His Lady Bride (Brothers in Arms) (30 page)

With a sober bearing, Aric turned away to prepare for the coming battle.

Within the hour, the procession was underway, Drake and Kieran riding beside him. In silence, he followed the king’s knights south and west. They encountered the River Soar, where a massive bridge spanned the broad, blue stream, and the men began to cross it.

King Richard rode in the middle of the procession, his head held high, the summer morning sun glinting off his dark hair and the crown representing his power.

“Richard Plantagenet,” yelled an old crone upon the bridge.

The men turned to stare at the poorly dressed peasant woman who would speak so boldly to a king.

With no heed for the soldiers’ stares, she brushed long gray strands of hair from her aged face and said, “Before this day is done, your head will strike where your spur now hits yon fence.”

As the woman pointed to the sidewall of the bridge, some of the men gasped, whether in fear or outrage, Aric knew not. Others crossed themselves, bemoaning the fact the woman looked to be a witch. Aric knew how easily one could be accused of having such powers, but a shiver passed over him, and he wondered if the crone spoke true.

“Cheeky old woman,” Kieran muttered in Aric’s ear.

King Richard, eager to appear brave, laughed at the aged dame and rode on. But his arrogance seemed to make the men more ill at ease. Their disquiet hanging in the air like an English mist, his army rode on.

In the tangle of bodies, horses, and armor, Aric spotted Northumberland. Stephen rode beside him, looking uncertain.

Gritting his teeth, Aric prayed this day would not see the death of his young brother.

With clatter and much pomp, the army made its way south through Market Bosworth. Peddlers hawked wares to the soldiers, while playing children stopped to stare. Farmers and their wives shouted their thanks to the king for not marching through their crops.

Aric tried to ignore it all, but the smells of hay, horses, and manure stung his nostrils, keeping him alert—that and his apprehension, which chewed into him like a beggar into a hunk of fresh bread.

Finally, they came to an open field, punctuated by a gentle hill, where a flat plain claimed all the eye could see.

At least until the eye saw Henry Tudor and his army.

Once the combatants spotted one another, forward progress ceased. Each army lined up, one man beside the next, in a long show of power. Purposely, Aric took his place just beside Stephen, who sat his steed sullenly beside Northumberland. They were situated slightly behind the hill. If his brother was surprised to see him, Aric couldn’t see it on his young, nervous face. Still, here he could protect his brother, if need be, and stay as far from the fighting as possible.

Grimly, Aric glanced across the plain he’d heard someone call Ambien to see Henry Tudor’s smaller army lined up along an old Roman road.

Anticipation hung heavy in the air. Warriors checked their weapons as their horses pranced nervously, neighing for release. Though the morn was still young, the sun inched up in the sky.

How many men would not live to see it set?

“You there, MacDougall and Broderick.” Northumberland pointed at Drake and Kieran. “Take two of my men and scout behind enemy lines. When you have learned their secrets, return to the fight.”

The ornery earl’s gaze challenged Aric, as if he thought removing his friends from his side might anger or discomfit him. To prove Northumberland had accomplished neither, Aric merely nodded to his friends as they rode away, then turned his gaze back to the battlefield.

The distant sound of a trumpeter and the clank of armor brought Aric back to the present. As he drew his sword and made to charge, Northumberland held up a hand to stay him.

To the near one hundred men positioned behind the hill he shouted, “We wait for the signal to charge and surprise our Welsh enemy.”

Aric sighed and clutched his sword, waiting. Far in the distance, Henry Tudor’s small army advanced to meet the king’s, a slow march complete with archers beyond the marshy field at the base of the plain.

Then came the clash of steel ringing in the air, along with the shouts of urgency, the cries of agony, the dash of arrows across the sky to land in human flesh. Horses whinnied and pawed the earth, and the scent of blood rose.

Nay, Aric did not want to fight this battle, but waiting chafed him. By the saints, he wanted this over, but he did not want a coward’s reprieve, either.

Soon, the Tudor army ceased its advance, straying not more than ten feet from their standard. Had the king’s army overpowered them so quickly and easily?

“What can you see, Belford?” the shorter Northumberland demanded, straining in vain from his saddle for a view.

“It looks as though Tudor’s army advances no more. I cannot see much of the king’s men,” he advised.

Northumberland scowled with impatience. “Ride to the hilltop and tell me more.”

“Will that not give our position away to Tudor’s scouts?”

His neighbor sent him a nasty glare. “The king himself put me in charge of this part of the attack. That is an order, Belford.”

Shrugging, Aric nudged his mount to the hilltop, only to find Tudor’s army seeming to struggle for is last breath.

In the midst of the royal army, King Richard attacked his horse’s flanks with his heels and charged forward, past his soldiers, into the open field. Shock zinged through Aric in a cold blast. By the saints, what could Richard be thinking?

Then he spotted Henry Tudor standing beside his standard-bearer slightly to the north of the battle. Richard saw his enemy alone and meant to take him.

Dear God.

With a vicious thrust, King Richard cut down the standard-bearer in a gush of blood and cries. Another man rushed to Tudor’s side to take up the flag, but Aric doubted the Welsh contender noticed.

Henry and King Richard fought hand to hand, with all the desperation and determination of two men fighting for a nation.

Each lashed his sword at the other. The clang of steel rang in the air as the soiled metal glinted in the wicked August sun. Around them, the king’s army advanced on Tudor’s, winning by sheer numbers.

But not for long.

Lord Stanley’s formidable forces, sitting to the side of King Richard’s, made a sudden flanking maneuver and began a surprising attack on the royal forces. Fresh into the battle, Stanley’s men charged the king’s knights, engaging them in a deadly struggle.

The match now appeared even.

Aric knew Lord Stanley’s army might—or might not—possess the strength to remove the crown’s true traitor from its throne. The fighting looked fierce indeed. But what if Lord Stanley should lose? What if King Richard punished the man as a traitor for doing what every God-fearing warrior with a conscience would do?

How would the senseless killings of the two princes ever be avenged?

He must not leave the future of the nation to the whims of fate and the might of another’s army. Aric wanted Henry Tudor on the throne. Nearly any man had to be more fit to bear the title of king than Richard.

And if he wanted Henry on the throne, he would have to fight for the cause, consequences be damned.

A feeling of peace settled in his belly, along with a surge of excitement. Aye, he should have decided this long ago, to cast his lot in with another man, one who had not learned the evil lessons the Plantagenet family had taught one another over the decades.

“What see you now?” Northumberland shouted.

Aric hesitated. Should he tell the odious earl the truth, the man would charge Lord Stanley’s forces with all haste.

Holding up a hand to stay the small contingent of warriors behind him, he said, “I must ride closer. I cannot say what transpires from here.”

Northumberland hesitated.

Aric began sweating beneath his armor and feared the earl would challenge him. “Unless you should like to ride into the melee yourself.”

Hoping the task would sound beneath Northumberland, Aric waited for his answer.

“I should not be seen.” His mouth pinched with displeasure, and Aric could not help but think he and Rowena would understand each other. “Go, but be careful who sees you.”

With a nod, Aric charged down the hill, circling the heart of the battle, before his neighbor could change his mind.

Around the side of the warring, he rode, skirting the muddy marsh, until he approached the rutted Roman road at the back.

He joined the army at Lord Stanley’s side, his sword raised.

Upon his approach, Lord Stanley turned to stare at him, shock visible in his blue eyes, which showed through his helmet.

“Be you friend or foe, White Lion?”

“Your friend, though I should have seen such sooner.”

“It matters not,” shouted Stanley, fighting off one of King Richard’s knights, then skewering the man. “Join us now!”

Retrieving his helmet, Aric secured it on his head, then raised his sword with a cry.

Into the fray, he charged, cutting down the king’s men in his path. His arm was strengthened by his resolve, by the certainty he did right.

Richard’s cruel reign would come to an end today.

Before him, Lord Oxford, the leader of Tudor’s frontal attack, charged King Richard’s van and set them on the run. As Aric thrust his blade into his enemy’s belly and pulled it free, he saw Northumberland’s troops in the distance making a frantic dash over the top of the hill toward the melee.

Nay!
Those men could sway the battle to Richard’s favor.

Evil could not carry the day.

Aric charged toward Northumberland, determination to rid the battle of this new threat biting into his belly. The hot wind swept around him, dripping sweat into his face. Retreating opponents engaged his blade. With brutal efficiency, he dispatched each, feeling only his higher purpose—to stop the odious earl and save Henry Tudor’s cause.

Before he could reach the encroaching group, Northumberland, Stephen, and the other men stopped suddenly on the marshy plain. His brow furrowed in puzzlement, Aric watched as the earl shouted to one of his men, who quickly jumped off his horse and tried to guide Northumberland’s forward.

Naught happened.

Even from this distance, Aric could see Northumberland shouting, wildly cursing the man at his horse’s feet, all but jumping out of his saddle as he kicked the animal’s sides.

They were stuck!

Aric laughed, relieved that Northumberland and his men were tangled in the mire created by recent rains and the warfare. The earl continued to run, swinging his blade and cursing all roundly. He watched Stephen struggling to free himself and join the fray. Aric could only feel gladness at Stephen’s predicament, for here, away from the battle’s heat, his brother would be safe.

A commotion to Aric’s left caught his attention. Lord Stanley and his men now surrounded the king. Most of Richard’s army had retreated to its original position at the base of the hill, many suffering Northumberland’s piteous dilemma in the marshy soil.

The king stood alone amongst his enemies.

Stillness fell across the plain as all began to witness the unfolding drama.

“Bring me my battle-axe, and fix my crown upon my head,” cried Richard into the sudden silence. “For by him who shaped both sea and land, King of England this day will I die. And if none follow me, I will try the cause alone.”

No answering cry came from his army. No one came to the king’s aid.

Stanley and his men raised their swords and axes as one and hacked the life from the resourceful, conniving Richard, who made not a sound. The crown fell from his head.

The battle was done.

Relief and weariness seeped through Aric’s blood. Justice had been done, aye. But as he looked about the carnage on the Ambien plain, ’twas clear this new peace had come at an awful price. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, and some, still uncertain or uncaring that the battle was done, continued to make carnage on one another.

Once Lord Stanley made certain of the king’s demise, he sought the crown, the symbol of England’s power, and found it had rolled beneath a hawthorn bush beside a well.

With great flourish, he retrieved it and placed it upon Henry Tudor’s head.

Tudor, a plain, dark-haired man, accepted it with a hearty smile. “This is the true judgment of God, and I claim the throne of England by my right as victor!”

A cheer went up among the new king’s army. Aric joined in, shouting until his throat felt raw.

There was a rightness in this victory. Only time would tell Henry Tudor’s ability as king. But he would end this bloody war as one of the last Lancastrian men in the taking of Elizabeth of York as his bride.

He prayed that prosperity and peace would heal the land torn asunder by turmoil and strife for more than thirty years. He prayed that the souls of the slain princes would find peace and never be forgotten by England. And he prayed for his own future.

Now that the very man who had ordered the princes slain had met his own end this day, perhaps, Aric mused, he might be able to assemble his own happiness. Now that he had fought for the right and just, mayhap he could find absolution in that knowledge, along with Gwenyth’s embrace. For he had no doubt he loved his sweetly temperamental wife.

He wanted naught but to spend the rest of his days with her at Northwell, making laughter, babies, and love.

He wanted to leave the butchery now and return to her side, but the ugly business of war was not yet behind them. The new king would want all to swear fealty to him, something Aric was heartily glad to do.

In the aftermath, Drake and Kieran returned to Aric’s side, looking little worse for the battle. The trio watched as Tudor’s men stripped Richard’s body and tossed it over the saddle of his horse.

Drake placed a hand on his shoulder. “Here is your new king. Will you follow him?”

“’Tis for him I fought,” Aric answered.

“And damned good you did!” added Kieran. “You smile at last.”

With a wry grin, Aric said, “Aye. Well, do you leave now?”

Drake nodded. “We have done our duty to Guilford. This Henry is your king, not ours.”