Wars of the Roses 01 - Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  Derry stood aside with the rest, watching as the earl’s soldiers marched on with their heads high. Warwick led his six hundred armoured men through them without a sideways glance, following the vanishing rear of Cade’s Freemen.

  ‘God save us from young fools,’ Derry heard Scales say to himself as they passed, making him smile.

  ‘Where to now, my lord?’ Derry said, pleased that at least his breathing was getting easier.

  Scales looked at him. Both of them could hear the noise of moving men on all sides, creeping around their little force like rats in a barn. Scales frowned.

  ‘If Cade himself is heading to the Guildhall, the choice is clear enough, though I’d rather not follow on the tail of such a Neville cockerel. Are you certain the Tower and the queen are safe?’

  Derry considered.

  ‘I cannot be sure, my lord, though there are king’s men to hold it. I have runners – I don’t doubt they are looking for me. Until I reach one of the spots they know, I’m as blind as that young Neville, with Cade’s lot roaming all over London. I can’t tell where they will strike next.’

  Scales showed his weariness as he rubbed a hand over his face.

  ‘As tempting as it is to think of Lord Warwick running into Cade’s bully boys, I should reinforce him. I cannot split such a small force further. Damn it, Brewer, there are just too many of them! Must we chase them all night?’

  Derry looked round in time to see a rush of men come skidding round a corner ahead of them. With a great shout, they began to charge the group of men-at-arms, holding swords and billhooks.

  ‘It seems they’ll come to us, my lord,’ Derry shouted as he readied himself. ‘They’re most obliging like that.’

  Paddy wielded a hammer as if his life depended on it, which, he had to admit, it did. He’d been surprised when Jack took him aside in Southwark the night before, but it made sense. Jack would lead the king’s men on a chase through the rest of the city, but to gain entrance to the Tower would take precious time. Running straight for it and then hammering at the gatehouse while every soldier in London converged on that spot would be a quick road to the Tyburn gibbets the following morning – and slit throats for most.

  He paused for a moment to wipe the sweat that poured into his eyes and stung.

  ‘Jesus, they built this door like a mountain,’ he said.

  The men around him hacked heavy axes into the ancient wood, wrenching the blades back and forth to spit splinters as wide as a forearm out on to the stones. They’d been at the work for an hour of solid labour, with fresh men taking the weapons as each group tired. It was Paddy’s third turn with a hammer and the men around him had learned to give him room after he’d knocked one down with broken ribs.

  As he began to swing again, Paddy leaned back and tried to listen to the scurrying footsteps beyond the gatehouse. He knew they would be waiting and he had no way of knowing if there were a few dozen or a thousand men making ready for him. The gatehouse had one weakness and he thanked God for it. Separated from the main walls, the stone mass of the gatehouse itself protected his men from arrows and bolts. He’d already heard the rattle of a portcullis coming down somewhere further on, but a few of his lads had swum the moat and shoved iron bars through the drawbridge chains. It would stay down and, judging by the damage done to the outer door, Woodchurch had been right about one thing. Enough men with hammers and axes could smash their way through just about anything. Paddy felt the door give as he put all his strength and weight into another blow. The burly axemen had cut a long, thin hole in one of the iron-clasped beams. There were lights moving around across the moat in there and Paddy tried not to think of the damage archers could do shooting at him while he hammered away at an iron lattice. It would be brutal work and he’d called a few shield-bearers to dart in as best they could. It wasn’t much, but it might save a few lives, his own among them.

  With a great crack, one of the iron hinges failed. Somehow, the central lock stayed in place, so that the door yawned in at the top. With two others hammering between his blows, Paddy belted at the iron fastenings even faster, feeling great shudders go up his arms and his grip weaken.

  ‘Come on, boy,’ he said, to the gate as well as himself. He saw the iron lock shear bright and clean and he almost fell through on to the jammed drawbridge with the power of his last swing.

  ‘Mother of God,’ he said in awe then, looking across the walkway to an iron lattice twice his height. Arrows thumped into it from the courtyard beyond. Only a few came through, but Paddy’s men were packed in around the broken door and two fell, swearing and shouting in pain.

  ‘Shields here!’ Paddy called. ‘Get a rhythm going – the boys will swing, then you step in with shields to guard us between each blow. We’ll have that iron beauty down in an eye-blink.’

  They raced forward, roaring to frighten the defenders as they came up against the cold grid. It was made of straps of black iron, bolted together with polished spike heads showing at each junction. Paddy rested his hand on the metal. With enough force against the junctions, he thought the bolts could be broken.

  Through the portcullis, Paddy could see the inner towers of the fortress. Above them all, the White Tower stood tall and pale in the moonlight, with dark shadows swarming around it. His eyes gleamed, both at the thought of the violence to come and the Royal Mint. He’d never stand as close to such wealth again, not if he lived for a hundred years.

  Margaret felt goose pimples run up her arms as she shivered, looking down. The rain had stopped at last, leaving the ground a quagmire below her feet. Stamping and blowing in the cold, four hundred king’s men were waiting for the besiegers to break their way in. From the height of the entrance to the White Tower, she could see them made black against the torches, line upon line of standing soldiers. She had watched them prepare, struck with awe at their calm. Perhaps this was why the English had crushed so many French armies, she thought. They didn’t panic, even when the odds and the numbers were against them.

  The officer in charge was a tall guard captain named Brown. Dressed in a white tabard over chain mail, with a sword dangling from his hip, he was a dashing figure, easily visible. He had introduced himself to her with an elaborate bow earlier that day, a man young for his authority who seemed to think the chances of Cade even reaching the Tower were slim. Margaret had been touched at the young man’s attempts to reassure her. She noted Captain Brown had cultivated large black whiskers almost as fine as those of her brother-in-law, Frederick. The sight of them bristling as he moved his lips in thought made her want to smile every time she saw him. Even when news had come of the forces marching closer, Brown remained confident, at least when he reported to her. In just a short time, she’d come to value the brief moments when he returned to the bottom of the steps, his face flushed from checking on all the posts. With his head cocked, he’d look up to see if she was still there, then smile when she came out. If all those brief times were added together, they would have made less than an hour, but still, she felt she knew him.

  Margaret had seen the captain’s frustration when his archers on the walls found they had few targets. The mob outside had sent only a small group to hammer the gatehouse door and then break the portcullis, while the rest stayed back as a dark blot, waiting to come roaring in when they were given the chance. As the moon rose, Margaret could hear the occasional yelp as a crossbow bolt found its mark, but it was hard to aim well in the darkness and the hammering blows outside went on and on, first against wood and then the higher, ringing tones of strikes on iron.

  Captain Brown had yelled for a group of crossbowmen to come down off the walls and do their work below. Margaret had found herself shuddering in the night air as he sent them right up to the portcullis, so that they put their weapons almost to the iron lattice before pulling the triggers. The hammering had fallen away to nothing for a time, as those outside arranged their shields against the iron. The speed of the blows had surely lessened, but they still came. One by on
e, the bolts and junctions sheared with a hard note, different from the striking blows. Margaret felt herself jump as each one failed, forcing herself to smile and stand still on the steps.

  As the ranks of king’s men took their positions to withstand the first rush, Margaret saw the white tabard of Captain Brown as he came striding back, looking up at his queen from across the open space. She waited for him, her hands gripping the wooden railing tightly.

  ‘Your Royal Highness,’ he called up. ‘I’d hoped for reinforcements, but without a miracle, I think these men will be upon us at any moment.’

  ‘What would you have me do?’ Margaret replied, pleased that she too could affect calm and that her voice didn’t tremble.

  ‘If you’ll permit, my lady, I’ll have a few of the men destroy these stairs. If you wouldn’t mind standing back, we’ll have them down in an instant. I have left six good men to hold the doorway of the White Tower. You have my word that you’ll be safe, as long as you stay up there.’

  Margaret bit her lip, looking from the face of the earnest young officer to those waiting to withstand the flood.

  ‘Can you not join your men here in the tower, captain? I …’ She blushed, unsure how to make the offer of sanctuary without offending him. To her surprise, he beamed up at her, delighted at something.

  ‘You could order it, my lady, but um … if you don’t mind, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. My place is down here and, who knows, we may send them running yet.’

  Before Margaret could speak again, a dozen men carrying axes and hammers had run up and Captain Brown was busy giving instructions.

  ‘Stand clear now, if you please, Your Highness,’ he called from below.

  Margaret took a step back, crossing from the wooden stairs to the open stone door of the tower, even as the steps began to shudder and shake. It was not long before the whole structure collapsed and Margaret watched from a height as the men set about reducing each piece to useless kindling. She found there were tears in her eyes as Captain Brown saluted her before returning to his men, all waiting for the portcullis to fail and the fighting to begin.

  28

  Jack Cade came out of the Guildhall, winding a bit of rough hemp rope in his hands. He’d cheered with Ecclestone and the others when the king’s own treasurer had been strung up to dance, the lord’s face growing purple as they watched and laughed. Lord Say had been one of those responsible for the king’s taxes and Jack felt no remorse at all. In fact, he’d cut the piece of rope as a keepsake and he was only sorry he couldn’t find a few more of those who commanded the bailiffs and sheriffs around the country.

  When he looked up from his thoughts, his eyes widened. There were still men coming into the open square around the Guildhall. Those who had been there for some time had found barrels of beer or spirits, that much was clear. Already drunk on violence and success, they’d used the time he’d been inside to loot every house around. Some of them were singing, others lying completely senseless, or dozing with their arms wrapped around cork-stoppered clay bottles. Still more were taking out their spite on the survivors of the last group to attack them. The few king’s soldiers left alive had been disarmed and were being shoved back and forth in a ring of men, punched and kicked wherever they turned.

  Jack glanced at Ecclestone in disbelief as he saw staggering men walk past with armfuls of stolen goods. Two of them were wrestling with a bolt of shimmering cloth, coming to blows and knocking each other down as he stared at them. Jack frowned as a woman began screaming nearby, the sound becoming a croak as someone choked her to silence.

  Thomas Woodchurch came out behind Cade, his expression hardening as he viewed the chaos and blood-spattered stones.

  ‘Sodom and Gomorrah, Jack,’ he muttered. ‘If it goes on, they’ll all be asleep by dawn and they’ll find their throats cut. Can you put them back in harness? We’re vulnerable here – and drunken fools can’t fight.’

  Cade was a little tired of Woodchurch thinking he knew best all the time. He kept silent, thinking. His own throat ached for a drink, but it would wait, he told himself. The rainstorm had passed, but London was still reeling. He sensed his one chance was in danger of slipping away. He’d bowed his head to king’s men all his life, been forced to look down from the hard eyes of judges as they put on the red or green robe and pronounced their judgments. For just a time, he could kick their teeth in, but he knew it wouldn’t last.

  ‘Come tomorrow, they’ll appoint new men to chase us,’ he grumbled. ‘But what if they do? I have put the fear of God into them tonight. They’ll remember that.’

  Woodchurch looked up at the Kentish captain, his irritation showing. He’d hoped for more than just a night of bloodshed and looting. With a fair number of the men, he’d hoped to change the city, perhaps even to wrench some sort of freedom from the hands of the king’s men. They’d all learned King Henry was long gone by then, but it didn’t have to end in drunken madness, not if Cade kept going. A few dead nobles, a few bits of cloth and pouches of gold. It was nowhere near enough to repay what had been taken.

  ‘Dawn can’t be far off now,’ Woodchurch said. ‘I’m for the Tower. If the king is gone as they say, at least I can leave London a rich man. Are you game, Jack?’

  Cade smiled, looking up at the passage of the moon overhead.

  ‘I sent Paddy there in the first rush. He’s either dead or in by now. I’ll walk with you, Tom Woodchurch, if you’ll walk with me.’

  They laughed like boys then, while Ecclestone looked on sourly at this display of camaraderie. A moment later, Jack began ordering his men back to the streets. His voice was a bass roar that echoed back from the houses of aldermen all around.

  Derry was exhausted. He knew he was a dozen years younger than Lord Scales and could only wonder at the source of the man’s manic energy as they reached yet another alleyway and trotted down it in pitch darkness. At least the rain had eased off. They had four men out before and behind, calling warnings or opportunities as they found them. They’d been fighting in the streets for hours and Derry had lost count of the men he’d killed in the black night, small moments of horror and fear while he cut strangers or felt the pain as their knives and clubs got through to him in turn.

  He’d bound his leg where some nameless Kentish ploughboy had stuck a spear into it. A spear! Derry could still hardly believe he’d been wounded by something that had decorative ribbons on the shaft. He carried the first few feet of it in his left hand by then, having ripped the last owner from life. A heavy seax was stuck through his belt and Derry wasn’t alone in having picked up weapons from the dead. After so long struggling with strangers in the wind and dark, he was just desperate to see the sun again.

  Scales’s men were down to just three dozen from the original eighty. They’d lost only a few at a time before running straight into a couple of hundred looters. Those men had been stinking drunk, which was a blessing as it had slowed them down. Yet that little stand had left almost half Scales’s men dying on their backs in filth and their own blood.

  It was all falling apart, Derry could feel it. Cade’s men had reached the heart of the city and whatever rage had brought them in had exploded into a desire to loot, rape and murder while they could. It was something Derry knew well, from battles he’d seen, something about killing and surviving that put a shine in the blood and made a man wild. They might have been an army of Kentish Freemen coming in, but they’d become a savage and terrifying mob. Londoners crouched behind their own doors across the city, whispering prayers that no one would try to get in.

  ‘East again,’ Scales ordered from up ahead. ‘My scouts say there are fifty or so ahead, by the Cockspur Inn. We can hit them while they’re still bringing out the barrels.’

  Derry shook his head to clear it, wishing he had a drink himself. London had more than three hundred taverns and alehouses. He’d already passed a dozen he knew from his youth, buildings shuttered and dark with the owners barricaded inside. Licking dry lips, Derry would have
given a gold coin for a pint at that point, especially as he’d thrown away his water flask after seeing it pierced. The thing had probably saved his life, but its loss left him dry as a panting dog.

  ‘East again,’ he agreed.

  Cade seemed to be heading back across the city and, in the condition they were in, all Scales and Derry could do was shadow him from a distance and pick off some of the smaller groups milling around in his wake – preferably the drunken ones, if they had a choice. Derry raised his head. He knew this part of the city. He took his bearings, rubbing his face with both hands to sharpen himself up. They were on Three Needle Street, a haunt from before he’d begun shaving. The livery hall of the Merchant Taylors was close by.

  ‘Hold there a moment, Lord Scales, if you would be so good,’ Derry called. ‘Let me see if there’s anyone waiting for me.’

  Scales gestured irritably and Derry jogged off down the road, his feet squelching to the ankles. He’d been lost without his informants, but with the city heaving with knots of fighting, he’d been unable to find them. He reached the livery house and saw nothing. With a soft curse, he was turning to go back to the group when someone stepped out from a shadowed doorway. Derry jerked his spearhead up in shock at the sound, convinced he was about to be attacked.

  ‘Master Brewer? Sorry, sir. I wasn’t sure it was you.’

  Derry gathered himself, clearing his throat to cover his embarrassment.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he said, his free hand resting on the hilt of the seax in his belt, just in case. Loyalty was in short supply that night.

  ‘John Burroughs, sir,’ the shadow replied. Under the eaves of the houses above, there was almost no light.

  ‘Well? You’ve found me, then,’ Derry snapped. ‘If you ask me for the password, I may just hand you your own entrails. Just tell me what you know.’

  ‘Right, sir, sorry. I came from the Tower, sir. When I left, they’d broken through the outer gatehouse.’