Wars of the Roses 01 - Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘I have,’ Strange replied for them. His mouth twisted in irritation at the memory. ‘I’ve heard nothing from the Duke of York, no word at all. They’ve abandoned us to fend for ourselves.’

  He would have gone on, but Thomas spoke again, his deep, slow voice rolling over the group. He’d already made his decision. It galled him to support the baron, but there was no choice, not for him. Everything he had was in his land. If he abandoned his holding, he and his family would be reduced to begging on the streets of Portsmouth or London.

  ‘I’ll send my girls back to England, while we take a measure of the trouble to come. I suggest you all do the same, if you have family there still. Even if you don’t, you have funds enough to put them up in inns, in Normandy or England. We can’t stay clear-headed with women to protect.’

  ‘You’ll join me then?’ Baron Strange asked. ‘You’ll put aside our differences and stand with me?’

  ‘Jesus, baron, I was going to ask you to stand with me,’ Thomas replied, a smile quirking the corners of his mouth. The men in the room laughed and the baron flushed. ‘Either way, I won’t give up my farm, I’ll tell you that much. I’ll add my gold to yours to hire soldiers, but we’ll need a veteran officer or two as well. Better still would be to get a battle-seasoned lord to lend his name to our little rebellion.’

  The word stole away some of the humour in the room. Thomas looked around at them all, seeing solid farmers with rough, red hands from work.

  ‘That’s all it will be, if the French army comes hammering on our doors. Oh, I’ve seen Englishmen rout larger French forces. I’ve seen the backs of a few French soldiers running away from me in my time.’ He paused for a ripple of laughter to die down. ‘But we can’t hold the land with what we have. All we can do is make them pay a price for it.’

  ‘What?’ Baron Strange demanded incredulously. ‘You’d talk defeat before the fighting’s even begun?’

  ‘I talk as I see it,’ Thomas said with a shrug. ‘It doesn’t make any difference to me. I’ll still stand and send my arrows into them when they come. I’ll fight, even if I’m on my own. I don’t have any choices left but one, not the way I see it. But you know, I was an archer before I was a farmer – and an English archer at that. We don’t run just because the odds are against us.’ He paused in thought. ‘It might be that if we hold them, if we knock them back, the English lords will have to support us. I know one man who’ll tell me straight if we have a chance, if there’ll be help from the north. He has the ear of the king himself and he’ll tell us what we need to know.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Strange asked. He was accustomed to being the one with connections, or at least the claim of them. To hear Thomas Woodchurch talk of friends in high places was strangely unsettling to him.

  ‘You won’t know the name, baron, and he wouldn’t like me to use it. He and I fought side by side years ago. He’ll tell me true, for the debt he owes me.’

  ‘Keep your secrets then, Woodchurch. You’ll bring me news if you hear from him?’

  ‘I will. Give me a month at most. If I can’t reach him by then, it’s because he doesn’t want to be reached and we’re on our own.’

  Baron Strange chewed at his lower lip while he listened. He didn’t like Thomas Woodchurch, not even a little. There was something in the way the man smiled whenever he heard his title that irked the baron like a cold key down his back. Yet he knew the man’s word was good.

  ‘I’ll send letters to those I know as well,’ the baron replied. ‘Any of you with friends in the army should do the same. We’ll come back here one month from today and we’ll know by then where we stand.’

  Thomas felt a hand clap him on the shoulder and he looked round into the face of old Bernard, one of the few men there that he’d have called a friend.

  ‘Will you join us in a drop, lad? I’m awful dry after all the talking and it weren’t even me doing it.’

  Thomas smiled wryly. He liked the old archer, though there was a good chance a few pints of ale would mean sitting through the Agincourt story once again. Thomas would have preferred to walk the eight miles to his home, but he paused before refusing. Most of the men would be wetting their throats before heading out. Thomas knew he might be asking them to fight for him before the end of the year or the following spring. It wouldn’t hurt to hear what they had to say.

  ‘I’ll come, Bern,’ he said.

  The old man’s pleasure at his response went some way to ease the darkness plaguing Thomas’s spirits.

  ‘I should hope so, lad. You need to let them see you now. These boys need a leader and that Strange is not the man for it, not as I see it. A title don’t give him the right, though there’s some as think it does. No, lad. They need an archer, with a sense of the land. Share a pint or three with me and I’ll tell thee what I have in mind.’

  Thomas let himself be carried along in the group heading to the inn. He sent a silent prayer that Derry Brewer could be found quickly – and that he would answer an old friend.

  10

  In the howling darkness Derry Brewer sat and waited, needing to know if it was a trap. He was convinced only an owl could have seen him move by then, but he still resisted the urge to wipe rain from his eyes. Though his sight blurred, he remained perfectly still, just blinking slowly as the heavens opened and drenched him. He wore a dark cloak of waxed linen, but he’d discovered it leaked and the rivulets running inside were freezing. He’d been in that spot for hours, with his back and knees growing slowly more painful.

  There had been a little moonlight before the storm clouds boiled angrily above his head and the first fat drops pattered on the leaves. He’d seen that the land around the farmhouse had been cleared and laid out by a careful hand. The house looked normal enough at first glance, but the bushes and lane were planted so there was just one clear path to the door – a path a pair of archers could cover against an army. Derry smiled to himself, remembering different times, different places. He had spotted the pile of lumber left out in the open. It was in just the right place to use it as a barricade and then fall back to the main house. Thomas Woodchurch was a careful man, just as Derry was. Being careful and taking time had saved both their lives more than once.

  The rain was easing, but the wind still moaned through the trees, filling the air with leaves that spun and danced like wet coins. Still he waited, reduced to a bright point of awareness in a shivering body. In the cottage, he noted which rooms showed moving shadows and tried to guess how many people he might expect inside.

  Without warning, a sudden sense of illness touched him, making his stomach clench and his testicles creep. He’d heard nothing, seen nothing, but in the darkness Derry realized he’d taken the only spot that gave him a good view of the front door and the main rooms of the cottage. His heart began to race in his chest and he wondered if he could run after so long in a crouch. He cursed himself in silence, thinking as fast as he ever had. He edged his hand to the heavy seax knife at his waist, the hilt slick under his grasping fingers. In the wind and rain, he knew no one could hear him taking a long, slow breath. His pride made him pitch his voice at a normal tone, trusting his instincts.

  ‘How long will you wait out here with me?’ Derry said loudly.

  He was certain he’d guessed right, but he still almost jumped out of his skin when someone laughed softly behind him. Derry tensed to move, either to run or throw himself in that direction.

  ‘I’ve been wondering the same thing, Derry,’ Thomas said. ‘It’s damned cold and there’s food and ale in the house. If you’ve finished playing your games now, why don’t you come in?’

  Derry swore to himself.

  ‘There’s a few men in France who’d love to know where I am tonight,’ he said. He stood, his knees and hips protesting. ‘I had to know you hadn’t joined them.’

  ‘If I had, you’d be eating an arrow by now,’ Thomas said. ‘I had to know you were alone, for the same reasons. I have a few enemies myself, Derry.’

 
‘Good men like us always do,’ Derry replied. Though he knew by then where Thomas was standing, it was still hard to make him out in the darkness.

  ‘I’m not a good man, Brewer. And I know you’re not. Peace, old son. Come down and break bread with me. I’ll tell you what I’m after.’

  Thomas crunched through the dead leaves and clapped Derry on the shoulder walking past him towards the house.

  ‘How did you know I was there?’ Thomas called over his shoulder.

  ‘I remembered how you liked to hunt,’ Derry said, following him. ‘How did you get so close without me hearing you?’

  He heard his old friend chuckle in the gloom.

  ‘As you say, I’m a hunter, Derry. Stags or men, it’s all the same.’

  ‘No, truly. How did you do it?’

  The two men walked together across the open yard, passing the stack of lumber as they approached the house.

  ‘I used the wind for cover, but there’s a bit more to it than that. If you have twenty years, I’ll teach you.’

  As they reached the door, the light from the lamplit windows let Derry see his friend’s face for the first time. He watched as Thomas gave a low whistle out into the dark yard.

  ‘Someone else?’ Derry asked.

  ‘My son, Rowan,’ Thomas replied, smiling as he saw the irritation in Derry’s face. ‘This is my land, Derry – and his. You can’t creep up on me here and not have me know it.’

  ‘You mustn’t sleep much then,’ Derry muttered.

  As he spoke, a tall young man appeared out of the wind and rain, wearing a cloak similar to Derry’s own. Without a word, Rowan took his father’s bow and quiver. The weapons were better wrapped and protected than the men who owned them.

  ‘Rub them down well with oil and check the shafts for warp,’ Thomas called as his son turned and walked away. He got a grunt in return, which made him smile.

  ‘You’re looking well,’ Derry said, meaning it. ‘Being a farmer has put a little meat on your bones.’

  ‘I’m well enough. Now come in out of the rain. I have a proposition for you.’

  The farmhouse kitchen was blessedly warm, with a small fire burning in the grate. Derry removed his waxed cloak before it made a puddle on the stone floor, dipping his head respectfully to the stern-looking woman sitting at the table. She ignored him as she took a cloth and removed a black iron kettle from where it hung over the flames.

  ‘This is my wife, Joan,’ Thomas said. ‘A sweet little rookery girl who took a risk once and married an archer.’ He smiled at her, though her own expression remained wary. ‘Joan, this is Derry Brewer. We used to be friends once.’

  ‘We still are, or I wouldn’t have risked my hide coming out here. You sent a message to John Gilpin at Calais and here I am, in the pouring rain.’

  ‘Why should we trust a man who sits out in the lane and watches us for hours?’ Joan said. Despite the years in France, her accent was all London, as if she’d left the slums of the capital just the day before.

  ‘All right, Joan, he’s just a cautious man,’ Thomas replied as Derry blinked and fidgeted under her stare. ‘He always was.’

  She made a hard, snorting sound deep in her throat and set about pouring hot water into a dash of brandy in each cup. Derry noted that his measure was only half the size of her husband’s, though he thought better of mentioning it.

  ‘You can go to bed now, Joan, if you want,’ Thomas said. ‘There’s no one else out there; I’d have seen them.’

  His wife frowned at her husband.

  ‘I don’t like to feel a prisoner in my own ’ome, Thomas Woodchurch. I’ll take the girls away tomorrow. When I come back, I want this sorted out. I won’t be looking over my shoulder no longer, I just won’t do it. And you look after Rowan. He’s just a boy, for all his size.’

  ‘I’ll keep him safe, love. Don’t worry about that.’

  Thomas kissed his wife on the cheek she offered him, though she still watched his guest with cold eyes.

  When she had gone, Derry reached for the bottle of brandy and added another slosh to keep the cold out from his bones.

  ‘You married a bit of a dragon there, Tom,’ he said, settling himself in a chair. It was well made, he noticed, taking his weight without a creak. The whole kitchen had the mark of a loved place, a home. It brought a pang of sadness to Derry that he had nowhere like it of his own.

  ‘I’ll thank you to keep your opinions about my wife to yourself, Derry. We’ve other things to talk about and you’ll want to be on your way before sunrise.’

  ‘You’d turn me out? I had hoped for a meal and a bed. I’ve been on the road for a week to get here.’

  ‘All right,’ Thomas said grudgingly. ‘There’s a stew in that big pot. Horsemeat. As to whether you stay under my roof, maybe it depends on what you can tell me.’

  Derry sipped the hot drink, feeling it put a little fire back into his veins.

  ‘Fair enough. So what was so important that you remembered your old friend? Gilpin nearly missed me, you know. I was at the docks on my way to England when he found me. It’s a good thing the man knows my pubs or I wouldn’t be here.’

  Thomas looked at the man he had not seen for fourteen years. Time and worry had weathered Derry Brewer. Yet he still looked strong and fit, even with wet hair plastered to his head and stuck with red-gold leaves.

  ‘I heard you made good, Derry, over there in London.’

  ‘I do all right,’ Derry said warily. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Nothing for me. I just want to know what will happen if the men of Maine fight, Derry. Will King Henry send men to stand with us, or are we on our own?’

  Derry choked on his drink and coughed until he was red in the face.

  ‘There’s a French army camped in Anjou, Tom. When they move next spring, will you have your wife wave her broom at them?’

  He looked into the grey eyes of his old friend and he sighed.

  ‘Look, I wish it could be another way, but Maine and Anjou were the price for the truce. You understand? It’s done, bought and sold. Your son won’t have to go to war before he can grow a decent beard, the way we had to. This is the price.’

  ‘It’s my land, Derry. My land that’s been given away without so much as a word to me.’

  ‘What’s that now? It’s not your bleeding land, Tom! King Henry owns this farm and sixty thousand like it. He owns this house and this cup I’m holding. It sounds to me like you’ve forgotten that. You pay your tithe each year, though. Did you think it was voluntary? King Henry and the church are the only ones who own land, or are you one of those who think it should all be shared out? Is that it? Are you a firebrand, Tom? An agitator? Seems having a farm has changed you.’

  Thomas glared at the man he had once called a friend.

  ‘Perhaps it has changed me, at that. It’s my labour bringing in the fleeces, Derry. It’s me and my son out there in all weathers, keeping the lambs alive. I don’t work to fill a lord’s purse, I’ll tell you that. I work for my family and my holding, because a man must work or he isn’t a man at all. If you’d ever tried it, you wouldn’t mock me. You’d know I begrudge every coin I pay in tithe, every damned year. Every coin that I earned. My work makes this my land, Derry. My choices and my skills. Christ, it’s not like this is some ancient Kent plot, with a lord’s family ruling for generations. This isn’t England, Derry! This is new land, with new people on it.’

  Derry sipped from his cup, shaking his head at the other man’s anger.

  ‘There’s more at stake than a few hills, Tom. There’ll be no help coming, trust me on that. The best thing you can do is cart away everything you can carry and head north before the roads get too crowded. If that’s what you wanted to know, I’m doing you the courtesy of telling it to you straight.’

  Thomas didn’t reply for a time, as he finished his drink and refilled both cups. He was more generous than his wife with the brandy and Derry watched with interest as he crumbled a little cinnamon into th
e cups before handing one back.

  ‘Then out of courtesy, Derry, I’ll tell you we’re going to fight,’ Thomas said. The words were not a boast. He spoke with quiet certainty, which was why Derry sat up straight, shrugging off tiredness and the effects of the brandy.

  ‘You’ll get yourself killed, then. There are two or three thousand Frenchmen coming here, Thomas Woodchurch. What do you have in Maine? A few dozen farmers and veterans? It will be a slaughter and they’ll still have your farm when it’s over. Listen to me now. This is done, understand? I couldn’t change it if my life depended on it. Yours does. You want to see your boy cut down by some French knight? How old is he? Seventeen, eighteen? Jesus. There are times when a man has to cut and run. I know you don’t like to be pushed, Tom. But we ran when that cavalry troop spotted us, didn’t we? Just three of us against fifty? We ran like fucking hares then and there was no shame in it because we lived and we fought again. It’s the same thing here. Kings rule. The rest of us just get by and hope to survive it.’

  ‘Are you finished? Good. Now you listen, Derry. You’ve said there won’t be help coming and I’ve heard you. I’m telling you we’ll stand. This is my land and I don’t care if King Henry himself comes to order me off. I’d spit in his eye too. I’m not running this time.’

  ‘Then you’re dead,’ Derry snapped, ‘and God help you, because I can’t.’

  Both men sat glaring at each other, no give in either of them. After a time, Derry drained his cup and went on.

  ‘If you fight, you’ll get your men killed. Worse, you’ll break the truce I’ve worked for, before the damn thing has even properly begun. Do you understand that, Tom? If that’s the way they’re talking, I need you to go to your friends and tell them what I’ve told you. Tell them to let this one go. Tell them it’s better to stay alive and start again than to throw it all away and end up another corpse in a ditch. There’s more riding on this than you know. If you ruin it for a few scrub farms, I’ll kill you myself.’