Authors: David Pilling
“No need to flatter, Master Bolton,” she said, “I doubt you have any skill at it, and I had my fill of flattery in England. Let us deal plainly with each other.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I must have time to consider. We shall speak of this again tomorrow. For tonight, you shall enjoy the best of our poor hospitality.”
Chapter 5
England, August 1470
The king was on the march again. No sooner had he crushed the rebellion of Lord Welles, and sent the treacherous Clarence and Warwick fleeing from England, than news arrived in London of fresh conspiracies being hatched in Yorkshire. Once again Edward found himself obliged to summon his loyal knights and retainers, clamber aboard a war-horse and heave his swelling bulk north.
Edward was beginning to understand why his ancient predecessor, the Conqueror, had ordered a general massacre in the north of England. The place was an endless breeding-ground for rebellion. No matter how many defeats they suffered, how many of their fighting men were slaughtered on bloody battlefields from Towton to Empingham, the people never ceased to plot against Edward’s regime.
Such is the fate of a usurper
, Edward thought gloomily. It seemed his destiny was to kill and be king, until his fortune ran out or his strength failed.
It was a dry summer, and the air was like an oven as the royal army trudged along the Great North Road towards York. Banners drooped in the stifling heat, and the long, winding columns of billmen and archers choked on the dust kicked up by the horses of the vanguard.
Edward himself was acutely uncomfortable in his heavy plate armour. He had put off his helmet with its circlet of gold, which now dangled from his saddle-bow, and took regular draughts of watered wine from a skin. The remorseless sun beat down on his steel shell, making him feel like a lobster being slowly boiled inside a pot.
“How far to Ripon?” he gasped, running mailed fingers through his long, sweat-soaked hair.
The rebel host was said to be assembled at Ripon, led by two disaffected northern gentlemen, Lord Fitzhugh and Richard Salkard. Two more heads to be struck off and impaled on spikes above the gates of York.
“About six miles,” replied his youngest brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Much to Edward’s chagrin, the heat didn’t seem to affect Gloucester, whose slight figure rode at ease in the saddle.
Unlike Edward, Gloucester was plainly enjoying himself. Keen to prove himself as a soldier, he had leaped at the opportunity to accompany the king on campaign, and was fired with zeal at the prospect of a pitched battle.
Edward felt weary just looking at him. Unlike his brother, who had not yet seen action, he had fought in three battles. Of these, Towton was by far the worst. The memory of thousands of Englishmen butchering each other in the middle of a snowstorm would never be expelled from his nightmares.
He craved peace. To stop up the bleeding wounds of ruinous civil wars, make laws, encourage trade, father sons to inherit the land after him. Be a king, not a bloody-handed slaughterer of his own people.
The royal army had progressed another three miles before the scouts came galloping down the highway. They brought nothing to ease the king’s discomfort.
“The rebels have dispersed, sire,” one of them reported, “the soldiers were ordered back to their homes, while Fitzhugh and Salkard have fled north. There is no army left to fight at Ripon.”
Gloucester cursed and banged his armoured thigh in frustration, but Edward felt profoundly relieved.
“Thank God,” he said, “but we are minded to leave the common men alone. Fitzhugh and Salkard must be captured, if possible.”
“They will make for the border,” said Lord Hastings, “the Scots are ever willing to gather our English traitors into their bosom.”
“Take the knights of the vanguard and ride ahead to Ripon,” Edward commanded him, “follow the trail of the fugitives until dark, and then return to the town, with or without them, to report to us.”
He rapped out his instructions with the clear, cool-headed decisiveness that men expected of him. His gloom had lifted, and he shook his fist encouragingly at his knights as they galloped past.
Edward’s good mood didn’t last. The shadows of paranoia and mistrust soon descended on him again as the army marched into Ripon, to be greeted with enthusiastic cheers by the citizens. He accepted their acclaim with his usual bluff, offhand charm, but drew little comfort from it. Doubtless they had been cheering the arrival of the rebel army, just hours before.
The king and his part made their lodgings in the centre of the town, inside the dwelling of a wealthy merchant who claimed to be only too pleased to give up his house for the night.
Before dinner, Edward’s esquire helped him peel off his armour in an upstairs chamber. Gloucester was present, and paced agitatedly back and forth while his brother gratefully shed the layers of metal.
“It makes no sense,” said Gloucester, “why raise a rebellion, and then abandon it just as quickly?”
The question had occurred to Edward. “Only Fitzhugh and Salkard can tell us that,” he said, “damn Salkard. I made the bastard Constable of Carlisle, and this is how he repays my good faith. I thought him a solid man, but he’s just another mealy-mouthed turncoat.”
Gloucester stopped pacing and jabbed a finger at his brother. “It’s a distraction,” he said, “Fitzhugh is Warwick’s brother-in-law. I wager they have been in correspondence.”
Edward sighed and bent his tired mind to this possibility. He was well aware of Warwick’s machinations across the Channel. Several weeks ago, and with the connivance of King Louis, the earl had met with the wretched Margaret of Anjou at Angers. There he had knelt before his former enemy and pledged loyalty to her.
It had amused Edward to hear that she kept Warwick on his knees for a good fifteen minutes before deigning to even notice him. Less amusing was the knowledge that Margaret had finally accepted his oath of loyalty, and that the gruesome pair had sealed an alliance with King Louis. Warwick had set about assembling an invasion force, paid for with French money, to invade England and tip Edward off his hard-won throne.
His thoughts turned guiltily to the madman in the Tower. Henry VI, now plain Henry of Lancaster, was still a potent focus and a symbol for the Lancastrians in exile and at home.
They might not have invested so much faith in their sainted idol if they could see him: emaciated and red-eyed, stinking to high heaven in the grubby smock and hair shirt he refused to discard. He spent most of his waking hours on his bony knees in prayer, the rest of the time curled up on his narrow bed, gently rocking back and forth, or staring vacantly at the wall. Henry’s tainted Valois blood, inherited from his mother, had finally overthrown what little reason he had ever possessed.
As so often, Gloucester was able to read his brother’s thoughts. “You must kill Henry,” he said urgently, “do away with the fool. Put him out of his misery, and ours. Once he is gone, his French queen and her whelp will not be able to command the loyalty of so many good Englishmen.”
“No!” Edward replied angrily, “for one divinely appointed king to murder another, even a madman, is to question the will of God. That way lies chaos. You will not speak of the matter again, to me or anyone else. Do you understand?”
Their eyes locked. Gloucester broke first, and turned away to study the fireplace. Fortunately Edward’s esquire had left the room before Gloucester made his appalling suggestion. Otherwise the boy would have had to be bribed (or worse) to ensure he did not repeat what he heard.
Edward took a long draught of wine and studied his brother’s back. Gloucester was slightly deformed by a twist in his spine that made his right shoulder a couple of inches higher than the left. The disparity was very slight, but ever since childhood it had been enough to make people stare and make the sign against evil: physical abnormality, so many believed, was a gift from the Devil.
The king’s anger turned to pity. Gloucester’s twisted spine and short stature had always made him feel inadequate, and driven him to excel at horsemanship and the knightly arts. Unlike the false Clarence, Gloucester was fiercely loyal to his kin, and equally fierce to any that threatened the House of York.
Too fierce, perhaps. The art of compromise, in Edward’s experience, was as vital as any.
“Warwick will not dare try anything yet,” he said, changing the subject, “Arundel is overseeing our defences at Dover and the Cinque Ports. Our fleet is blockading every French port. Our enemies can march up and down and make as much noise as they like. They will not set foot on English soil.”
His brother merely grunted in reply. Ignoring Gloucester’s sullen mood, Edward tossed down the last of his wine and contemplated dinner with a glow of pleasure.
All would be well. He felt sure of it.
Chapter 6
Angers, France
Martin’s destrier was a skittish beast, and pawed the earth nervously as he held his lance upright against the saddle and saluted his opponent.
“Keep still, damn you,” he muttered inside the stifling warmth of his padded tilting helm. The horse was a gift from the Earl of Oxford, who had recently joined Warwick and Queen Margaret in Angers.
Oxford’s generosity stemmed from his prior dealings with Martin’s brother, James. The two men had worked closely together in England to help undermine the Yorkist regime, and the earl, who was of a naturally cheerful and benevolent disposition, appeared to hold James in high esteem.
“Any brother of his is a friend of mine,” he had said when introduced to Martin, “I only wish I could have met your late brother, God rest him. The Boltons are a brave family.”
Martin was grateful for the friendship and favour of a nobleman he could admire - Oxford was renowned as a fine soldier and a truly diehard Lancastrian – but could have wished for a finer product of his stables.
Ash, as he had named her after the pale grey colouring of her flesh, looked well enough, as sleek and muscular a warhorse as any man could wish for. Martin’s joy at obtaining such a fine bit of horseflesh for nothing quickly soured as he proved to be bad-tempered, difficult to control, and infuriatingly timid.
Martin’s opponent, a slender and elegant figure mounted on a high-stepping white destrier, stood waiting patiently at the opposite end of the tiltyard. He was encased in silver armour, engraved and decorated in the latest German style, but Martin could imagine the smirking face under the visor.
“Fail me now,” Martin said, leaning down slightly so Ash could hear, “and you will end your days as supper for the King of France’s wolfhounds. Think on that.”
The silver knight returned Martin’s salute, and lowered his lance to a horizontal position. There was no herald to signal the beginning of the joust – the wooden stands that lined the tiltyard were empty save for one French sergeant-at-arms – but the jousters clapped in their spurs at roughly the same time.
To Martin’s relief, Ash did not refuse or swerve away from the encounter, but did her master’s bidding and surged into a trot. He urged her into a canter, knowing that speed at the moment of impact was vital.
Martin’s tilting helm was like a great steel bucket stuffed with straw and leather. The breathing holes bored into the metal were scarcely adequate. Nor was the visor that restricted his vision to a narrow slit. Ash’s pounding gait caused him to jerk up and down in the saddle, and he was hard-pressed to keep his wavering lance and onrushing opponent in focus.
It was many months since Martin had practiced with lance and shield on the exercise-field outside Heydon Court. He had never been much of a jouster. His giant stature and long reach made him more suited to sword-play or fighting on foot. Despite that, he had not been able to refuse this challenge.
He gritted his teeth and threw his entire weight into the collision. That, as his old drillmaster Hodson used to hammer into his head, was the secret to unhorsing your opponent.
“It takes a brave man to deliberately risk life and limb in the joust,” Hodson had said, “most men flinch or hang back a little. Those who can master their fear usually become champions of the lists.”
At the last moment, Ash’s courage failed. She plunged to her left, throwing Martin off-balance, and he received the full force of his opponent’s lance square on his breastplate. The lance shattered. A whirling cloud of fragments blinded him, and the world lurched crazily as he was hurled out of his saddle.
He landed on his face in the dirt, and lay supine for a few seconds, half-stunned and praying fervently that he was unhurt. This was no duel to the death, and the other knight would allow him time to gather his strength.
When he felt able, Martin cautiously rose to his knees and fumbled with the straps of his helm. His steel fingers were clumsy, and they trembled slightly, but after some cursing he managed to loosen the buckles and tear the suffocating weight from his head.
Light and air engulfed him. He threw away the helm, peeled off one of his gauntlets and wiped his eyes. Mercifully, none of the bits of the shattered lance had got through his visor.