Court of Wolves

by Robyn Young

  He’d barely been conscious – incapable of protesting – when Peter secured his place in a heavily guarded caravan bearing the crown’s plunder through the bald mountains of the Kingdom of Granada to the fertile valley of the Guadalquivir. The journey had existed for him as a series of disjointed, tormented moments: the endless jolting of the wagon, sweat pouring off his shuddering, aching body, Peter and Hervey attending to him, mopping his brow and forcing foul concoctions down his throat, which spewed and spattered from him as quickly as they entered.

  In Rodrigo’s house in Seville, he spent weeks in bed, dreaming and waking, no longer certain of the boundaries between. In the feverish gloom, he was rarely alone. Sometimes, Peter was with him. Other times, a stranger in dark robes who smelled of turpentine and rose water as he peered into his eyes and prodded his body, sniffed at his bloody defecations and poked his veins with needles. Henry Tudor was there, too. Occasionally, Harry would jolt round, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, to find the king seated on a throne at the foot of his bed. Sometimes, he was standing, sword in hand. Harry would be kneeling before him, expecting to receive the kiss of knighthood, and would scream himself awake as Henry raised his blade – not to touch his shoulders in accolade – but to strike off his head.

  By the time the fever subsided and he regained his faculties, the year had turned and Christmas had come and gone. He was stunned by the sight of his wasted body in mirrors, the skin shrivelled on his sunken stomach, his eyes dark and hollow, but as his appetite returned and his bowels strengthened, the flesh built on his bones and the pallor faded. He saved himself from boredom by applying himself to his study of Castilian under Peter’s tutelage, surprising himself by how much of the language he’d already absorbed. After a few more weeks, he was up and moving about, keen to know if Peter had heard anything from the queen and king, or Rodrigo. While no news had come of the hidalgo – vanished without word after Loja’s fall – he learned that Isabella and Ferdinand had retreated to Córdoba for the winter, laden with bounty, and were preparing an assault on Málaga, the last major obstacle to the city of Granada. There was other news too, in the form of two letters, bearing the seal of King Henry.

  Peter, who’d been keeping them until he regained his strength, handed them to Harry one morning with a jug of wine out in the courtyard, where the surviving hound that was supposed to have been gifted to the king and queen dozed in a sunny corner, much fattened by Rodrigo’s servants. Harry, his throat drying at the sight of the letters – an image of the king from his dreams ghosting in his mind – had opened the first with trembling hands. The neat script of the royal clerk had filled the page with keen words, Henry pleased to receive Harry’s message that he’d been accepted by the Spanish monarchs as ambassador and was joining them on campaign, the better to secure their trust and confidence. It ended with a note that Henry’s reign had been strengthened and blessed by the birth of a son and heir, and he was now eager to further his plans for expansion. Harry, thinking of the map spread across the king’s lap in the Painted Chamber, had known without doubt what he meant. He sensed, too, the impatience in the lines – a sense that was more than borne out by the second letter.

  This one had come recently, since he’d been in Seville. It was shorter, but no less impactful for that; ominous in its curtness and loaded with meaning, as clear to Harry as if the king had been standing there speaking the words, his glacial eyes upon him. It was implied that Edward Woodville had returned to England a hero, but his report included the fact that Queen Isabella had opened an inquiry into Columbus’s proposal; a fact the king surmised, correctly, meant Harry was no further forward in fulfilling his mission to prevent the sailor from gaining support for a voyage, leaving Henry Tudor free – when ready – to launch his own without fear of competition. The letter ended bluntly, with request for an immediate response and a warning that should he make no better progress, someone would be sent to replace him.

  So shaken was he that Harry retreated to his bed, leaving Peter fearing the sickness had returned. But there was no blood-letting or bitter potion the physician who’d attended to him in his delirium could offer that could ease him this time and Harry had stayed under the blankets, the shutters drawn, his appetite gone, for several days. Alone, he had circled endlessly in his mind, from the seeming impossibility of his task to all he would lose if he didn’t execute it to the king’s satisfaction, plagued by memories of the day his inheritance had been stripped from him by the Act of Attainder, anguished by the knowledge that he would truly be left with nothing – no land, no title, no money, no hope – if Henry made good on his threat. He wouldn’t even be able to stay in Spain, keep what little comforts he’d enjoyed here; would be sent home, disgraced, dishonoured. By the third morning, lying there listening to the tolls of the cathedral bell, he had come to a feverish decision.

  The next day, ignoring Peter’s protestations, Harry had headed to Seville’s docks. He had eased himself with the thought that he would simply enquire about where the sailor was lodging – a first step – but on the walk to the dockside, the air over the city perfumed by orange blossom, he found himself fingering the jewelled hilt of the dagger on his belt. The blade, stolen from Henry’s gifts to the monarchs and wrested from the Smiler in the bloody skirmish at the cave, now felt as though it had always been his. But in that short journey it had taken on new weight and importance. Henry had been clear in his message: he must halt the sailor’s plan by any means, or lose everything.

  By attempting to end Edward Woodville’s life, he – Harry – had inadvertently brought about the victory at Loja. How else might a murderous hand achieve great good? If he killed Columbus, might he accomplish something magnificent, not just for his own future, but his king and country’s? If Columbus died and Henry was left free to undertake his own voyage west, what glory and riches might God bestow upon England? It had thus been with a growing sense of certainty that he had approached the glittering Guadalquivir, the smell of brine and smoke in his nostrils.

  But, on the dockside, Harry had found his notion thwarted by the words of sailors, happy to talk in exchange for a coin, who told him Columbus and his business partner, Gianotto Berardi, were now in the north, conscripted to transport the Moorish captives taken after the fall of Loja to the markets of Toledo and Madrid for the queen.

  Still, Harry had a plan – one that quickly settled and solidified in him – and, as royal commissioners sent heralds throughout the city calling men to arms for the assault on Málaga, he wrote to Isabella at Córdoba with news of his good health and a request that he be allowed to return to her side, guessing his best chance to get close to the itinerant sailor would be from within the royal court.

  As the call to war went out around the kingdom, news filtered in from merchants and spies, telling of how the Ottoman Sultan, Bayezid II, son of Mehmet, the conqueror of Constantinople, had been roused to action at the threat to the Muslim kingdom in Spain. The sultan, it was rumoured, had forged an alliance with his former rival, the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, and they were now preparing to send an armada of ships to defend the emirate. To counter this peril, King Ferdinand sent a fleet of galleys to blockade the coast. But rather than shrivelling the hearts and minds of the Spanish, this ominous news served to fire them. Memories of the ravishment of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks were still potent in the minds of many and this new threat – combined with Ferdinand’s triumph at Loja and the other border towns – lit a fierce flame in many Castilians. Dukes and hidalgos, warrior priests and peasants answered the king and queen’s call, bringing sword and fire for the final clash against the infidel in defence of the ramparts of Christendom itself.

  East into Granada this army marched, a massive column of mules, engines and men – it was said more than seventy thousand – snaking in lines through the rising mountains, rejoining garrisons and companies who had guarded the frontier through the winter; King Ferdinand’s plan was to circle around and attack Málaga from the east. The journey
was arduous, recent rains swelling the streams and rivers, breaking up roads and washing away passes through the peaks. Men battled through mud and rocks, mules stumbling, gun carts lurching and dragging.

  Harry, in the vanguard, was one of the first to ride down out of the grey heights, having left the safety of Seville far behind, his letter to Henry, swearing he would not fail him, winging its way across the sea to England. In Córdoba, he’d been welcomed back into the king’s company, Ferdinand insisting that he – the saviour of Edward Woodville, champion of Loja – bring his sword to the campaign. Harry had attempted to stay with the queen, but every able-bodied man bar her personal guards was heading east and he’d not been able to turn down the honour of Ferdinand’s request. But his plan remained alive, pulsing within him, for he knew now that Columbus and Berardi had been called to the front lines in their commission for the queen, collecting the captives that had been taken and sold for the crown. And, when Málaga fell, their services would be called upon again.

  Harry fixed on the verdant valley that stretched before him, cradled by the mountains, patchworked with fields of grain and flower-speckled meadows, olive groves and vineyards and, beyond, the blue shimmer of the sea. Around him, men sighed with relief and praised God for their safe arrival, but they soon sobered as they focused their attention on the object of their coming: a vast and sprawling city, surrounded by walls punctuated all around with formidable towers. Málaga.

  Down near the city’s harbour, where the sand-coloured walls rose sheer from the azure Mediterranean, a tiered fortress, the size and strength of which Harry had never seen, marched up and around a spine of rock. The outer walls of this bastion, which the king referred to as the Alcazabar – the citadel – encircled the lower slopes, protecting grand domed buildings and hanging gardens of cedars, palms and pomegranates, while, beyond, a covered corridor of stone ascended to the gods, where another, no less indomitable ring of crenellated stone, spiked with towers and battlements, crowned the peak itself. It was known as the Gibralfaro, the rock of the lighthouse.

  The sight made Harry quail. The Spaniards had been so convinced they would triumph, that God Himself had blessed this campaign, that he had journeyed here with them feeling as though victory had already been won – his mind on another target entirely. Now, faced with the city’s might, his confidence died inside him.

  King Ferdinand ordered camp to be made in the foothills some distance from the walls, in the shadows of the mountains. As tents were erected and scouts sent to watch for any approach of the enemy, animals paddocked, latrines dug and grain piled up, the Spanish vanguard waited for the remainder of the army and the artillery to labour through the rocky wilderness to their position.

  Leaving Peter and his servants to set his camp, Harry walked through the growing city of tents and men, searching for Rodrigo de Torres, who he’d learned had spent the winter garrisoned in the Vega of Granada. Harry was keen to see him. Rodrigo was the closest thing he had to a friend here and, faced with the might of the infidels’ stronghold and the coming battle, he felt he needed one. Rodrigo had been in the emirate since Loja’s fall; would perhaps have words of comfort or encouragement for him. But it wasn’t until the second night that he found the hidalgo. Or rather – the hidalgo found him.

  Harry, crouched in his tent over a bowl of soapy dregs, razor in hand, heard the swish of canvas at his back. A rush of night air guttered the candles. ‘Finally,’ he muttered as he turned, expecting to see Hervey, who’d gone to fetch fresh water so he could finish his shave. ‘Rodrigo!’ Harry rose, smiling at the sight of him. The hidalgo looked rangier and darker, with a new scar on his neck, red and sore-looking beneath the black curtain of his hair. Harry’s smile faded as a muscular, middle-aged man ducked into the tent behind Rodrigo, a black cloak, lined with white leather, swinging from his shoulders. Don Luys Carrillo.

  ‘Hervey told me where to find you,’ Rodrigo explained, his coal-black eyes following Harry, who bent to pick up a cloth. ‘My lord Ferdinand said you had taken ill at Loja? That you returned to Seville?’

  Harry nodded as he wiped the soap from his jaw. ‘I came as close to God as a man can without meeting Him.’ He glanced at Don Luys, then back at Rodrigo. ‘I heard you stayed on the frontier. How did you fare?’

  When Rodrigo looked at Don Luys instead of answering, Harry felt uneasiness rise. This wasn’t the greeting he’d expected from his friend and what was Don Luys Carrillo – who’d always manifestly ignored him – doing here? ‘Is something wrong?’

  Don Luys, not taking his eyes off Harry, addressed Rodrigo in Castilian. ‘Ask the English son of a bitch where his brother is.’

  ‘My brother?’ Harry felt as though the world had dropped away from under him.

  ‘You’ve been learning our tongue?’ said Rodrigo, taken aback.

  Harry didn’t speak, still reeling from what Don Luys had said.

  Was this a jest? A bad dream? Why in Christ’s name would Don Luys Carrillo be asking about Wynter? Had Edward Woodville said something to them? Would the knight continue to torment him with questions even in his absence? A memory came to him: Rodrigo’s strange, almost hostile expression outside the cave that night, after Woodville had confronted him. So much else had happened since he’d forgotten that. ‘What do you want with my brother?’ he demanded, looking between the two men. ‘He is no one!’

  ‘To you, perhaps, señor,’ said Don Luys, his voice low. ‘To me he is everything. Your brother murdered my son.’

  Harry recalled Rodrigo explaining the reason for the man’s antipathy towards Englishmen, but he couldn’t grasp how on earth Wynter would have met Don Luys’s son.

  ‘Your brother was in Seville four years ago,’ Rodrigo prompted in his silence. ‘You did not know?’

  ‘No,’ murmured Harry.

  Rodrigo exchanged a look with Don Luys. ‘I recognised the name the moment I heard Sir Edward utter it, that night at the cave.’

  The hidalgo continued, speaking of a duel between Don Luys’s son and Wynter – then calling himself Jack – but Harry was only half listening. His brother had been in Seville? Had that been something to do with the map? Or another mission his father had entrusted to that bastard over him? Everywhere he went Wynter seemed to haunt him.

  Harry felt a creeping certainty that there was more – much more – to his brother’s life with their father than he’d ever suspected. There was that old rage, boiling in the pit of his stomach. After all those years fearing Thomas Vaughan would grant his inheritance to Wynter, he had been so triumphant, so gleeful, when he finally received it for himself. But what if there was something more, beyond the dilapidated mansion on the Strand and the houses scattered across Sussex? A legacy he hadn’t even known existed? A legacy of secrets his father had left to James Wynter alone?

  Harry glanced at Rodrigo, realising the man had asked him a question.

  The hidalgo repeated it. ‘I asked what issue Sir Edward had with your brother? Why he was so keen to find him?’

  ‘It was a matter with Woodville’s family. Nothing of consequence.’ Harry spoke briskly, not wanting to be drawn into details when he had no idea what these men wanted of him. ‘I couldn’t help him. In truth, I never even knew I had a brother – not until some years ago.’ That warm evening, following his father along the skirts of the Downs, the little house in the woods, the woman who had run to embrace his father, the youth – an older reflection of himself – appearing in the doorway. ‘The last time I saw him we fought.’ Harry met Don Luys’s eyes. ‘There is no love lost between us, of that I can assure you.’

  ‘You have no idea where Wynter is now?’ There was a twitch in Don Luys’s face when he said the name; a tic of hatred.

  ‘As far as I know he left England after King Henry was crowned. I cannot say where he went. Or even if he is alive.’ As Rodrigo and Don Luys shared another look, Harry knew they were sensing his reserve. Could he bluster his way through it? No. The last thing he wanted, after Henry’s
threat, was to be distracted from his mission again. He couldn’t afford another man hounding him over his brother’s whereabouts. He had to nip this in the bud. ‘Wynter was declared an outlaw by the king. My brother, señor,’ he added, addressing Don Luys, ‘made a great many enemies.’

  Rodrigo cut in. ‘King Henry? But when I was in England I asked several of his officials if they knew of a James Wynter. They swore ignorance.’

  ‘Most of those who knew my brother would have been of the House of York, many of whom were dead or gone by the time you came to the court. The king entrusted me to hunt him down and bring him in, but I found no trace of him.’ Harry hoped fervently that they wouldn’t press him on this. He couldn’t divulge much more without exposing his master’s secrets.

  Don Luys, however, didn’t seem interested in whatever wrong Wynter had committed against the king. To him, the only crime that mattered was that against his son. At Harry’s admission, he looked all at once like a man crushed. His head hung low and his broad shoulders slumped, making him appear diminished, more tired old man than veteran warrior. ‘I never truly believed I would see justice for my son, or take my revenge against his murderer, but when Rodrigo came to me at Íllora, told me he might have found trace of that wretch – through you . . .?’ Don Luys’s eyes smouldered in the tent’s gloom. ‘Now, it is as though he has been taken from me all over again.’

  ‘Señor,’ murmured Rodrigo, clasping the man’s shoulder. When Don Luys said nothing, but shook his head, the hidalgo glanced up at Harry. ‘You know of no one who could find him? No friends or family he left behind?’

  Harry opened his mouth to confirm this, but the words didn’t come. His eyes remained on the defeated visage of Don Luys. The man was one of Queen Isabella’s trusted advisers and a distinguished veteran in King Ferdinand’s company. He had access to privileged information and authority within the court. Might he be able to use that to his advantage? Might Don Luys be able to get him close to his target – close enough to do what he planned? Harry, realising his fingers had drifted to the hilt of his dagger, took his hand from his belt. ‘No. He left no family. But . . .’