Wars of the Roses: Bloodline: Book 3 (The Wars of the Roses) (6 page)

King Henry came to his feet as a flood of marching men raced past him. His knees were aching, but he wished to confess to Abbot Whethamstede. The old man heard his sins every morning, a ceremony of great pomp and splendour, with a silent heart to it as Henry whispered his failings and his guilts. He knew he had lost good men through his weakness and poor health, men like William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk; men like Richard, Duke of York, and Earl Salisbury. Henry felt every death like another coin on the scales of his shoulders, twisting his bones, bearing him down. He had liked Richard of York, very much. He had enjoyed their conversations. That good man had not known the danger of standing against the king. Heaven cried out against blasphemy, and Henry knew York had been broken for his pride – yet the sin was also the king’s, as one who had not forced York to understand. Perhaps if Henry had made that truth ring in York’s ears, the man would live yet.

The king had heard the talk in the camp, heard the fate of York and Salisbury and York’s son Edmund. He had witnessed the pain and hatred caused by those deaths, the ragged need for vengeance that took them all into darker lands, beginning to spiral together faster and faster like leaves in a gale. Under that weight of guilt, Henry was little more than one bright spot in the void, weak and flickering.

Around his oak, thousands of the queen’s men were
trotting, jingling, riding, spilling out of the town with faces still flushed from descending the hill. Two knights remained by the king, a tiny island of stillness left behind as Neville lines retreated. The most senior, Sir Thomas Kyriell, was a great bear of a man, a grey-haired veteran of two dozen years at war. His moustaches and beard were oiled and about as heavy as his appalled expression.

Henry wondered if he should call to one of the passing men-at-arms, to say he would like to be taken up to the abbot. He took great breaths of the cold air, knowing that it sharpened his thoughts to do so. As he watched the men, many of them turned their heads to the lone figure, standing with one hand on the trunk of an ancient tree, smiling at them while they marched to the killing. One or two gestured back aggressively, somehow irritated by the peace and good humour they saw in him, so out of place on that field. They drew thumbs across their throats, raised fists, touched their teeth or jerked two fingers at the small group of three men. The movements reminded Henry of his music master at Windsor, who would cut the air with his hands for silence before every tune. It was a happier memory and he began at first to hum and then to sing a simple folk song, almost to the rhythm of the marching ranks.

Sir Kyriell cleared his throat, going a deeper shade of red.

‘Your Grace, though that is a fine, strong tune, perhaps it is not suited for today. It is too sweet for soldiers’ ears, I think. Certes too sweet for mine.’

The knight was sweating as the king laughed and continued to sing. The chorus was close and no song should be denied its chorus – old Kyriell would see that when he heard it.

‘And
when
the green is seen again, and the larks give song to
spring
…’

One of the passing men in armour turned his head at the sound of a cheerful voice in such a place. The fighting was not far ahead, with screams and rushing arrows and the clamour of metal on metal mingling with men’s growling voices. They knew that music well, all of them. The high tenor calling out a song of spring was enough to make the knight rein in and raise his helmet.

Sir Edwin de Lise felt his heart thump beneath his breastplate as he stared beneath the stark oak branches. The great tree looked dead, but it spread in twisting boughs for fifty feet in all directions, waiting for the green to return. At the foot of a massive trunk, two knights stood to flank one man, with their swords drawn and resting on the ground before them. They resembled stone effigies, still and dignified.

Sir Edwin had seen King Henry once before, at Kenilworth, though at a distance. With care, he dismounted and pulled the reins over his horse’s head to lead the animal. As he ducked under the outermost branches, the knight removed his helmet completely, revealing a young face, flushed with awe. Sir Edwin was blond and wore a straggling moustache and beard, gone untrimmed for an age on the march and the campaign. He tucked the helmet under his arm and approached the three men, seeing tension in the pair who flanked their unarmoured charge. Sir Edwin noted the dirt that marred clothes of great quality.

‘King Henry … ?’ he murmured in wonder. ‘Your Majesty?’

Henry broke off his singing at the words. He looked up, his eyes as blank as a child’s.

‘Yes? Have you come to take me to confession?’

‘Your Grace, if you will permit it, I will take you to your wife, Queen Margaret – and to your son.’

If the knight had expected a rush of gratitude, he was disappointed. Henry tilted his head, frowning.

‘And Abbot Whethamstede? For my confession.’

‘Of course, Your Grace, whatever is your will,’ Sir Edwin replied. He looked up, sensing a subtle shift in the way the older knight stood.

Sir Kyriell shook his head slowly.

‘I cannot let you take him.’

Sir Edwin was twenty-two years old and certain of his strength and right.

‘Don’t be a fool, sir. Look around you,’ he said. ‘I am Sir Edwin de Lise of Bristol. What is your name?’

‘Sir Thomas Kyriell. My companion is Sir William Bonville.’

‘You are men of honour?’

The question drew a spark of anger from Sir Kyriell’s eyes, but he smiled even so.

‘I have been called so, lad, yes.’

‘I see. Yet you hold the
rightful king
of England as a prisoner. Give His Grace into my care and I will see him returned to his family and his loyal lords. Or I must kill you.’

Sir Kyriell sighed, feeling his age in the face of the younger man’s simple faith.

‘I gave my word I would not give him up. I cannot do as you ask.’

He knew the blow was coming before it began. A more experienced warrior than the young man might have called for support from the ranks, perhaps even a few archers to
grant him overwhelming force. Yet in his youth and power, Sir Edwin de Lise had not imagined a future where he could possibly fail.

As Sir Edwin began to draw his sword, Kyriell stepped in quickly and jammed a narrow blade into his throat, then stepped back with sorrow written deep in the lines of his face. The young knight’s sword clicked back into its scabbard. The two stared at each other, Sir Edwin’s eyes widening in shock as he felt his warm blood spilling and his breath spattering droplets from his throat.

‘I am truly sorry, Sir Edwin de Lise of Bristol,’ Kyriell said softly. ‘Go to God now. I will pray for your soul.’

The action had not gone unnoticed. As Sir Edwin fell with a crash, voices shouted in anger and warning. Those walking by were ready to fight, their pulses racing, their faces flushed. They were like wild dogs scenting blood in the air, and yet they did not rush the grey-haired figure in silver armour glaring at them all. More than a few of those men chose to look away from him, leaving the task to another. Yet there were enough. Men with billhooks stepped out and approached the tree, rushing the armoured knight who had killed one of theirs. Above them all, it began to rain, sheeting down across the field and making them all cold and sodden in an instant.

Sir Thomas Kyriell did not raise his sword again. In grief and shame, he only turned his head a fraction to present his neck, so that the first swinging blow struck him dead. His companion struggled and roared until he was battered from his feet and his throat gorget hammered in with an axe-handle, so that Sir William Bonville choked to death in his armour.

Resting one shoulder against the oak, King Henry shivered
slightly, though it was the cold and the rain that raised his skin like a Christmas goose. He watched the deaths of his captors with no more horror or interest than he would have shown at the plucking of such a bird for the table. When the violence came to an end and those present turned to him, the king asked quietly once again to be taken to the abbot for confession. More senior men came then to bear him away, awed by their fortune. They had come to rescue the king and he had fallen into their hands in the first moments of the fighting. If there had ever been a sign that God was on the side of Lancaster, it was surely then.

John Neville, Lord Montagu, staggered, breathing so hard he could feel his lungs curling like kidneys on a spit. There was blood running in veins on his armour, sliding and changing paths in the oil. He looked at the lines of red in confusion, slowly recalling a great blow that had rung his bell for him. Sparks of white shone at the edges of his vision, fading as the noise of fighting returned. One of his personal guard was staring at him, pointing to his eye.

‘Can you see, my lord?’ the man was asking, his voice oddly muffled.

John nodded irritably. Of course he could see! He shook himself again and saw that his shield had fallen to the ground. The rain was turning everything to mud, but the fighting went on. Montagu blinked, the dimness fading away, to be replaced by cries and clashes. He understood he’d taken some sort of blow to his helmet. He could see it by his feet, with a great dent in its crest and dome. Montagu looked up as a boy skidded to a stop at his feet. He’d come through marching lines like a rabbit through gorse, holding a spare helmet up to his lord and master.

The boy bowed his head as he presented the polished helm, panting visibly.

‘Thank you,’ Montagu managed.

He jammed it down over his head, feeling blood unstick from his cheek and fresh pain sharpen him further. He drew his sword and looked at the blade, standing perfectly still while all around him the forces of the queen pushed on and on.

‘My lord,
please
, come with me now. We must fall back for a time.’

The knight had taken him by the elbow and was tugging at him. Montagu shook him off, feeling weak but angry once again. He swallowed vomit, almost choking on it as it rose without warning into his throat, burning the inside of his nose. Head wounds were strange things. He’d known one man who had lost his sense of smell after such a blow, and another who lost all kindness, even to his own family.

As a young knight of good form, John Neville had known for years that rage could let a man perform wondrous feats. He thought nothing of standing to face armed ranks. He had done so before in St Albans, when the lords Somerset and Percy had fallen. Their sons were lesser men – and they would not make him afraid. Though the sudden appearance of the queen’s battle ranks had surprised him, the month of waiting and building his brother’s defences had worn heavily. It had been almost a relief to hear the church bells, for all the shock of an attack coming from the south. John Neville gripped the leather wrap of his hilt, feeling he had the strength. This was still his chance to take a sword and smash it into the face of an enemy, perhaps the very man who had butchered his father. Dazed and in pain, he remembered roaring orders and sending
messengers back for support. He could taste blood and felt it gumming his lips. They’d broken through his first ragged lines by then, rushing and howling.

Thousands of men had pounded down the hill towards his position, a flood of queen’s soldiers carrying axes, swords and bows. His hatred had given way to a sense of dread as the massed ranks had torn his standing flank apart. He recalled a dying knight dragging him down and the roar and heave he had made to fling that man away. Another had come running in, depending on speed and the weight of armour to break through the shields held to stop him. John Neville’s knights were sent tumbling, though they hammered his attacker into the ground. Two more lads with heavy billhooks had come at a sprint and the rain had begun to fall.

Montagu remembered that moment as clearly as any other, when the sky had suddenly filled with pale drops as far as he could see, so that the hill of St Albans blurred. In the wet and the mud, men slipped and went down, with limbs wrenched the wrong way, their screeching more pitiful than a death cry.

John Neville shook his head again, realizing he had been standing still for too long, like a bloodied statue. He could feel his scalp throbbing, but his spinning thoughts were slowing, growing clearer. He was John Neville. He was Lord Montagu. He could move. At his back, horns sounded and he knew Warwick was turning the army, bringing the main centre square out of its embankments and trenches. Norfolk would be riding along the open flanks, treading carefully across the trapped and spiked ground, to reach what had been the camp and the baggage and the safest spot on the field.

John Neville blinked rain and blood out of his eyes. His guards seemed to have gone; he stood alone. He turned to see the enemy and in that moment he was borne down, knocked on to his back in the mud with an axe half buried in his armoured chest and a man’s heavy foot pressing down on his head.

‘Pax! I am Montagu!’ he shouted over the pain, spitting mud and foulness. ‘John Neville. Pax.’

He was not sure if he had said the call for mercy and ransom aloud or just in the echoing vault of his head. His eyes rolled up and he did not feel his body lifted with the axe, crashing back into the soft mud as the blade came free from the metal.

Standing in his stirrups, Warwick watched in horror as his brother’s position was engulfed. The furthest wing was overrun, but Warwick could see John standing alone. It could not have been more than a few heartbeats, yet it seemed an age, with the battle swirling around that one, still spot.

All his brother’s guards had run or been slaughtered, the Montagu banners thrown down and trampled. Warwick found himself breathing shallowly, unable to look away as he gripped his reins and waited to see his young brother killed. The moment grew quiet, with all the clamour of his messengers and captains going unanswered. Warwick sucked in a sudden breath of freezing air, almost sobbing as he saw a line of roaring axemen thump John from his feet. Over a distance of six hundred yards, they were separated by thousands of soldiers, with trenches, carts and cannon. He could see nothing else.

Warwick squeezed his eyes closed. He opened them bloodshot, his lips pressed to nothing. The rain fell harder, sculpting his cloak in sopping folds and making his horse snort, flinging drops into the air.

He turned to his captains and saw his uncle Fauconberg had ridden up, a look of honest anger on his ruddy face. Warwick began to give a stream of orders, seeing the picture of the battlefield in his mind’s eye and issuing commands to individual units that would hold the ground. Half the
queen’s forces were still coming down the hill. If he could shore up John’s broken ranks, he might yet steady the lines. Margaret’s northern savages would be like sheep running at a line of slaughtermen. It would not matter then how many she had been able to bring to the field. He would grind them up rank by rank – and he had the weapons to do it.

‘Uncle, this for you. Bring up the cannon,’ he called to Fauconberg. ‘Have my crossbowmen and hand-gunners stand in support. Choose a line and set them ready. You understand? Braziers and supplies. Organ guns, bombards, culverins. When I give the order, I do not want the rate of fire to slow until we have pushed them back in
rags
.’

‘We’ll stop them here, Richard,’ his uncle said. ‘I swear it.’

Warwick stared coldly back until the man had turned his horse with a flourish and raced off, gathering a wake of serjeants and men-at-arms to carry out the orders.

The fighting continued on Warwick’s left shoulder as John’s reeling soldiers were forced back over their own dead. It was not edifying. Those men knew they were the worst of the York army – the old men and the boys and the one-eyed and the criminals. It was true they were not cowards, but no commander would risk his defence on whether or not such men would hold. They did not have much pride – and pride mattered.

Warwick looked up at the sound of longbows clattering, breathing in relief when he saw his red-coated archers still visible in long ranks. He knew they would be swearing and cursing the rain, hating the damp that warped their bows and stretched the linen cords. Those men had pride to spare. They’d stand for ever, in righteous fury against the men who were causing them to stand. He
nodded to himself, taking heart from the constant rattle of shafts.

The assault was slowing, bogging down, giving his captains the time they needed to form a line of cannon. Whether iron or bronze, the big weapons were brutally heavy. Some had been mounted on wheeled gun carriages, while others had to be dragged on a keeled wooden sled like a boat, with groaning oxen under yoke. The weapons used a huge number of fighting men, sometimes as many as twenty to move, load and fire just
one
– men who would otherwise have been standing in line with the rest. Yet those guns were his joy – his pride.

Warwick wiped sweat and rain from his brow. For all his outward confidence, he was still staring at disaster. He could not allow himself to think of John falling. So soon after the loss of their father, it was too much to take in.

Seeing his cannon dragged across the field was enough to make a man weep, Warwick thought. They had been snug in structures of turf and brick, propped and aimed and surrounded by sheltered awnings for their precious stores of powder and shot. All that had been dug up and torn down. The tubes of black and bronze were shining in the rain, half covered by canvas that was as likely to snag under a wheel and be yanked clear as it was to protect the touch-hole in the breech. Still, a dozen of the largest bombard cannon made a terrifying sight when they were lined up together, heaved into place, with smaller culverins in between. The braziers were brought up by groups of four, carrying beams like oars, with the iron cage full of coals gripped between them. Warwick could hear the fires hissing and crackling as the rain increased. Some were spilled in their hurry, to rush a great wave of steam across the wet ground.

Behind the cannon teams came hundreds of his hand-gunners, trotting along with strained faces and their weapons wrapped in cloth, resting on their shoulders. Some of them had already loaded the long guns, pouring in black grains and lighting the slow fuse that coiled like a snake ready to be lowered in. The weapons were much cheaper than crossbows and the men needed only a day to learn their use. Warwick shook his head in dismay as the rain increased, the clouds thickening overhead as they poured across the sky. The new guns would be a wonder to behold, if they could be made to fire at all.

Rank by ragged rank, Warwick’s army turned towards the sounds of iron. The red-coated archers bought them time on the wings, while Montagu’s left wing fell back without their commander, stopping to gasp and swear and bleed once they were through the line of cannon.

The hand-gun ranks came out then to meet the enemy, standing with their heads bowed in the rain. The ground was slippery and men skidded and cursed as they brought their weapons to their shoulders and squinted down the iron barrels.

‘Fire,’ Warwick whispered.

His serjeants bellowed the order and puffs of smoke spread along the line as men touched fuses to damp powder. The ranks of the queen’s soldiers did not flinch as they came forward in good order. They saw no threat in those facing them.

The rippling crack was more hiss than thunder. Rushing, stinging smoke shocked some of the queen’s men to a halt. Gaps appeared as soldiers fell back, struck and dying. Before the rest of them could react, Warwick’s gunners were turning their backs and running past the line of heavy
guns to reload. A great roar of confusion and anger went up amongst the queen’s forces – and the line of cannon replied. At no range at all, even a weakened shot tore through their ranks in a great welter of bone and limbs. With the enemy right upon them, Warwick’s gun teams touched a hot wire or a taper to the powder in the touch-hole and then just ran, as the world shook.

Warwick felt his heart beating madly as gold flashed in the smoke and dirt amidst the queen’s soldiers, hidden instantly by grey clouds. Men threw themselves down in panic, hiding their ears against the thump of sound that pressed against their skin and deafened them. Some who had been close to the guns and yet escaped rushed forward in a sort of madness, shrieking with weapons high and their eyes wild with death.

After the cannon had fired, the line was overwhelmed. One last single shot cracked out, behind the queen’s ranks, perhaps on a longer fuse or damp powder. That ball smashed through running men. All the rest had fallen silent. Warwick clenched his fists as his hand-gunners were butchered, their weapons no more use than sticks. Some thirty of them tried to rally the retreat, and Warwick watched in despair as they stood in a line and brought their weapons up to aim. His spirits sank as they peered along the barrels, pulling the curved fuses into place and seeing only a damp puff of smoke or nothing at all.

The rain had ruined the moment and the queen’s forces knew one thing – archers or crossbowmen had to be rushed. It was an old balance between the power of a spear or an arrow or a bolt – and the ancestral knowledge that if you could just get close, a chopping billhook was the best answer.

The queen’s ranks gave a howl and the sound was terrible to all the hand-gunners still struggling with damp powder, scraping it out with their bare fingers and fumbling for a dry quantity in a purse or horn. Those who came at them carried axes and seax knives that would not fail in the rain. A few more guns cracked to send soldiers tumbling, but the rest of the hand-gunners were slashed and stabbed aside, run down.

Montagu’s entire battle of men had been rolled up, the broken rags of it running back to interfere with the stronger centre. Those were Warwick’s best-armoured knights, his Kentish veterans and captains.

Warwick was surrounded by bannermen and a dozen guards whose sole task was to protect him. He looked round as angry voices sounded over on his right, then he called on his men to let the Duke of Norfolk through.

Norfolk brought his own close group of riders, all in his colours. Their master wore no helmet once again. He stared at Warwick from under heavy brows, his head a block on a wide neck.

With a gesture, Warwick called the man closer. As a man in his forties, Norfolk was still in his prime, though oddly pale. Warwick wished again that he could trust the duke as he needed to. There had been betrayals before, between the houses of York and Lancaster. With all the stars lining up for Queen Margaret, Warwick could not afford another misjudgement.

‘My lord Norfolk,’ Warwick called as he approached, acknowledging his own lesser rank by speaking first. ‘Despite this poor start, I believe we can hold them.’

To his irritation, Norfolk did not reply immediately, appearing to make his own assessment as his gaze swept
over the broken rear, the abandoned cannon and the massed ranks still coming down out of the town. Norfolk shook his head, looking up into the rain so that it sheeted down his bare crown and face.

‘I’d agree with you if the rain hadn’t ruined all the guns. My lord, has the king been recaptured?’

It was Warwick’s turn to look back over his shoulder to where the oak tree stood, far back in the ranks of queen’s soldiers.

‘The devil’s own luck put Henry right in their path,’ he said. ‘I thought him safe at the rear, where no man could reach him.’

Norfolk shrugged, coughing into his hand.

‘They have all they wanted, then. This battle is over. The best we can do now is to withdraw. We have lost only a few souls – fewer than six hundred, of a certainty.’

‘My brother John among them,’ Warwick said.

His own estimate of the dead was much higher, but Norfolk was trying to salve the news of the disaster. Warwick could not bring himself to feel the righteous indignation he might have felt at receiving such advice. The rain poured down and they were all wet and cold, shivering as they sat their horses and stared at one another. Norfolk spoke the truth, that King Henry’s capture in the first moments meant the battle had been lost before it had properly begun. Warwick cursed the rain aloud, making Norfolk smile.

‘If you choose to withdraw, my lord Warwick, it will be with the army largely intact and with little loss of honour. Edward of York will reach us soon and then … well, then we will see.’

Norfolk was a persuasive man, but Warwick felt a fresh spike of irritation intrude on his rueful mood. Edward of
York would be a roaring, stubborn, chaotic part of any campaign, he was certain. Yet like his father before him, there was the blood of kings in York, a stronger claim than any other except King Henry himself. The bloodline had power, that was the simple truth of it. Warwick hid his annoyance. If Lancaster was brought down, only York could take the throne, deserving or not.

At that moment, Warwick had more pressing concerns. He took a long look across the battlefield, wincing at the thought that any withdrawal to the north would take him past every yard of the useless defences he had prepared.

His gaze settled on where he had seen his brother fall. If he still lived, John would be held for ransom. He could hope for that. Warwick filled his lungs with frozen air, knowing it was the right decision from the sudden rush of relief he felt.

‘Withdraw in good order!’ he bellowed, waiting until his captains took up the cry. He groaned aloud at the thought of leaving his marvellous cannon behind, but that part of the field had already been overrun. There was no going back, even to hammer spikes down the barrels to ruin them for anyone else. Warwick knew he’d have to cast others in northern foundries, bigger guns, with weatherproof covers over the touch-holes.

His order was echoed a hundred times across the field. On another day, perhaps the enemy ranks might have pressed forward in response, delighted at the scent of victory. Under that downpour and in the sucking mud, they stopped as soon as a gap appeared, standing to wipe rain from their eyes and hair while Warwick’s army turned its back on them and marched away.

Margaret sat in a pleasant tavern room, warmed by a fire of very dry wood. The owner had set an entire pig’s head to simmer for the queen. In a cauldron, it bobbed in a dark liquor with vegetables and beans. As she watched, some part of the pale snout or face would surface to peer at her, before tumbling away and vanishing. It was oddly fascinating and Margaret stared at it as the inn bustled with her people all around. Her son Edward was sitting silently in a temper, having been prevented from poking the pig’s face with a stick.

The usual patrons had been turfed out for her guards and her son. Margaret had heard some sort of scuffle in the street as some local lads objected. Her personal guard of Scots and English had been happy to run them off, helping along anyone too slow with their boots. The town had fallen quiet around the tavern and all she could hear was the drumming of rain on the roof, the murmur of voices and the steady hiss and flutter of the fire. She wound her hands in and out together, using the nails of one to clean the other.

Margaret had seen battle before, enough not to want to see it again. She found herself shuddering at the memories of crying men, their voices raised as high as women or slaughtered animals, shrieking. In all other walks of life, a sound of agony would cause some effort to stop it. A wife would run to her husband if he cut himself with an axe. Parents would run to a child keening in fever or with a broken bone. Yet on the field of battle, the ugliest of sobs and shrieks went unanswered, or worse, they revealed weakness in the wounded, drawing in predators. Margaret stared at the bobbing head of the pig as it faced her and she looked away, pimples standing up on her arms.