’ he tells them. ‘Just been through. You must have missed him on the road.’ He gestures down the road, as if at the man’s back. They’d seen no friar.

  They walk their horses into the city towards the cathedral.

  ‘It is still only a rumour,’ Thomas says.

  ‘But a friar?’ she asks. ‘The same one that the carter heard it from?’

  Thomas shrugs. ‘Why not?’ he asks.

  That is true, but still, something is odd about it. She wonders why they did not see this friar themselves? There’s an odd atmosphere on the close cramped streets north of the cathedral, too, as if the place is battened down in readiness for heavy winds or a rainstorm. Men and women hurry by, heads ducked, shoulders hunched, not looking up, offering no blessing, and Katherine feels they know something she and Thomas do not. Perhaps it is always like this, she thinks, and it only seems odd because she has been away from it for so long? But no. There is some extra humour in the air.

  They walk past the apothecary, whose shop is boarded shut, and down into the cathedral precinct, where a small crowd is gathered on the steps of the great church. Someone is reading something out in a low voice, and the crowd stands listening quietly. They are not the usual crowd coming from Mass, Katherine thinks, and when the man has stopped reading there is only a low burble of voices, and then the knot – there must be twenty of them perhaps – begins to fray, with men and women stalking away, necks bent again, shoulders hunched as if in readiness for a beating, muttering to one another.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks.

  ‘Wait here,’ Thomas says. He swings Rufus from the saddle, takes him by the hand and together they make their way to the front of the thinning crowd where Thomas peers short-sightedly at the sheet of paper nailed to the jamb of the cathedral’s west door. Katherine stays with Jack and the other two, and the horses. Jack doesn’t say anything, but his eye flits about, seeking novelty and diversion, and he is bent to be off and away into the city’s sloping streets. Katherine’s gaze slips across the façade of the cathedral, across the precinct, past the stationers’ stalls and down the hill to the pardoner’s widow’s house. She wonders if she is still there, still at the window in her ghostly attire, still waiting for her new husband to come to take away all those books she hated so.

  Thomas returns looking serious.

  ‘What does it say?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s a summons,’ he tells her. ‘From someone calling himself the Great Captain of the Commons of the Shire.’

  ‘A summons to what?’

  Thomas relates what it says in the voice in which he imagines the summons was written:

  ‘It says King Edward is coming up here with a great power and many judges who will sit and hang and draw a great number of the said commons of this county for the revolt they carried out this last year before and at the time of Michaelmas, and this Great Captain of the Commons is calling on them to meet at a place called Ranby Hawe – on pain of death – to resist King Edward.’

  Katherine is speechless for a moment. It is no wonder they’ve seen men and women stealing away looking fearful and shocked. It is treason even to suggest such a meeting, but to spell it out in a handbill like this – that is to invite a death sentence! The cathedral bells ring out and a cloud of pigeons erupt from their perches among the shit-spattered saints on the towers. The horses shy on their reins and they must gather them and soothe them, and after that they walk away, leading their nervous horses, and it seems Thomas’s Te Deum is to be forgotten for the day.

  As they walk, she thinks on the summons, and sees it for what it is. Yes, she says to herself, it is the reaction to the reaction. Another link in a chain of events. So that is why the rumour is being spread! It hardly matters now if King Edward was ever going to come here with his armies or not, because now, faced with this growing revolt, he must.

  But what is the nature of the trap King Edward has been set? That is what she cannot know because she has been sealed away in Marton Hall for the last month, and even had she been free to go, where might she have gone? She would hardly have been riding around the land, spying on the dealings of the Earl of Warwick. But she can imagine them. She can imagine him hatching out the plot, blowing on its embers, getting it going.

  ‘Does the Earl suppose he can defeat King Edward in battle?’ she wonders aloud. ‘Is that it?’

  Thomas sighs. ‘It will not come to anything like that,’ he says. ‘King Edward will come, and those who answer this summons will vanish like smoke in the wind, and the so-called Great Captain of the Commons will answer for his treason with his head.’

  In the past, Katherine thinks, Thomas might have believed her, or taken her word on trust, but now she is pregnant, it is as if she is out of her wits.

  ‘It is natural,’ he says, trying to reassure her. ‘Natural that you should worry. The child has disturbed your humours. That is it.’

  She feels a spike of anger and places a hand under her belly.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘It is not that. It is that if I am right, and if the Earl of Warwick is once more making war on King Edward, then you know what will happen.�
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  At this Thomas looks stern, resolved. ‘No,’ he says. ‘William Hastings will not call on me, and even if he did, I would not go. I would find some excuse. I am done with that. We – we are done with that.’

  She turns to him.

  ‘It does not matter whether you think you are done with it, Thomas. What matters is whether it is done with you. Whether it is done with us.’

  Thomas stares at her without saying anything. His eyes are fierce, blazing even, but now he knows what she is thinking. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ he says. ‘The ledger.’

  And she needs say no more.

  Yes. The ledger. It has lain buried for these last few months under the hearth in Jack’s house, hidden from all the world, but still as potent as a body in the plague pit, and whenever Katherine steps across his threshold, inevitably she glances first to the hearth before she looks up again at Jack or his wife or his child. They should destroy it. Of course they should. They should take it outside and burn it. And yet they have not done so, and they have not done so because they cannot do so. They must keep it, and they must keep it for ever, because when one day it is discovered they have it, or even that once they had it – as one day it surely will be known – then one or other of the two most powerful men in all England will come calling for this ledger, and yielding it up to them will be the only thing she and Thomas may do to save their lives.

  But until then, there it is, bundled tightly in its waxed linen and leather bindings, heavy as any chain, shackling them, inescapably, to the great weight of their pasts. It had first come into their possession by chance ten years ago now, and the man who had – in a way – left it to them had claimed it was of incalculable value to the right man. But when they first looked at it, they could not see why nor to whom it might be worth a penny, for it was unpromising fare: long lists of names of troops from the garrison in Rouen, in English Normandy, written on cheap paper and bound in third-grade leather. It detailed the soldiers’ movements around English France, and the efforts made to supply them with armaments – mostly bows and arrows, which they could not plunder as they went – and it covered the months from spring 1440 to early autumn in 1442.