His weight took the stranger down on to his back and the seax sank in further, pressing through him until Rowan felt ribs crack under his hand. The young Frenchman blew out a great rush of air. Whatever he had been trying to say was lost in the agony of the knife in his chest. Rowan stared down in terror at the scrabbling figure he had pinned to the ground. He could only lean on him with his full weight, smothering the kicking legs with his own.
In the yard, a voice called a question or a name. Rowan’s face crumpled in something like weeping as he pressed his forehead against the cheek of the man he held down, just hanging on and waiting for the twitches and scuffles and gasping moans to come to an end. Rowan was shaking when he finally raised his head, looking down into eyes that were smeared with dust from his tunic, yet did not close.
The voice called once more, closer. Rowan sank into a crouch, baring his teeth like a dog defending its kill. He slid the big knife out from between the ribs and held it up, ready to be attacked again. There could be a dozen soldiers nearby, or a hundred, or just one or two. He had no way of knowing, and terror and disgust overwhelmed him. He wanted nothing more than to run, just run from the scrabbling horror he had felt as another man’s life was stolen. What he’d felt had been sickeningly intimate and he wanted to get away from that place.
He heard a soft sound at his feet and glared down, understanding that the young man’s bowels had emptied themselves, along with his bladder. The soldier’s penis was clearly erect, visible in his darkening trousers. Rowan felt his stomach heave and his eyes fill with unwanted tears. He’d heard of such things, but the reality was far, far worse. It was nothing like striking a man from a distance with a cloth-yard arrow and a good yew bow.
A shout from outside made him start and scramble back to the wooden stall. The voice was growing louder and more irritable, as the man outside lost patience with his missing companion. Rowan peered through tiny cracks and nail holes, looking for others. He could not see them, though he had the sense that they were all around the ramshackle barn in the dawn. He shuddered, muscles twitching all along his side and back. He needed to get away into the fields, but his father was too heavy to carry further.
On impulse, Rowan crouched by Thomas and slapped lightly at his face. The eyes opened, the dark irises tinged with yellow as his father pushed his hands away.
‘Can you walk?’ Rowan whispered.
‘I think so,’ Thomas said, though he did not know. A childhood story of Samson losing his hair came to his mind and he smiled weakly to himself, using the handle of an old plough to heave himself up. He rested then, fat drops of sweat pouring from his face to strike the dust and darken it.
Rowan crossed the lines of golden sunlight streaming into the barn. He stood by the door, looking out on the morning as he gestured for his father to come over. Thomas gathered himself, feeling as if he’d been beaten the night before. He needed to sleep, or perhaps just to die. The promise of rest called to him with enough force to make black shapes swim across his vision. He shuffled across the dusty floor, trying not to gasp as his mind swam and sank in waves of sickness.
Rowan almost threw himself back as a voice spoke a torrent of French right by his head.
‘Are you hiding from me, Jacques? If I catch you asleep, I swear …’
The door came open and Rowan narrowed his eyes, seeing the man’s astonishment slide into terror at the sight of his knife and bulk in the gloom.
The man bolted, slipping and falling as he turned in panic. His voice was already rising in a shout as he scrambled up, but Rowan was on him in one great lunge, stabbing wildly through the coat. With savage strength, he reached his left arm around the man’s neck and crushed it close. The desperate noises became creaks of sound and Rowan found himself sobbing as he struck and struck, seeing red blood spatter around them. He let the body fall on to its face, standing up and panting, with senses suddenly dull in the morning sun.
The farmyard was empty, with rich green grass growing between the cracked stones. He saw a tumbledown cottage that had been invisible the night before, the door hanging open from a broken leather hinge. Rowan looked around him, then down at the vivid red drops in the dust and smeared on his knife. Just two men, looking for something worth stealing while their officers slept. Rowan knew he should have dragged the second body back into the barn, but instead he stood there in the yard, with his eyes closed and his face raised to the sun.
He heard his father come out and stand at his shoulder. Rowan didn’t look at him, preferring to let the warmth ease into his skin. He’d slaughtered animals with his father on the farm, he reminded himself. They’d killed deer while hunting, then dressed the flopping bodies on hillsides until they were covered in gore and laughing.
Thomas took a long breath, unsure if his son would want him to speak or not. Hunger pangs bit at his stomach and he found himself wondering if the two soldiers had any food with them. It was another sign that his body had fought through the illness that had struck him down.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ he asked.
Rowan opened his eyes and looked at him.
‘What?’
‘Killing. I’ve known men who enjoy it. I never did, myself. It always seemed like an odd thing to want to do. Too much like work, I’ve always thought. In a pinch, all right, but I wouldn’t seek out another man for killing, not for pleasure. I’ve just known men who did, that’s all.’
Rowan shook his head in dull astonishment.
‘No … I didn’t … God, no … enjoy it.’
To his surprise, his father clapped him on his back.
‘Good. There’s that. Now I find I have an appetite. I’m still weak enough to be frightened by a small boy with a stick, so would you search the house for food? We need to find a place to rest and hide for the day and I can’t do it starving, not after the sickness.’
‘What about staying in the barn?’ Rowan asked, looking back fearfully to the dark doorway.
‘Not with the bodies of soldiers and blood on the ground, son. Wake up! We’ll need to move a few miles in cover and my stomach is hurting something terrible. I need a little food and I’m not eating a Frenchman, not today anyway.’
Rowan chuckled weakly, but his eyes were still troubled. Thomas gave up on his smile, which was taking too much out of him to maintain.
‘What is it?’ He saw his son’s skin twitch like a horse beset with flies, then roughen as the hairs stood up.
‘The one in the barn … his … manhood was stiff … God, Dad, it was horrible.’
‘Ah,’ Thomas replied. He stood there, letting the sun warm them both. ‘Perhaps he liked you?’
‘Dad! Jesus!’ Rowan shivered in memory, rubbing his arms. His father laughed.
‘I had to keep watch once, after a battle,’ he said. ‘I was about twelve years old, I think. I sat all night, surrounded by dead soldiers. After a while, I heard them start to belch and fart like living men. Twice, one of them sat up, just jerked right up like a man surprised by a thought. Sudden death is a strange thing, sunshine. The body doesn’t always know it’s dead, not at first. I’ve seen … what you saw on a hanged man before, when I was a boy. There was some old woman at the gibbet when everyone else had gone, scratching the ground by his feet. I asked her what she was doing and she said a mandrake root grows from the seed of a hanged man. I ran then, Rowan, I don’t mind telling you. I ran all the way home.’
Both men grew still as a rustling sound carried to them on the still air. They turned slowly to see an elderly goose come out of the trees by the cottage, where a rope swing hung from a branch. The bird pecked the ground and peered at the two men standing in its yard.
‘Rowan?’ Thomas murmured. ‘If you can see a stone, move slowly and pick it up. Try to break a wing.’
The goose ignored them as Rowan found a rock the size of his fist and hefted it.
‘It’s not afraid of us, I think,’ he said, walking towards the bird. It started to hiss, spreading its wings. The ston
e flew out, knocking the bird over with a squawk and revealing a matted underside of feathers and dirt. Rowan had it by the neck in a moment and dragged the flapping, protesting bird back to his father before silencing it with a sharp tug.
‘You may just have saved my life again this morning,’ Thomas said. ‘We can’t risk a fire, so cut it and drink while it’s warm. Well done, lad. I think I’d have wept like a child if she’d got away from us.’
His son smiled, beginning to feel his strange, fey mood pass. He took care to wipe his knife on the man lying face down in the yard before he used it on the bird.
‘I only wish your grandfather could be here,’ York said, sipping at his wine. ‘The old man took such joy in the birth of children – as you might expect, with twenty-two of his own! Still, the omens are excellent, I’ve been told. A boy, surely.’
He stood in an internal courtyard, roofed in oak and tile, with cream-coloured stone on all sides. The white rose of the house of York was much in evidence, as a painted crest on the beams or carved into the stone itself. In the rooms above his head, an unearthly cry rang out, making his companion wince.
Richard Neville was as tall as his uncle, though he had yet to grow a beard. Through two marriages, it was true his grandfather had sired so many that Richard was used to aunts who were children, or nephews of his own age. The elder Neville had been a potent man and the number of his living descendants was a source of envy to many.
Before Richard could reply, York spoke again.
‘But I am forgetting! I must congratulate you on your new title, well won. Your father must surely be pleased to see you made Earl of Warwick.’
‘You are too kind, my lord. I am still learning what it entails. My father is delighted to have the title and the lands come to the family, as I think you know. I’m afraid I never knew my grandfather.’
York chuckled, draining his cup and raising it for a servant to refill.
‘If you are half the man Ralph Neville was, you will still be twice blessed. He raised me when ill fortune made me an orphan, at the mercy of all men. Old Neville kept my estates and titles intact until I was grown. He asked for nothing in return, though I knew he wanted me to marry Cecily. Even then, he left the final choice to me. He was … a man of great personal honour. I have no higher praise than that. I just hope you understand. I owe him more than I could ever say, Richard, no – Earl Warwick!’
York smiled at his nephew. Another screech came from the birthing room, making both men wince.
‘You are not worried?’ Richard of Warwick said, fiddling with his goblet and looking up as if he could see through the walls to the feminine mysteries within that chamber.
York made an elaborate shrug.
‘Five dead true, but six alive! If I were a gambling man, I would not bet against another healthy York boy. The twelfth birth is the number of apostles, so my learned doctor is fond of saying. He believes it is a powerful number.’
York fell silent then, considering for a moment that the twelfth apostle had been Judas. The younger man’s eyes were shadowed as he had the same thought, but chose not to voice it.
‘The seventh alive, then,’ Warwick said to break the silence. ‘A number of great fortune, I’m certain.’
York relaxed visibly as he spoke. He had been drinking heavily during the confinement, for all his semblance of being unworried. He called for the cups to be refilled once more and Warwick had to drain his own quickly, feeling the wine heat his blood. It was necessary, he’d found. Fotheringhay Castle may have been well fortified, but even in the shelter of the covered courtyard it was very cold. A fire burned in a nearby hearth, ready to consume the newborn’s caul and birth cord. The warmth seemed to disappear before it could reach the men waiting.
‘I am not sure, my lord, if I should congratulate you in turn,’ Warwick said. York looked at him with a questioning air as he went on. ‘On Ireland, my lord. My father tells me you have been appointed king’s lieutenant there.’
York waved dismissively.
‘I have enemies who would prefer me to be far away from England for the next few years, Richard. I will go where I am sent – eventually! For the moment, I am content to remain, as they climb over each other like drowning rats. I have taken my seat with the Lords Temporal more than once, just to watch and listen. I recommend you do the same, to see what fools scramble and bluster in London.’ He considered his words before continuing. ‘For those with an eye to see, this will be a year of storms, Richard. Those who survive it, well, they can only rise.’
‘My lord York!’ a voice called.
Both men leaned back to look up to the small walkway overhead, separated by a generation but joined in concern for Cecily Neville and the child. As they waited, wine forgotten in their hands, a midwife came out through thick curtains, using a cloth to wipe any remaining traces of blood from the face of a baby. The infant was tight-wrapped in swaddling bands of dark blue. It did not cry as she held it out for the father and young uncle to see.
‘It is a boy, my lord, a son,’ she said.
York breathed out through his nose, utterly delighted.
‘Have you a name for the child?’ Warwick asked, smiling. He could see the pride in Richard of York. For once, the man was almost boyish in his pleasure.
‘I have a ten-year-old named Edward, one named Edmund and a sweet little lad named George. I won’t risk offending the poor souls who perished, so not Henry, John, William or Thomas. No. I think … Yes, I think this one will be Richard.’
Richard, Earl of Warwick, barked a laugh of surprise and honest pleasure.
‘Three Richards then, between us. Richard like the Lionheart king. No, three lions, my lord! A fine omen.’
York looked a little taken aback as he followed the path taken by Warwick’s quick mind. Two centuries before, King Richard the Lionheart had adopted three lions as his royal seal. More recently, that royal emblem had been carried at Agincourt, by the house of Lancaster and the father of King Henry. It was an association that did not fill York with joy.
‘It is a good name,’ he said grudgingly, raising his cup in toast. ‘It will do.’
18
The city of Rouen lay around a hundred miles south and west of Calais. In normal times, William would have counted it a stronghold. As the capital of English Normandy, it had witnessed English victories, including the execution of Joan of Arc after her rebellion. William had ridden south to the city with the army, through lands that could have been English farms in Kent or Sussex for their familiarity. He’d crossed the Seine and reached Rouen on a chilly morning three days before, with dawn frost crunching under the hooves of his mount.
The city had been a silent witness to his arrival, the great gates solidly shut. William had stared up at dozens of bodies in the breeze, hanging by their necks from the walls. Almost a hundred swung and creaked, many of them still bearing the marks of violence or stained dark brown with dried blood. William had crossed himself at the sight, saying a brief prayer for the souls of good men guilty of no crime but their place of birth.
The people of Rouen knew the French king was on the march and they had taken courage from that knowledge. Consumed by fury, William could hardly bear to think of the rape and slaughter that must have gone on within those walls. There had been hundreds of English families in Rouen. He had seen cities fall before and the memories were among the ugliest things he had ever witnessed. He thought the hanged men were the lucky ones.
Denied the resources of the city, he had been forced to open lines of supply right back to Calais, guarding the roads and losing vital men just to keep the carts coming. At least there was water. Rouen was girdled by the Seine, almost enclosed by a great curve of the river as it cut through the rich soil of the province. His army crossed the river on stone bridges, then made their camp in open fields to the south of the city. They turned their backs on Rouen and began the work of pounding sharp wooden stakes into the ground to defend the position against a cavalry char
ge. Still more of his men used the protection of heavy wooden mantlets to approach the silent city and spike the gates with massive beams and iron nails as long as a man’s forearm. There would be no sudden attack from the rear. William only hoped he would have the chance to visit retribution on those within for what they had done.
The scouts brought in reports every day, all worse than the ones before. William was certain the French king could not have hidden the existence of so many trained men. Half the army he would face had to be peasants drafted for the task and such men had not fared well in the past against English armies. It was a slender thread of hope, but there was not much else to raise his spirits with Rouen at his back.
The open landscape dwarfed even armies, so that it was almost a month after his arrival before William caught his first glimpse of soldiers moving in the distance. He rode closer with a dozen of his senior barons to observe the enemy. What they saw did not please any of them.
It seemed the scouts had not exaggerated. Thousands upon thousands marched north towards the city and the river. William could see blocks of cavalry and armoured knights, as well as the expected host of pikemen so favoured by the French king. From the height of a small hill, William watched them come, all the while counting and assessing, seeing how they moved. Before long, he glimpsed a second group of colourful shields and banners snapping in the breeze. The king’s party of lords had come to the front. From a distance of more than a mile, William watched as one young fool made his horse rear, the hooves kicking air. He reviewed his own position, unpleasantly aware that he had to keep the bridges open across the Seine, or his men could be trapped against the city that had left them to stand alone.
William turned in the saddle to see Baron Alton glaring across the shrinking distance.
‘What do you think, David?’ William asked.
His senior commander shrugged eloquently.
‘I think there are a lot of them,’ he replied. ‘We may run out of arrows before they’re all dead.’
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