Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  Margaret inclined her head, pleased at his honesty.

  ‘I think that is why I trust you, Master Brewer. You understand such things. I will never lose to my enemies but hold my honour, if honour is the price. I would choose victory – and pay the price.’

  Derry closed his eyes for a moment, his head dipping as he understood. He had known Margaret as a young girl, but she had been tempered in plots and battles and negotiations into a subtle and vengeful woman.

  ‘I believe you may have spoken to Lord Somerset, my lady.’

  ‘I did, Derry! I chose him to lead my army – and I did not choose a fool. Oh, I know he does not like to ask for my counsel, but he will do so if you force his hand. Young Somerset is a fierce bird, I think, strong in sinew and heart. The men adore him for his roaring. But would his father have made a fool? No. He believes you would have us delay in the north, to gather food rather than to take it, some such concern. My lord Somerset thinks only of reaching London and keeping the men strong. There is nothing wrong with having such a care for my army, Derry.’

  As the queen spoke, Derry hid his surprise. He had not expected Somerset to swallow his young man’s pride and ask Margaret to rule on the matter. It suggested a loyalty and maturity that, oddly enough, gave Derry hope.

  ‘My lady, Warwick is strongest in the south. His followers are Kent and Sussex men for the most part, those godforsaken, rebellious counties. We must overcome them and either recapture your husband or …’

  His eyes strayed to the two boys as the sticks suddenly clacked again. If King Henry did not survive, almost the entire house of Lancaster would be the seven-year-old prince with a lump over one eye, a boy who was at that moment trying very hard to strangle his opponent to death.

  Margaret’s gaze went with his and then back, her eyebrows raised in question.

  ‘However it turns out,’ Derry said, ‘the king will have to rule England in peace from that day, my lady. With the right tale in the right ears, King Henry could be … Arthur back from Avalon, Richard from the Crusades. He could be the anointed king restored – or another King John Lackland, my lady, with dark tales dogging his steps like shadows. We have left a strip of destruction half the length of England. Hundreds of miles of death and theft, and all those who cursed us will starve now. Children like these boys will die because our men stole their animals and ate their seed crops, leaving them nothing to plant in spring!’

  In his indignation, Derry broke off at the pressure of the queen’s hand on his forearm. He had been watching the boys tumbling in the mud as he spoke, rather than plead with Margaret directly. He turned to her then, seeing both certainty and resignation in her eyes.

  ‘I … cannot pay the men, Derry. That is still true until we reach London, and perhaps not even then. They must surely fight again before I will see coins enough to fill their purses, and who knows how that will turn out? While they are not paid, you know they expect to be turned loose, like hunting dogs. They expect to take plunder as they go, in lieu of payment.’

  ‘Is that what Somerset said?’ Derry replied, his voice cold. ‘If he is such a fine master, let him take those dogs by the scruff of their necks …’

  ‘No, Derry. You are my most trusted counsellor, you know it. This one time, you ask too much. I am blinkered, Derry. I see only London ahead and nothing else.’

  ‘You don’t smell the smoke on the air, then, or hear the women screaming?’ Derry asked.

  It was reckless to challenge her in such a way, for all their long association. He saw pink spots appear high on her cheeks, spreading to a flush that stained her skin right to her neck. All the time, she looked into his eyes as if he held the secrets of the world.

  ‘This is a hard winter, Master Brewer – and it goes on. If I have to look away from evil to gain back my husband and my husband’s throne, I will be blind and deaf. And you will be mute.’

  Derry took a long breath.

  ‘My lady, I am growing old. I think, at times, that my work is better suited to a younger man.’

  ‘Derry, please. I did not mean for you to take offence.’

  The spymaster held up his hand.

  ‘And I have not; nor would I leave you without the web I have spent so long weaving. My lady, I am sometimes in great danger in my service. I say it not as a boast, but merely to acknowledge a truth. I meet hard men in dark places and I do it every day. If the day comes when I do not return, you should know all I have arranged to follow.’

  Margaret watched him with large, dark eyes, fascinated by his discomfort. He stood before her like a nervous boy, his hands twisting together at his waist.

  ‘There is a chance you will be in peril yourself, my lady, if they take me. Another will come to you then, bearing words you will know.’

  ‘What will he look like, this man of yours?’ Margaret whispered.

  ‘I cannot say, my lady. There are three in all. Young and sharp and utterly loyal. One of them will survive the other two and take up the reins if I drop them.’

  ‘You would have them murder one another to stand at my side?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘Of course, my lady. Nothing has value unless it is hard won.’

  ‘Very well. And how will I know to trust your man?’

  Derry smiled at the quickness of her thought.

  ‘A few words, my lady, that mean something to me.’

  He paused, looking through her to the past – and ahead as he imagined his own death. He shook his head, disturbed.

  ‘William de la Pole’s wife Alice still lives, my lady. Her grandfather was perhaps the first man of letters in all England, though I never had the chance to meet old Chaucer. She used a line of his about me, once. When I asked her what she had meant, she said it was an idle thought and I was not to take offence. Yet it stayed with me. She said I was “the smiler with the knife beneath the cloak”. I find it a fair description of my work, my lady.’

  Margaret shivered in turn, rubbing one arm with the other.

  ‘You make my flesh creep with such a line, Derry, but it will be as you say. If one comes to me and says those words, I will listen to him.’ Her eyes glittered, her face hardening. ‘On your honour, Derry Brewer. You have earned my trust, though it is not lightly given.’

  Derry bowed his head, remembering the young French girl who had come across the Channel to marry king Henry. At thirty, Margaret was still slim and clear-skinned, with long, brown hair bound into a single tress with red ribbon. With the rarity of just one pregnancy, she was no broken-backed old dray-mare like so many of her age. She had not lost the slender-muscled waist that made her lithe. For one who had known such pain and loss, Margaret had aged well, to any eye. Yet Derry saw with the experience of sixteen years at her side. There was a hardness in her, and he did not know whether to regret or rejoice in it. The loss of innocence was a powerful thing, especially to a woman. Yet what came after was always better cloth, for all the single red stains. Derry knew women hid such things each month. Perhaps that was the heart of women’s secrets and their inner lives. They had to hide blood – and they understood it.

  3

  Derry Brewer felt the spiced wine warm his stomach and chest, easing some of his aches. The knight facing him nodded slowly and leaned back on his stool, fully aware of the importance of the news. They sat in the corner of a heaving taproom, with standing soldiers pressing in on all sides. The tavern was already down to foul beer and dregs, while hopeful men still looked in from the road.

  Derry had chosen the public inn for his meeting, knowing his noble masters understood little of his work. It did not appear to occur to them that a man might ride from one army to another and pass on absolutely vital information. Derry leaned back against the corner of oak boards, looking at Sir Arthur Lovelace, certainly his most prideful informant. Under Derry’s scrutiny, the little man smoothed down an ornate moustache that drooped over his lips and must have made every mouthful of food at least one part hair. They had met after the battle of Sandal, wh
en Lovelace had been one of a hundred downcast knights and captains Derry had taken aside. He’d given a few coins to those who had none and a few words of advice to anyone who would listen. It helped that the spymaster was a retainer of King Henry. No one could doubt Brewer’s loyalty – or question the rightness of his cause, not after that victory.

  As a result of Derry’s encouragement, more than a few of York’s soldiers had been persuaded to loiter at Sheffield for the queen’s army, joining the very men they had been fighting against. It might have seemed madness, if men didn’t need to eat and to be paid. When it turned out they would not be paid, perhaps it was revealed as madness after all. Hundreds in that army had helped to sack towns loyal to York, just to fill their own bellies and pouches.

  Lovelace wore no colours, no surcoat or painted armour that would have had him marked and perhaps reported as he came through the camp. He’d been given a password and he knew to ask for Derry Brewer. That would have been enough to get him past inquisitive guards, but the truth was he’d come to the heart of Queen Margaret’s army without being challenged even once. On another day, it would have galled Derry Brewer and had him calling out the army captains to explain once again the importance of keeping spies and assassins from where they might do untold damage.

  Lovelace leaned forward, his voice an excited murmur. Derry could smell the man’s sweat as heat came off him almost as a glow. The knight had ridden hard to reach the king’s spymaster with what he knew.

  ‘What I have told you is vital, Master Brewer, do you understand? I have delivered Warwick to you, plucked and greased and tied in cords – all ready for the turning spit.’

  ‘The Sailor,’ Derry said absently as he thought. Warwick had been Captain of Calais for years at a time and was said to love the sea and the ships that sailed it. Lovelace had agreed not to use the names of important men, but of course the knight kept forgetting. At such times, Derry preferred to act as if his worst enemy was standing at his shoulder, ready to pass on whatever he could learn.

  The inn was growing less friendly as soldiers drank it dry. In the heave and crush, a red-haired stranger suddenly fell across their small table, lurching at Derry and saving himself with both arms held before him. The man gave a great shout of laughter. He was turning to complain to whoever had pushed him when he felt the line of cold metal Derry held across his throat and his voice choked off.

  ‘Careful there, son,’ Derry murmured in his ear. ‘On your way.’

  He gave the soldier a push and watched carefully as he vanished back into the crowd, eyes wide. Just an accident, then. Not one of those ‘accidents’ that are so tragic but ultimately the will of God, and what bad luck to have fallen on the blade, and Brewer’s in the cold, cold ground and we must go on with our happy lives, recalling him often and with fondness …

  ‘Brewer?’ Lovelace said, snapping his fingers in the air.

  Derry blinked irritably at him.

  ‘What is it? You’ve passed on your news – and if you’re telling the truth, it’s useful to me.’

  Lovelace leaned closer still, so that Derry could smell onions on his breath.

  ‘I did not betray “The Sailor” for nothing, Master Brewer. When you and I met at that tavern in Sheffield, you were very free with silver coins and promises.’ Lovelace took a deep breath, his voice trembling with hope. ‘I recall you mentioned the Earldom of Kent, as yet vacant, with no loyal man there to pass on taxes and tithes to the king. You told me then that even such a fine, sweet plum as that might be the reward for a man who delivered Warwick.’

  ‘I see,’ Derry replied. He waited just for devilment, as if he had not understood. In part it was because the foolish knight had used Warwick’s name yet again, even though they were so crowded about that men loomed over them and one had nearly ended up in Derry’s lap.

  ‘And I have done so!’ Lovelace said, growing red and swelling slightly about the neck and face. ‘Are your promises mere straws, then?’

  ‘I warned you to come to this camp with no banner, no surcoat or painted shield to be remembered. You walked through ten thousand men to reach this inn. Did even one of them take you by the arm and demand to know who you were?’

  Lovelace shook his head, unnerved by the intensity of the spymaster’s words.

  ‘And good knight, did it cross your mind that if you could come to me, I might have men wandering the camp you left behind? That I might have a number of fellows in the south, all carrying water and polishing armour – just watching and counting and remembering all the while? What, did you think I was blind without your eyes?’

  Derry watched the hope drain out of the knight in front of him, so that Lovelace sagged in his seat. To be made an earl, a king’s companion, well, it would have been an impossible fantasy for a common soldier, or even a knight with a manor house and a few tenant farms. Yet in times of war, stranger things had happened. Derry imagined Lovelace had a wife and children somewhere, all depending on his pay, his wits and perhaps a little luck.

  Poverty was a hard master. Derry regarded the crestfallen knight more closely, seeing the wear on his coat. He wondered if the straggling beard was just the result of not having coin to have it trimmed. Derry sighed to himself. When he’d been young, he’d have stood then, patted Lovelace on the shoulder and left him there to be beaten and robbed on his way out, or whatever might befall him.

  Instead, infuriatingly, Derry knew age had softened his hardest edges, so that he had begun to see and hear the pain of others – and hardly ever laugh at it any more. Perhaps it was time to retire. His three younger men were all ready to fight it out if he failed to come home one night. In theory, none of them knew the names of the others, but he would bet the last coin in his purse that they’d all found out. One good way to dodge a blow is to kill the man holding the blade. Men in Derry’s trade knew that best of all was to kill the man before he even knew he was your enemy.

  None of his thoughts showed in his expression as Derry regarded Lovelace, the man still coming to terms with having sold Warwick for no more than a pint of dark ale. The spymaster didn’t dare drop silver or gold on the table with so many soldiers about. If he did that, he knew he might as well knock Lovelace out himself and save a coin. Instead, he reached out and clasped Lovelace’s hand, pressing a gold half-noble between them. He saw the poor knight’s eyes tighten with embarrassment and relief as he glanced into his hand. The coin was small, but it would buy a dozen meals, or perhaps a new cloak.

  ‘God be with you, son,’ Derry said, rising to leave. ‘Trust in the king and you won’t go wrong.’

  The moon was new and hidden, but Edward of York could see his hands in starlight. He turned the left in front of his face, watching his fingers move like a white wing. York sat on a Welsh crag and he had not bothered to ask its name. His feet dangled over emptiness, and when he dislodged a stone, it fell for ever and never seemed to strike. Depths yawned below his feet and yet the darkness was so thick he felt he could almost step out on to it.

  He smiled drunkenly at the thought, reaching with one foot and padding it around as if he might find a bridge of shadows to take him across the valley. The action shifted his weight from the lip of the crag and he scrambled suddenly, kicking in a spasm, the panic gone as soon as it had come. He would not fall, he knew it. He might have drunk enough to kill a smaller man, but God would keep him from tumbling down some Welsh rock. His ending was not there, not with all he still had to do. Edward nodded to himself, his head so heavy it continued to sway up and down long after he intended it.

  He heard the footsteps and murmuring voices of two of his men as they began to speak, barely a dozen paces behind him. Slowly, Edward raised his head, realizing they could not see him in the blackness by the ground. With his limbs lit such a bone-white, he thought he must resemble some spirit. In another mood, he might have lurched up with a great howl, just to make them cry out, but he was too dark for that. The night around him sank in when it touched his arms. No doubt
that was why he saw the white skin – because it had drawn in the darkness and was still drawing, filling him up until his seams would creak with it. The idea was beautiful, and he sat and wondered at it while the men talked behind him.

  ‘I don’t like this place, Bron. I don’t like the hills, the rain or the bloody Welsh. Scowling out at us from their little huts. Thieves, too, like as not to steal anything that isn’t tied down. Old Noseless lost a saddle two days back and it did not walk off on its own. This is not a place to stay – but here we still are.’

  ‘Well, if you were a duke, mate, perhaps you’d take us back to England. Until then, we wait until Master York says we move. I’m content, I’d say. No, mate, more than content. I’d rather be sat here than marching or fighting in England. Let the big lad drown his grief for his father and brother. The old duke was a fine man. If he’d been my dad, I’d be drinking away the days as well. He’ll come right in the end, or burst his heart from it. There’s no point worrying which it will be.’

  Edward of York squinted in the direction of the pair. One was leaning against a rock, blending into it like one great shadow. The other was standing, looking out and up at the field of stars blazing around the north as the night crept on. York had a feeling of irritation that his grief, his private pain, should be discussed by mere knights and pikemen as if it were no more than the weather or the price of a loaf. He began to scramble up, very nearly toppling off the edge as he came to his feet and stood swaying. At four inches over six feet, York was a huge figure, by far the largest man in his army. He blotted out a fair section of the sky and the two speakers froze as they became aware of the silent apparition just standing there, looming dark against dark, outlined by stars.

  ‘Who are you to tell me? Eh? How to show my sorrow?’ Edward demanded, slurring.

  The men reacted in utter panic, turning away as one and scrambling over the crest of the hill and down the easier slope on the other side. Edward roared incoherently behind them, staggering a few steps and then falling as he turned his foot on some unseen stone. Vomit spilled from his mouth, old wine and clear spirit mixed in acid so rough that it stung his broken skin.