Thomas moves wearily and warily today, Katherine notes, and he seems suddenly much older, with the stiffened limbs and slow movements of a grandfather. She shouldn’t be surprised, she supposes. His body is a patchwork of interlocking bruises, of grazes, cuts and lacerations. It is as if he has been pummelled by washing beetles, or been caught under an ox and harrow. He also seems distant, preoccupied, and she supposes it is not only the body that is wounded in such a confrontation.
Sir John Flood is here with some of his men in Hastings’s livery to see if it is true that King Edward has laid out the bodies of the Earl of Warwick and his brother Montagu on the paving stones before the cathedral steps for all to see.
‘Proof that they are dead,’ Flood tells her, ‘and are never to return to terrify you again.’
‘Or proof they are no longer worth following,’ Katherine says, and he admits this with a look.
There is a big crowd, but the atmosphere is not festive. King Edward has had the Te Deum sung in the cathedral, of course, but there is no wine in any fountain, and there is none of the wild elation one might imagine would run riot after such a victory.
‘It is because we were fighting Englishmen,’ is Flood’s opinion. ‘And because it’s Montagu, too, I suppose.’
If the Earl of Warwick and King Edward had parted ways over the last ten years, it is well known that King Edward still valued Lord Montagu and mourns his loss above all others. But the already muted atmosphere changes when Wilkes’s news starts to circulate. It is the thought of a Frenchwoman leading a French army, paid for by the French King, into England.
And there is also her son, the Prince.
‘King Edward hates the very idea of the Prince, though,’ Flood tells them. ‘Dear God, I have never seen him hate anyone so much, even the late Lord Somerset who cut his father’s head off after Wakefield. He has offered a hundred pounds to the man who brings him the Prince, dead or alive.’
‘And there will be no quarter. None at all.’
They consider this. So soon after what they have seen at Barnet the thought seems to horrify Thomas.
‘Do you know the Queen and the Prince landed on the very day Warwick was killed?’ Flood goes on.
‘Will his death come to her as good news, or bad news?’ Katherine wonders.
‘She will have wanted Warwick’s men,’ Flood supposes, ‘but they would have come to blows in the end, wouldn’t they?’
‘And without those men, will she just go back to France?’ Thomas asks. He sounds hopeful.
‘Well,’ Flood says, ‘without those men, and now that King Edward holds London, and has old King Henry is back in the Tower, her only real hope lies in Wales, where Jasper Tudor is raising an army …’
Now Thomas turns on Flood.
‘Jasper who?’ he demands.
‘Jasper Tudor,’ Flood repeats. ‘The Earl of Pembroke. If she can join him, then—’
‘What are Tudor’s livery colours?’ Thomas asks. Again, he’s very insistent.
‘Green and white. I think. Maybe with a dragon. He’s Welsh, so …’ Flood’s shrug implies it hardly matters, and Thomas says no more. But he is thinking hard, and not really listening as Flood goes on: ‘And then if she can move up Cheshire and the Northern Parts, where as you know they are always keen to rise in rebellion against more or less anything and anyone, well, together they might number twenty thousand. Imagine that. Twenty thousand. That is almost as large as was gathered at Towton, wasn’t it? And there is no way King Edward could resist that, even if he is the luckiest commander alive.’
The crowd begin to disperse, hurrying home to spread the word about this new business in the west.
Katherine and Thomas walk back through the city with Rufus towards the Bull in Bishopsgate. She had hoped they would return to Marton, but she knows they can’t. Not yet. Not until this is over. She thinks of that story of Jack’s about the hero fighting the monster’s mother. She wonders where Jack is now? She half expects to see him come loping along, bow in hand, a comforting figure. But Thomas looks serious. They both know he cannot weasel out of his obligations to Lord Hastings a second time.
‘Then at least we will have his support,’ he says, ‘and we will be left alone to – to live our lives. We won’t be called upon to do any of this again.’ He holds up the clotted scab on his hand.
‘So you are the hero in Jack’s story, are you?’ Katherine asks. ‘And the next monster is the Queen? And once she is beaten, there is no one?’
‘Of course not,’ he says. ‘But once she’s beaten, then yes. There will be no more monsters, or mothers of monsters – unless there is the son, and he is with her, isn’t he?’
‘So Wilkes says.’
‘Well, once he is beaten, then no. There are no more monsters to come.’ He says this as if he is sure of it.
They stop to let some of the Duke of Gloucester’s men by.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ she says.
The summons comes a day later. Hastings commands all the retainers he can muster to come to Windsor to join King Edward, from where they will move west to find Margaret’s army before she can cross the River Severn, which is what cuts her off from Wales and Jasper Tudor’s rebels.
‘You will come with us, this time?’ Thomas asks when he sees Katherine packing her few things into a saddle bag.
‘I will,’ she says. ‘It was bad enough watching you go out the other day when we knew you were only going ten miles. This time you will be across the country. And William Hastings would have asked me himself, I’m sure of it, save he is so chastened by what happened at Barnet that he is keeping himself to himself, have you noticed?’
‘What happened at Barnet wasn’t his fault,’ Thomas says, ‘and in the end perhaps it was for the best?’
Katherine and Rufus travel in a cart laid on by Hastings, and Flood tells everyone that he has seen Katherine deliver a baby with one hand while removing a man’s arm with the other, and as the stories of her skill become shorter, so her fame spreads wider, and even before they leave the city everyone with a complaint comes to the cart to ask if she has a cure for this or that – dropsy, say, or a goitre – and Hastings sends a fat purse of coins to buy what she can by way of medicines and anything else she thinks she might need. She is joined by Mother Pentecost, who is now a widow and childless since both her men were killed at Barnet, though only the son’s body has been found, and it is possible the father is still running, though all doubt it, since he was so fat.
Katherine thinks about what Thomas said, and wonders how that can be considered for the best?
They roll out of Windsor on the day after St George’s Day in bright sunshine, along that great drovers’ road westward, following the valley of the River Thames, first to Reading where they camp on its banks beyond the abbey, and then to a town called Abingdon, following the shimmering water of the river on their right. Reports come in from scouts that the Queen is moving southwards, and eastwards, to Kent, but King Edward refuses to believe them, and others doubt the rumour as well.
So they press on, leaving the river, and cutting due west. They aim to cut Queen Margaret off before she reaches Gloucester, which has the lowest bridge over the Severn. When they pitch camp outside Cirencester, they have been walking five days, and it is there they hear King Edward is right, and that Queen Margaret has moved her army – rumoured now to number many thousands – northwards, to a place called Bath.
‘We should move to Gloucester,’ Flood says, ‘or down to Berkeley, and then we will have her corked in the corner. It is like chess, Mistress Everingham, and King Edward is a master at it.’
Katherine wonders if that is true when next they do not move westwards to Gloucester, nor to Berkeley, but southward to a place called Malmesbury, having heard the Queen has moved her army away from Bath, westwards to Bristol.
‘They are running scared,’ Flood says, forgetting his earlier words, and ignoring the rumour that runs through the camp that in Bristol the Qu
een will collect ordnance and many more men, and that King Edward has lost his chance to stop Queen Margaret reaching Wales.
Everyone is already tired and worn through. They have travelled seventy-five miles in a week, in good heat, carrying their weapons, their food, their tents, and they have been wearing out shoe leather, wheel iron, axle-oak and oxen.
Early the next morning, though, a scout rides into camp bellowing that the Queen is coming. He rides to King Edward and is shown into his presence, even though he is at prayer, and a moment later the trumpets are sounding and every man is snatching up his weapons, having squires strap on his plate, and running to the banner of his lord, leaving the women to pack up the camp and follow on as best they can.
It is now that Wilkes of all men comes sidling up to Katherine, and to begin with she thinks he might have some illness of which he is ashamed, and she is surprised for she did not have him down as that sort of man. Instead he asks her a favour.
‘I have no family of my own, Mistress Everingham. Neither wife nor child. No son to carry on the Wilkes name, as it were, which is perhaps just as it should be, given my wandering and wondering nature, but that is not to say I have nothing of any value to pass on when I am called to heaven’s gate.’
‘Go on,’ she says. She is more amused by Wilkes than scared of him, as Thomas is.
He now pulls out of his bag a thick wallet of papers and he looks at her speculatively, as if making sure she is the right person to whom he should be entrusting whatever it is he’s got there.
‘If I should be killed in the coming days, Mistress Everingham, can I ask you a favour? To pass these on to Lord Hastings? I am his man of business, as you know, and should I be killed, leaving no heir, he must therefore become my man of business, and there are, within, one or two bequests in which he will find an interest.’
‘You trust me, Master Wilkes?’
‘Above all men, Mistress Everingham.’
She thinks he really means this. He offers her the package, which she takes and puts with the rest of her things. He watches closely, his dark eyes lively but clouded by anxiety.
‘There,’ she says. ‘It is safe.’
He smiles at her.
‘Thank you, mistress. I pray God you will not need to perform the service.’
‘I am certain I shall not.’
He is about to go but turns.
‘May I ask you one last thing?’
Her heart gives a curious clench.
‘Certainly.’
‘You will believe me superstitious, but may I ask you to swear to God that should I die, you will perform the task, no matter what?’
‘As God above is my witness, I swear I shall pass these papers to Lord Hastings, with own hand, if you do not return alive.’
‘Thank you, Mistress Everingham. A great weight off my mind.’
Katherine joins the others as they set off, moving west again, following the tracks of their men through the morning’s heat until they see King Edward’s army is gathered at the top of a hill. Consternation arises. Why have they stopped? They are not arrayed to fight, and yet … The camp followers wind their way up the hill, walking to save the oxen to find the mood sombre.
King Edward has been outwitted. Queen Margaret and her army were never here as was hoped and predicted, but have slipped away northwards, towards Gloucester and the crossing of the Severn, as had been earlier forecast. Even Flood is dismayed. King Edward takes it badly, but he does not chase after them and for that his army is relieved. Instead he starts drinking wine early and that night there is shouting from his tent, and the army gathers to witness it, an audience of orange, fire-lit faces. But before dawn a messenger comes riding up the hill despite the dangers of the dark to say that the Queen’s army is already on the move, trying to steal a second march on them.
This time King Edward does not allow it. Trumpets are blown, drums are beaten and, as the sun appears, the army rolls off in battle order, winding its weary way back northwards, keeping to the chalky high ground. Riders are sent on ahead to warn the people of Gloucester that Queen Margaret is coming, and that they are to close their gates to her army and deny her everything. King Edward is coming, they are to tell the mayor, and relief is at hand.
‘Good luck to them,’ Flood says as they ride out. He wanted to be one of those chosen, but Hastings and his men do not ride high in King Edward’s estimation at the moment, even though anyone might have run in their position at Barnet.
‘But Exeter’s men didn’t,’ one of King Edward’s men says. ‘And they were flanked by Gloucester on the other side.’
‘That was different,’ Flood points out.
They move all day in the high heat, and though there is bread, there is no ale, and no water to be had until they ford a river that is so churned up the water is undrinkable unless you walk a halfmile upstream. Then they are on again into the late afternoon. At last they stop by the side of the road in the town of Cheltenham, and there is more bread doled out.
‘How far have we come?’ someone groans.
Thirty miles is the best estimate.
But news has come back that the citizens of Gloucester have rebuffed the Queen’s army, and even managed to detain some of their ordnance, and so now, perhaps, they are within a few miles of their enemy, and it is not over yet.
‘So up, you lazy bastards! Come on! On your feet! There are more miles in you yet!’
And so they stagger to their feet again, and walk on. Rufus is asleep on his cart, as is Mother Pentecost. Katherine walks the next eight miles besides the cart, and at dusk King Edward finally lets his army and its followers pitch camp. They are on the common land of a village with a wooden-towered church from which friars in habits come begging – unsuccessfully – for alms for the care of lepers. She finds Thomas has been almost roasted alive in his harness, and he sits red-faced with his feet in the mud of a stream. Since Barnet he seems less enamoured of his visored helmet and it lies with the other pieces of his armour on the grass behind him, filthy and scratched, and it might be that he wouldn’t mind if someone were to steal them, but the pollaxe is next to him, still oiled, and it still exudes its unsettling presence.
He passes on such information as he has gleaned.
‘They are ahead,’ he tells her, ‘in the town of Tewkesbury. There is a crossing, but the river is too high, and crossing by ferry would take too long, and it would leave them naked if we were to come up upon them there.’
‘So we have them? This will be it?’
Thomas nods.
That night they more or less sleep where they fall, and Katherine dreams that Alice lives, and needs her, and when she wakes she feels the child’s loss as a constriction on her heart and lungs, an internal withering, and her tears are thick and taste of salt. Thomas is already on his knees praying and she watches him for a time with her eyes half-open in the dawn, and she ponders how far they have come, not just in the last few days, but since she first saw him, running across the snow outside the priory. What she would give for some of that snow now.
The sun is barely stirring behind the hills to the east, and the sky is almost green, shot through with rays of Yorkist sun when the rest of the camp rouses. It is a good sign, of course, of God’s blessing, but also, Christ, it means the day will be long and hot.
The mood in the camp is one of solemn desperation. The last few days have whittled them to the bone, and only the very youngest of men show any spring for the day ahead. For most, whatever comes will be a labour that needs be endured. They have moved up from Cheltenham in their battles, and the men take to them now, and there are the usual sorrowful scenes of departure between those who will fight and those who stay behind, and God’s blessing is called upon for the many thousands of individual acts of separation, and Katherine and Thomas take shelter in formulae and well-rehearsed conventions.
But there is something extra to this one, and as Thomas turns to find his horse, she cannot help but hurry to him one last tim
e; she puts her arms around him and he turns and holds her tight too, and she whispers in his ear.
‘Come back,’ she says. ‘Come back. For our sakes.’
She starts to weep and his eyes mist up too, and suddenly she wants him gone, to be away, out there, to bring an end to this, to fulfil his God-appointed role. And so she steps back, wipes her nose on a dusty sleeve and tries a smile she knows to be unconvincing, and he leads his horse off towards Hastings’s tents.
Then the trumpets sound and those long banners are unfurled, beautiful pieces of work held by proud men, and the followers take their steps back, and last sights of their men are unconsciously recorded, and now there are two types of people: those staying, and those going. This latter party sink to their knees as prayers are said by a bishop with a nasal voice, and King Edward commits his cause and quarrel to Almighty God and the blessed Virgin Mary, and to His glorious martyr St George and all the other saints, and then they all murmur amen and stand and brush the dust from their knees, and finally they mount their horses, and they begin winding their way northwards, as many as five thousand of them, up the road that will take them through the flat fields to Tewkesbury.
When the last of the divisions have left the camp, the others follow on, spitting out their dust, and they alone make a solid little army, Katherine thinks, perhaps a few thousand strong, made up of women in the main, but also children, elderly men, the walking wounded, a handful of priests – none of whom talk to one another – and two surgeons with assistants and their carts of bandages and barrels of unguents and tar, which they will save for any wounded gentle.
Katherine feels underprepared, but she will do what she can with her few things and Mother Pentecost as an assistant. She has with her on the cart, alongside her own stuff, two tubs of honey and one of beeswax, a tub of vinegar, lengths of virginal linen, a small pouch of washed needles, lengths of fine hemp string that she has already coated in beeswax, what the sawyer told her was a butcher’s saw, two knives even sharper than that she bought in Lincoln, and a disc of fine grit stone with which to keep them honed. She has ewers for urine, the wherewithal to make a good hot fire, a poker to riddle it, and a device she had made by Hastings’s silversmith that she will use to cauterise any of those small blood vessels. She also has five glazed pots of dwale she bought from an apothecary in Windsor who demonstrated its power on his own wife.
Kingdom Come Page 34
