Anyone would have thought the Yorkists had already won. The entire city, and Margery with them, poured onto the streets to watch Ned escort his queen from sanctuary at Westminster, with her new baby son and the little princesses, to his mother's house at Baynards castle by the river. He owed the citizens money, of course.
His brothers, the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, rode with him. There was no Richard Huddleston among the White Boars. To have reached Ned was impossible but Dickon was another matter. She sent to him requesting news of her husband and received answer. Richard Huddleston was in charge of the men who had her father's army under surveillance. Warwick, unable to wait longer for Margaret to land, was marching south on London.
All Saturday afternoon, she heard the noise of armed heels drummed through the streets and the distant trumpets sounding in the fields beyond the great walls, and then the city grew strangely quiet as if it had suddenly remembered it was the eve of Easter Day and Christ had not yet risen.
Kneeling on the prie-dieu, Margery begged to be confessed, and the Dean, knowing his guest's parentage, solemnly knelt and kept vigil with her into Easier morning. She finally stumbled exhausted to her simple room as the bells struck four. Ten miles away the two armies began to buckle on their armor.
At Barnet, Richard awoke from too brief and ill a sleep to the boom of cannon. Around him, Gloucester's camp, to the east of the battlefront, was eerily silent. The Yorkist men had wisely not used their artillery nor had they spoken above whispers as they had made camp by night as silently as they could.
His father-in-law had kept his French cannons firing intermittently all night to keep the enemy foot soldiers awake with fear. That it kept his own army from sleep, particularly the gunners, had obviously been deemed of little importance, nor had he realized that the false campfires, set up to draw his fire and attention, warmed no one. Under the booming, it had been easy for King Edward's men to insinuate themselves until by midnight they lay so close that Warwick's great force would not have space to retreat.
King Edward had to win this battle. He barely had the numbers to face the Kingmaker but he had to prevent the Earl's army from joining with Queen Margaret's invasion force that might now have landed for aught they knew.
Richard scanned the mist like a hunter but the visibility was poor, the sounds muffled. He knew that Warwick's contingent lay behind, with the forces of his allies, Montague, Exeter, and Oxford drawn up before him from west to east.
To the left of where he was standing lay the tents of the King and George of Clarence. No man dared say it but all nodded that it was wise of King Edward to keep the Duke beside him. The west flank of the Yorkist army, straddling the highway that led back through Barnet to London, was held by Lord Hastings, Edward's great friend and chamberlain.
The ground before Dickon of Gloucester's force was hazardous, worse than the hedgerows that protected the enemy's center. Gloucester's men were to skirt around to the east and come upon Warwick's force where it was drawn up in reserve before the woods and force the Earl to battle. Warwick was not to be given the chance to flee east if the day went badly. The King wanted the Earl taken.
Fighting against Warwick and Montague's men was a task that Richard dreaded. What if he recognized the soldiers he had trained at Valognes and Amboise? What if he should meet his father-in-law or Lord Montague in the heat of battle or, God forbid, his brothers? It would have been better to have been in the western flank, facing Oxford's force.
Gloucester shared his vulnerability. Would he be able to kill the man who had been like a father in his adolescent years, his beloved Anne's father? All their destinies lay in God's hands. Well, amen to that. Richard returned irritably to the tent and roused the few who still lay abed. The harsh brazen bray of the trumpets was sounding everywhere.
As an esquire, he did not carry the weight of armor that some of his companions did. Not only could he not afford it but since the White Boars were to fight on foot, he planned to be swift and agile. He wore leather boots to his knees and the brais d'acier, much favored by the Burgundian soldiers, to protect his thighs and upper legs. He was already sweating in the quilted brigandine that embraced him from his shoulders to where the steel mesh ended below his codpiece. His one extravagance, a breastplate, was hidden by a White Boar surcoat, and his final protection was a sallet with an extended neckguard. It lacked a visor but he preferred it so. The fog was evil enough without the blinkering of steel as well. Perhaps he had judged the matter ill but it was his first battle.
He thought of a great deal in the first few moments as they surged forward. Of Margery, carrying his child, waiting for him in London, of his brothers, of Warwick, stubborn and bitter the other side of the fog. then as his soldiers encountered marsh and mire, he concentrated on his footing and survival.
They had moved too far north and were now up against a steep slope. A trumpet burst told them to cut across to their left, swinging around to the west up the slope. Richard prayed to his namesaint and began to struggle up the hill.
As it was but ten miles from London, Lord Hastings's men and Ned's western flank, finding themselves outnumbered by Oxford's enemy force, broke and fled to the capital. The swiftest brought news of defeat, that the three Yorkist brothers were slain, their army slaughtered. The news spread like fire through dry thatch. Margery, hearing it from the casement and running downstairs to the street, fell.
They had been told to stay where they were. To retreat would have tumbled them down the hill into the marsh but they made little headway onto the plateau. The men Richard fought were strangers, he heartily thanked God, and there was no time to be sickened by the spurting blood and the screams. No reinforcements came and his mind began to plead for relief. His sword arm was tired, his intellect appalled at the Englishmen dying around him; only the mental energy for survival kept him wheeling and slashing. In the name of God, how long must this endure?
He heard the shouting to the south, the cries of treason. The enemy flank before them was on the recoil. His fellow captain, John Nesfield, flung an arm about his shoulders.
"God keep you! Have you heard the news, Huddleston? They say Montague has changed sides to join with us and Oxford has ordered his men to hunt him down. The knaves won't know their own arses before much longer." Richard smiled grimly. Perhaps God, after all, was a Yorkist.
A cheer rang in the field around him from the men in the White Boar surcoats and they began belaboring their enemy with renewed spirit. It was then he found one of his brothers, face up in the bloodied grass.
No army reached London. News did come that Lord Montague had betrayed Lancaster. A serving girl brought the tidings in a flurry of skirts that disturbed the candles in the chapel. Margery, gazing into the flickering light she had lit for the tiny soul lost to her, turned her appalled gaze to the other flames that burned beside it. London Bridge was likely to be under attack from a fleet on the Thames, the girl said, and they would be murdered in their beds if the King's army did not return soon.
Richard tumbled to his knees beside Tom, his mind screaming with fury and despair as he tried to pray. Had any of the great lords, save Gloucester, come upon him now, he would have risen with rage and hewn them down. With the back of his gauntlet, he wiped the tears aside so he might see to close Tom's eyes with reverence. He wanted to set him gently over his shoulder, take him for burial, and quit the field. It was not his quarrel nor Tom's. It never had been.
"Sir! Sir!" Blearily he realized that Matthew and one of his other Cumbrians were defending his back as he crouched there. There was no time to take Tom's rings back for their mother's sake. While his tortured soul knelt by his brother still, another Richard rose, machinelike, to fight beside his men.
Their assailants turned and fled as other surcoats surged up from their left, wearing the Suns of York and the Black Bulls of Clarence, rushing past them to the north. The White Boars followed.
Gloucester, panting, recognized him. "Outrun them, for Christ's sak
e, before they reach Warwick!" he yelled and stumbled onward.
There was a thud of cavalry somewhere to the west. Richard turned northward, soul and body meshing once more. He followed Gloucester, aware of leaping and circumventing the scarlet-and-white surcoated bodies as if they were broken statues, dreading lest he should recognize his brother Will's face among them. Then it was as if the whole of the King's army was streaming up from his left. They were running toward the woods that lay to the north. A hoarse roar went up. It was too late. Warwick's enemies had found their quarry.
The Black Bulls of Clarence broke up like men leaving a cockfight. He recognized Wyke, the man who had tried to rape Margery at Valognes, running toward him, sword dripping blood, a ripped and bloodied scarlet surcoat in his fist and he knew; knew whose men had torn the Kingmaker down like curs.
"The traitor's dead, now it is your turn, Queen's man!" bawled Wyke. "I have been seeking you, you cur! You should have died beside the Loire."
With a yell, Richard slashed his sword blade into the other's throat. "I would it were your bloody, perjured master," he snarled and ran onward to where Gloucester had halted. His gaze took in the blood oozing from the young Duke's unarmored heel before he saw what lay beyond.
"God Almighty!"
His limbs spread-eagled as if they had crucified him like St. Peter, Margery's great father lay naked on the bent grass. Blood was still running from his nostrils, puddling into the congealing collar of open flesh about his throat. The Black Bulls had slashed every piece of armor, every thread away, leaving his breast and belly a glistening matt of bloody wounds, so close that it was impossible to see where each began and ended or whether they had hacked off his prick in their foul bloodlust. His younger brother, Richard's former lord, Montague, his presence belying the rumor of treachery, lay face down beside him, stripped of armor, the fine hair matted, the handsome temple gashed.
Gloucester, who had loved them both, pivoted. "Where is Warwick's standard?" he bawled. They fetched it and bestowed it gently across the Kingmakers's body while Gloucester knelt and closed the pained eyes that were the blue of Anne's and Margery's.
Richard stabbed his sword into the earth and leaned upon the pommel, his mind retching. Who was it lay there? A power-hungry warlord or the people's hero? Was he now marching into Hell with his ghostly soldiers, content that his quarrel had orphaned so many children, beggared so many wives? But by Christ's mercy, what a man!
"Mayhap this is better than the block," muttered Gloucester, close at Richard's elbow, as the trumpets sounded the King's progress. "I will wager my dukedom I know who would have had to sit in judgment. Holy Paul, what would I have said? 'God be with you, my darling Anne, I have just executed your father?' "
"I will tell the King I have given these Nevilles to your charge, Richard Huddleston. Get them to St. Paul's as fast as you may!" Richard looked down at the Duke in amazement. "Well, who better? And kneel when I am talking to you!"
"Kneel!" spluttered Richard, as if the young Duke's fist had just winded him, but he obeyed.
Gloucester shifted his battleaxe to his left hand and pulled Richard's sword free. At least the tip was less loathsome than the rest as it touched its master's shoulders. The ancient words of chivalry were scarce audible above the rumble of cheers that warned of the approach of the King.
The Duke embraced him as he rose. "I will never forget how much we owe you." He flung an arm about him and turned him to his men. "Sir Richard Huddleston is in command of the earls' bodies. Do as he bids!"
CHAPTER 29
Although they welcomed Margery in the chapel to grieve, the priests would not allow her to leave the sanctuary, believing she was not yet recovered from losing the babe. They were firm: the triumphant soldiers might loot or they would get drunk and behave licentiously. No doubt her husband would seek her out and if she was not here, he would be displeased. Finally, desperate for her obedience, they told her the truth: her father and uncle were being hauled through the London streets naked on a cart and she had best obey my lord of Gloucester. And Richard Huddleston never came.
He ordered the Dean's priests to wash the phlegm, mud, and excrement from the bloodless skins and to gut them discreetly. It was necessary that the naked bodies be on display for at least two days. Even though the cathedral's chill air was heavy with incense and beeswax, Richard wanted no ordure of death. He could at least give the two men whom he had respected that dignity.
No one argued with Richard Huddleston. He had the authority of Gloucester behind him. Having done the butchery, the retainers of the King and Clarence were content to carouse and leave it to the White Boar men to clean up the mess.
He hoped Margery had received his message and prayed she would have the patience to keep her distance until he could visit her.
By the time he bade his men set open the main door of the cathedral, all was in order. A ribbon of men-at-arms stood ready to open the sluicegates and let in a living canal to gawp at what Death the Leveler could perform. They were to flow around the dead Kingmaker and his brother at a distance of three paces. It was beyond spitting distance. He had tested it. No one was to be permitted closer. They were to enter from the churchyard and leave by the west door.
Huge candlesticks were placed at each corner and a row of smaller candles stood like obedient soldiers behind the earls' heads. When someone spat and commented they were traitors and deserved no such privileges, Richard replied calmly that everyone must be able to see the Kingmaker's face and know he was in truth dead. This was one man who must not rise again.
The Dean, reassured by the plan and Richard's avowal that people must be reminded it was a holy church and not a bullbaiting at Southwark, was cooperative and pleasant. When someone explained to him that the man in authority was Warwick's son-in-law, he rearranged his face in compassionate lines, gave him an instant free blessing and an appointment for absolution. Richard was not impressed.
The first in were the aldermen. The Lord Mayor of London led them although he must have seen the bodies the day before. The crowd that followed was awed and behaved impeccably but as the hours grew warmer, Richard's men began to show their irritation. None of them had breakfasted. Gloucester had promised to send troops freshened by sleep to take over but they never came. The people did though, in greater numbers, and the air was fetid with sweat as the crowd heaved like a living monster against the soldiers.
Within the square of flickering candlelight, Richard sternly watched the faces flowing past. A veiled lady in black called to him over the crossed halberds. For a moment his heart lifted, believing it was Margery. Her voice, calm as she asked his permission to kneel by Warwick and take a lock of hair, was that of an older woman. And yet the timber had a familiarity and he stared, irritated by the veil. Somehow he knew her. Was she one of the married women who had bestowed her favors upon him in the past?
"Madam, I cannot let you through. The hordes will have Warwick hairless within seconds if I let you touch his head."
"You want money, is that it?" Disgust shook her and her gloved fingers grabbed the halberds and tried to force them apart.
"No, madam. I want to keep the peace. Who are you?" He tried to keep his tone respectful. Perhaps he did not know her. Perhaps she was one of Warwick's many sisters. It could be Lady Hastings or Lady Stanley he was dealing with.
"God ha' mercy, lady, we are only trying to do our duty," exclaimed one of the men-at-arms as the crowd surged forward and the man nearly lost his balance.
"I want your name!" She was doing the demanding now. It had to be one of the Neville sisters.
He leaned forward. He was not going to shout it to the mob. "I am married to Margaret Neville, Warwick's natural daughter. Now, report me if you will, but I cannot do as you ask."
She hesitated, cast a cautious glance about her, and then said briskly and quietly, "I think you will let me through, young man. I believe I am your mother-in-law."
On Margery's insistence, one of the Dean's
servants reluctantly took her pillion to Paul's yard but there the press of the crowd was so great that she slid from the saddle and was caught up in the maelstrom of people eddying around the pulpit cross in the yard and cramming through the doorway. Elbows braised her, several hands groped, a child impersonally kicked her, lashing out screaming at everyone about him. She managed to keep upright, for to have gone under in that sea would have meant being trampled.
She had not entered Paul's before. Another time she would have marveled at the tomb of the great duke, John of Gaunt, or read the inscriptions on the monuments in the side chapels or begged leave to enter the great cloister and see the famous Dance of Death and Sherington's Library.
She recognized Richard Huddleston instantly, standing silhouetted in his armor by the candles. Her blood ran cold knowing that in the joy of seeing him again was the pain of her father dead behind him.
But this husband, whom she expected to be as laden with guilt and sadness as she, albeit he was pale with strain and lack of sleep, was taking the hand of a slim, veiled lady in both of his as she rose from kneeling on the flagstones. And he was plying the alert, glittering charm that he had bestowed on queens and duchesses. They were talking earnestly and he pressed her hand reassuringly, then finally carried it to his lips with a half bow.
Jealousy rasped her like an ill-played note. "Let me through!" Margery demanded, pressed against the halberds. "I want to speak to that officer."
"He's got company already."
"I am his wife."
"And I'm the heir to the throne. He has enough problems. Move along!" She tried shouting and waving but the noise was great and Richard, damn him, was too distracted to notice. Margery, faint more with jealousy than with the pressure of the crowd, took off her shoe and hurled it at her husband's head.
The Maiden and the Unicorn Page 44