‘Very well, Thomas. Find my son and have him brought back to me. We’ll need three horses saddled. I will see to my husband.’
Released as if from a trap, Lord Egremont raced away. Margaret crossed quickly to where Henry seemed to watch her. Slowly, she lowered herself at his side, looking deeply into his eyes. On impulse, she took his arm, feeling the cold metal slip under her fingers.
‘Did you hear? Can you stand, Henry? It is not safe now. We must go.’
‘As you say,’ he whispered, barely more than a breath crossing his lips. He did not move.
‘Henry!’ she snapped, shaking him. ‘Get up, now, to ride. Come on.’
‘Leave me here,’ he murmured, pulling away from her. Some life came back into his eyes and she wondered again how much he truly understood.
‘I will not,’ she said. Her head jerked up in shock as she heard horns blowing in the distance. Panic surged in her, making her tremble. How could they be so close? Lord Grey had said ten miles! She left her husband and went out into the sun, staring at a distant column of men approaching the royal camp. Either Grey had somehow been wrong, or the men of Kent had run the last few miles. Margaret shook her head in confusion and rising terror, looking back into the gloom of the tent. She trembled as she stood there, caught between needs that tore her in two.
The sound of hooves and harness announced a servant arriving with horses outside the tent. Margaret could have wept with relief as her son, Edward, ran inside, his eyes bright.
‘Bucky says there’s an army coming!’ the little boy hooted, bouncing from step to step. ‘He says they’re right bastards!’ He mangled the last word deliberately, mimicking the slurred speech of a man who had suffered a cleft palate at St Albans and could no longer speak clearly.
‘Edward!’ Margaret snapped immediately. ‘Lord Buckingham should not have taught you such a term and he is too good a man to be mocked.’ She spoke almost without conscious thought, distracted by the problem of getting her husband away to safety. Closing her eyes for a moment, Margaret felt herself trembling. Outside, the noise of marching men grew louder and louder, jingling and stamping. Voices called across the field, warning the king’s forces to be ready. She ran back to her husband and kissed him hard on the cheek.
‘Please, Henry. Get up now. There are soldiers coming and there will be fighting. Please come with me.’
His eyes closed, though she thought he could still hear her. There was no time left. She chose between her husband and her son, her heart breaking.
‘No, then,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I must see Edward safe. God keep you, Henry.’
Warwick’s horse had suffered under the weight of an armoured man. He had flogged and spurred it raw to reach Northampton and he knew he would have to dismount to fight. The animal was more used to pulling a cart of malted barley for the London brewers. The crash of arms and smell of blood would surely see it bolt.
At his side, Edward of March rode an even more unfortunate animal. Rather than see his horse collapse, March had been forced to remove his armour. Each piece had been taken up with pride by the men around him, sharing the weight of iron between them while the young earl rode on in brown wool. His face was so flushed that no one had dared say a word about it.
A shout went up from the front ranks as they sighted the king’s army. They had marched hard and far to reach that place, but the reward was there to be seen. King Henry’s lion banners fluttered in an open field, on the grounds of an abbey. The royal army looked small in comparison to the great column that had come north, but Warwick could see the king’s soldiers wore mail and his heart sank at the sight of hundreds of horsemen and archers. His Kentish men had no pikes to stand against cavalry, and numbers would take them only so far against well-trained soldiers. He felt fresh sweat break out on his skin and, for once, he wished his father were present. He had decisions to make that would mean victory or complete destruction. The sun was not yet at noon and he could not shake the sense of dread that rose in him.
‘Will you take Baron Grey at his word?’ Edward of March said, easing his horse closer.
As the most senior lord, the command of the army was Warwick’s. He had not forgotten Edward’s sudden disobedience at London Bridge, but there was no one else.
‘That is the damned thorn, Edward,’ he replied uneasily. ‘How can I trust him?’
Lord Grey’s scouts had been tracking them all morning and part of the previous day. One of them had come in with his hands held high and open to show he intended no treachery. He’d brought an extraordinary offer and Warwick was still uncertain if it wasn’t some trick to lure him in against the strongest wing of the king’s men.
‘What’s to lose?’ March replied with a shrug. ‘He wanted a red banner raised, so have it raised. He’ll either follow through on his word, or we’ll cut him down with the rest.’
Warwick held back from allowing his irritation to show. Edward was very young and had not yet seen all the villainy of men.
‘If he is true to his word, we’ll attack his force on the flank. You see them there? But if his man was lying and it is some sort of trap, Buckingham will have all his best fighters in that place, ready to tear us apart.’
To his exasperation, Edward of March chuckled.
‘Let them! I’ll lead the charge, when I have my armour on. One way or another, we’ll go through them.’
Warwick called a halt and dismounted, guiding his exhausted horse off to the side as the column widened out. He’d set his captains to lend some discipline to the Kentish recruits. They could be heard bawling orders at the top of their voices, aware that the two earls were watching. Piece by piece, the marching line took up a new structure in long ranks and squares, facing the king’s army less than half a mile away across the open land. Warwick could hear warning horns sound in that camp, with servants and horsemen running everywhere. Eight hundred yards separated them, enough to make out the broad banners of Buckingham in the centre. An abbey stood in the near distance and Warwick could see the dark figures of monks watching them manoeuvre.
Behind the king’s forces, a river ran fast with summer rain. Warwick had no idea if there was a bridge there, but it meant Buckingham’s men would not find it easy to retreat. The king’s flags were still flying on his pavilion and if his presence was not enough, the river would force them to stand and fight to the last man. Warwick found himself wondering if the queen was close by. His memories of her were more tender than anything he felt for the king who had attainted his family. He shook his head, remembering his father’s certainty that the queen was the snake wrapped around Henry, more than any of his lords.
‘Slow march to a quarter mile!’ Warwick ordered when they were ready. It had taken an agonizingly long time for them to form up, but they were fit and eager to engage the king’s men. They stepped forward, brothers and sons of Kent together in the lines. Sixteen hundred mailed soldiers made the first two ranks, an iron hammer with an oak shaft of Kent rebels behind. Warwick could feel the desire to charge rising in them. He headed it off with sharp commands, keeping them in line and walking at a slow pace. He needed to be close, to observe the enemy positions.
The thought snagged in his mind, making him blink. He was marching towards the king of England and the man was somehow his enemy. Just a year before, he would have laughed if anyone had imagined such a scene. Yet the Bills of Attainder had been passed and there was no Warwick any longer. His men were careful to use the title when they spoke to him, but he had lost it all, along with Salisbury and York. Edward of March strode along at his side, gripping his sword and clearly imagining red-handed slaughter.
They halted once more, with the abbey much closer on their right flank. Beyond the river, Warwick could see the city of Northampton itself, its walls and churches dimly visible. He strained his eyes in every direction, seeing a forest of stakes around the royal forces as well as archers on the wings. In the terrible silence, Edward of March sat on the grass, allowing Jameson to
pull on the last pieces of his armour. Sir Robert Dalton had not been seen since London. March only recalled him being yanked away into the mob, suddenly gone without even a cry. The young earl felt the man’s absence at his side, making him uneasy.
Warwick saw smoke rising from braziers among the king’s soldiers and swore softly to himself. The men with him had seen the effects of great guns on a crowd, the memories still fresh and terrible. To face such weapons without flinching took a kind of madness, combined with the belief of all young men that it would always be the one next to them who fell. It made no sense at all, but he could see the Kentish lads scorned the forces ahead. No fear at all! Warwick looked closer at the men of Kent and saw they were ready to rush forward at a single word, many of them staring at him, waiting for him to open his mouth. They wanted to run in and begin the killing. He had a sudden understanding of why the French had failed so many times to break such armies. He could see it in Edward’s foul curses and jerky movements, in the way the Kent men gripped axe shafts, twisting their hands around the wood like they were strangling children. They wanted to fight. They wanted it to begin. He would indulge them.
‘Forward!’ Warwick called.
His captains all knew the first manoeuvre against the king’s men. With the armies so close, it would not do to have his orders shouted across the field, alerting Buckingham to his intentions. Instead, Warwick marched straight down the centre, closing the distance at a good pace.
Arrows rose in a cloud from both flanks and Warwick felt the sick terror of them. Only his front ranks had shields and the king’s archers lofted shafts over their heads, wounding or killing dozens with each whirring volley. Almost worse were the cracks of thunder as cannon spat flame. Blurs hammered through his men, and arrows sank into the earth before his feet. More and more flew, buzzing and thumping into flesh and iron. There were cries of shock and agony falling behind, but he didn’t look back. At two hundred yards, every instinct screamed to charge and kill. His front ranks lurched into a slow run, breathing hard.
‘Red banner!’ Warwick called, waiting until his herald raised the scarlet cloth on a pike-pole, holding it high for ten steps before tossing it down. It would mean nothing to Buckingham, but that was the signal Lord Grey had requested. Warwick would learn whether the man had made a fool of him in just moments.
At a hundred yards, Warwick called fresh orders to swing left. The arrows were chopping men down at short range by then, snapping through mail and hammering shields. Warwick found himself relieved he was not on horseback to be an obvious target for them. His front two ranks showed their experience as they swung over, holding formation. The Kentish lads followed in their wake, angling sharply across the field to aim themselves at Buckingham’s flank. They left behind a tail of dead and screaming wounded.
The king’s bowmen were protected by a field of stakes that might have stopped cavalry, but not men on foot who simply stepped around them. The archers were not prepared for the best part of ten thousand men to come howling at them in a sudden rush, hacking into their midst as they shot and tried to duck out of the way. The approach under arrow fire had been terrifying, the toll of injured or dead into hundreds or even thousands. Those men were swallowed up in a tide of red rage, torn apart by sword and axemen, too far gone in anger to have any caution at all.
Whoever commanded the cavalry on that outer flank chose to pull back rather than let his men stand to meet the charge. While the archers were cut to pieces, the officer’s intention would be to circle and strike against Warwick’s own flank, pinning them between the king’s main force and armoured horses. Without mounted knights of his own, Warwick could not block them. His men had to ignore the moving horses, crashing shields instead against the standing ranks, pressing in towards the centre.
Warwick had kept his word. He waited, and his men held steady for new orders. For a time, they were content to shove forward with a shield line. Some were killed, on both sides. In the heat of engagement, the men were close to berserk and could not hold back. Yet the two front ranks kept discipline and the shield line held.
Ahead of him, Warwick saw Lord Grey turn his horse right around in the midst of his men, gesturing away from Warwick’s forces and signalling an attack on the centre. A great roar went up from every throat on the field. Warwick’s men cried out in savage triumph, while Buckingham’s forces shouted in horror at the betrayal. The centre faltered and Warwick found himself surging forward in a great rush, almost falling into the gap left by those his men had pressed against. Lord Grey too had kept his word.
Edward of March ran through a dozen ranks of allies to crash against the milling centre, smashing shields to splinters in huge blows. Warwick almost stopped to watch in awe at the sight of the massive warrior throwing men back in wrenching movements, making himself and Jameson the point of a wedge of soldiers, cutting deep into the ranks around Buckingham.
Warwick looked back for the cavalry he still feared, only to see them standing in a compact group some way off. Grey’s men, he saw, breathing in relief. They would not take part.
Faced with the betrayal of Lord Grey, Buckingham’s soldiers broke. They tried to retreat in order, hampering each other and dying in droves as they were harried and cut at every step. Warwick saw his Kentish men pour in, engaging anyone they could reach and cutting axes into those who turned away and ran. It was butchery and madness, but the ten thousand could not have been held then. They had come a long way to fight the king’s soldiers and they knew they had them beaten.
At the centre of the king’s army, Warwick saw Buckingham unhorsed. Edward of March raced over, crashing into a cluster of knights with his sword and shield. With his gaze fixed on the fallen duke, March knocked them away in great sweeping blows, two or three falling on to their backs. Those men began to struggle up with murder in their eyes, but Jameson was there at March’s side with his sword ready and no one challenged the young giant who treated them so carelessly. Warwick was still a dozen paces away when Buckingham came to his feet and raised his sword once again. The duke’s ruined face was hidden beneath his visor, though Warwick noted he was holding his left arm against his side, protecting broken ribs.
Edward of March nodded to him, waiting with both hands on his hilt.
‘Are you ready, my lord?’ March said, his voice echoing in iron.
Buckingham dipped his head in reply and was dead a moment later. March had smashed his great sword down through the duke’s shoulder plates, cracking the iron and cutting deep. Warwick left him levering the sword out with his boot on Buckingham’s chest. Some of the king’s men were trying to surrender, but Warwick had seen the Percy banners of blue and yellow and he did not touch the horn on his hip. The killing went on all around him and March came jogging back to Warwick’s side, his armour covered in blood and his companion smiling in grim pride. Warwick looked up at both of them as the young earl pulled off his helmet and rubbed a hand through his hair.
‘Did you see me kill Buckingham?’ March asked.
‘I did,’ Warwick said. He had liked Humphrey Stafford and it crossed his mind that the man had deserved a better end for faithful service. Yet that was the way of it. He did not think there was a man in England that year who could have stood against March with a sword.
‘Egremont is mine,’ Warwick said.
March gestured, as if allowing him to go first through a door, then spun suddenly as Jameson crashed his sword against a man running at them, cutting through chain mail. March laughed, clapping the big smith on the shoulder and making Warwick think once again of Calais mastiffs. He might have spoken, but he had crossed a hundred yards of bodies and ahead the Percy colours suddenly wavered and fell. Warwick cursed, shoving through Kentish men.
‘Egremont! Mine!’ Warwick yelled as he went, suddenly afraid that he would be denied his revenge on his family’s enemy.
His men moved back, revealing six armoured knights around their lord.
Thomas Percy stood with his hands rest
ing on the hilt of his sword, stealing a moment to breathe and rest. He raised his visor.
‘Richard Neville!’ he called. ‘Who was once an earl. Who is that great troll at your side, Richard?’
‘Let me kill him,’ March growled.
‘If I fall, yes. Not till then,’ Warwick replied. He was still fresh, kept from the fighting by all the ranks ahead. He realized he had lost his shield somewhere and accepted one that was handed to him by one of his men, tugging it on to his arm. His armour felt light and he was confident, though Thomas, Lord Egremont, was known for his skill.
The Percy lord stepped forward to meet him. The battered knights at his side seemed in no hurry to continue the fight, surrounded as they were. The stillness of that centre point crept out across the field so that fighters backed away from each other and king’s men threw down their weapons rather than be killed.
‘Will you surrender, Thomas?’ Warwick said. ‘It seems the day is ours.’
‘Would you allow it, if I did?’
Warwick smiled and shook his head.
‘No, Thomas. I would not. I just wanted to see if you would try.’
Egremont snapped his visor down in response, coming forward. His first blow smacked against Warwick’s shield and was then followed by three more, forcing Warwick back. The Percy lord was fast, though the fourth swing seemed to lack strength and he staggered. Warwick knocked the man’s shield away and hacked a great dent into his side.
Egremont went on to one knee, gasping audibly in his helmet. Warwick waited for him. When Egremont rose, his sword came up fast from low down, smashing the edge of Warwick’s shield and almost ripping it from his arm. His return strike was against the same spot on the man’s side, breaking the plates.
Once more, Egremont dipped to his knee, wheezing. With a groan, he forced himself up for a second time, protecting his side as Warwick brought his sword across in a chopping blow against his neck. Thomas Percy crumpled limply then, lying face-down, with his helmet pressed into the grass. For the first time, Warwick could see the leather hilt of a dagger that had been shoved up between the man’s back-plates. Blood had streamed out of him for every moment of the fight and Egremont had surely felt his strength draining away. He did not rise again and it was March who wrestled Thomas Percy’s helmet away and revealed his lifeless face, bruised and white.
Wars of the Roses: Trinity (War of the Roses Book 2) Page 30