Kingdom Come

by Toby Clements

  Thomas thinks it might be the first time he’s heard the boy speak.

  ‘But I didn’t tell about you murdering the lawyer in Gainsborough. I didn’t tell them that.’

  It doesn’t much matter now if he did or didn’t do it, or if Jack did or didn’t do it. A suggestion like this, Thomas knows, and they could both be hanging by noon tomorrow. Thomas can only nod, and kick on.

  John Stumps growls at Wymmys’s men, but they take heart from the presence of Brougham’s men and laugh and jeer.

  ‘You touch anything,’ he says, ‘you break anything, and I’ll fucking kill you myself.’

  ‘What with, your fucking teeth?’

  At the end of the track they reach the village and they pass through. Anne and Joana will stop here. Thomas says goodbye and kisses them and then Katherine does the same, but with a wiry ferocity. Thomas gives them money.

  ‘We will be home by Advent,’ he tells them.

  Everyone’s crying again.

  They mount up and ride on, and when they reach the road, they stop again, and he says goodbye to Jack and Jane, who has become his wife, and to the baby Kate, and the scene at the village is repeated.

  ‘God go with you,’ he tells them. ‘And I will let you know when we are back.’

  There are more tears.

  Eventually it is just the four of them. Thomas has Rufus on his lap; Katherine carries Alice. They stop at the crook in the road, from where they can look through the dying sedge across the pasture that is too damp to really serve for anything other than ducks, to Marton. They can see Brougham’s men turning in the track, getting ready to leave. Wymmys is still there with his men. They are dismounted, and looking in all the buildings, for stuff to steal perhaps, or places to live. Wymmys is walking about, on his own, as if he is startled by the size and ease of his victory.

  Thomas watches him for a long moment, and feels a cold wet wind blowing through him. The first of the autumn, perhaps. It gives him an idea. He swings his leg off his horse and unties his travel coat and brigandine and passes them up to Rufus. Then he unstraps his bow and takes it out of its linen sleeve.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Katherine asks.

  ‘What I should have done long ago.’

  He nocks the bow, bending it around his buttock to slip the string over, and then carefully chooses a single perfect arrow.

  ‘Wait here,’ he says.

  He walks twenty paces into the sodden pasture and stops. He watches Wymmys for a moment. He is perhaps 250 paces away, about the size of Thomas’s thumbnail, and he’s moving erratically, this way and that. It might be a sort of jig, Thomas thinks, of triumph or of ownership, or of incredulity. It is hard to say from here. The arrow is a broadhead, a hunting arrow, really, since who keeps war arrows at home unless they are King Edward? And the feathers are all three grey, well cut and tied with red thread. It’s a good arrow, subtly chested.

  Thomas takes his stance, and he is in clear ground. There’s a breeze at his back, which will help. He nocks the arrow on the string, and then looks over at Wymmys. He is still there, just below the window of the bedchamber. It is as if he is inspecting the property, looking up into the eaves, for marten nests, perhaps. He has his hand on his head. It is as if he still can’t believe his luck, and is saying to himself ‘wait till Mother sees this’. Then he turns and stalks back along the length of the house towards the yard and his own horse. Something – God? Fate? – makes him turn and look over the pasture towards Thomas. He sees Thomas, standing out there, and he must know who and what he is, but again he can’t quite believe it. He covers his brow against the sun’s soft glare and peers.

  Thomas draws. He feels the pinch between his shoulder blades and he knows even before he looses that this one will hit its target. He might as well not bother to watch. But he does. He sees the arrow shrink to become an almost dainty flit, hanging at the top of its arch for what always seems an improbably long moment, and then regather pace on its descent. He sees Wymmys unmoving, perhaps unable to believe what is happening, or perhaps knowing all too well, and perhaps also believing that there is something inevitable about this. Whatever it is he does not move and Thomas stands poised, the bow still alive in his left hand, as the arrow knocks the distant figure to the ground.

  ‘Ha!’

  Katherine has walked up to stand behind him.

  Thomas puts his arm around her shoulders and she puts hers around his waist and they walk back together to the road where Rufus waits with Alice and the horses. Once he has unnocked his bow and slid it back in its sleeve, Thomas helps Katherine up into her saddle, and then passes up Alice, who is restive now, and will need feeding soon, and then he helps Rufus up, and he is about to swing up into the saddle after him when he stops and looks down the road ahead, at the tunnel of elm trees through which they must pass to start this journey, the space he will look back on when he has taken his thousandth step, when he has found William Hastings, and which mark the beginning of his descent into whatever hell this will be.

  He takes one last look at Marton, at Wymmys’s men who are running like chickens, and he is satisfied none of them are thinking yet of revenge, and then he swings up into the saddle.

  ‘Come on, then,’ he says. ‘Let’s go and find Lord Hastings, shall we?’

  15

  They stay in an inn that night where the innkeeper cannot pronounce his Rs and he suggests that men are crying out for a change and if the Earl of ‘Wowick’ can bring it to them, then no one can blame them for wanting it so. The beds are unnaturally cold, as if they’ve been cursed, and there is an owl in the rafters somewhere that makes bloodcurdling noises that keep Rufus awake though not Alice.

  The place they are in does not really have a name, and they leave it after prayers and ride through wide-open flat country, silvered by acres of monastic stock ponds guarded by men in conical huts who have no news, but point them the way to Doncaster where the bells are ringing out for Michaelmas. Thomas tries not to think about what he would be doing in Marton this very moment.

  They stay that night in Doncaster.

  ‘Best place for news,’ the innkeeper tells them. ‘Everyone must pass through Doncaster.’

  He charges them for a whole room and then tries to make them share the bed with an apprentice feather merchant who has never drunk wine before but does so tonight because his master is doing right well out of all this.

  ‘All what?’ Thomas asks.

  ‘Everyone is after fletchings. Everyone. Feathers weigh more than gold, my master always says, and even Lord Montagu has placed an order, secretly like, so that King Edward does not learn his business.’

  ‘Why would – why would King Edward learn his business?’

  But the boy is asleep at the board before he’s made much sense of himself and in the morning he’s still there, unable to speak and stinking of vomit. Thomas goes to see to the horses. He is beginning to think waiting is pointless, and that they ought to push straight on to York, but the ostler shows him that his horse is slightly lame in the rear leg.

  ‘Carrying too much, master. You don’t want to overload a horse like this. Give it a few days and he’ll be right as rain.’

  So they are to be stuck in Doncaster. Thomas hopes the innkeeper is right, and that everyone comes through the town eventually.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the ostler says. ‘We get ’em all. Two days ago I got a fellow on his way to join Montagu; yesterday I got a fellow who said he was getting out of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t want to join Montagu in going over to Warwick. Said he remembered King Edward with kindness, and never liked old King Henry all that much anyway.’

  Thomas feels disappointment like a punch in the stomach. He leaves the man grumbling about something and goes to find Katherine, who’s trying keep Rufus occupied while she feeds Alice.

  ‘Montagu has deserted King Edward,’ he tells her. He feels sick.

  ‘We always said he would,’ she says, ‘whe
n King Edward gave away his title.’

  It is true, but it doesn’t help. They sit in silence for a bit. Thomas tries to think what it might mean, Montagu finally going over to his brother Warwick. He wishes he could speak to Flood or Wilkes, who would know how many men such and such had, and in what condition the road to York was, and how King Edward will react when turned upon by his own subjects – again.

  ‘What will we do now?’ Katherine asks. ‘If King Edward can’t help us?’

  Thomas doesn’t know. He had placed all his hopes on Hastings, and without King Edward, Hastings is powerless. The full horror of his predicament unfolds before him and all he can do is refuse to believe it.

  ‘But Montagu was always loyal,’ he says. ‘Even last year.’

  ‘He was the Earl of Northumberland last year.’

  ‘Perhaps we should ride to York,’ he says. ‘Perhaps there will be better news there?’

  She nods.

  They leave before noon, ignoring the ostler’s advice, and take the road for Pontefract, but a few miles out of the town, the innkeeper is proved right. Everyone must come through Doncaster. The first they see of King Edward is a body of his men on the road, riding towards them with purpose.

  ‘Are there any flags?’ he asks Katherine.

  ‘I can’t make anything out.’

  ‘We’d best get off the road,’ he says and they ride into some poplars whose leaves are on the turn. The riders approach and sweep by, moving heads down at an efficient trot. They are King Edward’s men, Thomas sees, about ten of them, carrying his standard, but they are in dirt-smutted riding cloaks, and they look ragged and tense, their horses sweat-flecked and tired.

  Thomas and Katherine exchange a look. Oh Christ, he thinks, she’s right: we can’t rely on King Edward for help.

  ‘Will King Edward come now?’ Rufus asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Thomas tells him, and they wait under the trees and a few moments later they see the road from the north filling with men and horses. There are many more flags above this body but there’s something about the shape of them – perhaps the way the flags are carried – that lets you know this isn’t an army advancing on their enemy, but rather one in retreat.

  Please God, Thomas prays, let this not be the King.

  But it is, and with his arrival, their hopes finally die. To begin with come more heralds but their finery can only be glimpsed under travelling cloaks, for they are grimly hunched over their horses’ withers, and they ride at that same efficient trot, with much on their minds. Thomas recognises Flood and nudges his horse forward, but Flood doesn’t hear his greeting, and is gone by the time Thomas reaches the roadside. Behind them come a mob of men likewise cloaked and on good horses, and Thomas recognises one or two of them from the night he spent in Fotheringhay.

  Then comes Edward, King of England, all in blue above his riding boots, with a fur-lined cloak that ripples as if the creatures who provided their skins were still alive, and there is a feather in his cap, but while that looks spritely, he looks mutinous, ashamed, humiliated, and as if he might kill the next man to cross him.

  ‘Dear Christ,’ Thomas breathes, because he recognises a beaten man.

  ‘Hastings!’ Katherine says, pointing.

  Hastings rides with Wilkes, a little further behind. He is fraught but not thunderous, Thomas would say, and unlike King Edward he is at least paying attention to what is around him. When he sees Thomas waiting at the roadside, he cocks his head in surprise.

  ‘Thomas!’ he says. ‘Master Everingham!’

  ‘Sir,’ Thomas says. ‘Lord Hastings.’

  Wilkes nods his greeting from under the brow of his black cap, and Thomas is somehow reassured by his presence. He is almost unrecognisable in a russet coat such as a farmer might wear, and low brown boots. Hastings cuts across him to greet Thomas. Wilkes pulls up too.

  ‘Great God above,’ Hastings says with a tired smile. ‘It is good to see you. And you too, Mistress Everingham! When last we saw you, you were in childbed, and I give thanks to God that you are up and about, and with such pleasant reward for your labour.’

  He even greets Rufus by name, and this meeting might be happy happenstance, were it not for the men gathering behind.

  ‘Come on, William!’ a man behind calls. Others are trying to get past. They are all in various threads of finery, but it is clear they have travelled some way, and have yet further to go, and they are already worn ragged.

  Hastings nudges his horse into the long grass of the verge.

  ‘So you’ve heard of our plight?’ he asks Thomas, and Thomas nods.

  ‘Something,’ he admits. He is suddenly distracted by the sight of the end of the column: he can already see it. There can’t even be three hundred of them.

  ‘Is this it?’ he cannot help himself asking. ‘There are no men following on?’

  Hastings sighs and shakes his head.

  ‘They cleared off when they heard Montagu was coming after us with his power from the north, and that bloody old Warwick was coming up from the south. They didn’t want to be caught between. On one hand you can hardly blame them, but on the other, I do.’

  There is an awkward moment while they watch the men ride by.

  ‘So you have come to join us, Master Everingham?’ Wilkes asks, even though he clearly knows the answer. ‘You have come to share our hardship in our hour of need?’

  Thomas opens and shuts his mouth. Hastings’s laugh is rueful.

  ‘Ah! There was some service you hoped I might do for you? Well. Ride with us, Thomas, and you too, Mistress Everingham, if you’ve a mind, and tell us how once we might have helped.’

  Thomas tells them the bare bones of his story.

  ‘Jesu Christe,’ Hastings murmurs, looking at him askance when he brings it to an abrupt end. ‘A cleric?’

  Thomas can only shrug.

  ‘With a very fine hand,’ Wilkes adds.

  ‘And how did you come to – to be in Calais?’ Hastings wonders, but you can see him setting the answer aside to ponder properly at leisure, over a bottle perhaps, and around a fire.

  ‘It is a long story, sir,’ Thomas says.

  ‘And I look forward to hearing it,’ Hastings says, ‘but perhaps now it is time I caught up with King Edward, if I am to help divert his wrath from the good people of Doncaster.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Thomas asks Wilkes when Hastings has gone on ahead.

  ‘Anywhere that is away from Lord Montagu,’ Wilkes tells him.

  ‘And who – who are we?’

  ‘We are down to those who cannot hope for terms with the Earl of Warwick, or the old Queen,’ Wilkes tells him. ‘We are a merry band of brothers, or brothers-in-law, at any rate. Lord Say is with us, and my lord of Worcester too.’

  Wilkes is telling him something, but Thomas doesn’t know what, and so says nothing. He feels a little coolness ripple down his spine. The Earl of Worcester was the man who questioned him last year about the ledger. He was also the man who impaled the sailors on the dock at Southampton.

  ‘But where are we going really, Wilkes?’

  ‘Norfolk,’ he tells them. ‘He is our last hope, for the moment.’

  They ride on, back through the gatehouse into Doncaster, where the people have turned out to see the King come, but the atmosphere is very uncertain. They stand and watch and at any moment they might throw flowers, coins, rotten cabbages, offal, anything. There is some relief among King Edward’s men when they’ve left, taking the road to Gainsborough, where the little army crosses the river by the ferry and here again word spreads quickly, and the townspeople come out to watch King Edward pass in almost total silence.

  They sleep that night at Thomas Burgh’s new hall, though he himself is not there, and nor, Thomas is pleased to see, is the watchman. Various men come and go through the night and Wilkes, who has changed from his dowdy garb into a very fine green brigandine and lustrous hunting boots, is forever bustling about the place, organising horses for men and
messages, and by morning the news is confirmed as the worst it could be.

  Thomas and Katherine seek out William Hastings, who is brisk.

  ‘Warwick has brought the whole country out in favour of the old King,’ he tells them. ‘And if we are taken, we cannot hope for the same deal as last time. No more pleasant hunting in Middleham.’

  ‘What about the Duke of Norfolk?’

  Hastings pulls a face.

  ‘We can but try,’ he says. It is all frustratingly vague. They set out eastwards, anyway, following a road that winds through gentle wolds until the trees become steadily scrubbier and the land flattens and it is as if it rushes to the horizon. The soil turns to slop beneath their horses’ hooves, and they ride amid heaving rush banks where a punt is more use than a horse, where the gulls shriek, and the air smells of corruption and fish guts. It all feels familiar to Thomas, the way the east wind cuts your face and pulls your clothes.

  ‘Christ,’ Hastings says. ‘Are you sure this is the way?’

  They come to a dark steep-sided river that snakes through the mud, and there seems no point in crossing it, for there is nothing but more mud on the other side. So they backtrack to where the trees grow and follow a winding path south. King Edward rides before them with his head sunk on his chest. Thomas wonders if they have not lost quite a few men overnight.

  ‘Down to about a hundred, I’d say,’ Wilkes agrees.

  They ride all that day, following paths that link them to fords over silt-thick rivers through the black mud. At one point they come to a village where they find a child standing by a dead pony, and a dog that barks at them, and here they must take turns in a small ferry across a fast-running river and the boys on the oars tell them there is all sorts going on.

  ‘Men riding this way and that,’ one of them says, and he goes on to describe the star that the men wore on their livery. The Earl of Oxford. Thomas wonders if it is Brougham. The boys say there are many hundreds besides, in all liveries.

  At this news, more men melt away from King Edward’s party, and by the time they have crossed the river, they are down to about seventy men.