Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  His wife looked up at him, standing as tall as she could, with both palms pressed against his chest. She spoke slowly and with an intensity he found chilling.

  ‘Perhaps you need to blow the froth off your maunderings, to ride hard and tear through the webs that have made you so slow and thoughtful. You will see, Edward, when you speak to the men and deliver judgment upon them as their feudal lord. You will see in the way those villagers look to you, as a king. Anthony knows where the place lies. He will show you.’

  ‘No,’ Edward said. ‘I don’t understand this, but I will not go rushing off just because you have something planned with your brother. I have had enough of plots and whispers, Elizabeth. Tell me what it is or I will not move from this place, and those men can rot in a cell until new judges are appointed and they are brought to trial.’

  Elizabeth hesitated, her eyes wide. He could feel the tremble of her hands through his shirt.

  ‘The murders were just two weeks past,’ she said. ‘Those men claim Richard Neville as their lord: Earl Warwick, in treason against your offices.’

  ‘Christ, Beth! Did you not hear me before? I have pardoned them.’

  ‘They accuse Warwick – and Clarence too, Edward! My brother Anthony put them to the question, with fire and iron. There is no doubt. They name Warwick in conspiracy: to murder you and put Clarence on the throne! These are new crimes, Edward, not covered by the amnesty, nor the pardons. Do you understand? My father knows no rest, has had no vengeance. Do you understand, Edward?’

  The king looked at his wife, seeing the way hatred and grief had added lines to her, stealing away the last of her youthful bloom. She had never seemed too old for him before, but she did then.

  ‘Oh, Elizabeth, what have you done?’ he said softly.

  ‘Nothing at all. These men named two of your foremost lords as traitors, conspiring against you. Anthony had them questioned and, in fire and iron, the truth was given. They do not lie.’

  ‘You will not tell me the truth, even now?’

  Elizabeth clenched her jaw, her gaze fierce.

  ‘These are new crimes, Edward,’ she said. ‘You are not forsworn. Your precious amnesty was for all that had gone before. It is unbroken.’

  Edward looked away, saddened.

  ‘Very well. I will ride to them, Elizabeth. I will hear their accusations, against Warwick and my own brother.’ He took a slow breath and she recoiled from his anger, stepping back. ‘I promise nothing beyond that.’

  ‘That is enough,’ she said, suddenly desperate to heal the rift that had sprung up between them. She pressed kisses and tears against his mouth. ‘When you hear what they have to say, you can arrest the traitors. Perhaps then we will see such an ending as they deserve.’

  Edward bore the kisses, feeling a coldness between them. She had not trusted him and he could not quite recall the way he had looked at her before his imprisonment. It reminded him of the times he had left a dog behind and returned months later. The animal had looked the same but somehow slightly off, in its scent and the touch of its fur. It took time to find the old easy comfort, and until it came back, it always felt like a different hound. It was, perhaps, not the sort of thing he could discuss with Elizabeth, though it felt very much the same. Her father’s death had hardened her, or drawn some softness out that he had taken for granted before.

  He left her with tears shining in her eyes, though he did not know if they were from relief or sadness. Edward went down to the stables and scowled to find her brother Anthony waiting with Edward’s warhorse, ready to be ridden. The man’s broken wrist had healed many months before. As with Elizabeth, Edward had not recovered his ease of manner with the Woodville knight, though he thought the cause might have been the same. He had lost his mind for a time when his father had been killed. Perhaps it was not so surprising that the Woodvilles had grown harder and more bitter at the loss of their own.

  Edward stepped up on to the mounting block and swung into the saddle, feeling the old strength coil and gather. He held out his hand for his sword, strapping it on over the jacket tails at his waist. The last time he had ridden from that place had been to his own capture. He shook his head at the memory, as if a wasp had brushed his skin. He would not be afraid. He would not allow it.

  ‘Show me this village,’ he called to Anthony Woodville, as the man crossed the yard and mounted his own horse.

  Elizabeth’s brother dipped his head, then cantered out with Edward into the sun, the gates opening before them.

  Warwick was outside, working up a sweat with sword exercise at Middleham Castle, enjoying the sun and the thought of fruit pies and jams all autumn, with every sticky treat from apples, plums, greengages, strawberries, a host of fat fruits. It was never possible to preserve them all in chutneys, brine or vinegar, and so the local villagers would gorge on them until they could not face another mouthful, then put the rest in cool cellars or send them away to command high prices at the markets. It was, perhaps, his favourite time of year and he thought again of the London court he had left behind as a sort of fever dream. In his forties, Warwick could consider the years of intrigue and war safely behind him. He hoped as much. There would not be another Towton in his lifetime, though he touched a wooden window frame and made the sign of the cross just at the thought. Men older than him had fought in battles. He could still remember the first Earl Percy, well into his sixties when he had fallen at St Albans.

  Warwick found himself shuddering, as if a cloud’s shadow had crossed the sun. His uncle Fauconberg was gone, found cold in his bed just a few days after Warwick had last spoken to him. It had surprised him how hard that loss had been. Warwick had spent so long finding his father’s brother an irritation that he had not realized how close they had become by the end. Or perhaps it was just that his father’s death had hollowed him out.

  He saw two riders coming along the main drive, seeing the dust they raised. It blurred the air behind them and caught his eye, so that he fixed his gaze on them, watching the dark figures racing closer with a feeling of tension. Such speed and urgency had never been the harbinger of good news. He almost wanted to go back inside and shut the doors. It could be the axe falling at last, the blow at his neck he had been dreading and expecting ever since Edward had returned to London.

  An entire month had passed without a word of any unrest, though Warwick had servants and listeners all over the houses of the capital to warn him if the king took to the road with an armed force.

  He swallowed uncomfortably. At his back, he could hear men and women calling out in alarm as they spotted the riders. His guards would already be gathering kit and horses, braced to protect him or to ride out at his command. Warwick stood alone before the great house, his eyes narrowed. He had an old short sword on his hip, though it was a tool more than a weapon, a cleaver on a leather thong, hanging from his belt. He used it in the gardens to hack at old wood, but its hilt was a comfort. On impulse, he tugged it free and laid it against a bench close by, ready to be snatched up.

  His worry swelled to panic when he saw that one of the riders was his brother George, the other Richard of Gloucester, already a much better horseman than the archbishop. Warwick’s brother bounced and hung on for dear life, lucky not to have been thrown.

  Warwick could feel his heart thumping as George Neville and the king’s brother came to a halt, bringing a cloud of ochre dust that bloomed around and past them as they dismounted. Warwick coughed into his hand, his stomach clenching as he read their expressions.

  ‘Is it the king?’ he demanded.

  Bishop George Neville nodded.

  ‘Or his wife. Either way, they have found men willing to accuse you of treason. I believe we are ahead of the warrant for your arrest, but it cannot be more than a few hours behind us. I’m sorry, Richard.’

  ‘George of Clarence is named as well,’ Gloucester blurted out, his voice cracking. ‘My brother. Will you take word to him?’

  Warwick glanced at the young man who had b
een his ward. No longer a boy, Richard of Gloucester was grim-faced and pale, in a dusty shirt.

  ‘How can I trust you, Richard,’ Warwick said softly, ‘with your brother’s hand turned against me?’

  ‘He brought the news to me,’ the bishop said in reply. ‘If not for him, the king’s men would have reached you first.’

  Warwick rubbed sweat from his face, making a quick decision. He had planned for disaster, even before releasing King Edward from his captivity. Ships and chests of coins had been taken to lands he owned in France, unknown to a soul on this side of the Channel and all ready for him to bolt if the word came. He had not expected his daughter’s husband to be included in the accusation.

  With his brother and Richard of Gloucester staring and waiting, Warwick forced himself to breathe and think, standing still. The coast was a two-day ride, to a fine sixty-foot boat he had waiting there, crewed by four men and ready at all hours. His daughter and her husband were at a beautiful estate house thirty miles to the south, waiting for Isabel’s confinement to end and their first child to be born.

  ‘Clarence has not been told?’ he asked. His brother shook his head. ‘Right. We can fetch him here, with Isabel. She will want her mother to be there as well, with the baby so close. It is not too far and there is more than one road. If the king has sent an army, they’ll be slow. If he has sent just a few, we’ll fight our way past them.’ He held up a palm as the bishop began to reply. ‘No, I won’t leave my wife or my daughter to the mercy of Elizabeth Woodville. Have you sent a message to John?’

  ‘I have,’ his brother retorted, ‘and I was not suggesting you leave Isabel or Anne. Send a rider to Clarence now, on a fresh horse. I have been hammered black by this saddle and I could not ride another thirty miles – a day on the road and the same back again? Lord, Richard, Edward’s men will be here by then.’

  Warwick cursed, trying to think.

  ‘The quickest way would be to sail down the coast and then ride in to fetch them. I’ll send a messenger on a fast horse even so, in the hope of gaining them a few hours of warning before I’m there to take them off. What about you, George? Are you coming?’

  His brother glanced at the young Duke of Gloucester and shrugged.

  ‘Neither Richard nor I have been named. My amnesty still holds. I don’t think Edward cares much about me, though I dare say his wife still takes an interest. She is the Eve in this English garden, Richard. You should be wary of her.’

  ‘I have had she-wolves snapping at my throat my whole life,’ Warwick said. ‘Good luck then, George. I would take it kindly if you would look after Mother. She is half-blind now and I do not know how much she still understands. She would appreciate your kindness, I am certain.’

  The two brothers looked at each other, very aware that once they moved they might not see each other again for years, if ever again. George opened his arms and they embraced, gripping tightly. Warwick winced at the rasp of stubble over his cheek.

  Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was standing nervously, an outsider with a deep colour to his cheeks. Warwick extended his hand and gripped his arm.

  ‘For your part in bringing me this warning, you have my thanks. I will not forget it.’

  ‘I know you for a good man,’ Gloucester replied, looking at his feet.

  Warwick blew air out in a great sigh.

  ‘Not good enough, I think.’ He smiled at the bishop for the last time. ‘Your prayers would be very welcome, Brother.’

  George Neville cut the sign of the cross into the air and Warwick bowed his head, then raced away back into the estate house.

  For all the endless hours he had spent planning for the catastrophe of Edward hunting them, the result was nowhere near as smooth as Warwick had imagined. His boat crew had mysteriously been away from the craft and had to be roused out of a local tavern, half-drunk and sheepish. It seemed that so many weeks of readiness without actual duties had been too much for their discipline.

  Once they were out at sea, Warwick’s nerves had settled a little. No one knew where he was and he had only to reach his great ship Trinity in berth at Southampton to have a crew and soldiers, supplies and coin. It was no hardship to collect his daughter and her husband and then spend two days at sea in fine weather.

  Isabel and Clarence had been waiting on the docks when the yacht dropped anchor. Warwick could only gape at the sheer size of Isabel as she was handed up from a tiny rowing boat over the side. His wife made her a place on the open bench, though there was no shade or protection from the spray. Isabel gripped her mother’s hands and looked about her with dark, bruised-looking eyes, clearly terrified of the boat. Her husband had brought two great bags and not a single servant with them in his panic to get away. The young Duke of Clarence fussed around his wife and mother-in-law with blankets, making Isabel as comfortable as it was possible for her to be, so close to the end.

  The crew of four were still abashed by their lack of readiness, though they’d had the sails rigged and bellied out in the wind in no time at all. The little boat left the shore behind once more and tacked back and forth down the coast. They were out and safe, with gulls screeching overhead and Isabel huddled against the breeze and spray, looking pale. Warwick tried to relax, but he found himself staring ahead as the crew settled down in turns to sleep. The sun dropped beyond the hills on his right side and he watched the moon rise and the stars turn for a long time. He had planned for it all and yet, as it unfolded before him, he dared not allow himself to feel the despair and anger it brought. Whether it was his own fault, or King Edward’s or the Woodvilles’, or his brother John’s spite, it meant a breach. It meant an ending. Whatever else happened, he had lost more than he dared to dwell upon.

  He had not sat still since the first news had reached him. Yet on the boat there was nowhere to go and nothing to do except wait for the sun to rise again. He could hear someone leaning over the stern and vomiting helplessly. In the darkness, unseen, Warwick closed his eyes and felt tears come.

  34

  In the morning, the little boat rounded the eastern edge of England and tacked against westerly winds down the coast to Southampton, to what was perhaps the best harbour and river mouth in the world for great ships. The Channel was busy as soon as there was light enough to see, with merchant cogs crossing from the continent and coming from as far off as the coasts of Africa. To gain entrance into the deep ports, they had to negotiate frightening shoals that required the services of an expert pilot. Small boats came out under sail to every merchant cog, ready to guide them in to the markets of England.

  Warwick felt his spirits lift at the clusters of white sails, tight triangles and squares on a thousand different vessels. His own small yacht would surely go unremarked amongst so many, and he waited for the crew to tack in past the Isle of Wight.

  The most senior of his men came clambering back to Warwick, moving easily with the roll of the yacht as the wind freshened. The sailor had the accent of Cornwall, one of that breed who knew the ways of the sea better than the land. He raised his voice to be heard, leaning close to Warwick and pointing into the body of water between the Isle and the mainland.

  ‘Those ships at anchor there, sir, I know them. The black one is Vanguard; other is the Norfolk.’

  Warwick’s heart sank. He had heard the names before.

  ‘Are you certain?’ he said.

  The sailor nodded. ‘I am, sir. Before this jaunt, I was in Trinity at Southampton for six months. I know every ship on this coast, and those two are under the command of Anthony Woodville, king’s admiral.’

  ‘Can’t we slip past them? This yacht could show them her heels.’

  ‘See those boats in the water, my lord? They have the whole Solent blocked there. It’s my feeling they know we might try to get in. They haven’t picked us out from the other boats and ships, not yet. I believe they have men up in the yards looking, my lord.’

  Warwick swallowed drily. It took no great imagination to see Anthony Woodville would
move heaven and earth to capture them. With a better understanding, Warwick could see then how the smaller boats were rowed or sailed across the mouth of the Solent. Nothing afloat could pass through to the port of Southampton without being challenged and stopped, then boarded.

  As he stood there, with a hand on the mast, staring across the blue, Isabel gave a great cry. Warwick jerked round, but his wife was there before him, pressing a cup of water to her lips and resting a hand on the swell of her womb under the cloth. As Warwick stared in dismay, he saw his wife snatch her hand away, as if something had bitten her.

  ‘What was it? Did the child kick?’ Warwick asked.

  His wife Anne had gone ashen and shook her head.

  ‘No, it was a tightening,’ she said.

  Isabel groaned, opening her eyes.

  ‘Is it the child? Is it coming?’ she asked plaintively.

  Warwick forced himself to chuckle.

  ‘Not at all! There are pangs sometimes, long before the birth. I remember your mother was just the same. Isn’t that so, Anne? For weeks before the day of birth.’

  ‘Y-yes, yes, of course,’ Isabel’s mother said. She pressed her palm against Isabel’s forehead and turned to Warwick where the daughter could not see, her eyes wide with alarm.

  Warwick drew the crewman as far away as he could, right to the bowsprit, where they could see foaming waters rushing past.

  ‘I need to get to a safe port,’ Warwick murmured through clenched teeth.

  ‘Not here, sir. The admiral’s men will give chase the moment they know who we are.’

  Warwick turned, looking over his shoulder. It was a clear day, but the coast of France was too far off to be seen.

  ‘The wind is fresh enough. Can you reach Calais?’

  As if to spur them on, Isabel gave another great cry then, her voice rising to a shriek like the gulls overhead. It seemed to make the crewman’s mind up for him.