‘Your grace,’ Thomas begins, and he tells him all that he has heard about the marriage between his brother the Duke of Clarence and Warwick’s daughter, and the manifesto issued in Calais, and as he does so King Edward stands in silence while behind him his gentlemen huff and sigh and they unstick their boots and shift their weight from foot to foot, but Thomas goes on. And King Edward’s expression hardens: his mouth becomes thin as a buttonhole and his eyes mere needle pricks of flint-hard anger. He seems to grow in stature, too, to puff up, to tower over Thomas. Now this, Thomas thinks, now this is the victor of Towton, the man ruthless enough to give the order not to spare the commons, the man who set Englishmen to kill other Englishmen until it was too dark to see. A jolt of hot fright billows within him and he takes a step back.
And King Edward has taken a step towards him. His hand is at his dagger’s hilt, and Thomas sees that he is in such a temper that he could kill him now and turn the knife on any man who said a thing to stop him. Thomas swallows and anticipates the pain of the stab, for he knows he cannot – must not – defend himself against it. But then King Edward’s simple anger is cooled by a harder, crueller, more calculating expression that is yet more frightening still, and Thomas feels himself naked and wholly vulnerable before this man’s power. King Edward moves his hand slowly away from the knife, and he stares at Thomas, interested in his reaction now, and he says through compressed lips, and very slowly, very quietly, but very clearly:
‘Do you know how we punish sedition?’
Now everyone is still. This is no longer a stand-off between two men in the mud. This is a man against a king. The spit dries in Thomas’s mouth. King Edward is waiting, his gaze pins Thomas fast.
‘Well?’
Thomas is about to shake his head, because, for the love of God above, he does not even know what sedition is. Yet he must say something, and he knows that whatever it is, his life depends upon it. He wonders what to say, and decides on the truth.
‘It is the truth, sir, as I’ve been told.’
King Edward is a handspan away from him. He is rigid with rage, pink with it. Thomas feels as if he is looking into the eyes of one of those bear-baiting dogs, and he remembers: Just keep calm. Show no fear. So he looks back at King Edward, eye to eye. And he thinks: Just because you can have me killed in a snap of your fingers, you will not, because you know it would be a sin. And King Edward’s gaze, which had been so constant, now flicks around his face, as if studying Thomas for the first time, seeing him afresh and finding himself surprised at what is there, but the confrontation is, for the moment, over. Thomas feels not merely relief, but a species of triumph.
King Edward points to the fob of white hair.
‘What is that?’ he asks.
‘A memento of Towton,’ Thomas tells him.
King Edward nods but then after a while says:
‘I have seen worse.’
Thomas says nothing. He has never boasted of it.
‘So you come here,’ King Edward goes on, ‘spouting lies about my friends and my kinsmen, and about – about manifestos, and it is as if you are able to see into the future?’
‘I only tell what I have been told. It may not come to pass. I know nothing further. I know nothing of how it might be, how it is supposed to be, what any of it even means. I only tell you as I was told.’
‘So you keep saying,’ one of King Edward’s gentlemen says. He still has his bird on his fist; its chest is gory, and there are pink scraps of flesh in its talons. He and the bird look the same, both dark-eyed and hooked nosed.
‘What should we do with him, my lord of Worcester?’ King Edward asks from the side of his mouth.
‘To get to the truth, sir? Or to punish him?’
Thomas is astonished.
‘I only tell you what I have been told,’ he repeats. He suddenly feels very simple. There is something here he does not understand. Dear God! He wishes he had never come here, never tried to help. King Edward remains looking at him.
‘No,’ he says, after a moment. ‘We will leave it a few days. I recall you are William Hastings’s man. We will wait his arrival and see what he suggests.’
The hawk-faced man, who is dressed in a curious jacket of layered leather tabs that hang like his bird’s feathers down his chest, looks disappointed. He has lost his prey. King Edward makes some secret signal that Thomas does not see, and suddenly Thomas is surrounded by the big men in their blue and murrey; they press in on him in silence and he cannot even move his arms and they stand there while King Edward and his gentlemen climb up into their saddles and ride back through the mud and water to the dry ground by the castle.
He is first taken to a corner of a whitewashed guardroom in the castle gatehouse and left to sit there while there is much running and shouting in the yard without. Doors are slammed. Horses’ hooves clatter on the cobbles and men come and go. He tries to think why everything has gone so badly.
‘Stuck your member in a hornets’ nest, haven’t you?’ one of the blue and murrey guards tells him when they come with bread and ale. ‘Still, lucky old Worcester didn’t take you away with him. He would have made a bowstring of your guts.’
Thomas is given a blanket and sleeps on the flagstones and the next day they return his horse – though the bow and the pollaxe are on another man’s saddle – and he rides with them to the city of Nottingham. King Edward is there, far ahead in the column, and messengers canter to and fro, and there is a drum being beaten and the atmosphere is more like it, Thomas thinks, though dear God how bitterly he wishes he were elsewhere.
He thinks of Katherine and Rufus and hopes they are safe in Marton, and he tries to imagine how it would be had they been here with him. Would Katherine have known not to press the King? Probably. Then he thinks of Jack and Nettie and John Stump and he almost shudders to think of Edmund Riven and all that he has heard about him, and then he tries to imagine what perhaps he should have done to save them. But surely this was the only way? It could not have been expected that the King would react so, could it? Could it? And so his thoughts ever circle back to himself and his own plight.
They reach Nottingham late in the day, and they ride up to the castle above its cliff of stone and once again Thomas is placed in a guardroom of the gatehouse, but by now, being harmless, he is largely ignored. The guards come and go, and their conversation is familiar and soothing, and Thomas listens and knows almost to the word what each will say next and the response it will get from the others. They gossip and speculate on the maids, of course, and they tease the virgin among them, and they boast of their various prowesses, sexual and martial, and then they discuss the relative merits of their towns and counties – they come from a wide spread across the country – and then what they think will happen next: where they will be sent, whom they will have to fight, and what they will do to the men they are fighting.
As that first day wears into the evening and then the night and the next morning, Thomas hears first how things stand: how King Edward has sent scouts forward across the river to see if the rumours are true and when after noon the scouts return with the news that they can find no trace of any army, let alone a big one, the guards laugh, half-relieved, half-disappointed. Then they remember that Thomas was the source of the rumours and so they turn to jeer at him, and they predict a visit from this Earl of Worcester, of whom they are all terrified, but Thomas remains adamant, and at length they seem to accept him as some sort of lunatic, touched by the moon, perhaps, and they give him bread and ale and they start to treat him as an idiot mascot, or a pet. Other men are brought in to look at him, sitting there, and he might even have had his hair ruffled were he not so big.
The guards are delighted when more adventurous scouts return from further afield later in the evening, having discovered an army, only it is nothing like so large as feared, and the thought of taking that on is very pleasing. Later still another pair bring the news that this small army is only the rearguard of a much larger army, and they
are downcast.
Thomas feels vindicated, but he is still in the guardroom the next night and he becomes less popular as it begins to dawn on the men that they will definitely have to fight this large army, and the older among them express the hope that the Earls of Devon and of Pembroke will get back with their promised reinforcements before this Robin of Redesdale swings his men south.
‘What do you think, Thomas? You seem to know everything?’
Thomas does not, of course, but still they ask him, and now he begins to take on a difficult talismanic role in their company.
‘And what about the Earl of Warwick? Will he bring his men?’
Again Thomas does not know, and even if he could say for sure that Warwick would or would not bring his much-feared troops, he cannot say for sure on which side they would fight. None in the various guardrooms can believe the Earl of Warwick could be guilty of such treachery, as is rumoured, certainly not the older among them, who knew of him when he was fighting alongside King Edward at Northampton and Towton.
But one of the younger men has stood guard with some of that big, bearded Earl of Pembroke’s men, and says they are all talking of how the Earl of Warwick hates King Edward’s queen and all her family, most especially her father and her brother, and of how the Earl of Pembroke thwarted Warwick’s plans in Wales while the Earl of Devon has done something terrible to his interests elsewhere.
‘So it is all turn and turn about.’
And Thomas is left wondering what, in the name of God, all this is for.
The next day a newly come messenger arrives in the guardroom in search of ale and something to eat. He is sun-pinked and sweaty from his ride, and he shrugs off his coat and sits heavily on a stool, ignoring Thomas while he drinks from his own leather mazer, and it is a moment before Thomas sees he has the familiar black bull’s head badge stitched into the folds of his jacket.
‘You are Hastings’s man?’
The man looks over and grunts agreement.
‘Come from London with a message for the King,’ he says. ‘Bugger me, it is hot.’
‘Is William Hastings here?’ Thomas asks.
The man shakes his head.
‘Coming tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Too much for him to do in London, my word.’
Before he can explain, one of the other guards returns.
‘Come on, you,’ he tells Thomas. ‘You’re called for.’
Two more men in blue and murrey wait to escort him through the bailey to the hall where he is passed to another steward and then on to another, who guides him to a door on which he taps and opens a small way, poking his head through the gap, and then, after a whispered conversation, opens wide. Inside are some of the men from the hunt the other day, though their number is shrunk, and King Edward stands apart, staring out of a window, a piece of paper hanging from one hand. All turn and stare at Thomas when he comes in.
‘Ah,’ King Edward says. ‘Thomas Everingham.’
He walks to him quickly. He is wearing blue today, with low black shoes, not too pointed, and at his belt a sword in a long red scabbard, which seems odd inside, Thomas thinks, but is maybe intended as a sign of his resolve.
‘I wanted you to be here,’ he says, ‘when I relay the news sent this day from London by our right well-beloved William, Lord Hastings.’
He flaps the square of paper. There are few lines on it. No seal. Thomas knows this means it was written in haste.
‘So my lords,’ he says, turning to his audience and tapping the paper with the back of his fingers. ‘Our lord of Hastings writes this day with great good news, of which we may have had intimation, thanks to our right loyal friend Thomas Everingham here, that has come to him in London from our town of Calais, where it seems our brother George, my lord of Clarence, is this week blessed in holy wedlock!’
The gentlemen avoid looking at one another and King Edward must wait a long moment before the first thud of hands indicates a formal show of their pleasure at the news.
‘And who is the lucky bride?’ King Edward asks himself. ‘Why, none other than the Lady Isabel Neville, daughter of our most loyal cousin, my lord of Warwick. I suppose we must now get used to calling her the Duchess of Clarence.’
There is a furrow of brows.
‘But, your grace,’ the Earl of Worcester – still in his jacket that looks like the feathers of a hawk’s chest – begins, ‘you expressly forbade the match.’
‘Yes, yes, my lord, I thought I had, but evidently I did not make myself absolutely clear to all parties involved.’
King Edward’s smile is made of glass.
‘And has the Pope granted his dispensation?’ Worcester continues. ‘Without that it is—’
‘In March,’ King Edward interrupts, holding up that piece of paper. ‘It was granted in March.’
‘In March!’ Worcester breathes. ‘Four months ago and . . . Christ! And who married them?’
King Edward is pleased with the question.
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘That would be the bride’s uncle, my lord the Archbishop of York.’
‘And was Earl Warwick there?’ This question is from the youngest of the party.
‘The father of the bride would hardly miss the occasion, don’t you think?’
There is a long moment of mutterings in the crowd.
King Edward turns to Thomas.
‘So, my friend, it transpires that you were right,’ he says. ‘And I was wrong for which I am heartily sorry. I falsely accused you of something the other day and, though King, I am humble enough to admit my crime before this audience. I hope God will forgive me my pride and anger, and that you will forgive me any inconvenience to which you have been put. I would not blame you if now you chose to turn and go on your way, having done me a great service already, but I should welcome the chance to make amends and reward your service in some way?’
Thomas can feel his face becoming full.
‘I did nothing with any thought of reward,’ he lies.
King Edward sees through him without any effort.
‘Well,’ he says. ‘We shall discuss this further at a kinder time. But please, sir, you mentioned – a manifesto?’
Thomas has little more to add on the subject of the manifesto, but the Earl of Worcester steps forward to ask him when he heard about the manifesto, and how he heard about it, and though Thomas is tired, and hungry, he is elated at the recognition he has received and so he talks without thinking how each sentence will end, without thinking how each ending will build up a story, and how that story will end, and he stands there before this dark-eyed, hawk-nosed, fierce little man, and he talks and talks. He does not notice the sharpening of the little man’s expression as he tells them the story of his few days in the north, nor does he pay mind to the scribe standing by Worcester’s side, who is noting down the names Horner and Riven, even Campbell. Then Worcester wants to know where Katherine is, and Jack and Nettie, and John Stump, and Thomas tells him and it is almost too late for any back-tracking when Worcester smiles finally and asks:
‘Why did you flee the inn so precipitously?’
And Thomas must tell him they were scared of Edmund Riven.
‘But why were you so scared of Edmund Riven?’
‘He – he burns people,’ Thomas says. ‘He takes two – a mother and her son, say – and he burns the one to get the other to talk.’
Worcester pauses to picture the scene, and then smiles appreciatively.
‘Oh, yes,’ he says. ‘That is good. But does this Edmund Riven do that to every man he meets? Surely not! Why, if he did, he would be the hardest-working man in Christendom.’
‘No,’ Thomas says. ‘Not everyone.’
‘So what’, Worcester probes, ‘makes you so special that Riven might burn you?’
And at last Thomas sees the trap he has constructed for himself, but it is too late. Now Worcester’s gaze seems to flay him, to strip him of all protection, and the Earl’s voice seems to slide between his joints and scrape his
nerves.
‘Well?’
‘I don’t know,’ Thomas admits. ‘I just feared him. I had a wife and a child.’
‘A wife and a child. A wife and a child. And did you in your time in those Northern Parts learn who – or what – it was that this Edmund Riven was looking for?’
And now Thomas wishes to God he were at home with Katherine, or she were here with him, for she would know what to say, and that this – this predator was not circling over him, with his gore-crusted chest and the scraps of pink flesh like worms in his talons, and that look in his eye.
‘I didn’t,’ Thomas breathes. ‘I was more concerned to learn that there was an army of rebellion against King Edward.’
Worcester opens his mouth to say some terrible sarcastic thing but King Edward has had enough.
‘Leave him, Worcester, please,’ he says. ‘You are beginning to scare even me.’
‘But, sir—’
King Edward holds up his hand. Enough. And, of course, Thomas sees, Worcester cannot go on to explain his meaning, because King Edward does not know of the ledger, and the secret they are all struggling to contain, but he, Worcester, does.
That night, Thomas is permitted to leave the guardroom a free man and a steward comes to bring him to board in the great hall where there is much sweetly spiced meat and fish, and bright red wine that is as sharp as a nettle at first, but he gets used to it quite quickly. He sits between two gentlemen who were perhaps in the second group of falconers that day, those not permitted access to the King, and they are, initially, offended to be seated with a man wearing travelling clothes in which he has obviously slept while they have made some effort, but they soon relent, and they pump Thomas for information about Robin of Redesdale’s army. Both become anxious at the thought of taking the field against three times their number.
Divided Souls Page 15