Kingmaker: Broken Faith (20 page)

He slaps his hands together.

‘The shaft went right through his chin and into his neck and he came down on top of me like a sack of something awful. We were eyeball to eyeball, me and this dead man, with the fletching in my ear and his and my blood mixing everywhere. But by now the arrows were coming in, weren’t they? They made the sky dark. My God. You’ve never seen anything like it, to be under them when they land. Each one like a smith’s blow, but fast as raindrops in a summer storm. As many as that. And you know how much armour we had – just sallets and jacks – and after a minute I could see all the others were being killed and those that weren’t were trying to turn and get out of range, but the men behind couldn’t move to let them through and the arrows kept coming. They always say it is like a cloud, an arrow storm or whatever, but it was like night. Dusk anyway. And they just kept coming. Everyone was crying out and trying to run but there was nothing we could do. And the noise! Christ alive.

‘I huddled under that bloke, I tell you. His blood was all warm all over me, and he’d shat himself and pissed himself, but I didn’t care. I buried myself under him. He was like a pavise, you know? Those massive shields those bloody crossbowmen use. I thanked St George for making this bastard so big. The bloody arrows kept coming and one went straight through him and caught in my sleeve, just here.’

He rolls back his sleeve to show them a slip of polished grey flesh that has hardened on his pale forearm.

‘And then they started sending our own arrows back. I could see them in the ground and the bodies next to me, with their fletchings all fucked, and they made those sounds as they landed. So I could see they’d run out of their own shafts, and then, finally, the nobs on the Queen’s side, the Duke of Somerset it was, finally got the trumpet blown, and all the men-at-arms came down the hill. They had to scramble through all the – all of us, lying around, crying, screaming. Blood was everywhere. It was drizzling blood! The snowflakes were red with it. I’ll never forget it. Never. As long as I live.

‘I lay there, praying to God no one would notice me. No one would get me up and try to send me to do anything. I think I’d shat myself too, by then, but who cared? We’d all done it. Or pissed ourselves. And then a bit later, the heralds and the priests and the fucking cutpurses came and one of them tried to steal my fucking bow. I lashed out. Kicked him. And the fucker stood on the dead bloke and tried to drown me or crush me or I don’t fucking know what.

‘A grey friar pulled him off, thank the Lord. Told him there would be richer pickings later, elsewhere, if he would only let this humble fucking archer – me – live. I am grateful to him, whoever he was. He saved my life, dragged the dead bloke off me, and got his robes covered in blood and whatnot for it. When I was up I saw the ground started steaming with all the blood on it. You couldn’t help breathe it in. Christ on his Cross, I must have ale.’

He fetches a wooden ewer and pours himself a beaker and drinks it off as if to wash his mouth out before offering them anything. Thomas accepts the cup, and lets Little John pour him some and then drinks it. It is thin and bitter.

‘There was nothing I could do after that,’ Little John admits. ‘Archers weren’t what was wanted, especially one with my arm like this. I stayed with the ale wagons and then I even helped some friars with the wounded, though all we were doing was taking them from one place where they might have died and putting them in another place where they did die. It was as if they were tidying up, really, that was all.’

He takes another vast swig of ale and doesn’t bother to wipe his mouth afterwards. The words bubble out.

‘By midday we were sure we were going to win, and I was thinking that if only Riven survives, I’ll be all right. I’ll win my share and I can come back home – come here – a rich man, and I can forget about all this shit. The snow slowed around that time, and you could see how far the King’s army had advanced, and all the bodies that were in mounds, piled up everywhere across the field and I thought, bloody hell, there can’t be many more men left in England who aren’t dead or fighting for us, on our side. And then someone said Edward of March was dead, and there was such a cheer, only then it was proved untrue, and then someone said Trollope was dead, and I cheered inside for that, because do you remember? He was the bastard that switched sides before we went to Calais. Or maybe that was before you came to us. Anyway.’

A donkey brays somewhere unseen.

‘Then the Duke of Norfolk’s men arrived, just before dusk, and that tipped the thing the other way, didn’t it? You could feel it, right from where we were, and suddenly the ale carts were spilling their ale and whipping their oxen to get away, just as if they knew it had already been lost, and they would be too, if they weren’t gone soonest. I climbed up on the back of them. I hid in a barrel. Benefits of being small. By the time they found me it was too late. They threw me out on the roadside, but by then the nobs were coming past on horseback. Flying up the road to York, all their weapons and harness gone, horses all mad-eyed, frothing and sweating even in the snow.

‘I ran along as best I could, but then there was a river, and turned downstream. I thought if I could find a boat, anything, then I’d be all right. And I did. A little thing. I stole it. Just pushed off into the river and prayed to God to get away before Edward’s men came through, or any of ours too. They were killing each other just to get past. Anyway. I fell asleep in the boat, as God is my witness, despite my fright and the cold, and by the time I woke up I was – well. I don’t know. West of York, on a gravel bank being watched by two boys and a dog and – well, that was the end of it, really. I got out, staggered on to dry land and slept where I was, and in the morning I could hardly move, my clothes were that stiff with blood.’

There is a long silence. Little John is done, exhausted by the reliving of that day, and he does not ask after them. He is not interested where they have been or how they survived their day. Having spoken for so long he wants nothing but silence.

‘Will you come back?’ Katherine asks.

Little John starts as if he has forgotten who they are. Only then does he ask after Sir John and the men he’s known. When he hears who is alive and who is dead, he is caught between sorrow and relief.

‘Is Riven looking for you?’ Katherine asks.

Little John is startled.

‘I don’t know. Is he even alive? Did he live through the day?’

‘No one knows,’ Katherine says. ‘But the boy is.’

Little John is frightened.

‘Edmund?’ he asks. ‘Edmund Riven’s alive?’

Katherine nods.

‘Oh, good God,’ he says, and he might almost cross himself.

‘So will you come with us? Rejoin Sir John Fakenham’s company?’

‘And go against Edmund Riven? No. No. Not likely. Not a chance. I need to be here with my old mum.’

Thomas is dismayed.

‘Is he so bad?’

‘He is a devil in human form. He has a wound here –’ he points to his eye – ‘that has not healed and yellow stuff comes from it, with blood in it, and the smell is enough to curdle milk, I swear. It makes you retch. He wipes it with a cloth and the smell clings and even pigs stay away.’

John almost gags at the memory of it.

‘And all he talks of is of cutting men – of blinding them, like he is in that eye – and of raping women.’

He shakes his head.

‘I am sorry,’ he says, ‘I will not go against him, not unless there are many of us. He is a vicious bastard.’

When they get back to Marton Hall it is late afternoon and Sir John is out in the yard with Robert. Sir John has a pair of curious brass eyeglasses on his nose, and another letter from Richard in his hand, delivered by the same merchant who then sold him the eyeglasses.

‘He also deals in divers objects that he claims to be rich in natural magic,’ Isabella tells them, and she nods at a small grey stone lying among the pieces of the chessboard. It is unpolished, the size of the ball of a man’s thumb, and pierced with a hole through which someone has thread a loop of bowstring.

‘It cost a groat,’ she says through pursed lips.

Sir John is looking equally wintry, and he raises the letter.

‘It is confirmed,’ he says. ‘Cornford is to be given to that bastard Riven. The son, that is, as you say, Kit, the boy without the eye. Richard says there has been some initial ruling in council. Lord Hastings is trying his best to overturn it, he has told Richard, but he is gloomy about his chances because King Edward is still warm with the Duke of Somerset, and Somerset is still warm with Edmund Riven. The Duke of Somerset has asserted that with Margaret accused of murder, and Richard a blind man, natural justice should run its course, and the castle and its lands should revert to Riven. Natural bloody justice. By the blood of the risen Christ, what does the bloody Duke of Somerset know of natural bloody justice? If he did he’d have hanged himself long ago, and taken that bastard Riven with him.’

Sir John crumples the letter and throws it towards the fire.

‘There is one last, final chance, Richard thinks, and then –’

He makes a pffft noise. There is a long silence.

‘What actually is that?’ Thomas asks. He points to the stone on the chessboard. Isabella sighs.

‘To me it is a wasted groat,’ she says, ‘but to the pedlar it is a lodestone.’

Sir John picks it up and holds it near Isabella’s belt buckle. It swings on its lace and clacks against the metal. Sir John’s smile is distracted.

‘What’s it for?’ Katherine asks.

‘You tell me,’ Isabella murmurs. She plucks it from her belt and then holds it near one of the eating knives. The knife moves of its own accord.

‘It seeks out certain metals,’ Sir Johns says. ‘Attracts them, you see, but the pedlar said it is helpful for finding your way. Something about the North Star and not getting lost at sea.’

Sir John looks at Katherine, and almost laughs.

‘You should have it, Kit,’ he says. ‘Save you getting lost again.’

He passes it to her. She blushes slightly, probably remembering her slim story of being lost in the Irish Sea, and thanks him for it.

‘Put it around your neck,’ he says, ‘and that way you won’t lose it.’

Again she thanks him. It is not something she really wants, Thomas can see that, but it would be wrong to refuse a gift, and she hangs it around her neck and tucks it into her shirt. Thomas cannot stop himself imagining it hanging between her flattened breasts. He tries to think of something else, anything else.

They slump back into a long strained silence that Sir John breaks by swearing at Riven again, and at the Duke of Somerset, and at King Edward for being such a fool.

‘When you think of all we’ve done for him. All the blood we’ve spilled.’

‘There must be some other way,’ Katherine says.

Sir John turns to her.

‘You were always convinced the wars would start again, Kit,’ he says. ‘And you were right, weren’t you? On more than one occasion, too. But will they come again? Will we have another chance to shake all this up and unseat Riven?’

He gestures at the chessboard where just the two kings and a handful of other pieces remain.

‘I know nothing of them now,’ she admits.

There is another long, disappointed silence. Sir John sighs and begins toying with the chess pieces, clearing them to leave the two kings at opposite ends of the board. He sits back and studies them with a curled lip.

‘Kings,’ he says. ‘Kings and bloody dukes.’

Thomas leans forward and picks up a piece from the discarded pile.

‘Perhaps the Duke of Somerset will prove a false friend to King Edward?’ he says, and he places a black knight next to the black king. ‘Perhaps he will turn back to King Henry?’

‘But why would he,’ Sir John asks, ‘when King Edward is all-powerful?’

And he returns some white pieces to the board, so that they outnumber the two black pieces five to one, and then he moves the black knight that had been under the black king to a square next to the white king, and he turns it so that the horse’s teeth face the black king.

‘And,’ he adds, ‘when all that remains of King Henry’s army is banged up in a couple of useless castles up north?’

He places two black rooks on the board, on the black king’s side. They all stare at the board as if it will reveal the answer. It does not.

‘So if there is no chance of separating the Duke of Somerset’s loyalties from King Edward,’ Katherine ventures, touching the black knight and the white king, ‘is there a way to separate them from Edmund Riven?’

She places a black pawn on the board, next to the black knight, and then draws it away. There is another silence, but one by one they shake their heads.

‘I do not see how,’ Sir John says.

‘If you cannot separate this Riven from the Duke of Somerset and you cannot separate the Duke of Somerset from King Edward,’ Robert says, bunching the black pawn and the black knight under the shadow of the white king, ‘then you must either suffer in silence, or –’

And he moves a white knight from the white side of the board toward the black side, and he turns it to face the white king.

‘Or King Edward becomes your enemy, and King Henry becomes your friend.’

There is another long silence. They can hear Sir John breathing noisily.

‘I remember Richard suggesting the same,’ Katherine says, ‘when the Earl of Warwick awarded the castle to Riven after Northampton. You said you would not change sides. You said you would not turn traitor.’

There is another long silence, and all eyes are on Sir John, to see whether he moves the white knight back toward the white king, and he stretches his hand, and his trembling fingers hover over the piece, and he tries to draw his hand away without touching it, but in the end, he cannot. He moves the knight back.

‘I have bled so freely for the House of York,’ he says, ‘that to turn my back on her now, it seems a betrayal not just of them, of King Edward, but of those I’ve lost in her service – of Walter, of Geoffrey, of all those bloody Johns. I cannot just switch in a moment of rage, however gross the provocation. So let us see. Let us wait to see if this last appeal to King Edward’s good sense brings us Cornford Castle, and Margaret’s freedom, and Richard’s return. We should pray for those things, and if our prayers are not answered, then we shall have to think again.’