Wars of the Roses 01 - Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘Ready archers!’ he bellowed.

  Few of the crossbowmen had survived the mêlée around the mantlets. If the French wanted a victory that day, they were damn well going to have to charge the yew bows they hated. With an effort, William pulled off his helmet, wanting to breathe and see clearly. They were coming and the archers were already bending their bows, waiting for them. He kept a spark of hope alive because of those men – and those men alone.

  19

  ‘I don’t understand what you are saying!’ Margaret retorted, driven to fury. ‘Why this talk of degrees and arcs and shadows? Is it illness or not? Listen to me. There are times when Henry speaks clearly, as if there is nothing wrong. There are other times when he talks without sense, like a child. Then something changes and his eyes grow dull. Do you understand? It lasts for minutes, or hours, or even days, then he revives and my husband looks back at me! Those are your symptoms, Master Allworthy! What herb do you have in your bag for those? This talk of fluxes and the … planets does you no credit at all. Should I have my husband moved from London, if the air carries such a taint here? Can you answer that at least, if you can’t treat whatever ails him?’

  The king’s physician had drawn himself up, his face reddening further with every word she spoke.

  ‘Your Royal Highness,’ Master Allworthy began stiffly. ‘I have dosed and purged the king. I have administered sulphur and a tincture of opium in alcohol I have found to be most effective. I have bled His Grace repeatedly and applied my best leeches to his tongue. Yet his humours remain out of balance! I was trying to explain that I have feared the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter for days, knowing what it might bring. It is an evil time, my lady. His Grace suffers as the representative of his people, do you follow?’ The doctor rubbed the small beard he allowed himself, winding his fingers into the knots of hair as he thought. ‘It may even be his nobility, his holiness, that is his undoing. Royal blood is not as that of other men, my lady. It is a beacon in the darkness, a bonfire on a hill that calls to dark forces. In such a time of unrest and chaos in the heavens, well … if God is ready to clasp His Royal Highness to His embrace, no mere man can stand in the way of that divine will.’

  ‘Oh, stand aside then, Master Allworthy,’ Margaret said, ‘if that is all you have to say. I will not listen to your mealy-mouthed talk of planets any longer, while my husband is in such distress. Stay here and consider your precious Mars and Jupiter. I wish you joy of them.’

  The doctor opened his mouth, growing even redder. Whatever he might have replied was lost as Margaret pushed past him and entered the king’s chambers.

  Henry was sitting up in bed as she entered. The room was gloomy and, as she crossed to him, Margaret’s foot caught on some part of the learned doctor’s equipment. It fell with a crash and made her stumble, then kick out in a temper. A complex contraption of brass, iron and glass went spinning across the floor. In her fury with the doctor, she was tempted to follow it like a fleeing rat and stamp it to pieces.

  Her husband turned his head slowly at the clatter, blinking. He held up bandaged hands and Margaret swallowed as she saw fresh blood on the bindings. She had cleaned and dressed them many times, but she knew he bit at the wounds whenever he was left alone, worrying at them like a child.

  With care, she sat on the bed, looking deeply into her husband’s eyes and seeing only grief and pain reflected. There were scabs on her husband’s bare arms, where the doctor’s narrow knives had opened his veins. He looked thin, with dark circles under his eyes and blue lines showing on his pale skin.

  ‘Are you well, Henry?’ she said. ‘Can you rise? I think this place carries illness on the very air. Would you prefer to be moved along the river to Windsor, perhaps? The air is sweeter there, away from the stinks of London. You can ride to the hunt, eat good red meat and grow strong.’

  To her dismay, her husband began to weep, fighting it, his face crumpling. As she moved to embrace him, he held up his hands between them, as if warding her off. His fingers shook as if he had an ague, a chill, though the room was hot and sweat shone on his face.

  ‘The soups and doses make my senses swim, Margaret, yet I cannot sleep! I have been awake now for … for longer than I can recall. I must not rest until I am certain the kingdom is safe.’

  ‘It is safe!’ Margaret said, desperate to reassure him.

  Henry shook his head in sad reproof.

  ‘My people stir restlessly, knowing not what I do for them. They have taken arms against anointed men and murdered them! Has my army remained? Can you tell me that, or will you bring me news I cannot bear to hear? Have they all deserted me, Margaret?’

  ‘No one has deserted you! No one, do you understand? Your soldiers would stand at your side on the Day of Judgement if you asked them to. London is safe, Henry, I swear it. England is safe. Be at peace and please, please try to sleep.’

  ‘I cannot, Margaret. Even if I wished it, I go on, I go on, burning down like a candle until the snuffer comes.’ He looked vaguely around the shadowed room. ‘Where are my clothes? I should dress and be about my duties.’

  He began to rise and Margaret pressed a hand to his chest, almost recoiling from the heat of his skin as her bare palm touched him. She felt a different ache then, for the man she had married but who had not yet pressed her down. He didn’t struggle against her touch and she caressed his face, soothing him even as it stoked fires inside her. He closed his eyes and lay back against the bolsters and pillows. She grew bolder, uncaring that his doctor still stood outside.

  Margaret leaned forward and kissed her husband on the neck, where his throat was revealed by the open nightshirt. His chest was white and hairless like a boy’s, the arms slender. He smelled of pungent powders, of sulphur and bitter lime. His skin seemed hot to her lips, almost as if she had taken a burn.

  Holding her breath, she let her hand fall to his lap and shifted closer on the bed, so that she leaned over him and was able to kiss him more firmly on the mouth. She felt his lips tremble and his eyes opened, staring into hers with wonder. He gasped into her mouth as she stroked him. She saw muscles twitch and she gentled them with her hands.

  ‘Lie still and let me tend you,’ Margaret whispered into his ear. ‘Let me bring what peace I can.’

  She felt her voice grow hoarse as her throat tightened and a flush stole its way across her face and neck. Her touch seemed to bring him calm, so that she dared not step away to undress. Instead, she kept her lips on his as her hands worried at ties and fastenings, yanking cloth away from her shoulders, baring them. It was impossible. She was terrified he would speak to forbid her, or rise and throw her off. Yet her dress would not come undone! She pressed her head against his neck as she wrestled with it, so that her hair draped across his face.

  ‘I …’ he began, the word smothered instantly as she kissed him again. She could taste the blood that rimed his lips from the leech wounds, like iron in her mouth.

  With one hand she pulled her dress up and tore at the cloth beneath, so that her buttocks were revealed. A stray thought came to her mind of the learned doctor opening the door at that moment and she stifled a giggle as she put one bare leg across her husband and tried to bring about a joining beneath the mass of garments. When she dared to look at Henry, he had his eyes closed once again, but she could feel the proof that his body at least was willing. By God, she’d seen enough animals do this small thing over the years! The ludicrousness of her situation made her want to laugh as she shifted and pressed down, trying to find a position that would work.

  It happened suddenly and unexpectedly, so that they both gasped and Henry’s eyes snapped open. He seemed vague even then, as if he thought it was a dream. Margaret found herself panting as she held his head in her hands and felt his hand reach down to grasp her bare thigh. She could feel the roughness of the bandages touch her skin, making her shudder. She closed her eyes and blushed as an image of William surged into her mind. William who was so very old! She tried to banish the pictur
e, but she could see him in the yard at Saumur, strong and laughing, his hands rough and powerful.

  With her eyes tight shut, she moved on her husband as Yolande had described in the garden of Wetherby House, sharing breath and heat and sweat and forgetting about the doctor’s impatience behind the door. When Henry cried out, Margaret felt her body shiver in response, thin tremors of pleasure amidst the discomfort that somehow promised much more. She felt her husband rise away from the pillows, his arms and back growing hard as he held her, then going suddenly limp, so that he fell back like a dead man. He breathed shallowly as he lay there and Margaret felt warmth flood her loins.

  She rested her head on her husband’s chest until her breathing eased and she felt the soreness that was no worse than she had expected. The frantic images of William faded with vague stirrings of guilt.

  She smiled as she heard Henry begin to snore lightly and when the door opened and the doctor looked in, she did not open her eyes until he went away, not even to see his appalled expression.

  Jack Cade looked around at the men who waited on his orders. Paddy and Rob Ecclestone were there, of course, his trusted lieutenants who could hardly hide their delight at the way things were going. He’d realized early on that a mere rabble of angry farmers would have no chance at all when the sheriff of Kent sent out professional soldiers. The answer had been to train the refugees from France until they could stand and kill in a line, and march, and do as they were damn well told by those who knew.

  ‘Will someone fetch me a flagon of black, or do I have to talk dry?’ Jack said.

  He’d learned it was a good idea to get his drink early in the taverns they used each night. His men had a thirst and the barrels were always dry by the time they moved on. Every morning had them groaning and complaining about their splitting skulls, but Jack didn’t mind that. If he’d learned anything fighting in France years before, it was that Kentish men fight better with a little ale inside them – better still with a skinful.

  The widow behind the bar was not at all happy about men drinking for free. Flora kept a good house, Jack had to admit. There were clean rushes on the floor and the planks and barrels were worn smooth with years of scrubbing. It was true she was no kind of beauty, yet she had the sort of square-jawed stubbornness Jack had always liked. In happier times, he might even have considered courting her. After all, she hadn’t run, not even when two thousand men came marching up the road towards her tavern. That was Kentish, right there. Jack waited patiently while she filled a pewter cup and passed it to him to blow off the froth.

  ‘Thank you, my love,’ he called appreciatively.

  She looked sourly at him, folding her arms in a way he knew from every boarding house and tavern he’d been turned away from over the years. The thought made his spirits rise. They couldn’t turn old Jack Cade out into the night any longer, not now. With huge gulps, he sank the beer to the dregs and gasped, wiping away a thick line from the bristles around his mouth.

  The inn was packed with around eighty of those he’d singled out in the previous few weeks. For the most part, they were men like himself: heavy in the shoulders, with good strong legs and big hands. Every one of them had been born in Kent, it went without saying. With the exception of Paddy himself, Jack was more comfortable with those. He knew how their minds worked, how they thought and how they spoke. As a result, he could speak to them, something he was not accustomed to doing, at least not in crowds.

  Jack looked round at them appreciatively, all waiting on his word.

  ‘Now, I know some of you buggers don’t know me well, so you’re perhaps wondering why Jack Cade tapped you on the shoulder. You’ll know I don’t like to talk the way some do, either, so you’ll know it’s not just froth.’

  They stared back at him and Paddy chuckled in the silence. The big Irishman was wearing new clothes and boots, taken fresh from one of the towns they’d passed and better than anything he had ever owned before. Jack let his eyes drift until he found Rob Ecclestone at the back. That was one more suited to standing in the shadows, where he could keep an eye on the rest. Ecclestone seemed to make the men uncomfortable when he was seen stropping his razor each morning – and that was a good thing, as far as Jack was concerned.

  ‘Fetch me another, would you, Flora?’ Jack called, passing the cup. ‘All right?’

  He turned back to the crowd, enjoying himself.

  ‘I’ve had you buggers running and marching to mend your wind. I’ve made you sweat with pruning hooks and axes, whatever we could find for you. I’ve done all that because when the sheriff of Kent comes against us, he’ll have soldiers with him, as many as he can find. And I ha’n’t come so far to lose it now.’

  A murmur came from the crowd as those who knew each other bent their heads and muttered comments. Jack flushed slightly.

  ‘I’ve heard your tales, lads. I’ve heard about what those bastards did in France, how they gave away your land and then stood back while French soldiers put hands on your women and killed your old men. I’ve heard about the taxes, so a man can work hard all his life and still have nothing when they’ve done taking their share of your money. Well, lads, you’ve got a chance now to make them listen, if you want. You’ll stand in a muddy field with the men you see around you – and the ones outside. You’ll watch the sheriff’s soldiers marching up with their swords and bows and you’ll want to forget how bleeding angry you are at them. You’ll want to run and let them win, with your piss running down your legs as you go.’

  The packed tavern seemed almost to shake as the men inside it growled and shouted that they would do no such thing. Jack’s lips curled in amusement as he took his second ale and sank it as fast as the first.

  ‘I’ve known that fear, lads, so don’t go telling me about how brave you are when you’re standing safe in the warm. Your guts will tighten and your heart will jump and you’ll want to be anywhere else.’ His voice hardened and his eyes glittered, the old anger rising in him with the drink. ‘But if you do, you won’t be Kentish men. You won’t even be men. You’ll get one chance to knock their teeth back into their head, just one fight where they’ll expect you to run and piss yourself. If you stand, they won’t know what’s hit them and we’ll go through them like wheat, I swear to God. We’ll put that sheriff’s head on a stick and carry it like a fucking banner! We’ll march on London, boys, if you can stand. Just once, and then you’ll know you have the stomach for it.’

  He looked around the room, satisfied at what he saw in their expressions.

  ‘When you go out, I want each of you to pick a dozen men. They’ll be yours, so learn their names and have them learn each other’s. I want them to know that if they run, their mates will be the ones they leave behind, understand? Not strangers, their mates. Have them drink together and train together every day until they’re as close to brothers as you can make them. That way we have a chance.’

  He lowered his head for a moment, almost as if he were praying. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse.

  ‘Then, when you hear me shout, or Paddy or Rob, you follow. You do as you’re told and you watch the sheriff’s soldiers fall. I’ll point you in the right direction. I know how. You take your one chance and you take heads. You’ll walk right over the men who stand against us.’

  Paddy and Rob cheered and the rest of them joined in. Jack waved a hand to Flora and she spat on the floor in disgust, but began passing out more flagons of ale. Over the noise, Jack raised his voice once again, though his sight was blurring. The black ale was good enough to pay for, if he’d been paying.

  ‘There’s more and more Kentish men coming in to join us every day, lads. The whole county knows what we’re about by now and there’s more from France every day as well. They say Normandy is falling and that our fine king has betrayed us all again. Well, I have an answer to that!’

  He raised a hatchet from where it had been lying by his boots and slammed the blade into the wooden bar. In an instant of silence, Flora swore. The
word she used made them all laugh as they cheered and drank. Jack raised his cup to them.

  Thomas walked with a slight limp, the remnant of the injury he’d taken. The stitches had puckered into a swollen line that ran across his hip and stretched painfully with every step. After a week of crossing fields and hiding in ditches, it was strange to use the roads again. He and Rowan blended well into the miserable, straggling crowd of refugees heading towards Calais. There was no room on most of the carts, already creaking under the weight of anyone with a few coins to spend. Thomas and Rowan had nothing between them, so they trudged on with lowered heads, just putting as many miles under their boots as they could each day. Thomas tried to stay alert, but hunger and thirst made him listless and he sometimes came to evening with very little memory of the roads he’d taken. It grated on his nerves to travel in the open, but neither he nor his son had seen a French soldier for days. They were off somewhere else, perhaps with better things to do than harass and rob the flood of English families leaving France.

  The twilight was shading into darkness when Thomas dropped. With a grunt, he simply crumpled and lay flat in the road, with refugees stepping over him. Rowan heaved him up and then gave his horn-handled seax to a carter willing to shove two more into the back. The man even shared a thin soup with them that night, which Rowan spooned into his father’s mouth. They were in no worse a state than many of those around them, but it helped to be carried along.

  Another day passed with the world reduced to a square of sky visible through the back of the cart. Rowan stopped looking out when he saw three men battering and robbing some helpless soul. No one went to the man’s aid and the cart trundled on, leaving the scene behind.

  They were not asleep when the cart came to a halt, just in a state of dazed stupor that made the days a blur. Rowan sat up with a start when the carter thumped loudly on the flat sides of his wagon. There were three others pressed in with the archers, two old men and a woman Rowan understood was married to one of them, though he wasn’t sure which. The old folks stirred sluggishly as the carter continued to thump and rouse them all.