Henry Tudor was keeping back. With his mounted escort he was behind them, on another hill. Farther back still and slightly to the right, with a distinct air of not belonging to either faction, was a mounted force in scarlet, the followers, Ned had said when they all set out that morning, of Thomas Stanley, Henry’s stepfather.
A front line from the king’s army had started downward toward them, flourishing a standard with a silver lion on it. “Norfolk,” shouted Ned over his shoulder. “He’s leading the charge! We have to deal with him first!”
He slowed down and Peter found himself striding up alongside. “We’ll engage in a moment,” said Ned rapidly. “It’s too late for you to change your mind so I can tell you now—I’ve put Nicky in the village of Stoke Golding, in an inn called The Seven Stars. He will be returned to Allerbrook after this, even if you fall.”
There was no time for more. They were almost face-to-face with Norfolk’s men now. Both forces halted. Curses and taunts were exchanged; weapon hafts were pounded on the ground. Peter shouted with the rest, thinking of the man who had fallen to the crossbow bolt and those who had been struck by cannonballs. He couldn’t see them as enemies now. Like it or not, he was their comrade. He had become a Lancastrian, regardless.
A trumpet rang out and the advance began again. The arrows and the cannon fire had ceased, because in a moment, friend and foe would be indistinguishable.
The two lines met.
Up on Ambien Hill, in the mounted reserve, Baldwin Sweetwater said to his son, “It looks as if we won’t see any action today. The peasantry’s going to see to it on foot.”
“It just looks like a mess to me,” said John.
Peter, caught up in the collision between Norfolk and Oxford, would have used stronger words than mess to describe what was happening. It was a vile chaos of kill or be killed. Trumpet calls from both sides kept drowning each other out and since many of the men in Oxford’s following seemed to be Welsh, their captains were bellowing orders in the Welsh language, causing confusion because the English couldn’t understand them and didn’t therefore know what their Welsh allies were supposed to be doing. The Welsh were probably having the same problem in reverse.
Peter lost sight of Ned Crowham, lost sight of Oxford’s standard. People collided with him. Blades rang on his helmet. A furious man, his face distorted with rage, attacked him with a sword and Peter swiped with his poleaxe, taking his assailant in the throat and thankful that the poleaxe had a longer reach than the sword had.
The cry went up that the Duke of Norfolk was slain. Peter found himself in the midst of a melee around Norfolk’s body. There was one moment when he had a clear view of Ambien Hill and there, high above, saw King Richard, the sunlight flashing on a gold crown worn over his helmet, seated on a white charger, watching. Suddenly he was alongside Ned again. They could see the Stanley forces, in their vivid livery, also watching the conflict, but keeping aloof.
“Buggers want to see who’s winning before they join in!” Ned gasped, wiping sweat out of his eyes and wiping blood into them instead from a gash on his arm.
On Ambien Hill a trumpet spoke and Baldwin Sweetwater said, “Action after all!” as their section of the mounted reserve started downhill to help Norfolk’s men. They were halfway down when a squad of crossbowmen rose up, apparently from nowhere, and a hail of bolts drove them back. John Sweetwater, uninjured but struggling with a frightened horse, lost sight of Baldwin for a moment. Then his father reappeared beside him, still in the saddle, but with the armour over his left arm smashed and blood seeping through. “You’re hit!” John shouted.
“Flesh wound!” Baldwin shouted back. “I’ll live!” Another shower of crossbow bolts swished into the air, but the horsemen had veered out of range by now and the bolts fell short. Glancing back, the Sweetwaters caught sight of the king on his white courser. The king, however, was no longer merely watching. “God’s teeth!” gasped John. “Look at that!”
Down in the melee, Norfolk’s son had taken over command from his fallen father. He was fighting with the fury of an ancient Viking berserker. But a handful of Norfolk’s followers had panicked and were fleeing, and with Ned and others, Peter found himself in pursuit. Before they had time to realise it, they were on the outskirts of the fighting, in the open, with a solid phalanx of armoured Yorkist horsemen bearing down on them from Ambien Hill. Just in time, Ned grabbed Peter’s arm and threw them both down under a bush, with a hillock between them and the charge.
It missed them and tore past to slay with fine impartiality the men who had been fleeing and those who like Peter and Ned had been chasing them. Then, as though going on an outing after finishing a few dull chores, they made for the scrimmage around Norfolk’s fallen body and plunged in, weapons swinging.
Peter, crawling out from the bush and peering around the hillock, glimpsed a flash on the hill above, looked upward and, like John Sweetwater, gasped at what he saw. The king was on the move. With a small squad of men behind him, he was riding down the slope of Ambien Hill, gathering speed, turning it into a charge, aiming straight for the opposite hill where Henry Tudor still sat, an onlooker, among his mounted guard. There was less than half a mile between them.
“Is that King Richard?” gasped Ned, crawling out beside Peter. “Has he gone mad?”
The king and his followers were clear of Ambien Hill already, and Henry’s guard were starting down to meet them. The Stanley banner—it was a white hart, like the name of the Clicket tavern—was moving, too, and the red-jacketed Stanleys were following and not, it seemed, to attack the Tudor forces. Swords out, lances lowered, bellowing war cries which reached Ned and Peter faintly despite the roar of the fighting behind them, the Stanley contingent was thundering headlong straight toward King Richard.
The din of the struggle between Oxford’s men and the Yorkists crescendoed. Peter and Ned, suddenly and guiltily aware that they ought to be in it, began to run toward it. A charger whose rider had fallen broke away in panic from the struggle and came galloping toward them. It saw them at the last minute, veered away, all but lost its footing, regained it and then skidded to a stop, sweating, trembling, white-ringed eyes rolling and ears flat back. It tossed its head and a rein swung, lashing Peter’s arm. He caught hold of it. “Steady! Easy! Easy now!”
He saw Ned looking at him, and realised why. He could get away if he wanted to. He could scramble astride this gift from heaven, cock a snook at Ned and be gone from this arena of horror. He knew where Nicky was now, after all.
But he had lost sight of Jarvis and he couldn’t leave him behind, couldn’t, somehow, even leave Ned Crowham. A man didn’t run from a battlefield, at least not until the Retreat was sounded or all his fellow soldiers decided to run, as well. Ancient instincts, forged in battles through countless aeons of time, forbade it. You stood by your comrades, even if you didn’t like them, even if you’d been forcibly co-opted into their midst.
Peter had hated his previous experience of battle chargers. He was about to fling the animal’s reins to Ned, who was more used to such things, when, veering around as the horse sidled and dragged him with it, he again caught sight of King Richard’s sally and suddenly understood. Richard of Gloucester had chosen to settle the outcome in the most ancient and formal of ways, by single combat with his challenger. He was trying to reach Henry Tudor, to cut him down personally.
At that moment King Richard and his men crashed into Henry’s guard. The Stanleys had farther to go and deceptive dips in the ground had slowed them down. They were still on their way. Peter could see the crown flashing on the king’s helmet, see Richard’s arm rising and falling as he plied his battle-axe like a man hacking his way through a forest. Or a man possessed by a demon of rage. If he could get through, then the invading Tudor would be cut down for sure. But he wouldn’t get through; he couldn’t, not through so many; no man could…
At Tewkesbury, Peter had given Richard of Gloucester a horse and Gloucester had given him riches in return, and
in Peter, a loyalty had been forged which could not now be wiped out, not even for Nicky.
He could not leave the battlefield, but he couldn’t go on fighting for Lancaster either. Once more he would dedicate a loose horse to Gloucester’s service. He was in the saddle. The horse, steadied by the familiar feeling of weight on its back and strong hands on its reins, let him turn it and put it into a gallop. Peter drove in his heels, crouched over the tossing mane and grasped his poleaxe as though it were a lance. He was only one man and he would probably do nothing more than get himself killed but he would die with Gloucester, and Nicky must take his chance.
As he put the horse to the slope, he could still see Richard ahead, still fighting, still alive. He spurred on, in among Richard’s followers whose charge had been checked by the head-on collision with the enemy. At the same moment the Stanleys arrived, bursting into the confusion, trying to get at the king. King Richard, with bitterness, had recognised his betrayal. Peter could hear him shouting “Treason!” over and over again.
A man beside Peter shouted a warning and he ducked just in time as a Stanley sword swept through the space where his head had been. The warning had been given in a voice with a distinct west country burr and he wondered briefly whether the Sweetwaters were in King Richard’s escort, but he had no time to think about it, for at that moment King Richard fell. He saw the gold-crowned helmet vanish beneath a tide of scarlet Stanley jackets. And saw the blades that rose and fell with hideous intent.
Then Peter’s horse trod on a still-living body, plunged away with a squeal, tangled its feet among the legs of a dead horse and went down, throwing Peter to the ground headfirst. His helmet, already badly battered, failed him and fell off. There was an explosion of light and pain mysteriously combined into one sensation and then oblivion.
He came around to find someone shaking him. He tried to raise himself, but a bad-tempered blacksmith was wielding a fourteen-pound hammer inside his head and his stomach felt queasy. He sagged back. A Welsh voice above him said, “He’s coming to. Who is he now, for the love of God? He has no red Stanley jacket, but he’s not one of Richard’s—proper armour they have, all of them. Horse is his, though. See, he still has a foot stuck in a stirrup.” He felt a hand on his ankle, releasing it from something. “Here, fellow, up you come. What’s your name?”
For one dreadful moment he couldn’t remember. Then his sense of identity came muzzily back. “Peter.” He got it out with difficulty. “Lanyon.”
“What’s that mean, bach? Who are you?”
Another voice, English this time, said, “I think he’s that lunatical fellow we saw tearing across on horseback just before Richard fell. Speak up, man! Who’s your commander?”
They had hauled him into a sitting position. The demonic blacksmith redoubled his efforts and his stomach heaved. The two men stooping over him seemed enormous and threatening. He struggled to focus his blurred eyes. He seemed to be still where he had fallen. He could see Ambien Hill and fighting still going on below it, and close to him, all around him, were dead men and horses. He could smell blood. It was everywhere, congealing in pools and rivulets, a hell of butchery.
Men were moving about amid the carnage. He saw a group tearing battered armour off a body only a few yards away, tumbling the corpse as they did so. For a moment he saw its face. Its helmet was half off and the golden crown was gone, but he knew those features; even stained with blood and grey with death, he knew them. It was King Richard.
“Who are you?” Hands on his shoulders were shaking him, to get an answer out of him. The hammer in his head almost made him scream.
He ought to say he was Richard’s man, and face whatever vengeance that brought on him, but if Peter Lanyon had an aching head, he also had a hard one. He might annoy his father by marvelling poetically at golden gorse and purple heather, but at times he was very much his father’s son. Gloucester was dead and no longer needed his allegiance. Where was the sense in dying for a corpse, in sacrificing his son for an empty gesture? He’d sooner stay alive and go home with Nicky.
“I was with…Earl of Oxford,” he said mumblingly. “We were in a battle. That way.” He made a vague gesture toward Ambien Hill. “I saw…Gloucester trying to get at Henry Tudor. There was a loose horse. I got onto it and tried to get here to help.” At the last moment he left it ambiguous and didn’t say who, precisely, he had wanted to help, but he had used a fuddled voice and he had already spoken of following Oxford, and nobody queried it. “Got here but…my horse fell. Can’t remember anything else.”
“He’s one of ours, bach,” said the Welsh voice. “Give me a hand with him. Best get him to a tent.”
“Thank you,” said Peter faintly, and was then very very sick.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
FRIENDS UPON A BRIDGE
I’m getting too old for riding, Liza told herself as her pony carried her down the final stretch of track around the hill which formed the southwest end of Dunster Castle’s private chase. She rarely rode these days and now every bone ached.
Richard refused to admit that he was anxious about Peter and Nicky but he quite clearly was and at first he was unwilling to let Liza visit her family. He’d finally agreed after two weeks of persuasion.
“I can see you’re fretting. But harvest’s not far off—don’t you be gone long, now.”
“I won’t do that,” Liza promised. She was glad to set off, for she found it wearisome to be constantly in Richard’s company without Peter there, even though when Peter was there, she often had to mediate between them. She was happy to be returning to these familiar surroundings. Nearly there now. Here was the path around the edge of the Luttrell chase, overhung by trees as ever, and here was the turn to the packhorse bridge and there was the bridge, with the Avill flowing serenely beneath.
She and Alfred, who was with her, used the ford below the bridge and let their mounts drink from the stream, while a couple of horsemen riding toward them and already on the bridge finished crossing it. It was too narrow for horses to pass each other. Then they rode gently on, through the village, into the broad cobbled North Street where the stalls in the middle of the road were still doing business. Alfred, who came frequently to Dunster, since he often escorted the wool clip there, leaned from his saddle as they came level with the Weavers’ house, and took her rein.
“I’ll take the ponies to the Weavers’ pasture, Mistress, and walk back. You go on in. You’ll be tired, I reckon.”
“Thank you, Alfred.” She got down, stiffly. Their arrival had been seen; doors were opening on both sides of the street and there was Laurence coming across from his house, with Elena hurrying after him, and there was Aunt Cecy—dear heaven, is Aunt Cecy still alive? She must be over eighty—at the opposite door. She was swathed in black, except that her headdress, a curious affair shaped like the door of a church, had white beads around its edge. Within it, her face had a grim expression and her greeting was characteristic.
“Well, well, Liza! What brings you here?”
“It’s good to see you!” Laurence himself must be about seventy and Elena not much younger and they both looked tired and old. Laurence had lost most of his hair, except for a few grey wisps. But unlike Aunt Cecy, he and Elena were smiling in welcome. They embraced Liza joyfully.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, “except that Peter’s gone to the war and Nicky’s gone with him. But…”
“Oh, my dear! I wondered why Nicky wasn’t with you,” Elena said. “Come. Let’s go inside.”
Aunt Cecy moved aside to let them pass. “If you’ve come for the funeral, my girl,” she said sourly, “you’re too late.”
Liza stopped short. “The funeral? What funeral? Whose?”
“Dick, my husband. Died nine days back and buried a week since,” said Aunt Cecy. “It comes to us all. Well, come in, no need to stand there.”
Liza and Elena followed her indoors. The house, to Liza, now seemed both familiar and strange. Familiar because there were the same
rooms, with the same furniture and the same woolly smell, and from the kitchen, the sound of an argument. A mislaid crock of butter was causing recriminations. Faintly, just as always, she could hear the clack of looms.
But Dick, Cecy’s husband and Uncle Will’s son, was gone, and Uncle Will too had departed. He had died at eighty-seven. Richard had brought her the news, after a visit to Dunster. The corner where he used to sit looked empty. This was the house that she remembered, yes. But…how odd. She really had put roots down at Allerbrook. What was it she had once heard Betsy say? She had been lying with her eyes closed after the birth and death of poor little Jack. Where she rears her family, that’s the place a woman calls home. Quentin and Nicky had both been born at Allerbrook. Her other relatives were here in Dunster, but her home was not.
Her relatives, however, were gathering eagerly around her. Many of them had changed: grown up or grown older. Her brother Tommy was very much a family man now, with a sensible-looking wife called Susannah, and two small children. They were all full of sympathy when they heard that both Peter and Nicky had ridden away with Crowham, and that Nicky had gone after his father.
“No one’s gone from Dunster this time,” Laurence said. “And a good thing, too. If only this battle can be the last one. It’s high time it was settled once and for all who’s going to sit on the throne.” His lined face became suddenly red with anger. “The whole of England is sick to the stomach of their squabbling and the way they take our sons and use them and never bring them back. It’s a disgrace!” He stopped, breathless.
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