I’d never felt so afraid in all my life. If we could not get Richard away soon, the battle would become a shambles, and he was certain to kill himself in the middle of it.
Even now, he could scarcely speak, his throat seared by shouting, and his lower lip cracked and bitten until it oozed blood. Between the rending effort of drawing breaths, he said to a squire, ‘Fetch me a drink — water — anything — the sun’s so hot.’
There were two of us hanging on to White Surrey’s bridle, as the horse heaved and trembled, one on either side, myself and the Spanish captain, Salazar. Richard stared down at us as if we were strangers. Christ have mercy! I thought, he’s blind, doesn’t know me. The blue eyes had turned black, dilating into the frantic, glazed look of a foundered horse.
Salazar pushed up his visor, coughing as the dust rolled up and became gritty mud on our faces. His harsh voice rose in a shout. He, the Spanish Hector, who had fought the Swiss, urged retreat.
‘Your Grace — more you cannot do! Madre de Dios, this army would have been fled an hour ago… Never have I seen one man hold together so many lacking in heart. They fear treason. Sire, you cannot win today. It is not the end — we will have another battle. Even such a capitán as yourself cannot turn this tide. See — there are fresh horses — fly now! There is no disgrace, no man can say you lack cojones!’
The King shook his head, and the sweat-drops showered off him, fell on my hand. I hated seeing him reduced to such stubborn, anguished desperation. He knew as well as we that he was beaten.
‘God forbid, Salazar,’ he said, in a strained and breaking voice. ‘I will not budge a foot. I’ll die King of England!’ He clutched his helmet with the crown as if it were the Holy Rood to strengthen him. I thought he was very near fainting.
‘Mierda!’ Salazar burst out. ‘He will not listen. Will you take death as a lover?’ He slipped into a torrent of Spanish, by the sound of it, complaining to all the Saints of Castile.
Then the squire came back with a flask filled from the spring on the hillside. He had to push it into the King’s hand. Richard drank as if he could not have enough. He leaned back to tip the last of it over his head. When he straightened, water rolled down his face on to the hot metal shoulder plates, washing freakish stripes through the dirt. His hair was wet as a water-spaniel’s. One would think he’d drunk potent wine, from the way he reeled in the saddle.
Within my head, I gibbered a prayer to God, half blaspheming: ‘O Lord God, to Whom all things are possible, take away this cup from him — do not let him throw away his life…take his courage and weaken this resolve to die…’ I’d say all the Fifteen Glorious Mysteries every day for the rest of my life; I’d go on pilgrimage to Walsingham barefoot in a hair shirt, shave my head, anything… I pleaded for intercession. It was intolerably hot, the sun flayed us. I stood trembling, sick with dread, when one of the scouts we had sent out came hurtling from his horse to the King’s side.
‘Sire, I’ve found him!’ he yelled. ‘Tudor! He’s behind the battle, on the right hand side, where the ground is flat — under the dragon — on a bay horse. There’s not more than a couple of hundred left with him. Men kneel to him…’
I cursed at that, but Richard did not heed the words. The change in him astounded me. His face was flushed, his smile radiant. ‘You’ll come with me.’ It was a statement rather than a question, and as such needed no answer. I followed wordlessly as he rode back to the remnant of household and northern men on the hill.
His voice was hoarse when he spoke to them, but very clear. ‘We have a chance to end this bloodshed quickly. Tudor stands behind the battle, poorly defended. A hundred men, a sudden attack, could scatter them. You see the terrain; on our right, Sir William Stanley waits with two thousand horsemen. The hazard is great — weighted against us. God give me strength — I will try to kill Tudor myself. Who will come with me?’
They stared at him for a moment, in dead silence, then began to step forward. First Robert Percy, Dick Ratcliffe, John Kendal, who’d never borne arms in his life, Robert Brackenbury, Ralph Assheton, and other men from the north parts; Harrington, Middleton, Pilkington, Markinfield, Metcalfe, Broughton, Harbottle, Mauleverer, Martin of the Sea from Holderness, Ogle, Dacre, Tempest and Heron — oh, dozens of others, many names from our old reiving days on the Border. They amounted to well over a hundred.
The horses were brought up. Men began to mount, adjusting visors and gauntlets. Squires checked the girths. Will Catesby came up to me. The Speaker of the House of Commons looked green as grass, his habitual air of competence and urbanity vanished, hair lank and face grimy. He was sweating as much as any of us.
‘Where is he?’ he said.
‘Hiding at the back, on the right of the battle.’
‘You mean we’d have to ride out there under the very nose of William Stanley who is a proclaimed traitor? It’s an open invitation for him to cut you all into as many pieces as there are cards in a pack. Is the King stark raving mad? He’ll be fighting an army alone if they move. How can this succeed? Francis, you must stop him.’
Already on my horse, I wished Catesby would stop bleating.
‘No. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. We have speed, surprise on our side. Have you ever seen Richard use an axe?’
‘He can’t wear it. Not that crown. They’ll murder him.’
‘If they can get near. You stop him.’ I was barely heeding.
Catesby tried.
He turned up at my stirrup again, shaking like a palsied old crone, his hard, handsome face fluid with fear, ready to dissolve and run away off his bones. ‘He looked at me as if I were crazy, not he. Just shook his head. Francis, he’s weeping; I don’t think he could see me properly for tears. He can’t speak for weeping — and bloody as a butcher. Jesu! he is mad!’
I could have wept too. The unquestioning devotion of the household moved me beyond anything I had ever experienced. Each man might have handed Richard a tally-stick with the pledge written on it: a life, offered in love and duty.
Poor Will, Lyard’s rump pushed him aside as I pricked in my spurs and moved off with the others. I did not see him again. We rode in double-rank, Richard a few yards out in front. I kept as close to him as possible. White Surrey was pulling against his left arm like an ox-team, sidling and snorting down the slope as if a silly colt again, and daisy-fresh. His right hand grasped a lance, upright in its rest. That stained, short-handled axe hung from the saddle bow, a spare one and a mace on the other side. He wore a sword, and a long dagger. He’d kill most men with the axe; with his strength and skill behind it, the blade could shear through steel-plate and bone easily as a razor cutting air. Cornered, Tudor would have no defence…one blow… Jesu! we’d have such a victory. I dared not think. I peered ahead through my visor slit.
Looking at Richard, I was dazzled. The sun struck full on his armour, so it shone bright-rayed as a burning-glass. We followed a faceless, shimmering man of steel, his head ringed with fire. He was alight, a flame, to consume his enemies utterly. The pennoned points of our lances swiftly crossed my narrowed vision, high above our heads. The sky was a bright, jewel-enamel blue.
Ave Maria, gratia plena… I wanted to shout, to call on the Saints for protection. But we rode in silence, with no trumpets, no war yells, to take them unawares. I dug in spurs, and we were trotting, then cantering, then broke into a pounding gallop, going as hard as we could flog the armoured horses. That in itself was lunacy on the iron fissured ground, but there was no time to fear falls. It was all I could do to breathe; dust filled the stifling confines of my helmet, coating lips and tongue, and a face on fire behind the metal visor.
Then came the first tremendous crash. Richard had hit whatever wall of men and weapons had packed itself as a bodyguard before Tudor. He’d spurred White Surrey to a bolting frenzy, and the impact of the charge buried him deep in a mass of soldiery. My own lance crashed and splintered on them, jerked me backwards in the saddle. Men seethed under our feet, screeching. I rode
over them, felt Lyard Gloucester treading them down with his hooves, the ring of metal under his shoes, his lurching slide on squashy, giving things. I killed a foot soldier by ramming my sword point in his neck, as he turned to take a swipe at me with a pole-axe. His blood fountained out astonishingly, like a jet of wine from a broached barrel. Blows landed and glanced off my plate, but I never felt the bruises.
The dragon standard loomed in my bleared vision, with Richard’s crown right in front of it. We were so near! I saw his axe smash down and split a helmeted head so neatly it flopped apart in halves on either shoulder, red and pink inside, and juicy as a pomegranate. It must have been the standard-bearer, for the pole toppled and splintered over, and a billow of white and green silk fell rending under White Surrey’s hooves. The dragon was gone.
We were so near! I could see Tudor, a visored figure on a big bay, that reared up and trampled round as he dragged on the reins. A huge man on an elephant of a horse moved to defend him, swinging a two-handed sword. Dear Christ! Only one man in England could be that big — Sir John Cheney — overtopping King Edward in his hose! And Richard rode straight at him. The man was more than twice his weight. A match so uneven, so terrifying, I all but covered my eyes. It was hard to tell what happened, it followed so quick. Richard dropped the reins at the last minute as Cheney’s sword lifted, and used both hands on his axe. He hit that vast expanse of breastplate awkwardly, being so close, but the giant went down like a plucked weed, his bulk pulling the horse over with him. A broad Dales voice was bawling, right by my ear: ‘Ding him, Dick! Gaw’ lad — ding ’im!’
Tudor dropped back when Cheney fell. It would have taken a rash dragon to stand firm, against the very figure of St George. Now he’d glimpsed his enemy, Richard hacked his way ahead; none of us could get near him. A man lunged with a bill, that hit him and slid off, drew back for a second jab — too close — his axe flashed in a downward, slicing arc. The man’s forearms were severed instantly.
Robert Percy, lunatic-sounding, was hauling on my arm and yelling: ‘Stanley — Stanley — Stanley!’ I knew what it meant. We both tried to cut through to Richard’s side. I had to reach him, either to help him kill Tudor, or to drag him away before Stanley killed us all. I lost Rob; I think his horse fell with him.
I was within a few lengths of White Surrey’s quarters, when Lyard checked, lurched and halted, dangling a forehoof, whinnying in fear. Beside myself, I tore his silver flanks with spurs, but he could only hobble. On a broken-legged horse, I had no chance. I shouted at Richard to warn him, shouted till my lungs cracked open, but the din of battle smothered every syllable. He could not hear. I threw myself off the horse and tried to struggle towards him on foot, but he had gone too far ahead.
Then the wave of the charge broke. Nearly two thousand horsemen Sir William Stanley had, and they hit us with the force of a siege-ram. We were scattered like chaff, our horses swept off their feet by a boiling surf of red-coated men. They closed round Richard. I couldn’t see him any more. I fought like a madman, until the muscles in my sword arm burned up and weakened, until the world turned dark. The last thing I remember was grabbing someone — I think I’d fallen on my knees by then — I was gasping, choking, my lungs threatened to burst on each fiery breath; sweat blinded me, ran into my mouth. I did not see my friends die. They were slaughtered like bullocks. By some miracle, I was not.
But I heard Richard die. In the midst of all those howls of victory, through the roaring in my ears, I heard it. The memory will never leave me, until I die too. He cried out when they took his life. His cries, of treason, held such anguish… I grow faint every time that sound comes to me, it comes so clearly.
I shall never know with certainty how I got away from Redmore. I think some unknown rescuer threw me up on a riderless horse. It probably bolted with me; I was useless as a dummy in the saddle. I cried like a child.
So it ended, the brief moment of glory, victory slipped through our hands. At the end, Richard knew he was betrayed, knew only failure, despair and death. As God is my Judge, I’d have given my life to save him, if it had been possible. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d thrown it away, and died with him. When all was finished, and I knew he lay dead, my King, my friend, I ran away. I threw off my coat of arms as I rode, and tore off my own badge, casting it hastily from me. It caught on the thorns of a bush and fluttered there for all to see, a silver, running hound.
St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1485
13
Our Triumph and Victory
Told by a Squire of Sir William Stanley
I wende to deeth, knight stith in stour
Thurgh fight in feelde I wan the flour;
No fightes me taughte the deethe to quelle —
I wende to deethe, sooth I you telle.
I wende to deethe, a kyng, y-wis;
What helpeth honour and worldes blisse?
Deeth is to man the kynde weye —
I wende to be cladde in clay.
15th century
Two days ago, the world turned topsy-turvy, and 1 landed feet first in an ill-fitting pair of shoes. I’d never had any ambition to become a soldier, a murderer, or a gaoler, but now had been all three, I sneaked a look at the man who sat not a yard from me, my lord’s prisoner, whom I had to guard. Two days ago, he’d been one of the greatest lords in the realm — Thomas Howard, the Earl of Surrey — now, I had to tell myself, his King is no King, and he is a traitor taken in arms against King Henry the seventh. The man who was King Richard is dead.
Who could have foreseen such an event? It was hard enough to imagine a man of King Richard’s repute in war being beaten at all, but to be killed…! The tale on every tongue is Richard’s death, not our new King Henry’s victory. To tell the truth, that seems almost an afterthought. Men cannot understand why King Richard died; Kings should not get themselves killed in battle. But I knew why. He died because of treachery — my master’s treachery — my own.
I can’t pretend that I was there in Leicester out of anything but blind family allegiance. My father, who prefers a quiet life, had sent me to march under the hart’s head banner of Sir William Stanley, to ensure his continuing favour to petty gentry like ourselves. I’d rather have stayed at home, near Shotwick in the Wirral of Cheshire. I had been seeking a place at one of the Inns of Court, wishing to study law, when I was forced to become an unwilling soldier. I’m nineteen and not trained for it; Redmore was the first battle we’ve seen in England for fourteen years. My father will have a seizure when he hears the news.
He’d have another if he could see me now, sitting in a Leicester inn called the White Boar — I’ll make a bet that will turn blue within a week! — wondering how on earth to address my noble captive. He’d not said much to me beyond a few grunts and gasps of pain. He had been brought from the field in a litter, badly hurt, and the Earl of Oxford’s surgeon had got to work on him. I shared the duty of guarding and serving him as nursemaid, with one of Oxford’s squires.
His right arm was a lumpish cocoon of bandages, and he moved his head on his neck gingerly, as if thankful they were still united. He groaned softly sometimes, as if pain grabbed him when he shifted. Probably a few broken ribs kept his arm company. Lord knows what the surgeon had put on his wound, it smelt like horse liniment. He sat in his chair as if he thought he’d never get out of it again, though his spare, stringy frame had a look of great energy. He could have been any age between thirty-five and fifty. The dark hair had little grey in it, though the top was thinning. He had brown, sharp eyes with big bags under them, and his skin was as lined and tanned as an oak gall. Frankly, he was no beauty; his nose had a squashed look, as if it had been broken in a fight, his jaw was pugnacious and he needed a shave.
‘Will you take some wine, my lord?’ I ventured, trying to overcome my embarrassment.
The brown eyes flickered open like a lizard’s. ‘Yes, I will. Since I am to be entertained with wine, you may as well drink with me.’ The voice was hard and abrupt, t
hough not markedly hostile. It had a queer, rolling accent, that was native to his home in Suffolk or Norfolk, I supposed. ‘Thank you,’ he said, when I set the wine within reach of his left hand. Then, with a rather nasty grin, ‘Don’t shuffle your feet, boy. Even if you did stick your sword in my King, there’s nothing I can do now. This dog has had his eye teeth drawn. To pass the time, tell me what happened; I’ve lain here two days and don’t even know who of my friends are dead or prisoners.’
‘No one knows for sure,’ I told him, ‘there was such confusion. King Richard’s men were so outnumbered and trampled, half the dead were hard to identify. It seems certain Lord Ferrers was killed. Sir Robert Brackenbury and Sir Robert Percy were found dead. Some say Kendal, the King’s Secretary, and Sir Richard Ratcliffe were killed too. No one has counted the ordinary knights and squires — I think they were mostly northerners.’
Howard grunted. ‘Did any escape? Who was taken?’
‘It’s thought Lord Lovell escaped. He must have been lucky. King Henry spared most of the common soldiers. Catesby went to the gallows this morning. He knelt to my master’s brother and begged for mercy. He said he’d saved Lord Stanley’s son from death, by ignoring King Richard’s order. Lord Stanley turned his back.’
‘Which proves Catesby a fool,’ Howard said acidly, ‘for putting his trust in a Stanley. What of our other hero — great Percy of Northumberland?’
‘He is with King Henry. He was supposedly welcomed, but I hear he is not allowed to go home, and his inn is guarded.’
‘If I know anything about it, when he is allowed home, he’ll never dare be without an armed guard.’
Some Touch of Pity Page 33