Looking out over the road, I saw that the rebels had grown bored with pounding on the gates. Sir Thomas Cobham had occupied his men by having them loose a number of arrows into the great court, but after that they seemed to be in as much of a quandary about how to continue as we were inside. Without heavy artillery, they would not break into the tower, so after hurling little more than verbal insults, while the guards inside were running, screaming, to the water gates and rear of the palace in desperation, trying to find somewhere safe to hide, Cobham had his men form up again and march off towards the city.
That was when I judged it prudent to go down to the court. I was on my way down the rear stairs when Sir John’s servant came from a side door and, seeing me, called me to him.
I was not content to be called in this manner, but I was a great deal less happy when I finally obliged him and entered, only to find myself confronted by the haughty, somewhat dumpy figure of Queen Mary herself.
THIRTY-FOUR
‘Guard,’ she said, and I bent my knee quickly, averting my eyes in case I might irritate. It’s best not to annoy a monarch who holds power of life and death. Besides, I didn’t know if the bishop had spoken to her.
‘Brave fellow,’ she murmured. ‘Do not fear me.’
She was not tall, and although she was not massive, there was a heaviness about her chin and face that made her look more weighty than perhaps was the case. Her face was pale, with watery blue eyes and reddish golden hair, and although she had a way of smiling, her head tilted down, so that she was looking up at a man in a most appealing manner, I didn’t like it. She looked like a woman who was deliberately using a childish affectation to get her own way. I didn’t trust that from a woman who could have my head on a spike by dinner time. Sir John Gage was standing behind her, with a sort of goggle-eyed, red-faced, horror-struck appearance that made me feel a foot taller and younger and bolder than I ever had before. The old fool took a long pull at his goblet, and I suspected that he was halfway to perdition on brandy.
‘I saw you earlier, I think,’ the queen said. ‘You have the look of a bold yeoman, and I have need of such a man.’
I suddenly had a vision of being knighted by her, of Bill and the others looking on as the queen’s latest knight received the honour; in the background was Blount, his face hidden beneath that wide-brimmed hat, and, beyond him, the damned inscrutable features of Roscard, standing close to Gardiner. It was a delightful idea. They would find it more problematic to make my life hard if I were a knight of the realm.
‘I am your …’ I was about to declare my adoration of her, and my undying loyalty as her servant, when she smiled at me and continued speaking. It was enough to make me come to a faltering halt. ‘Your Majesty?’
‘I said that I have need of a man to take a message to the city, so that my loyal subjects know I am safe and have not been captured. So many of my gentlemen here are too elderly to make the journey, but you, sir, you are youthful and full of fire and courage. I wish you to carry my message to the city.’
Fire and courage? She hadn’t been watching me, then.
She carried on, ‘I saw your courageous defence of dear Sir John here, and wanted to thank you personally. As well as to tell you that your bravery will not go forgotten.’ She motioned to a flunkey, and suddenly I found a small, elegant pigskin purse being pushed into my hand. It had a pleasantly weighty feel to it. Before I could pull at the laces and get to see inside, though, the queen started talking again. ‘Your message must be taken to Lord Pembroke or the Lord Admiral, so that they know I am perfectly safe here with my brave guards.’
Here, I saw her cast a glance at the goggle-eyed knight behind her. There didn’t seem to be too much respect for that particular ‘brave guard’ in her cool appraisal.
‘Your Majesty, I would be honoured, but I fear that I may be no good as your emissary,’ I tried. ‘I was wounded in the fighting at the bridge, and I cannot ride as swiftly as others.’
‘I am sure you will ride all the fleeter for knowing you have been specifically chosen by me,’ she said. ‘And now you may depart. Please do not delay.’
And that was that. The old bitch had me hustled out, down the stairs and to the stables almost before I’d known what was happening. And then I was on a horse and being propelled towards the gate, which most inconveniently opened.
There was no one outside when I peered anxiously up and down the street. I had the choice of riding right, which would mean riding into the skirts of the rebel army, or turning left and riding as far and as fast as I could. That was appealing, but although I liked the idea, I was horribly aware that there was a negative aspect to such a journey, which was the fact that as soon as the Queen realized I had fled the scene, she would have me hunted down and captured.
Reluctantly, I set off at a trot towards the city. And if you ask whether I spent the whole journey cursing the queen, I will not answer. But my thoughts were not kindly disposed towards royalty at that time.
I rode along in a grim and morose temper until I came to a line of barricades. There were soldiers on my side of these recently erected barriers, and I sat on my horse, frowning at them for a while, until my brow cleared. These must have been set up to block any retreat by the rebels, I reasoned, and I was about to ride back when a grizzled old warrior, with armour that must have seen two decades of service, called out to challenge me.
‘I am a messenger for the queen,’ I called. ‘She wanted me to go to Ludgate, but I see that the way is blocked.’
‘Aye, right enough. We have been told to put up whatever we can to prevent their retreat this way,’ the old man said. ‘So, you need to get to the city?’
‘I did, but clearly that’s not possible, so—’
‘You can still get by, man. Don’t be so negative. There are alleys and lanes that the rebels won’t have found yet, with luck.’
‘Luck?’ I was reluctant to put my safety on a throw of the dice again.
‘You need to ride towards the river. Either take a boat and take the river, or just stay in the narrower ways. The soldiers won’t take them. They want roads where they can get their men concentrated quickly. They seem to have held together so far. Besides, these are good Englishmen. They don’t want to fight other Englishmen. They are determined on capturing the gate to the city.’
‘How can I possibly get past them? There are thousands of them,’ I said.
‘As I said, take the river if you’re concerned. You have the queen’s authority. Take a boat.’
Since he was holding on to my bridle at this point, I didn’t feel I had much chance of winning an argument. ‘I think I should surely tell the queen,’ I said.
He snorted. ‘You reckon? I’ve heard she can be impatient with men who don’t obey her commands. Still, it’s up to you.’ He grinned up at me evilly.
Which is how I came to be sidling carefully along a narrow alleyway between two great houses towards the river, hoping to find a small boat of some sort.
The only good thing, I thought to myself, was that Roscard was back there at the queen’s tower.
It is never a good idea to count your blessings.
‘Hello, Jack,’ he said.
Roscard stood there staring at me, his sword unsheathed already, and gave one of those slow grins that would have suited a snake. ‘Did you think you’d given me the slip? Sorry to disabuse you, but I was watching carefully.’
‘But how did you get away?’
He shrugged. ‘The queen was keen to leave the tower and show that she was safe in her own kingdom, so she had her most loyal guards go into the road and make sure all was secure. I was one of the first volunteers, of course, and since I had seen where you went, I merely followed your path and asked the first sergeant at a barricade where you had gone. You know, he didn’t seem surprised to think that you were a potential traitor.’
‘Me? I have actually fought for the queen!’
‘Perhaps. But when I’m finished with you, your reputat
ion won’t sound so glorious,’ he said. ‘Now, if you wish, I can make this easy – or make it difficult.’
‘Why? What do you have to kill me for?’
‘Mainly because I really dislike you. You got in my way in the tavern, you took the purse that I had managed to cut from that young fool, and then you took the message that would have guaranteed me a rich reward. Why would I not want to kill you?’
There was no answer to that. ‘It won’t win you the message back.’
‘I don’t care. All I want is to see you silenced. So, which will it be? Painful because you fight, or shall I make it good, clean and quick?’
‘Quick like Gil, you mean?’ I said. I think I might have sneered a bit.
‘Who?’ He looked perplexed.
‘Gil, my friend. You killed him and tied him to a post at the harbour—’
‘I don’t have time for this,’ he said, clenching and unclenching his fist. He began to move towards me.
‘How did you hurt your hand, then, if it wasn’t when you broke his jaw?’ I said.
‘This?’ he glanced down. ‘I burned it at Carew’s house. A candle.’
I wasn’t sure, but he didn’t seem to be lying. He looked genuinely surprised. I didn’t know what to think. ‘You didn’t kill Gil?’
‘I don’t even know who Gil is!’ He shook his head as though to clear it of an irritating fly. ‘Do you want it easy or hard? It’s up to you.’
I didn’t know whether he had killed Gil, but I did know he had killed Ann. ‘Why did you kill Ann?’
He paused. ‘She knew a bit too much about my activities and tried to blackmail me. I wasn’t going to have my affairs bruited about the city.’
As he finished, he took another pace forward, and I stared at his weapon. I didn’t like the blade in his hand. It looked well used, and he was proficient with it. He blocked the alley before me; behind me, I had the whole length of the alley leading to the river. I considered my options, turned and bolted.
It would have been good if I hadn’t tripped. There was a load of trash in the alley’s side, and my foot went into it in the dark. The first I knew, I thought Roscard had grabbed my foot, and I squeaked as I discovered that my forward progress was halted. With my boot gripped by someone or something, I found myself plummeting to the ground. I landed in something that squelched unpleasantly, and closed my eyes just before I hit the mud. With the panic of a small animal expecting a hawk, I scrabbled and scraped wildly with my hands, trying to get away from Roscard and his shining steel, but even as I tried, a boot suddenly landed on the small of my back.
‘So, it’ll be slow and painful, then. I’m glad,’ he said.
What an epitaph, I thought, and tried to roll over to dislodge him. My simple ruse surprised him, and he fell backwards against the alley’s wall. I scrambled to my feet, and with my bare fists I battered at him, fighting with the strength of simple terror. One wild swing seemed to knock him senseless, for as my knuckle struck his chin, his head span around, and there was a thud as his skull slammed against the timbers of the wall. His eyes rolled into his head as he began to slide down the wall, and I leaped to my feet, hands clubbed. His sword clattered to the ground, and he continued his slow progress until his head was resting almost on a pair of boots.
Bill looked down at Roscard. ‘He was getting a bit cocky, weren’t he?’
I looked from Bill to the bloody sword in his hand. ‘You killed him!’
‘What, you wanted me to wait a bit?’
‘But …’
‘Just don’t forget: you owe me,’ he said, and shoved me from his path to hurry past.
THIRTY-FIVE
The rest of my journey was a blur. I ran as fast as I could from that damned body, and came out near Ludgate. There was a large gathering there. Later, I heard that Wyatt had been there, banging on the door like a debt collector. All I knew, as I warily stepped out into the street, was that there was no apparent fighting. There were some men milling about, and the guards at the gate itself were shouting insults at the men who were grumpily standing and calling back in a similar vein, with one or two throwing stones, but there was no actual fighting that I could see.
However, there was an increasing noise coming from along the road towards Westminster. It seemed to me that there was some sort of a riot up there. No cannons or the multiple rattle of an arquebus volley, but bellowing and screaming, and occasionally a whinny from a horse, I thought.
‘I didn’t think you had it in you,’ I heard from behind me, and almost jumped out of my skin.
It was John Blount. He and his two companions had followed me and now stood cautiously peering out. I was about to protest, when Blount and the Bear caught me by an arm each and took me pelting over the street to a coaching house called La Belle Sauvage. It stood on the corner just outside the gate, with a narrow lane between it and the city walls, and Blount and the others pulled me inside.
‘What are you doing?’ I demanded. ‘Leave me alone!’
The Bear chuckled as he wiped at a grimy window and peered out, while Blount unhurriedly took off his hat, wiped his brow and called to a young serving maid for ales. While I sat fuming, the trio stared out into the road.
‘What,’ I said with remarkable forbearance, ‘is going on?’
‘I’d say we have the best seats to see what happens when Wyatt and his men come to break into the city,’ Blount said. ‘And I was very impressed with your actions in the alleyway.’
‘What actions?’
‘Killing Roscard. He was a very unpleasant man, after all. You did well, though. I’d never have thought you would have managed to kill him. To stab him in the back … Although he clearly tossed you through a couple of barrels of mud on the way. At least, I trust some of it was mud,’ he added with a slight curl of his lip.
‘I have killed no one,’ I declared. They were not going to accuse me of something like that and leave me to stew.
‘No, of course not. A solid denial is always a good idea,’ Blount said airily. ‘But it was a good effort, nonetheless. Did he not even mark you? You must have caught him entirely by surprise. Was there a distraction?’
‘They’re coming!’ the Bear said.
There was the sound of galloping, and a roaring and shouting, and a large party of men came bowling into the space before Ludgate, all bedraggled in the rain, many injured, some commanders on great horses, one a black stallion with a rent in his shoulder that was running with blood. From all the men there came a steady roaring of ‘A Wyatt, a Wyatt! Wyatt for the City!’ as though they expected the gates to spring wide.
‘Poor bastards,’ the fair-haired man beside the Bear murmured.
Blount patted his shoulder. ‘It was bound to happen,’ he said.
I was utterly confused now. ‘What is going on?’
‘Those men out there are the last of Wyatt’s army,’ Blount said. ‘They were tempted to head this way, towards the city, but the queen’s men blocked off all their escape routes along the way and erected barricades behind them, and then, close by Charing Cross, heavy cavalry attacked them in flank and cut them in half. The queen’s archers did their bit, too. Since most of the commanders and cavalry were at the rear of their column, they were held back while the main part of their army was cut to pieces. Now, this is the remains of Wyatt’s great army. That’s him, the fellow in the pale brown jack and helmet.’
I saw a tall man, grimy from days of marching and hours of fighting, who wearily climbed from the black stallion and patted its flank with affection. Then he pulled off deerskin gauntlets and walked to Ludgate. Standing before it, he looked up at the jeering men above him. ‘Are you with me?’ he cried out, but the only response was a series of jeers and anatomically unlikely suggestions. He was stock-still for a few moments as though at a loss, but then I saw him reach forward and touch the ancient timbers of the gate, pressing the palm of his hand against it, his head bowed. Then he stiffened his back and strode back to his men.
‘Shit!’ Blount said, and for the first time I saw him look alarmed. It was really very pleasing to see.
‘What?’ I said, and then, as Blount and the others pulled away and ran for the rear of the inn, I saw.
Wyatt and all his companions were marching to the coaching house where we stood.
We hurriedly made our way to the rear of the inn, where there was a wide courtyard and two floors of rooms. While I stood there, staring about us, wondering where the best place might be to hide, Blount and the others ran across the yard to a staircase that gave out to the upper storey.
Why didn’t I follow them? I really don’t know, except that I’d already seen enough fighting that day, and running had got me nowhere, only from one battle to another. I was tired, and I felt that the man I’d just seen at the gate was as tired as me. Wyatt had looked like a fellow who had just exhausted his last reserves of energy in reaching that gate. He had no more to give, I thought. The likelihood of his trying to kill me was remote.
I walked to a bench near a well and sat down, nursing my ale. My back was aching badly after my exertions. The fall when Roscard had chased me had wrenched it, as had the fight with him, and my legs were worn out. No: I was worn out. I was more tired than I’ve ever felt, and I was fed up of seeing dead men.
‘You! Get up!’
It was the first of the men to enter the yard. All had heavy sabres in their fists, and one was pointing his at me now. I lifted my ale and shook my head. ‘I deserve this. I won’t trouble you, but I’ve had enough of fighting and dispute for the day already. No, I’ve had enough for the year.’
The man stood there, bemused, as though he could not quite believe that I would ignore his command, but then another, slighter figure pushed him aside and I heard him laugh.
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