Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  Somerset laughed at the thought, carried away by his own imaginings. ‘I tell you, we’ll put the world to rights again. Do you understand, Brewer? If the men ran a little wild in Grantham and Stamford, or Peterborough, or Luton, it doesn’t matter! If they take the winter hams they come across, well, perhaps those men who owned them should have been with us, making sure of York!’ He had the sense to drop his voice to a murmur as he went on. ‘If they cut a few throats or steal the virtue of a few country maids, I imagine it will fire their blood all the more. We are the victors, Brewer, and you are not least among us. Let your blood seethe for once, without spoiling it all with fears and plots.’

  Derry looked back at the young duke, his anger poorly hidden. Henry Beaufort was charming and handsome – and he could speak in a great flow of words to bend someone to his will. Yet he was such a young man! Somerset had rested and eaten well while towns that had belonged to the Duke of York had been burned to the ground. Grantham and Stamford had been torn down and Derry had witnessed horrors in those streets as cruel as anything he’d seen in France. It galled him to have a cocky young nobleman tell him the men deserved their reward.

  Derry glanced to where Queen Margaret rode ahead in a cloak of dark blue, her head bowed towards Earl Percy as they talked. Her seven-year-old son Edward trotted a pony on her other side, the boy’s pale curls dipping with weariness.

  Somerset saw the spymaster’s glance and smiled wolfishly, confident in his youth compared with the older man.

  ‘Queen Margaret wants her husband back, Master Brewer, not to hear your womanish concerns over the conduct of the men. Perhaps you should let her be the queen, eh? In this one instance?’

  Somerset took a breath to throw back his head and guffaw at his own humour. As he did so, Derry reached down to the man’s boot and gripped the shank of his spur with his gloved hand, giving a heave. The duke vanished over his horse’s side with a roar, making the animal skitter back and forth as the reins sawed. One ducal leg pointed almost straight up to the sky and Somerset struggled madly to regain his seat. For a few stupefied instants, his head jogged along with a good view of the horse’s leathery genitals swinging below.

  ‘Careful there, my lord,’ Derry called, prodding his own nag to trot a little distance between them. ‘The road is most uneven.’

  The greater part of his irritation was at himself, for losing his temper, but Derry was infuriated at the duke as well. The source of Margaret’s strength, the source of a large part of her authority, lay in her being right. The whole country knew that King Henry was held prisoner by the Yorkist faction, traitors to a man. There was sympathy for the queen and her young son, forced to roam the land and find support for her cause. It was a romantic view, perhaps, but it had swayed good men like Owen Tudor and brought armies to the field that might otherwise have stayed at home. It had given them the victory at the end, with the house of Lancaster rising up, after so long with its face pressed down.

  Letting an army of Scots and northerners murder, rape and loot their way to London would not help Margaret’s cause or bring one more man to her side. They were fresh from their triumph, still half drunk on it. They had all seen Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, forced to his knees and killed. They had seen the heads of their most powerful enemies taken away to be spiked on the walls of the city of York. For fifteen thousand men, after the rage and wild panic of battle had settled, they still had the victory like coins in a purse. Ten years of struggle had come to an end and York was dead on the field, his ambitions broken. The victory was everything, won hard. The men who had bared York’s head for the blade expected rewards – food, wine and gold altar cups, whatever they came across.

  Behind Brewer, the column stretched into a haze, farther than the eye could see on a winter’s day. Bare-legged Scots stalked along with short Welsh archers and tall English swordsmen, all grown thin, with ragged cloaks, but still walking, still proud.

  Some forty yards back, the red-faced young Duke of Somerset had regained his seat with the help of one of his men. Both glared at Derry Brewer as he touched his forehead in false respect. Armoured knights had always raised their visors when their lords passed, showing their faces. The gesture had become a salute of sorts. Derry could see it hadn’t eased the outrage in the pompous young man he’d unseated, however. Once more, Derry cursed his own temper, a rush of red that could overwhelm him so completely and suddenly that he’d lash out without a moment’s thought. It had always been a weakness in him, though it was true that the abandonment of all caution could be quite satisfying. He was too old for it, though, he thought. He’d get himself killed by a younger cock if he wasn’t more careful.

  Derry half expected Somerset to come charging over to demand redress, but he could see the man’s companion speaking urgently into his ear. There was no dignity in petty squabbling, not for one of Somerset’s station. Derry sighed to himself, knowing he’d better choose his sleeping spots carefully for a few nights – and avoid going anywhere alone. He’d dealt with the arrogance of lords all his life and knew only too well how they considered it their right, almost their primary occupation, to demand redress for a grudge, openly or on the sly. Somehow, those they offended were meant to play along, to duck and weave as best they could until the natural order was restored and they were found beaten senseless, or perhaps with fingers or ears cropped short.

  There was something about getting older that had stolen away Derry’s patience with that sort of game. He knew if Somerset sent a couple of rough lads to liven him up a little, his reply would be to cut the duke’s throat one night. If Derry Brewer had learned anything in the years of war, it was that dukes and earls died as easily as commoners.

  That thought brought a vision of Somerset’s father, cut down in the street at St Albans. The old duke had been a lion. They’d had to break him, because he would not yield.

  ‘God keep you, old son,’ Derry muttered. ‘Damn it. All right, for you, he’s safe from me. Just keep the preening bugger out of my way, though, would you?’ He raised his eyes to the sky and breathed deeply, hoping the soul of his old friend could hear him.

  Derry could smell char and ash on the air, touching him in the back of the throat like a waxed finger. Their outriders made new lines of smoke and pain rise ahead of them, dragging joints and salted heads from barns, or prodding forth live bulls to be slaughtered in the road. At the end of each day, the queen’s column would reach the furthest points of the sweeps ahead. They’d have marched eighteen or twenty miles, and for the sight of a flapping capon to be cooked and gnawed to the split bones, they’d be blind to a few more manors or villages burned, with all sins hidden in flames and soot. Fifteen thousand men had to eat, Derry knew that, or the queen’s army would dwindle away on the road, deserting and dying in the green ditches. Still, it sat hard with him.

  The spymaster glowered as he rode along, reaching down to pat the neck of Retribution, the first and only horse he had ever owned. The elderly animal turned its head to peer up at him, looking for a carrot. Derry showed his empty hands and Retribution lost interest. Ahead, the queen and her son rode with a dozen lords, still stiff with pride, though it had been weeks since the fall of York at Wakefield. The sweep to the south was no great rush to vengeance, but a measured movement of forces, with letters borne away to supporters and enemies every morning. London lay ahead and Margaret did not want her husband quietly murdered as she approached.

  Getting the king back alive would be no easy task, Derry was certain of that much. Earl Warwick had lost his father at Sandal Castle. As the land was still frozen and the nights long, Warwick would still be about as raw with grief as York’s own son, Edward. Two angry young men had lost their fathers in the same battle – and King Henry’s fate lay in their hands.

  Derry shuddered, remembering York’s cry at the moment of his execution: that all they had done was unleash the sons. He shook his head, wiping cold snot from where it had dribbled on to his top lip and set hard. The old guar
d was passing from the world, one by one. Those left to stand in their places were not so fine a breed, as far as Derry Brewer could tell. The best men were all in the ground.

  A gusting wind battered the sides of the tent as Warwick faced his two brothers, raising his cup.

  ‘To our father,’ he said.

  John Neville and Bishop George Neville echoed the words and drank, though the wine was cold and the day colder. Warwick closed his eyes in brief prayer for his father’s soul. All around them, the wind snapped and fluttered the canvas, making it seem as if they were assailed on all sides, the very centre of the gale.

  ‘What sort of a madman goes to war in winter, eh?’ Warwick said. ‘This wine is poor stuff, but the rest is all drunk. At least it gives me joy to be with you two great louts, with no pretence. I miss the old man.’

  He had intended to continue, but a sudden wave of grief tightened his throat, so that his voice cracked. Despite his efforts to breathe, the air huffed out of his lungs until they were empty and his eyes suddenly blurred. With a huge effort, Warwick pulled in a long, slow breath through his teeth, then another as he found he could speak again. In all that time, his two brothers had said not a word.

  ‘I miss his counsel and his affection,’ Warwick went on. ‘I miss his pride and even his disappointment in me, for at least he was there to feel it.’ The other two chuckled at that, something they had both known. ‘Now it’s all set, with no more change. I cannot take back one word or have him know one more thing I have done in his name.’

  ‘God will hear your prayers, Richard,’ his brother George said. ‘Beyond that is a sacred mystery. It would be the sin of pride to think you might discover God’s plan for us – or for this family. You never can, Brother – and you must not grieve for those who feel only joy.’

  Warwick reached out and gripped the bishop by the back of the neck in affection. To his surprise, the words had brought him a little comfort, and he was proud of his younger brother.

  ‘Have you news of York?’ George Neville went on, his voice calm.

  Of the three Neville sons, the bishop seemed to have taken their father’s death with the least turbulence, with no sign of the rage that ate at John, or the grim spite that opened Warwick’s eyes each morning. Whatever else lay ahead, there was a price owed, for all the troubles, all the pain they had endured.

  ‘Edward writes nothing,’ Warwick said, showing his irritation. ‘I would not even know he had defeated the Tudors without their own ragged refugees, taken up and questioned by my people. The last I heard, Edward of York was sitting on a mound of dead Welsh archers and drinking away the loss of his father and brother. He has ignored the messages I’ve sent telling him how sorely he is needed here. I know he is only eighteen, but at his age …’ Warwick sighed. ‘I think sometimes, the great size of him conceals what a boy he still is. I can’t understand how he can delay in Wales and revel in his grief, while Queen Margaret comes against me here! His concern is only with himself, with his own noble grief and rage. It’s my feeling that he cares nothing for us, or our father. Understand me, lads: I say this to you, to no one else.’

  John Neville had been made Baron Montagu by his father’s death. The elevation showed in the richness of his new cloak, the thick hose and fine boots, bought on credit from tailors and cobblers who lent to a lord as they never had to a knight. Despite the layers of warm cloth, Montagu glanced at the billowing walls and shivered. It was difficult to imagine any spy being able to hear over the thrum and whistle of the wind, but it cost nothing to show caution.

  ‘If this gale grows any more fierce, this tent’ll be snatched up and taken over the army like a hawk,’ Montagu said. ‘Brother, we need that York boy, for all his youth. I sat with King Henry this morning while he sang hymns and plainsong under the oak. Did you know some smith has put a rope on his leg?’ Warwick looked up from his thoughts and John Neville raised both palms to ease his concern. ‘Not a shackle, Brother. Just a knotted rope, a hobble, to stop our royal innocent from wandering away. You talk of the boy in Edward, but at least it is a fine, strong boy, given to temper and firm action! This Henry is a mewling child. I could not follow him.’

  ‘Hush, John,’ Warwick said. ‘Henry is the king anointed, whether he be blind or deaf, or crippled, or … simple. There is no evil in him. He is like Adam before the Fall, no – like Abel, before Cain murdered him for spite and jealousy. Telling me he has been tied brings shame on all of us. I will order him freed.’

  Warwick crossed to the lacings of the tent, tugging at the cords until a widening flap brought the wind in. Papers in a corner flung themselves into the air like birds, escaping the lead weights that held them down.

  As the entrance yawned open, the brothers looked out on a night scene that might have been a painting of hell. St Albans lay just to the south of them. Before the town, in the torchlit dark, ten thousand men worked all around that spot, building defences in three great armoured ‘battles’ of men. Fires and forges stretched in all directions, like the stars above, though they gave a sullen light. Rain fell across that multitude in gusts and swooping slaps of damp, delighting in their misery. Over its noise could be heard the shouts of men, bowed down under beams and weights, driving lowing oxen as they heaved carts along the tracks.

  Warwick felt his two brothers come to his side, staring out with him. Perhaps two hundred round tents formed the heart of the camp, all facing north, from where they knew Queen Margaret’s army would come.

  Warwick had been returning from Kent when he’d heard of his father’s death at Sandal. He’d had a month and a half from that hard day to prepare for the queen’s army. She wanted her husband, Warwick knew that well enough. For all Henry’s blank eyes and frailty, he was the king still. There was but one crown and one man to rule, even if he knew nothing of it.

  ‘Every time the sun rises, I see new strips of spikes and ditches and …’

  Bishop George Neville waved his hand, lacking the words to describe the tools and machines of death his brother had gathered. The rows of cannon were just a part of it. Warwick had consulted the armouries in London, seeking out any vicious device that had ever proved its worth in war – back to the seven kingdoms of the Britons and the Roman invaders. Their combined gaze swept out across spiked nets, caltrops, ditch traps and towers. It was a field of death, ready for a great host to come against it.

  2

  Margaret stood at the door of her tent, watching her son fight a local lad. No one had any idea where the black-eyed urchin had come from, but he had fastened himself to Edward’s side and now they rolled with sticks held like swords, clacking and grunting on the damp ground. The struggling pair crashed against a rack of weapons and shields, bright-coloured in the twilight, with the breeze catching the banners of a dozen lords.

  Margaret saw Derry Brewer approach, her spymaster looking fit as he jogged through the long grass. They had chosen a meadow for that day’s camp, close by a river and with few hills in sight. Fifteen thousand men were just about a city on the move, with all the horses, carts and equipment taking up a vast space. In late summer, they would have stripped orchards and walled gardens, but there was little to steal as February began. The fields were dark, life hidden deep. The men had begun to look like beggars as their clothes wore to rags and their bellies and muscles wasted away. No one fought in winter, unless it was to rescue a king. The reason was all around her, in the frosted earth.

  Derry Brewer reached the entrance of the queen’s tent and bowed. Margaret raised a hand to make him wait and he turned to observe the Prince of Wales vanquishing his opponent, knocking the weaker boy on to his back. The other lad screeched like a cat being strangled.

  Neither Derry nor the queen said anything to interrupt and Prince Edward changed his grip on the stick and jabbed it past the boy’s defence, sinking it hard into his chest. The boy curled up and lost all interest while the prince raised his stick like a lance, cupping one hand and mimicking a wolf. Derry grinned at him, bot
h amused and surprised. The boy’s royal father had not shown an ounce of martial fervour his entire life, and yet there was the son, feeling the rush of excitement that came only from standing over a beaten man. Derry remembered the feeling well. He saw Edward reach down to help the other boy to his feet and spoke quickly.

  ‘Prince Edward, you should perhaps let him rise on his own.’ Derry had been thinking about the fight pits of London and had spoken without thought.

  ‘Master Brewer?’ Margaret asked, her eyes bright with pride.

  ‘Ah. My lady, men have different views. Some call it honour, to show grace to those you’ve defeated. I think it is just another sort of pride myself.’

  ‘I see – so they would have my son raise this lad to his feet? You – stay where you are.’

  The last was aimed with a pointing finger at the urchin in question, who was trying to struggle up, his face burning from the attention. The boy was appalled to be spoken to by such a noble lady and slumped back on to the mud.

  Derry smiled at her.

  ‘They would, my lady. They would clasp arms with an enemy and show their greatness in forgiving sins against them. Your husband’s father was wont to do that, my lady. And it’s true his men loved him for it. There’s greatness to such an act, something beyond most of us.’

  ‘What about you, Derry? What would you do?’ Margaret asked softly.

  ‘Oh, I am not such a great man, my lady. I would break a bone, perhaps, or tickle him up with my knife – there are places that won’t kill a fellow, though they will spoil his year.’ He smiled at his own wit, the expression slowly fading under the queen’s gaze. He shrugged. ‘If I’ve won, my lady, I do not want an enemy to come to his feet, perhaps even angrier than before. I’ve found it best to make sure they stay down.’