Sons of the Blood: New World Rising Series book 1

by Robyn Young

  Harry’s cheeks reddened. ‘You know nothing of me!’

  ‘But I know what it is to be our father’s son. To serve as his page and follow him on the hunt and into battle. To be trained by him.’ Jack savoured the fury that flared in Harry’s eyes at this. That wrath would lure him in, make him careless. ‘I was thirteen when my hand was first blooded, fighting at his side. I know, brother, what it is to bear his blade.’ At this, Jack turned the sword in the light, so the words inscribed in Latin flared to life down the length of steel.

  As Above, So Below.

  As Harry’s gaze shifted to the sword, taking it in properly, his eyes widened in recognition. With a hoarse shout, he ran at Jack. The attack was fierce, but clumsy. Jack ducked easily from the savage swing meant to cleave his head. As Harry’s sword came crashing to the boards, Jack stamped on the blade then punched his brother in the gut. However much rage demanded blood, he kept that hunger at bay. The prince he thought he could find by himself. But he needed Harry alive to tell him where the map was.

  Harry staggered backwards, gasping. Jack went at him, intending to disarm him, but his foot clipped one of the fallen roof timbers and he went flying. He landed on his stomach, mortar dust puffing up around his face, his sword caught under him. Hearing boots pummel the boards, he twisted away, rolling from the sword that came smashing down where his head had been.

  His weapon was no longer in his hands. He reached for it, but Harry was there, striking out again. His brother’s blade caught him a glancing blow, scoring his arm, enough to draw blood in a long red line. Jack snatched his hand away, then lunged upwards meaning to grab his brother’s belt and pull him off balance. Instead, he caught hold of the pouch buckled there. It tore open at his tug, scattering gold coins. Harry fell forward, his sword clattering from his grip. He rolled over, but Jack was on him.

  Jack straddled his brother’s stomach, pinning his arms with his knees and holding down his shoulders with his hands. As one of the coins, a gold angel, rolled to a stop against his finger, he remembered Harry’s words in the lodge, when he was bound and helpless before him. They paid me well to tell them. All of a sudden that beast of rage was upon him, clouding sense and reason.

  Taking his hands from his brother’s shoulders, Jack curled them around his neck. ‘You know nothing of our father. Nothing of his legacy, or the man he truly was.’ He was gratified to see the question, the frustration, in his brother’s eyes. He squeezed, satisfied too by the feel of his brother’s neck constricting between his hands, by his struggling. ‘By your words you killed my mother. You took her – my father’s love – from this world.’ In the corner of his eye, Jack saw the avenging archangel, Michael, slaying his dragon over and over on the gold faces of the fallen coins. Goading him on. ‘I’ll set that right,’ he breathed, hands tightening. ‘Your soul for hers.’

  There were pounding footsteps in the passage outside. A man burst into the chamber. It was Valentine Holt. He was covered in blood. How much of it was his wasn’t clear, but he was evidently wounded, hand pressed to his ribs where his shirt was soaked red. He took in the sight of Jack strangling the figure on the floor, then slammed the door shut. ‘Those men. They’ve returned.’ He sought about for something to bar the door, then hefted one of the timbers. Dragging it to the door, he let it fall in front of it.

  Beneath Jack, Harry twisted as the life was choked from him.

  ‘There was one downstairs,’ Valentine panted, grabbing another timber and depositing it in front of the door. ‘I got him. But we’re outmatched, Jack. Jack!’

  Jack wasn’t listening. His hands were burning beneath the leather of his gloves, the skin of his palms feeling as though it were on fire again. Harry’s face was turning purple, his tongue protruding.

  There were distant shouts, footsteps pounding on stairs. Cursing, Valentine staggered to the window and pushed open the shutters. Sunlight flooded the room. ‘We can jump.’ Going to Jack he clutched at him.

  Jack shrugged off his hand roughly, refusing to relinquish his grip. Harry was dying. He could feel the life leaving him. ‘He sent the men who killed my mother. My own brother, Valentine! She died because of him!’

  ‘Then let the devil take him. Sir Thomas wouldn’t want this.’

  The footsteps were in the passage, coming closer. Men called Harry’s name.

  ‘Jack!’ urged Valentine. ‘James!’

  Jack faltered at that name. The name his father had called him by. His vision cleared and he saw Harry’s face beneath him. A face like his. A face his father must have kissed, made laugh, made cry. A boy who had waited in windows of his own for Vaughan to come home. His brother. His blood. He could almost hear his father’s plea in his mind. No, James. No. He snatched his hands away, leaving Harry choking and gasping.

  Stumbling to his feet, Jack grabbed his father’s sword and followed Valentine to the window. The door crashed partly open, barred by the timbers. Men were behind it, shouldering it wider. Valentine threw his sword out and climbed on to the ledge, where trails of ivy hung broken. Grasping the sill, he clambered down as far as he could then let go, landing heavily with a shout of pain. Jack followed, dropping his sword down as the door groaned open behind him. Landing in the soft grass, he rolled with the fall and pushed himself up. He shoved his sword through his belt beside the Book of Hours, then helped Valentine up as faces appeared above them.

  Together, they ran through the overgrown gardens towards the steel-bright Thames, Valentine limping. As they reached the gates, Jack turned. Through the branches of the sprawling trees in a narrow window on the upper floor between the rows of shutters, he thought he saw a pale face looking out. Then, the men were running from the house and he and Valentine were pushing through the gates.

  The Stanleys had betrayed him. Those hateful red tunics were swarming in around his flank, swords battering his beleaguered men. As he was yelling for his herald to sound the trumpet and call Henry Percy and the men of Northumberland to his aid, Richard’s destrier pitched forward, hooves sinking in the boggy mud. He pulled on the reins and kicked with his spurs, trying to goad it on to firmer ground, but the beast was stuck. The warhorse screamed as its back legs were slashed by a stray blade, driving it deeper into the Redemore marsh. Richard, feeling men swarming in around him, kicked his feet free of the stirrups and swung himself out of the saddle. Sword grasped in one gauntleted fist, hammer in the other, he waded his way through the sticky mud, fighting all who came at him.

  The voices of Tudor’s men, hoarse with desperation only moments ago, were lifting in triumph. William Stanley’s troops, fresh to the fight, had fired their hearts. Sunlight flashed in Richard’s narrowed vision, sparking off breastplates and swords. His boots slipped and slid, his sabatons catching on bodies piled underfoot. Someone had cut the points on his vambrace, leaving the armour half-hanging off him. He felt someone clutch his leg, friend or foe he did not know. Stabbing down with his sword, he staggered free. In the tight encasement of his helm it was hard to see who was who. Sweat was pouring down his cheeks, stinging his eyes. The smell of battle was horrendous. All around him, men were being split open, voiding bowels and emptying guts. His muscles were screaming with pain, his stride stiffer than ever. Something struck his helm, leaving his head ringing. As he turned furiously to counter, he realised the sallet had been dislodged, the slits no longer lined up with his eyes. He was fighting blind. Feeling as if he were suffocating, Richard dropped his hammer and pulled off the chin strap. Tugging the helm free, he let it fall with its crown.

  The sounds of battle were deafening without the helm to muffle them. He took a great gulp of air. Away to his right, through the thicket of men, he saw Ratcliffe staggering in a circle. As the man wheeled towards him, Richard saw he had no face. Just a red mess of splintered bones. In behind him came the unmistakable figure of John Cheyne. The huge knight swung the spiked ball of his flail into the back of Ratcliffe’s exposed head with a burst of blood and brain. Richard couldn’t see Franc
is Lovell any more. Where was Northumberland with the northern levies? Why hadn’t they come at his call?

  Richard smacked his sword, two-handed, into the side of a man who came screaming at him. As he was pulling back for another blow, he felt a sharp sting across the back of his scalp. Warm wetness ran down his head. Enraged with pain and fury, he lurched round to face his attacker. He saw a man in a helm grasping a blood-slick halberd, tunic embroidered with black ravens. He heaved his sword round, meaning to cleave him apart, when he felt a sharp crack on top of his head. His vision swam. Nausea rushed up. He staggered, fell to one knee. Through the blur he saw a tangle of cloth on the grass before him, caught up beneath feet and the writhing bodies of the dying. The material was coated with mud and blood, but he could see the head of a red dragon, its one eye narrowed up at him.

  Pain exploded at the base of Richard’s skull. He felt something come away from him. Something vital. His sword slipped from his fingers. He went down in the crush of bodies and torn limbs. Something heavy landed on top of him, pushing him into the marshy ground. He felt himself sinking, remembered the black waters of another marsh, in another time and place. Richard struggled vainly as the mud oozed up around him, desperate for the strong hands again – hands that would grasp him and pull him free.

  The battle was over in just two hours. The sun, shining gold on the tower of the church at Dadlington, lit the blood-soaked plain of Redemore with unforgiving harshness. All across the churned-up ground lay the wounded, the dying and the dead. Shredded and shattered limbs were strewn among broken armour and splintered lances. Spent arrows and shot were scattered between the great corpses of horses. Men crawled through the stew of blood and shit, trying to claw their way free. Groans and whimpers rent the air. Others picked their way among them, a few tending to the wounded, some dispatching the maimed. Many searching for spoils.

  Hundreds had fallen, among them John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Robert Brackenbury and Richard Ratcliffe. Some had fled the field before the battle’s end, slipping away while they could. Francis Lovell was said to be one. A number were captured by Henry Tudor’s forces, including Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who had not engaged when called by his king, either in treachery or cowardice. Others lay down arms and surrendered.

  Soaked in blood, his hair lank with sweat, victory’s song within him, Henry Tudor climbed to the top of a small hill near the village of Stoke Golding. With him went his men, John Cheyne and John de Vere, Jasper Tudor and Rhys ap Thomas, battle-burned but triumphant. Waiting for Henry, arrayed there with his forces, was his stepfather, Lord Thomas Stanley. Henry embraced the older man, who had sent his younger brother, William, into the fray, turning the tide of the battle. Stanley – ever the dark horse – had finally shown his true colours. Richard’s gold crown, found among the detritus of the battle, was passed to the lord, who placed it upon Henry’s bowed head to a clamour of cheers.

  Long live King Henry! God save the king!

  Richard’s body was discovered on the field among the numerous dead. While Henry ordered the rest of the corpses to be disposed of in a decent manner and the wounded to be treated, the same consideration wasn’t shown to the Yorkist king. Stripped first of armour, then of clothes, his buttocks stuck with a dagger, Richard Plantagenet was tied over the back of a horse to the blood-drunk jeers of the victors and led all along the road into Leicester, the city he had ridden out of the day before at the head of his glorious army. Naked, he was placed on public display in an open casket in the Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady St Mary. A church founded by Lancastrians.

  There were many dead that day and more that would follow in the coming weeks, arrest warrants sent out, trials set. But there was one execution Henry Tudor ordered before all others. William Catesby, who had offered up Lord Stanley’s son in the hope of a pardon at the battle’s end, had been sorely disappointed to find his bargaining had no power over the new king. Henry had been informed by Robert Stillington, brought to his presence the day after the battle, that it was William Catesby who had forced him to announce the princes’ illegitimacy. The lawyer had been Richard’s second-in-command – that much alone damned him. But privately Henry signed the order for his execution with the thought in his mind that he could not allow a man who had bastardised a royal line to live. Not when he needed to strengthen his own claim with that very same blood.

  On a dull, windswept morning, three days after the battle, William Catesby, a young lawyer who had stood behind a throne, was led to a block in Leicester’s market square to follow in the doomed footsteps of the master he had betrayed. He walked with head held high, poised as ever, but when he was pushed to his knees before the watching crowd, his calm cracked and those cool grey eyes filled with terror. The swing of the executioner’s axe christened Henry Tudor’s reign in blood.

  Chapter 41

  It was late October, just before the festival of All Hallows’ Eve that marked the beginning of winter; a door cracking open on the season of darkness. On a windswept day, when clouds flew like ragged white banners in a glacial blue sky, Henry Tudor was led from the Tower by a magnificent procession of earls, dukes and lords on the road through London to Westminster.

  The new king wore robes of royal purple, trimmed with black-flecked ermine. His horse was caparisoned with cloth of gold and silver tassels and bells. Above him was raised a golden canopy, held aloft by four knights who flanked him as he rode. His head was bare, ready for the crown that would, tomorrow, be placed upon his head – an official ceremony to follow the crowning on the hillside after the battle with Richard’s forces, when he was still soaked in sweat and blood.

  In his train rode his men, victorious from battle, many returning home after years in exile. His personal guards, now Knights of the Body – chief among them the mighty John Cheyne – were dressed in black and scarlet, with ostrich feathers in their hats that billowed in the brisk gusts of wind. The stirrups of their mounts were cushioned with red velvet and many wore little badges of gilt portcullises: the arms of the House of Beaufort, a gift from their lord.

  The crowds that thronged the route were jovial. The sweating sickness had passed and the civil war many had feared would blight their realm had ended with just one battle. Order was once again restored and the wine that flowed free from the fountains helped to promote a festive atmosphere. The following day many of them crowded into the nave of Westminster Abbey to watch the crowning of the new king: son of a bastard line, who claimed his right to the throne not by blood, but by conquest. The abbey’s soaring interior was strung with standards: the scarlet dragon of Cadwaladr, the cross of St George, the red rose of Lancaster, its petals threaded with gold.

  Jasper Tudor, whom Henry had restored as Earl of Pembroke and created Duke of Bedford, carried the crown in the ceremony. Lord Thomas Stanley, made Earl of Derby and chief steward of the Duchy of Lancaster, bore the sword of state. John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who had felled Norfolk on the field and had been appointed Admiral of England and Constable of the Tower, carried the king’s train. With them were a host of men, all richly rewarded by their lord and king. Rhys ap Thomas, the Raven, was chamberlain of South Wales and William Stanley was chief justice of North Wales. Edward Woodville had been made governor of Portsmouth and James Blount had received back his captaincy of Hammes Castle. Among the ranks of knights and esquires, Harry Vaughan stood silent, the high collar of his doublet hiding the faded bruises around his neck.

  There, too, watching the ceremony, were John Morton and Robert Stillington, Elizabeth Woodville and her beautiful daughter, Elizabeth of York. Henry’s marriage to the princess was set and from their joining would come the union of the houses of York and Lancaster. Henry was, however, determined to rule as king in his own right and so the wedding would take place early in the coming year, giving him time to establish his reign.

  But no one there present, not dukes, earls or barons, was granted as high a place as Lady Margaret Beaufort, her tiny figure, all cramped in s
tiff silk, dwarfed by the cushioned chair that had been placed at the side of the dais for her to watch the crowning of her son. Maintained in her title of Countess of Richmond, Margaret had been granted back all the lands that Richard placed in her husband’s name and had been declared legally independent. As the gold diadem was placed upon Henry’s bowed head and all breaths were held, the sound that echoed most in the abbey’s high vault was Margaret’s weeping.

  That afternoon, when the ceremony was done, the new crowned king and his court rode back along the streets to the Tower of London, where a magnificent feast was held in the White Tower. The silk-covered trestles in the great hall groaned under the weight of silver vessels swimming with wine. Sprays of autumn leaves and bright berries decorated the tables. Servants conveyed spits of roast capons, partridge and pheasant, and platters of veal and swan. There were jugglers who breathed fire and a procession of the fierce beasts of the Tower’s menagerie to delight the guests. As the wine flowed, laughter and loud conversation drowned out the minstrels. Cheeks grew flushed and knights competed for the attention of ladies, whose jewelled headdresses and gowns sparkled in the candlelight.

  As Henry rose, his page darted forward and pulled back his cushioned chair for him. Other guests, seeing him rise, moved to stand, but he gestured them back down. Heading for one of the doors off the great hall, opened for him by his doorward, the king left the heat and noise and slipped out into one of the adjoining chambers, where his porters had stacked the chests of his personal belongings, ready to be conveyed to Windsor. The fresh air cooled Henry’s hot skin and calmed his mind. His life until now had been spent in small guarded chambers with a handful of servants for company. He wasn’t sure he would ever get used to vast rooms packed to the walls with people.