‘It all depends,’ Horner tells them, ‘on whether the Scots treat with the false King Edward. If they do, then we’ll have them coming at our backs from the north, and Lord Montagu coming at us from the south. We’ll be caught, you see?’
He demonstrates by scraping a gloved finger in the ice. It is perfectly obvious.
‘I thought the Scots and King Edward had already made a treaty, which is why King Henry had to leave there, and come here?’
‘Yes,’ Horner admits, vaguely, since his information is patchy and his understanding thin at its fringes. ‘But that was just to get them to eject King Henry from Scotland. This treaty is to get them – those Scots – to join Montagu in hounding us.’
‘So what to do?’ she asks.
Horner tells them that the Duke of Somerset has decided the only way to stop a treaty between the Scots and the Earl of March is to ensure their negotiators never meet, and that he is trying to discover the negotiators’ whereabouts, so that he can capture them, or kill them, no one knows quite which.
‘Would it be a good idea to kill the Scots?’ Thomas ventures. ‘Won’t they then become your enemies?’
‘Our enemies,’ Horner corrects, but agrees.
Patrols are sent out into the snow. Sir Ralph Grey does not volunteer his men.
‘Pointless exercise,’ he says. ‘We aren’t going to just bump into the bastards, are we?’
But information is acquired and tidings come back. The Scots are sending their negotiators south from their capital to wait for an escort of Montagu’s men at a place called Norham, on the River Tweed. It is a castle to the north of Bamburgh, held by men loyal to King Edward. Lord Montagu is to ride north from Newcastle, through this area controlled, although only loosely, by King Henry, to collect the Scottish negotiators and bring them back down to Newcastle, through the same lands again, to negotiate with King Edward’s negotiators who in their turn are coming up from London to meet them there.
Meanwhile, worse tidings are confirmed: King Edward is also treating with the French and the Burgundians, who in the past have been friends of King Henry, and if he manages that, then it is all over: all hope is lost to Lancaster. It is not just a question of the long-term promises on which they have banked these past months, years even, that they will lose: it will be the day-to-day necessities – wheat, oats, ale – and without them … Well, as for the men of Bamburgh and Alnwick, of Dunstanburgh and the many little fortresses that litter the Northern Marches – not even toads and bats will sustain them. They will have to give up their resistance and make terms with the same Yorkists who killed their fathers and their brothers at Towton. Knowing this, King Henry sends out letters and messages to his wife, his wife’s father, the same Duke who sent the supplies at Christmas, to the King of France, to the Duke of Burgundy, to anyone who will accept his letters and might have ‘un peu d’argent’ to spare, imploring them not to treat with the House of York, not to abandon the House of Lancaster. It is, more or less, all he can do.
And instead of the rush of men hurrying to join King Henry’s side that Somerset had promised, if anything the number has dwindled. Two or three a day, and none of them with many in their retinue, and the longer it goes on, past Candlemas and into February, the more certain Katherine becomes that Edmund Riven will not join his father, but will remain at liberty, enjoying King Edward’s grace. Knowing the parlous state of King Henry’s world, it is the only thing a sane man might do.
When the newly arrived see what it is they have come to join, their faces fall, and she can see them itching to back out, to return to wherever and whatever it is they’ve left, but the Duke of Somerset, a terrific escapee himself, has tightened the security, and now all the old soldiers who’ve been loyal to King Henry in exile, men who have nothing left to lose, stand gaolers over the newcomers.
‘By all the saints,’ Jack says, banging his fist against the wet stonework. ‘When? When? Fuck me! We’ll never get out of this bloody place!’
PART FIVE
South, to Tynedale, Northumberland, Before Easter 1464
19
THE COMPANY VINTENARS are with their men in the butts, and out in the dunes, morning till night, come rain or shine, and in the bailey there is always shouting, and the constant ripple of men practising with bills and hammers. Thomas watches them for a while, and sees how quick and supple the best are, constantly twisting one another’s wrists, changing their angles of attack, using their weapons in unexpected ways, and getting through their enemies’ blades to strike them. Now that they have shed their coats, it is possible to see their livery colours, and Riven’s men are among them, Thomas sees, and their comings-together – ‘fights’ is too grand a word for such swift couplings – are models of brutality and merciless economy: one man thrusts, the other evades, twists, turns and brings his hammer’s fluke around to ring against the first man’s helmet. It might just as easily have been in his eye.
‘They don’t hang about, do they?’ Jack volunteers.
‘Hmmm,’ Thomas agrees, ‘but who are all these others?’
‘Those in the red and green are Lord Hungerford’s,’ Jack tells him, ‘and those in the blue and yellow are Roos’s. They should be all right, though? Surely? Don’t look too bad?’
Thomas is not so sure. He shrugs.
‘I suppose there is still time.’
But there isn’t. Or not much. Word goes out that Sir Humphrey Neville of Brancepeth is to lead a party down south, to try to intercept Lord Montagu as Montagu rides north on his way to collect the Scottish negotiators. Humphrey Neville’s lands are to the south of Newcastle, and it is supposed he knows them, so that is where he intends to spring the trap, and he and his men take as many arrows and as much of the remaining oats as they can to keep themselves alive in the field.
‘What a relief he’s gone,’ Horner tells them, ‘for he makes Sir Ralph seem moderate in his whims.’
Meanwhile the rest of the garrison, along with almost every other man in the north who is still loyal to King Henry, are to be gathered in Bamburgh, ready to sally out in support of the many small uprisings that are reported all over the land. Horner is delighted.
‘This is it,’ he says. ‘It is now or never, do or die. This is the time when King Henry will count on his loyal friends, and in the future, he will remember us. You should hear Sir Ralph talk. He thinks that by the end of this not only will he be castellan of Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh, he will be the Earl of Northumberland, rising higher than the Percys and the Nevilles! He has great plans for a new livery the like of which – well, it sounds fantastical, that is all I can say.’
And still Edmund Riven does not come.
‘Where is he? When will he come?’ Thomas keeps asking Katherine, but she does not know.
‘And where is the ledger? Why has that not surfaced? Do you believe he can really have it still?’
He knows he is letting his frustration grow, but after the long hibernation through the winter, the Duke of Somerset is preparing his army to fight, and Thomas’s vague anxiety at the thought of it, of going to fight Montagu’s men, solidifies into fear. He does not want to go anywhere, not just with these men, who do not fill him with any confidence, but with any men. More than that, he does not want to have to ride out and fight anyone, least of all Montagu’s men, whom he vividly recalls manning the gates of Newcastle. He does not mention this to anyone, not even Katherine, lest she thinks him a coward, but he never came here to fight alongside men he might even have fought in the past, and he values his life more than he values this cause. Christ, he thinks, he values his bootstraps more than he values this cause.
But they are caught, still, again, as ever they were, in the same trap that has held them fast since they arrived at Alnwick, months ago. It is not just the question of getting over the walls, though that is hard enough, nor is it merely the question of finding horses when they’ve done so, though again, that would be hard enough too. It is really the question of getting
past the patrols Somerset sends out, ridden by men who are more like the men they call the prickers, who roam a battlefield’s rear and whose job it is to strike more fear into a man than his known enemy, whoever that enemy might be.
‘What are we going to do?’ Katherine asks, divining his unspoken thoughts. ‘We can’t join this lot in their fight, can we? I mean, do you want to? I don’t. I don’t want you to. I know I will be left at the rear, and I will do my best to stitch men up, but look at them. They are not good archers, even I know that. They are farm boys, pretending. That one. Look at him. He has no bracer. He will be shouting with pain after he has loosed ten arrows. And that one – he has a hunting bow! You will be against trained archers, equipped with proper bows loosing proper arrows.’
He gets Horner to call the men to the butts once more and they spend the next few days there, loosing, collecting, loosing, collecting, sending the arrows in precise waves, each time faster and further than before. But it is only his men he can make do this. The others – Hungerford’s men and Roos’s men – watch from behind, and they admire or laugh at their exertions, but that is it, until one of Horner’s men gets into a fight with one of theirs and has to be dragged off while both are still struggling to free their daggers from their belts, and that is depressing in its own way.
And then Humphrey Neville of Brancepeth returns from setting his ambush for Montagu with not a single casualty and it is possible to imagine how, for a moment, the guards on the gates might have thought he had set his ambush so cleverly that he must have annihilated Montagu’s men, but then it emerges that Montagu’s scouts disturbed the ambush, and that consequently Montagu went around it, and reached Newcastle unmolested.
Somerset is said to be furious, and so now he has decided that they must risk everything, and so St Ambrose’s day, in early April, is the appointed day, and they gather in the bailey in their companies, in their livery coats, ready to march out of the castle to intercept Montagu on his way north, and there is great excitement and even a sense of purpose and for the first time Thomas is able to see this beleaguered little army as a fellowship, one forged by the common endurance of hard times, and he can see that they share a feeling of togetherness, camaraderie even, when most suspicions are laid aside and men in red-and-black livery might stand happily with men in yellow-and-blue, or even white with clumsy approximations of ravens on their chests, and there are mentions of King Henry’s father, who took his own beleaguered little army through France, and, in the thin spring sunshine, one might almost think anything were possible.
But this camaraderie does not include Thomas. He is thinking of only two things, the first of which is the chance this venture will offer to send a stray arrow where it should not be sent: into the back of Giles Riven. And the second, that must necessarily follow on the first: escape. He does not know how or when, but he knows the chance will come. He will seize it, when it does, and loose the arrow and then ride, just as he should have done months ago. He has spoken to Jack and John Stump about leaving – he did not call it deserting – and they will come with him and Katherine. Four are better that two. It is true he is giving up on the ledger, but realistically, what chance is there that it has not been burned? He cannot imagine why anyone would ever steal it in the first place, let alone keep it, other than for lighting a fire. Nevertheless he watches Riven’s men now piling their wagon high with all sorts of odd-shaped sacks and bags and boxes.
Could the ledger be on there? Or would they leave it behind?
‘Is Riven himself coming?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I have not seen him for a month. I doubt he could have become so strong as to ride a horse, though, let alone fight.’
He thinks about Sir Ralph Grey’s bet with William Tailboys: how many nobles was it if Riven could mount a horse?
But then there is a thin trumpet blast from the merlons of the keep, and from its doorway come, of all things, two columns of Sir Giles Riven’s men. They emerge from within to part – ten men going one way, ten the other – until they form a line, a backdrop, either side of the doorway, and then, after a pause, King Henry comes out, wearing a helmet with an open face and a coronet attached, studded with what look like gemstones – red and green.
‘He could sell that,’ someone mutters. ‘Buy us all a round of ale.’
King Henry acts as if there ought to be a cheer now, but there isn’t, and Thomas can see from the King’s expression that he is merely following orders from – probably – Somerset, whom Thomas can imagine is waiting inside, barking through the doorway, and that King Henry would rather do anything but this, would rather creep quietly to prayers.
Apart from the helmet, he is wearing what looks like a monk’s cassock, and the men in the bailey are struck silent. They are not complicated men, Thomas supposes, and all they need to see is something they think worth following. King Henry is not that something. He looks miserably uninspiring, and he knows it, and he mumbles something apologetic that can only be heard at the front of the crowd, and there is a limp sort of cheer and then from the keep comes Sir Giles Riven, and even so diminished as he is by his wound, he still exudes something, something King Henry is lacking. It may not be what the men in the bailey want, though, since there are hisses when he appears, as when Beelzebub appears in a mummers’ play.
He glares at the crowd below him, looking to find someone to dare to stand up and say something, but no man catches his eye, and once the hissing has died down, silence resumes, grows, and King Henry shifts from foot to foot and then says something again and a ruddy-faced Grey is there at his shoulder, as well as that beardless capering priest, and they both laugh as if neither has heard anything so funny and Riven turns slowly to them and in a moment they fall silent.
Riven stands waiting, neither patient nor impatient, more tolerating what must be tolerated, and under his travelling cloak he has a sword belt wrapped around his waist, and he is in riding boots, folded down to the knee, and gloves and a hat pulled down over his ears, and it seems he has been within for so long that he is unused to the cold, and that his eyes are watering in the chill breeze.
So he is coming too, Thomas sees, and he watches his fingers grip his new bow, just as if it were they who hate Riven, just as if his body remembers why he hates the man so, even if his mind has forgotten, but he knows this time he will have a chance, and this time, it will be easy, and at least when they return to Marton they will have achieved one thing. An arrow. In that moment of chaos, if they manage to find Montagu’s men, and if they manage to draw them into a fight, and if not, then – some other way. But a chance will come, he is sure, out there, and he will save an arrow for that moment. He has a sheaf of the best with his few possessions on a cart, guarded by John Stump, and he can almost see the one he will send flying into Riven’s back. He thinks it is even slightly funny, that he will be replacing one arrowhead with another, but as he is laughing, he unearths a different image, a memory, of standing on a hillside in the falling gloom, and of bending a bow to loose an arrow across a snow-filled valley, and of hitting a man, and knocking him down, and feeling he’d somehow missed. He shudders as if at the cold, and then finds Katherine’s hand on his shoulder blade, and she is concerned. Others have turned too. He must have cried out.
But now King Henry is talking again, saying something Thomas cannot hear for King Henry does not have a voice that will carry. But as he speaks a steward emerges to lead a saddled horse up the steps to where Riven stands with a curled lip, and a mounting block is brought up made of a broad log, and placed beside the waiting horse, and for a moment no one can see what is happening because King Henry and Sir Giles Riven are hidden behind the horse, but it seems that King Henry himself is helping Riven to step up on to it, with a servant and the steward nearby, their hands ready to catch either if he should fall. Nearby all the King’s men look on with mixed expressions. Grey is there, grinning and hopping from foot to foot, while Tailboys is thunderous.
�
�Hope the fucker falls off,’ one of the men next to Thomas mutters.
When Riven is mounted he turns to the crowd, and stares at them as if he has done this to spite them, and then uses his heels to nudge the horse forward, and with that, Grey has won his bet, and Tailboys lost his, and John Stump looks around for Katherine.
‘Kit!’ he shouts. ‘It was Kit!’
And Katherine looks over from her place by the cart and a frown pinches her forehead but John goes on shouting about how she – he – was the one who should take the credit. Horner interrupts and calls that they were lucky to have such a God-gifted surgeon to ride with them into battle, and that if by any ill luck they should find themselves wounded or injured, then they know that they will have the services of the man who taught the King’s physician a thing or two, and what could be better than that? Did Montagu have such a resource? No!
It is hardly stirring, Thomas thinks, but the men seem mildly reassured, even if they are reassured more for their friends, for no man goes into a fight thinking he will be the one to need a surgeon, and it shows that Horner is at least considerate, not just of his men, but where credit was owed. Katherine flushes, even up to the point of her half-ear.
And so, led by King Henry and Sir Giles Riven, and then by the Duke of Somerset and the other lords – Roos and Hungerford – and Sir Ralph Percy and Sir Ralph Grey, and Sir Humphrey Neville of Wherever it is, they march out through the dank shadows of the barbican and then finally into the spring sunshine, and the Duke, who has found some newish harness, lets the sunlight catch on its polished parts, and his horse is good, and eager for exercise, and the King’s long banner is made to stir by his standard-bearer and they ride down the hill and away from the castle and the long trail of marching men unwinds behind them, with every man there wishing he had a horse of his own.
Kingmaker: Broken Faith Page 29