Ahead of them, on the rising ground above the brook, Salisbury’s forces came to a halt and reformed in good order. Audley felt his heart pound with fear as they began a steady march down towards his men, still struggling through the water and over the banks.
In a single, mad rush, his Gallants had given away all their advantages but one. They still outnumbered the enemy, but Salisbury’s soldiers were marching downhill against tiring men.
Audley kicked his mount down the slope, reaching the brook and crashing into it at a dangerous speed. He shouted for the Gallants to stand and hold as he went, but the river was wider and deeper than they had known and men struggled in it, exhausting themselves as the numbers piled up. Hundreds stood shivering, calling to those ahead to move on while they waited to clamber up in turn.
Ahead, Salisbury’s first rank struck, a wall of sword and axemen holding shields before them. On the wings, Audley could see their horsemen in formation, waiting to counter his own mounted knights and sergeants. They had come down to the brook in slow procession, the more experienced men immune to the urge to chase. Audley could not let his cavalry remain on the far side, though he cursed his luck and the poor discipline of the young fools he led. He dragged a horn from where it bounced by his knee and blew a double note to charge. It served to bring some calm to the foot soldiers as well, who turned and saw Baron Audley was present to command them.
Salisbury’s forces pushed forward step by step, commanding the hill above that side of the brook and killing anyone who made it across to stand against them. For a time, the slaughter was appalling and a shiver of fear rippled through Gallants who could see only death ahead. Thousands were still dry, unable even to reach the river in the press of shouting, angry men. Audley had forced his mount through them and gathered a dozen captains, with four or five hundred men finding the wits to stand and hold while the rest came out of the river. Salisbury saw the danger, and his horns could be heard blowing across the heath as his men pressed the Gallants cruelly and his archers shot from the wings until the river began to run red with tumbling bodies.
The men around Audley were cut down by a solid line of mailed soldiers, killing with terrible efficiency. He heard the thunder of hooves as Salisbury’s cavalry engaged his own, hammering together hard enough to shake the ground as the two armies struggled on. One group of riders cut straight through his hedge knights and swung in against the flank of the Gallants, sweeping them away until they reached Audley himself. He barely had time to raise his shield and sword before an axe crashed against his chest, hammering a great dent in the plate and making him blow blood. He felt his strength falter as he swung his sword down from behind in a great strike that cut his opponent at the joint of his neck and shoulder, sending the knight reeling. Two more came crashing in and Audley saw a mace raised. He could not bring his sword back in time and the heavy iron club stove in his helmet, breaking his skull and toppling him to the ground.
The Queen’s Gallants were pressed on all sides, with arrows still punching into them. Those yet to cross the river lost their desire to take another step against such a terrifying enemy and instead began to move back. Two thousand of the Gallants still fought on around Audley’s body, some of them calling to those behind in desperation as they watched them stream away. They knew by then that they would be slaughtered if they ran back to the river so they fought on, falling by arrow or better armed men cutting them down. In their fury, they cut holes in Salisbury’s lines, but it was never enough and the holes closed with shields again and again until the last of them were butchered and sent tumbling.
The cold brook waters drained the blood from all the bodies in it, piled so high in places that a man might almost have walked across on broken corpses. Salisbury’s men never crossed the brook, contenting themselves with the slaughter of all those who stood on their side and ignoring the rest.
When the fighting ceased, Salisbury came right down to the water’s edge. The sun was beginning to set and he looked across the river to the rising hill and wondered idly if the cannons were still on the ridge. There was no sign of any of the Gallants there. They had all fled.
He cracked stiffness from his neck, though he had not struck a single blow during the fighting. Perhaps a thousand of his men had been killed, a loss he could not afford, no matter what victory they had won for him. Three times as many, or more, lay dead around the brook and in it. His men were already gathering great armfuls of the silver swan badges, laughing at the loot and yelling to their mates to come and collect more.
He called his captains away from their search, fixing them with a stern expression as he decided to ignore the men’s bulging pouches.
‘Get my carts across this damned river before dark. We’ll scout the Gallants’ camp, but we must press on.’ He knew they expected some word of congratulation, but he had lost a third of his army, men he and York needed desperately. He felt no joy of it.
‘My lord, will you give us time to see to the wounded?’ one of his captains asked. Salisbury glared at him, angry at the decisions he was being forced to make.
‘I see no Percys here, no Somersets. There is another army in the field and I must reach Ludlow. If they can walk, they must follow us at a slower pace. Leave a good knife with those who will not last the night. We have lost half a day here, gentlemen. We cannot lose more. Be ready to march.’
His captains nodded, losing their grins and taking up the responsibilities of their rank once more. One by one they turned away, looking over the slaughterhouse they had made of the heath and the river that would run red for days afterwards.
Margaret rose to her feet from where she had crouched perfectly still for so long. It was hours since she had settled into that spot, a hill to the east of the heath that gave her a good view of Audley’s forces and then the army of Salisbury as it crossed the land. She was white with horror at what she had witnessed, a vision of cruelty and violence that continued to flash pictures into her mind in the twilight, making her want to brush them away like flies landing on her skin. In her imagination that morning, she had expected neat formations facing each other, not the chaos and screaming madness of men crushed and drowning in a river, hacked down and shot from close range by laughing, jeering enemies. She shook her head, trying in vain to clear it of the memories. Those men had sworn an oath to her and worn her swan. They had come to that place in trust and martial spirit, ready to fight for the king and queen against foul traitors. As she dragged her eyes away, she could still see the dark stain in the waters as the brook leached their life’s blood. Margaret shuddered, feeling small and cold herself with the twilight closing in. She did not know what happened after a battle, whether Salisbury would stop to bury the bodies, or whether he would press on to Ludlow. There were still dozens of his horsemen milling around on the hillsides and she was struck by a sudden fear that one of them might see her and give chase.
Her throat dried and she fluttered her hands at the thought. Two men waited for her at the bottom of the hill. She had not let them climb the slope to watch with her, knowing that to be spotted by anyone was to invite disaster. They had seemed strong and fearsome warriors that morning, but as she climbed down, they looked as frail as any of the other men who had died that day.
Margaret mounted without a word, not trusting herself to speak. Behind, she heard some horn blowing once again and she shrank in the saddle, the growing shadows making it feel as if she was already being run down by huntsmen. Leaving the heath behind, they rode a mile and she looked back more than once.
In the first village they passed, Margaret saw the forge light of a smith, still working at his trade, though the hour was late. Her mind was on the threat of pursuit and the delight Salisbury would take in her capture. She almost rode on and then reined in sharply at the sound of hoof nails being hammered into place.
‘Fetch out the smith,’ she said, relieved to hear her croaking voice was firmer than she had expected.
The man who came out at her
order was wiping his hands on an oily cloth. He took in the fine cloak of the beauty staring down at him and chose to bow deeply.
‘Do you need a shoe, mistress?’ he called. He reached out to pat the neck of her horse and froze as one of her guards drew a sword, a sound the man knew very well.
‘I need them all taken off – and reversed on the hooves,’ Margaret said.
Her mother had complained of poachers doing the same thing when she was a little girl in Saumur. Anyone riding after them would find a set of tracks heading the wrong way and take another path. It was a simple enough trick, though the smith stared in surprise, glancing off at the road behind them. Margaret could see him guessing they had come from the battle fought that day, confusion and a little fear written clearly on his soot-dark face.
‘Pay the man for the work, a half-noble,’ Margaret said.
The smith’s eyes widened and he snatched the gold coin out of the air as it was flicked to him, patting it away carefully. Margaret dismounted and the smith kept his silence, lifting each hoof and yanking out the nails with quick neatness, dropping the bent ones into a pouch to be straightened and replacing them with a dozen more, hammered in hard. He did not dawdle, made nervous by the glances thrown down the road behind the small group. In just a short time, all three of the horses had been shod in reverse and they mounted again. Margaret hesitated, unable to resist a word before she left the man behind for ever.
‘You have served the royal house well, Master Smith,’ she said. ‘In the king’s name, I ask that no one else hears what you did tonight.’
The smith was very aware of the armed men watching him. He backed away, nodding and holding his hands up until he was safely in the smithy, warmed by the forge.
Margaret dug in her heels. Night had come while she waited, but the moon was up and it was a good road and a clear sky. She kicked hard for Kenilworth, safety and home.
22
Salisbury’s men limped into Ludlow, footsore and weary beyond belief. The earl they followed had forced them on for fifty miles, driven by the terrible fear that he would find York’s castle under attack. They’d arrived barely able to stand, never mind fight, but there was no sign of a besieging army. Salisbury passed on his thanks to his captains, allowing them to make camp alongside the four thousand already there.
York’s soldiers watched as Salisbury’s starving men clustered around cooking pots, or simply lay down on the open grass to sleep. The newcomers had no carts with them after the forced march. As the moon appeared low in the sky, hundreds of York’s sergeants walked over to the huddled groups of weary men, passing out spare blankets and sharing water, ale and meat, whatever they had, in exchange for news of the battle.
The arrival of Salisbury’s army brought a heightening of tension across the great camp around Ludlow. New lines of wooden spikes were hammered into place and many of the men blessed the river that ran round the west and south of the castle, forcing any enemy to come from the east.
Salisbury’s carts arrived the following day, allowing his men to set up tents and give back some of what they had been lent. The walking wounded from the heath came in a day after that, staggering along and collapsing with relief at the sight of acres of tents around the York stronghold. Fully eight hundred men were missing from the rolls called, while many others were little more than a drain on the healers and their supplies.
On the evening of the third day, York’s scouts rode in with the news they’d all known would come. The King’s Gallants had been sighted twelve miles off. Every man of the six thousand at Ludlow ate a good meal, repaired any broken kit and sharpened his weapons. Those who had horses tended to them, while the host of archers took up position on the flanks of the castle. Salisbury’s carts were made into a barricade once more, blocking the southern approach from Ludford, across the bridge.
As night fell, York’s army settled down into disturbed sleep, jarred from it by single cries and bad dreams before they pressed their eyes shut once again and tried to lose the dark hours. Ludlow was the stronghold, but the river protected their backs as much as the stone walls behind them. Every soldier knew that, at the last, they would be allowed to run inside the walls for protection – but if it came to that, the battle would be lost and the castle would surely fall. They were the shield and the sword, not Ludlow’s battlements. The guard shift changed at midnight and, by then, a light frost made the camp sparkle. The guards stamped and blew on their hands, watching for the dawn.
The moon vanished to the south, its brightness fading quickly. As the sky eased from starlight and blackness to the first shades of grey, Salisbury and Warwick climbed the stairs to the highest point to stare east. York and Edward of March were already there, talking in low voices as Neville father and son reached the top step.
‘Come here and you will see them,’ York said, beckoning.
Salisbury squinted into the gloom, spotting tiny points of light in the distance, shifting and darting back and forth.
‘How many?’ Salisbury asked, as much a question to the younger men with sharp eyes as York himself.
‘However many you left alive at the heath – and the king’s forces,’ York replied.
He had railed and shouted on the first evening, when he heard how many Salisbury had allowed to escape. His friend had endured the tirade, knowing it sprang from fear. It was true Salisbury might have tracked and butchered the Queen’s Gallants streaming away from him. He might equally have been overwhelmed by them as they regrouped and fought back. He had chosen instead to follow through with the original plan and reinforce Ludlow. There was no point in wishing for different choices to have been made.
Far away, the line of torches grew and grew, spreading across the horizon until the four men could only stare in grim silence. York knew the land to the east better than anyone and he was most affected, rubbing the back of his scalp and shaking his head.
‘It might be a trick, still,’ he said. ‘Men far spaced perhaps to carry the torches, making them seem a greater host than they truly are.’
He did not believe it and none of the others replied. The sun would reveal the extent of the king’s army facing Ludlow.
‘Ludlow has never been breached,’ York said after a time. ‘These walls will stand long after us all, no matter how many tanners and squires they have found to march against it this year.’
The sky behind the approaching army was brightening slowly, clear and pale. York stiffened as he began to make out the dark shapes of cannon being trundled along with the host. Once he knew to look for them, he peered further, leaning out over the stones until Salisbury wanted to take his arm before he fell. A dozen heavy serpentines had been dragged towards Ludlow, each one capable of smashing an iron ball through a full mile of clear air. Against castle walls, even those of Ludlow, they would wreak terrible destruction.
‘They’ve come to break us,’ Salisbury murmured.
He sensed York’s anger at his words, but the light before sunrise was strong enough for them all to see the extent of the king’s forces. They could barely make out the noble banners in the soft grey, but the numbers were appalling, at least twice the men they had gathered in the name of York.
‘I see the Percy colours,’ Edward said, pointing. ‘Lord Grey is there. Exeter. Buckingham. Somerset on the left, do you see? Is that the banner of the Cliffords?’
‘It is,’ York replied. ‘A great pack of curs and fatherless boys, it seems. I should have killed Buckingham at St Albans, when he was laid out with his face split in two. Look for the king’s lion pennants. Or the queen’s swan. That wolf bitch will be among them, I am certain.’
At the distance of half a mile, the royal army halted, blowing horns to wake the dead, or at least any Yorkist soldiers who might somehow have slept through the clash and rumble of their approach. The ranks of torches were extinguished as full dawn came and York and Salisbury could only stare in dismay as dozens of armoured knights rode up and down the first rank, carrying the str
eaming banners of all the houses they represented, led by three gold lions on red. It was a display meant to intimidate and shock – and it did its work well.
In the front rank, the cannon teams raised the immense black iron barrels and placed wooden blocks under them. York clenched his right hand as he saw braziers lit and men scurrying with bags of corned black powder. Right across the king’s army, thin streams of smoke rose into the clear air. The men on the battlements heard the order, a single voice that was answered with a crashing thunder and such an explosion of smoke that half the royal force vanished behind it.
No iron balls soared across the distance between them. The flame and smoke had been a warning and a demonstration of power. No one who saw it was left in any doubt that the next volley would tear men apart and hammer castle walls. Yet it did not come. Instead, a single herald rode forward beyond the rest, accompanied by six men. Two of them blew horns while the rest carried royal banners, the lions fluttering. They reached the edge of York’s forces and the herald declaimed at the top of his voice. Few of his words reached the battlements, though the four men above craned to hear. York watched sourly as the herald finished his speech and continued out of sight, heading into the castle. He would be allowed to enter, to deliver his message to the master of Ludlow.
York turned to the earls standing with him, his eyes resting at last on the son who towered above them all in his armour. Like the rest of them, York was pale, his confidence shattered. He knew the king’s herald would be brought up to him and he spoke quickly before they were no longer alone.
Wars of the Roses: Trinity (War of the Roses Book 2) Page 25