‘What’s he like, the Duke of York?’ Thomas asks Richard as they saddle up.
‘I don’t know,’ Richard sighs. ‘But I’ve heard things. Men say he’s gone mad since he’s been in Ireland.’
‘Mad? How so?’
‘He is supposed to be the premier lord of the land after King Henry, and has been regent while the King was inane, but now, instead of taking his counsel, the Queen favours self-interested graspers such as the Dukes of Buckingham and Somerset. It has gone hard for him, but in Ireland, with no one to tell him otherwise, they say he has been acting as if he is King of England in King Henry’s place, as if King Henry does not exist.’
Thomas is sent first to Brampton to find Brampton John. Brampton John lives with his mother and three goats in a windowless cot under a thatched roof where two paths cross. Brampton John is pleased to be recalled to join Sir John’s service, having had enough of the farming life for the summer, and they celebrate with a pot of his mother’s ale.
‘Why don’t you put some windows in here?’ Thomas asks, coughing from the smoky interior of Brampton John’s cot.
‘Windows? What for?’
‘So you can see.’
‘Windows won’t help. Even if I was ever in here when there’s daylight, which I’m not, the last thing I want to see is that bloody field. Spend all my time there, digging, sowing, cutting.’
The next morning they go north to find Little John Willingham.
‘You’ll not guess who I saw the other day,’ Little John says as they begin walking back towards Marton, bows over their shoulders. ‘Edmund Riven. The boy with the eye.’
He gestures to his right eyeball.
‘Son of that bastard what stole the castle from Sir John. And well, it wasn’t me who saw him, it was my ma. Said he was there with ten of his men. Riding north, they were. They stopped and bought ale and asked if she knew everyone in the hundred, and when she says she did by sight, they asks if she’d seen any strangers hereabouts, particularly a girl. She says no and then they asks who owns the land. She told them to clear off as they should know perfectly well who owned it, seeing as how they’d been living on it for the last year or so.’
‘And they rode north?’
‘Up towards Gainsborough. With a baggage wagon. Only reason she didn’t shut the door in their faces is she wanted to sell them her rotten old ale. Disgusting stuff.’
Thomas means to remind Little John to tell Richard or Sir John what his mother has seen but when they reach Marton Hall a cart and two oxen stand in the yard, and Geoffrey and Richard and Brampton John are carrying Sir John down the stairs on his mattress. Thomas and Katherine hurry to help them lay the old man in the bed of the cart while Fournier watches, a cup of wine in his hand, and Goodwife Popham fusses.
‘How long will you be?’ she asks. Richard shrugs. No one has any idea. Goodbyes are said and the carter cracks his switch and the beasts take the strain.
‘Thank God for that,’ Walter says, hauling himself up in his saddle. ‘Spent far too long here, hanging about, doing nothing, getting fat.’
Thomas shares Walter’s feelings, Katherine knows.
‘Is it wise to leave Fournier there, though?’ she asks. ‘He’ll drink every last drop of wine and all the ale.’
She is sitting up next to Geoffrey in the cart. The others follow behind, Walter on the pony, Thomas and Richard on their horses, the reins slack in their fingers. They pass through Lincoln where the stationer has moved his stall and then down the hill past the pardoner’s old house. Thomas looks up and fancies he sees a movement at the window, and imagines the widow standing there in silence, watching.
As they travel south they collect more news of Richard of York’s progress through England. They hear that his wife, the Duchess of York, has travelled from London to meet him in a litter hung with blue velvet drapes and drawn by four pairs of white horses. The next day it is five pairs and curtains of cloth of gold. Whatever the slight variation in detail, it looks as if the stationer heard correctly. Richard, Duke of York, is coming south in royal dignity.
Sir John is troubled.
‘It changes everything,’ he says. ‘Up until now we’ve been fighting to rid ourselves of the bloodsucking leeches that hang around the court, the sort of men who let us down in France. Men like Buckingham and Somerset; men like goddamned Giles Riven. Thieves, murderers, swindlers and the like. We were trying to restore good governance and the rule of law, weren’t we? So that a man might walk the roads without fear of being robbed, or that he might go to law without the fear of being manhandled by his opponents, or that he might leave his own household to go over the sea to fight for his bloody country and come back to find it still his.’
‘And we were right to do so,’ Richard says. ‘Everyone can see the country was in a parlous state and that the wars in France have ended in defeat and shame.’
‘Yes. Yes,’ Sir John agrees, flapping his hand. ‘But that’s all changed now, don’t you see? If what we hear about York is right, it will seem that we have been fighting to get rid of the King. To depose him. And replace him. With the Duke of York. I did not answer old Fauconberg’s call to do that, and I do not imagine that many others did either.’ He shakes his head. ‘Worst of it is that it will come as a rallying cry to the lords in the north. We’ve had a peaceful summer of it, haven’t we? Fixed the roof, got the harvest in, got a few girls pregnant too, I dare say, but that’s only because young Warwick knows he hasn’t the power to interfere with what goes on up north, so he hasn’t tried. He’s been in Calais, for the love of all that’s holy! And that’s suited all those northern bastards – begging your pardon, Thomas. They don’t mind one way or another what Warwick does in Kent and London, so long as he doesn’t bother them. But now York arrives and he wants to be king? They’ll be up in arms.’
Richard looks thoughtful. They travel on.
‘Do you suppose’, he says at length, ‘that Riven has heard the news?’
‘About York? Of course.’
‘I wonder what he will make of it.’
It is Sir John’s turn to look thoughtful.
‘He will weigh up where his advantage lies,’ he eventually says, ‘and jump accordingly.’
Richard nods.
‘As should we, surely?’
Sir John looks at his son for a long moment, then shoos a fly from his face and turns away.
The road is crowded with carts banked with produce for the London markets and the word of the Duke of York’s coming passes up and down between travellers, and with each telling it is given a new twist, so that by the time they enter London through Bishopsgate just before curfew on the evening of their fourth day on the road, they don’t know whether they’ll find the city in flames, or with celebratory wine flowing in her fountains.
In the event the city seems to be in the same quandary. It is tensed for something, but no one seems to know what. They pass through all the tenter frames and the washing posts on the greens by the roadside and they find space for the cart and horses in the yard of the Bull Inn where the ostler, a fat man with a stained leather apron, tells them the Duke of York is in Abingdon, two days’ march from Westminster, and that he has trumpeters to sound fanfares wherever he goes.
When Thomas relates this to Sir John he groans.
‘To think of all the trouble taken after Northampton!’ he says. ‘How we let everyone know the King is still the King, how we bent our necks and renewed our oaths of allegiance. And now this!’
It is to get worse. After a night tormented by the inn’s sour beer and then fleas in the straw, the next day they hear from a cookshop owner who’d heard it from a boatman who’d just come from Westminster that all the talk there is of the Duke of York marching with eight hundred men under the banner of the royal arms of England, undifferenced by the strap of white that had marked his own banner from that of the King.
‘That’s it,’ the cookshop owner says. ‘When they find out he wants to be king, we’l
l have those northern bastards rampaging down here again before St Martin’s, pissed as voles, nicking everything they can get their bloody hands on.’
They return to the inn.
‘Our journey has been wasted before it has reached its point,’ Sir John admits. ‘The Duke won’t spare the time to see us now, let alone hear our case.’
They order beer and drink it at the table by the fire.
‘Still,’ he goes on, ‘we’ve come this far, let us take a barge to the palace at Westminster and see what there is to be seen. If nothing else we will have something to talk about on the way home. Geoffrey, make sure the boys are cleaned up, will you? New livery coats, and as much plate as we possess, shared out, so that we look the part, eh?’
After the battle of Northampton, when the Earl of March had awarded Thomas the Earl of Shrewsbury’s armour, Thomas had sold it to Richard and the price had included Richard’s old cuisses, greaves and sabatons, and these he now straps on, covering his legs from toe to thigh. Thomas cannot help smiling at the sight of his legs encased in steel, the neat rows of bands that taper across each foot to form a point over his toes. They are almost tolerable to walk in.
After hearing Mass in St Botolph’s next to the priory opposite, Geoffrey hires a litter to carry Sir John down to the bridge, five archers ahead, five behind. Katherine runs alongside, her cap pulled low to hide her ear. They find a barge willing to take them up to Westminster and climb aboard and spread themselves out on the broad planks that span the boat, and they prop their weapons on the gunwale. The oarsmen, half-naked and too old for this sort of thing, take up their oars and the master hauls up his patched ochre sail and sets the craft out into the middle of the river.
There is a light breeze. The sun comes out. The water is green. Thomas and Katherine sit together on the last thwart in the stern and stare back through the arches under the bridge where the water roars, to where the Tower’s battlements are softened by coal smoke.
The oarsmen row against the current up past the wharves, each one backed by a church or a priory or a friary, and Thomas cannot help but recall the pardoner’s words. The church is indeed rich. They row past the square bulk of Baynard’s Castle, dour and uninviting, its water gate firmly boarded, and then on past the city walls, following the river as it meanders past Charing, until before them stands the King’s palace and St Stephen’s Chapel at Westminster.
‘Busy day,’ the barge’s pilot grunts.
The oarsmen lean on their oars and take them upriver while they wait for space on the jetty. A barge pulls away, then another, both heading downstream to London. Thomas thinks he recognises the white-haired old man in the first one, grandly turned out, with a small retinue in red livery. Is it the Earl of Salisbury? Warwick’s father?
Eventually ropes are tossed out and they make fast. Richard speaks to the guards and assures them of their bona fides while Thomas and Geoffrey help Sir John up over the side of the barge and then set him on the shore with tears of pain in his eyes.
‘That bastard Fournier,’ he murmurs. ‘A fee of two marks and he’s only made it worse, may the saints be my witnesses, and I feel as weak as a kitten. Here, help me, Thomas, will you?’
Thomas takes one arm over his shoulder, Geoffrey the other.
‘Not very dignified, but by Christ . . .’
Richard leads them hobbling through the gate and into a courtyard.
The palace is an intricate maze of buildings and precincts dominated by a bluff stone chapel and at every gate are more of York’s men, road-stained and bristling with spears and axes and swords, as if on the field of battle rather than in a royal palace.
They regard the red liveries of Sir John’s men with suspicion, but there are only ten of them, and at length they are let through to the New Palace Yard, where another mob mills around the doorway to the hall. On the steps there is some confusion among the royal heralds in their quartered livery coats, and there is trouble in the offing.
As they approach, William Hastings emerges from the throng. His face is pale with fatigue and there is a long stain on the sleeve of his blue vented jacket, but he is pleased to see them.
‘Day to you, sir,’ Sir John calls. ‘I’d shake your hand but I am encumbered as you see. Perhaps you will shake the hand of my man here, Thomas.’
‘I’d be glad to shake such a hand,’ Hastings says, removing his hat and taking Thomas’s hand, then the others in turn. ‘I’m sorry to see you in pain, Sir John, but it pleases me to see you here. We are in need of cool heads.’
‘When did the Duke arrive?’
‘Not half an hour ago. And look: there are his heralds now. Did you ever see such a thing?’
Hastings laughs. The heralds are pushing and shoving one another: one side belonging to King Henry, the other to Richard of York. They are indistinguishable except that the Duke of York’s heralds’ coats are the brighter for being the newer. It strikes Thomas that these men reflect what is happening across the country, and that if somehow the strife could be confined to these fellows, then much blood might yet go unspilled. He puts the thought aside.
‘So it is true?’ Sir John says. ‘We heard rumours but hoped them baseless.’
‘It is true, sad to say. My lord the Duke of York arrived with these fools sounding their clarions as if to wake the dead. Then he marched into the hall with his sword held upright before him, his men wearing the royal coat of arms, and he clapped his hand on the throne as if it were his. He turned to the lords expecting a cheer, but, you know, how could they? They renewed their vows to King Henry only months ago. And anyway, besides . . .’ Hastings wrinkles his nose.
‘Dear God,’ Sir John says. ‘He has been in Ireland too long. He has caught some native malaise. That is the only answer.’
Hastings laughs.
‘At any rate, he has gone to find King Henry. I should love to hear what they have to say to one another.’
‘And what of the Earl of Warwick?’ Sir John asks. ‘What has he to say on the matter?’
Hastings’s eyebrows shoot up.
‘Nothing yet,’ he says. ‘He is expected this evening.’
It is now late afternoon and men are leaving the courtyard in clusters, wrapping their cloaks about them and hurrying down to their barges to be taken back to the city, or out through the gates to the road that leads back through Newgate. The Duke of York’s men are left in the fading light looking ill at ease and out of place. It is impossible to know what they’ve been told to expect, but surely, Thomas thinks, it cannot have been this curious anti-climax?
‘We should go and find him,’ Richard says. ‘Appeal for his jurisdiction against Riven.’
‘Find who?’ Sir John asks.
‘The Duke of York.’
Sir John turns on him.
‘Have you lost your wits, my boy?’ he asks.
‘Not at all,’ Richard says. ‘If we appeal to him now, he will think we do so because we believe he is king. He will be flattered. He’ll look favourably on us.’
Sir John is taken aback. There is a pause. Then Hastings nods. It makes sense.
‘Well, I suppose we can but try,’ Sir John admits.
‘Quite,’ Hastings adds. ‘What’s the worst he can say? And I’ll come with you, if I may? We share a great-grandmother, the Duke and I.’
They look at him afresh.
‘Philippa of Clarence,’ he says, as if it is amusing, ‘daughter of Lionel, son to King Edward the Third. From there, we part company, though. This way.’
They leave the others in the courtyard and pass through a gateway into the palace courtyard, where the concentration of the Duke of York’s troops becomes only denser, and here they see that Richard is not the only man to have had the idea of seeking an interview with their commander. The stairs leading up to his apartments are choked with men waiting for the self-same thing.
‘It’ll be a long wait,’ Hastings supposes. They stand on the twisting stone steps for more than an hour, unable to proc
eed upwards, and soon unable to reverse thanks to the press of those who’ve come after them. Sir John begins to flag. Thomas passes him a wineskin. Candles are lit. They can smell the kitchen fires. At last they arrive on a landing. Here are the tapestries depicting Judgement Day and some scenes from the life of Solomon and Nebuchadnezzar. Beyond a barrier of five more guards across the doorway is a clear corridor and beyond that, a solar in which Thomas can see more men in the light of a fire. Stewards in plaincloth pass by, bearing trays of fragrant pies and ewers of wine.
Thomas’s mouth waters. None of them have eaten since the morning and to think of pigeon pie and a jug of ale is to think of heaven. He is regretting wearing the plate on his legs.
But then there is a disturbance behind them. There is a surge. Men are shouting on the stairs. A punch is thrown. They are shunted against the five guards; Thomas is nose to nose with a bearded captain of foot in a breastplate and helmet.
‘For the love of God step back,’ he says. ‘Can’t you see he is wounded?’
The guard looks at Sir John.
‘All right, let him through. You’re not to go into the solar though. Stand to one side.’
The guards let them through. They carry Sir John down the short gloomy corridor and into the hall. It is crowded with men but instantly Thomas’s eye is drawn to Edward of March, who stands staring into the fire with a cup of wine in one hand, gently scratching his cheek with the long fingers of his other. He is apparently listening to a man dressed in blue, but his attention seems elsewhere and just then a disturbance reaches the landing behind them and March looks up at the noise and catches sight of Hastings.
‘William!’ he calls, summoning him over. ‘Come in, come in! I commend myself to you! But for the love of all that’s holy how do you find yourself here?’
They kiss one another. March is taller than Hastings, but not by much, and Thomas wonders if he can see the common ancestor in their faces. No. March is wearing a flamboyant green velvet jacket, with vast shoulders tapering to his waist, cut short to expose his buttocks and the messy bulge of his cock and balls. The toes of his leather boots are extravagantly pointed.
Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims Page 28