It was from the prow, some moments later, that a green-round-the-gills King Richard caught first sight of the rebels assembled along the right bank, awaiting his arrival. From far off in the thinning mists, the vast array of pole-arm-wielding men looked like river reeds – as if the Thames itself had taken up arms against him.
As the royal barge came into view, a great cheer arose from the banks. The closer it came in to the bank, the louder the cheers.
On the riverbank, still searching amongst the cheering masses, Harry turned to Wat and shouted in his ear: ‘He’s come. I can’t believe the King has come.’
Wat watched the royal barge power in, oars rippling like beetle legs. It was too late to find Sophia and Nick.
Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. The rowers put their backs into it. Stroke, stroke, stroke, beaten by the drum. The barge surged towards the riverbank, closer to the scum, close enough for Sir Robert to pick out wretched faces. He steeled himself for the task of safeguarding the King.
‘Cease rowing, lads,’ the barge captain shouted. ‘Drop anchor!’
The crew stopped rowing, drew the oars back into the barge and dropped anchor within fifty yards of the shore.
Sir Robert’s plan to protect the King was to lie a way off the riverbank and negotiate with the rebels from the relative safety of the barge – relative because to archers this distance was nothing. He was to act as herald. From the prow, he cupped his hands and yelled: ‘The King wishes to parley with your leaders.’
Even from a distance, Wat recognised a familiar figure strutting the deck in the English colours of red and white. Bastard Knolles himself! Here! When he must have known he had been declared traitor. That was stupidly brave, he’d give the traitor that. And then, he’d give him this – his right hand curled around the hilt of his sword.
XXII
Rumbling, as of summer thunder. Stones rolled into the ruts on the road to Blackheath as the tremors grew stronger. Nick’s grip tightened around Sophia’s hand.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sophia asked.
‘Horses, lots of horses, coming this way.’
Sophia couldn’t hear anything much. She was heady, floating on air. They had been making their way back to Wat’s campfire slowly, stealing from felled fir copse to hacked-back whitethorn copse, snatching kisses, trying and failing to hide their new love from the women foraging for food and wood everywhere. She was not looking forward to the scolding that would be waiting. Nick’s kisses made her forget her father. She wanted more kisses. She could never drink her fill of his lips. But tomorrow … Would there even be a tomorrow for them …?
‘Knights!’ Nick shouted, pointing at the column of grey men on horseback galloping into view down the road. Scores of riders, dragging a dust cloud behind them. Flying the red and blue of the King’s colours. ‘The King’s knights!’
In an instant, his courage rose, and Nick knew what had to be done. He was a man now, not a boy. A man had to fight for what is right. Even if he had no bow to defend himself. ‘Get off the road!’ he told Sophia, escorting her by the elbow towards the verge.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ Sophia demanded.
‘I’m going to challenge them for the watchword,’ Nick said, and drew the kidney-dagger his father had given him.
‘Don’t be stupid. They’ll ride right over you.’ Sophia tried to drag him off the road. What if she lost him? Seized by a blind panic, she wanted to tell him she loved him, like lightning before thunder, like a vixen devouring her kill, like a helpless rage. But she couldn’t, the words seemed to stagger and fall down on her tongue.
Nick stood his ground. His free hand went to her face, a caress and then he was pointing to the heath. ‘Go! If they’re friends, I’ll be fine. If they’re not, warn the others.’
Sophia shrank away. Strangely, because it was the last thing she wanted to do, she went. She left him there. She left him because his eyes were blazing, because he was right. She had to run back to camp to raise the alarm.
Nick stood in the middle of the road, and held up his hand. The pounding of the hooves was the loudest sound he had ever heard. The earth trembled under his feet, sending tremors up his legs. All he had to do was stand here. All he had to do was make a stand. All a man had to do was take a stand.
The knights thundered up to him, and reined in, to a halt. Hooves stamped. Horses brayed, snorted and shrieked. A dust cloud overtook them all.
Nick spluttered, half-blind in the hot dust. ‘With whom do you hold?’
A shadowy rider spurred his horse forward. ‘We’re with the King and the True Commons. That’s the watchword isn’t it, Nick?’
‘Jack – that you?’
Jack nodded. ‘Last time I was sober.’
Nobody loped round the horses and up to Nick, mouth foaming, panting away.
Nick patted the mastiff on the head and scratched at its floppy ear. Such a feeling of relief: the empty joy washed over him. He laughed at the dog. ‘Don’t slobber on me, Nobody.’
XXIII
‘Come ashore,’ Wat called to the barge. He wanted to gut Sir Robert so bad it hurt in his back teeth, but he would not, could not do that under a flag of truce. Or …could he? Did Justice demand it, blindly? He was sorely tempted. He knew if the shoe was on the other foot, Sir Robert would not hesitate.
‘Are you the rebel captain?’ Sir Robert called back. His eyes could not make out the facial features. The distance was too great, here all the way back to France. He could not make out if it was Serjeant Walter Tyler. Similar height and build, but, without a face …
‘I am,’ Wat yelled. ‘Come ashore to parley. We cannot talk over this distance.’ The King and his party would have to come ashore to meet John and his scribes up on the heath. John would negotiate – that was what they had planned.
‘The water is too shallow here,’ Sir Robert called back. ‘The captain doesn’t want to ground his barge.’
Wat and everyone else on the riverbank could see this was an outright lie. There was more than enough draught for the barge to land at Greenwich. ‘There is no need to fear,’ he assured Sir Robert, ‘The King has safe passage.’
Someone nearby Wat cried out: ‘Death to the traitor Sir Robert Knolles!’
‘Silence,’ Wat ordered.
‘Death to Sir Robert!’ called a disobedient voice.
Sir Robert shouted in defiance: ‘Men of Kent. You must come to order if your king is to speak with you.’
A woman’s voice: ‘Death to the traitors!’
‘Be quiet, woman!’ Wat cried. ‘Do not ruin the parley!’
A man followed this with: ‘Come ashore and we’ll cut your head off, Knolles! Nice and quick.’
‘Death to the traitors!’ the familiar chant, was taken up by thousands of voices, female, male, young and old.
A great rage overwhelmed his fear of the caterwauling mob. King Richard climbed onto the foredeck, to stand shoulder to shoulder with Sir Robert. He held up his sceptre and pronounced: ‘Your King bids you to come to order!’
The True Commons paid him no heed, the calls for revenge intensifying. ‘Death to the traitors!’
Sir Robert bowed his head. ‘Majesty? I’m sorry. The hares are riding the hounds, and blowing the hunting horns.’
‘How can we speak to them if they are in such murderous disarray?’ King Richard said. ‘And yet, how can we save London from siege if we do not parley with them?’
‘In this fell mood, they would easily overpower us if we landed.’ Sir Robert had to shout to make himself heard. ‘If they take you hostage, the kingdom is lost.’
King Richard glared at the rebel host: it seemed all the creatures of the bestiary had come alive in the mist. Death to the traitors! There was a quadruped with a serpent’s tail. There a goat with the hindquarters of a fish. ‘What of Sir John Newton? We cannot leave him to these hell-beasts.’
Sir Robert shook his head. ‘He is much too valuable to them to kill out of spite.’
‘This is folly. The number
of fools in this world is infinite.’ King Richard turned to the barge captain, summoned air into his lungs, and gave his command. ‘Weigh anchor. Row back to the Tower.’
Wat watched the barge turn and row back up-river, slowly, furiously heckled all the way. There would be no parley, the King was going back to the Tower. And it was Sir Robert who had ruined it all. He could almost taste the hate fuming off the bodies of all those around him, or was that his own choking bloodlust …?
Part Three
God be our guide, and then shall we speed.
Whosoever disagrees, is noble in name only!
The truth spoils his lies!
God send us a fair day!
Away traitors, away!
Song of freedom, Anonymous
I
Two full posts of men-at-arms scythed through the encampments of the True Commons massed up on the heath. Forty riders in wire-burnished, gleaming plate, galloping so fast they were like molten silver thrown from the smelting cup.
The ensuing panic was like Moses parting the Red Sea. Folk dropped what they were doing, got out of their way sharpish, even though they had not drawn weapons. The war horses were deadly enough, trained to charge straight through a man, mash him under their hooves.
Standing at the summit of the heath, Wat did not know what to make of these incoming riders. They were flying king’s colours in tandem with an unfamiliar yellow banner – a blue chevron between three blue bugle horns stringed. He gave the command ‘Look lively, lads.’ The handful of archers round Wat strung their bows and got a bead on the riders.
‘Don’t shoot. It’s me!’
Wat saw who it was and tutted. It suddenly made sense how they had gotten through all the blockades he had posted on the roads. ‘Stand down. Stand down, lads.’
Jack rode up to the standard of St George flying over the wagons, and found the man he was looking for. ‘Wat, you cunt!’
‘About time you got your arse back here, Jack,’ Wat said.
Jack leapt out of the saddle to greet his mate with a big bear-hug. ‘I’ve been a very busy boy.’
Wat did some serious backslapping. ‘Who’s this fine fellow you have with you?’
‘Allow me to introduce Alderman Horn there.’ Jack pointed at the lead rider. ‘He holds the keys to London.’
Alderman Horn dismounted, clumsy in the French plate armour, which had cost a fortune but only been worn three times – to defend the city against the machinations of “King John” of Gaunt. He shook hands, gauntlet clacking on gauntlet, with the ruffian known as Tyler. ‘It is an honour to meet you, Sir Tyler,’ he said.
‘Alderman.’ Wat nodded. He sized the man up – as small, bristling with the spikes that small men have instead of ordinary hairs. ‘Is what Jack says true?’
‘It assuredly is.’ Alderman Horn removed his basinet and slipped it under his left arm. ‘I am here to negotiate a truce with you on behalf of powerful parties on the council and in the guilds, in the wards, sympathetic to your cause. We will welcome all of Kent and Essex into our great city on the morrow on certain conditions.’
‘Name them,’ Wat said. The alderman had the hard black eyes of a harrier, would not meet his gaze.
Alderman Horn’s right index finger did the talking. ‘There must be no cry of “Havoc!” No sack. There must be no arson within the city walls. There must be no murder of any citizen, barring the traitors John Ball named in his letters. And there must be no looting. Looters are to be hanged like common thieves.’
‘All armies loot.’ Jack shrugged. ‘I’ve told him this will be impossible to enforce.’
Alderman Horn smiled. ‘The Mayor will issue an order to compel every citizen to open their cellar to feed the True Commons, so there will be no need for looting.’
‘If the Mayor delivers, we can.’ Wat removed his gauntlet, offered his bare hand. ‘Done deal?’
Aura popularis. A clever man tested for changes in the breeze with a licked finger, and like a weather-vane, went the way the wind blows. That was the way of political life. Alderman Horn set his basinet down on the ground, slid off his glove and then shook hands barely. ‘If we have an agreement, I would have it in writing to show the Mayor.’
Wat shrugged. ‘John Ball himself will write it up for you. I will take you to meet him now.’
Alderman Horn was satisfied with that. He had fulfilled the first part of his commission. And he would achieve the rest with as much ease. These rustic fools were no match for him, a descendant of the infamous knife-you-in-dark bellatores of the commune. In his possession he had an affidavit, the jurat personally signed by the Mayor that gave him carte blanche, absolute power, to bring Tyler and the ringleaders to judgement. When the time was right. After he’d settled a few of the Victuallers’ old scores.
II
Women know when the eyes of men are upon them. It was dark, a cold dark for mid-June due to clear skies, but Sophia could feel her father’s eyes upon her, hot as a barn owl’s on a vole before the swoop. And, she could sense Nick’s glances, shot like furtive arrows through the flames of the campfire. She turned the spit over the fire, kept her eyes locked on her task. Grease from the last two chickens they’d scrounged hissed on the flames, became orange smoke.
Jack bit into a drumstick, tore the dark meat from the chicken thigh-bone. ‘What is it with priests, Wat? They must have more air in their lungs! I’ve never heard anyone talk as much as John Ball.’
‘John wanted to test Alderman Horn’s mettle,’ Wat said. ‘We don’t want to walk into a trap tomorrow, do we?’
Jack belched loudly, threw the bare bone on the fire. ‘I know, but the plan to take the gates is simple. We all know if we don’t get in a siege will break us. To talk it over and over and over. Jesus!’
Wat shrugged. A siege would indeed break them. There were too many mouths to feed. Even if Jesus came down from Heaven and fed five thousand of them bread and fishes, ravening hunger would devour them in days. They had no supply lines, no baggage train as such. He’d sent out scavengers to steal animals and provisions from the summer manors of the rich, but he could not plunder the farms of the poor to feed his troops, like in France. He would not loot or scorch the Garden of England as Bastard Knolles had torched half of France, turning it into the Black Land. ‘That chicken roasted yet, Sophia?’
‘Not yet, father.’
Nick couldn’t help looking at Sophia. She was so beautiful. She had such natural grace. The way she moved doing her chores, it stirred him deep.
‘And another thing, Wat,’ Jack said, ‘Why is John ranting on about seven rams’ horns. Joshua and the Israelites. The Fall of Jericho. I don’t get it! What is his bloody point?’ Jack said.
‘John knows his Bible, Jack. If he says walking around the walls blowing horns is going to get us into London, I’m not going to stop him. We’ll need all the help the Lord can give us.’
Jack sighed. ‘The man talks out of his arse. That’s it. He can say so much because he has two mouths. Top and bottom.’
Nick laughed at Jack the puppeteer, mouthing his hands at his mouth and his arse.
Wat turned and gave the boy a hard look. ‘Would you turn the spit? I want a word with my daughter.’
‘I will.’ Nick sprang to his feet, knelt by the fire, and took over turning the spit.
Sophia had been dreading this moment. Did her father know what she had done with Nick? He had probably guessed. What would he do?
‘Walk with me,’ Wat said to Sophia.
Sophia looked at Nick, and was rewarded with a smile that gave her courage to stand up for herself. She was not a child anymore. She was the daughter of Captain Wat Tyler, and she owed him her life, but she was a woman now, free to make her own choices. She was at last a woman.
‘You and I have to talk about Thomas Baker and the Short-Arses!’ Jack shouted after Wat.
‘All I needed to know was they’ll be at Aldgate on Thursday when we cross the bridge,’ Wat said.
‘You
should know this on top,’ Jack yelled. ‘Thomas Baker has no time for John Ball’s intrigues either! He’s his own man and intends to lead the Short-Arses his own way.’
‘I hear you!’ Wat gave Jack the thumbs up. ‘Stop rabbiting on.’
‘It’s that fucker Ball! He’s gone and given me the blabbing-on-and-on-and-on contagion. Jesus. Christ.’
Wat led his daughter through scattered campfires with many rings of folk huddled around them – wood was getting as scarce as good food round the heath. He tried to find the right words to say. He didn’t want to sound angry. ‘Running away from me last night was … reckless.’
‘You were going to send me away!’ The grief welled up inside Sophia, hot and choking, until she was fit to burst.
‘I’m trying to protect you. I’m fighting for our lives here—’
‘I know that!’ Sophia said, the tears flowing. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? This is all my fault.’
Wat hugged her tight to his breastplate. ‘You are not ever to blame yourself for that. Never, you hear me?’
‘But, I do, father. Because of me you are an outlaw. All this. Look at them. These poor people, sleeping under the stars.’ Through the blur of tears, Sophia squinted and blinked at the shadows shivering five deep in rings round the paltry campfires. All these poor famished people marching to the King, for justice. Her justice. Her father’s justice. Their justice.
Wat kissed her hair, pressed his cheek tight to hers. ‘I’m leading the army into London tomorrow. It may well be mayhem. Whatever the day brings, will you swear to me you’ll stick with Harry and Nick?’
‘I promise. Do you promise not to try to send me away again?’
‘You know I cannot swear that oath,’ Wat said. ‘Over your dear mother’s grave, I gave my oath to keep you safe, watch over you while you grew into a woman.’
‘I am a woman now, Father.’
Wat nodded, and smiled. ‘When we are young all we wish is to grow up. And when we are old all we wish is to be young again.’
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