Margaret of Anjou

  The mob grew and grew, filling every side road, courtyard, and alley with struggling figures, all converging on the Tower and its garrison of hated king’s soldiers. The land was clear around the walls there, a vast space of stone flags that Warwick recognized as a killing ground even as he was forced out into it. The crowd screeched and bellowed their anger up at the Tower battlements, looking to the Kentish men as if they expected them to march right up to the gatehouse and kick it down.

  Warwick reined in with his father, making a still place in the swirl of rushing people before they could be pushed against the Tower itself. Even then, the warhorses stamped and skittered left and right, made nervous by the noise and press of men all around.

  Salisbury was staring up to the highest point of the outer walls, narrowing his eyes at the sight of dark figures and rising streams of smoke. The black mouths of cannon loomed out over the crowd, pointing down at them. Still, the people poured in, more and more of them in wild disarray, filling the open space until there was hardly room to move.

  “Do you see the guns?” Salisbury shouted to his son, pointing. Warwick nodded, the noise too great to reply. It was chaos and he could see some of his captains beating men back with clubs just to make space for themselves. Those men were growing afraid in the heaving and shoving of too many packed around them. Already, they were red-faced and hoarse with shouting, pushing men away.

  “Let them have axes, these men of London!” Salisbury shouted at the top of his lungs. Some of the mob heard him and cheered. “Let them cut their way in through the gatehouse!”

  Warwick could hear only one word in three, but he gestured for his men to move forward to the weakest point of the Tower fortress. Cade had forced his way in once. They would again.

  High above, Warwick heard a single voice call an order, with dozens more replying. He looked up, suddenly afraid.

  —

  SCALES GLARED POISONOUSLY as the crowd swelled out into the open ground around the Tower. He was seeing a true mob, common men driven wild at the chance to break and destroy. All his life he had stood for order and stability and now there they were, a horde of wide-eyed fools come to tear it all down. Armed soldiers in mail struggled among them like pebbles thrown into a river. Hundreds of Kentish men bawled Cade’s name, as if they could bring him back from the dead with sheer rage.

  More and more of them came, and Scales could feel sweat run from his armpits beneath his tunic. He could feel the hatred of the dispossessed as they howled up at him. Men who saw no value in the king’s law, who would throw it all aside in an orgy of violence. He had feared the damage they might do away from his reach. Instead, they had come to him.

  He leaned forward, gripping the stone wall and staring down. Dozens of men carrying axes were gathering in wedge formation, their intention obvious as they tramped through the crowds, heading for the Tower gatehouse. Scales swore as he saw two men on horseback at the rear, a small island in the swirling madness. He thought he could feel the gaze of those horsemen on him. Scales shook his head in disbelief as he recognized the tabard colors of Salisbury and Warwick. A spike of fury shuddered through him at such a betrayal by king’s earls. No, he remembered suddenly. They had been made common.

  Three of the cannon along the walls had been loaded without round shot. As the mob filled the open ground below, Scales filled his lungs.

  “Warning cannon! No ball!” he shouted, his voice echoing back from the White Tower behind him.

  A triple crack sounded, belching long spits of flame from the barrels and wreathing the teams in gritty smoke. Scales lost sight of the mob below as the cloud passed. He heard screams, but when it cleared, they were pressing forward in a spasm. Axes were rising and falling against the outer gate and he swore aloud, not caring who heard him.

  No. He would not lose the Tower. Scales was pale as he looked up, seeing the faces of the gunnery teams waiting for the order. They were afraid, with every right to be. Not one of them would survive the madness if he allowed it inside.

  “Bring up the wildfire,” Scales ordered. Men ran down the wide steps along the wall, crossing to the storerooms and returning at a much slower pace. Each one held a large clay pot, with both arms around its girth. They cradled them like children and they were sweating, terrified of dropping them onto the stones.

  Scales could feel his heart skipping in his chest, so fast that it blurred his vision and made him dizzy. He leaned over the battlements and shouted for the mob to get back. They snarled and cursed up at him. The thumps of axes and hammers went on and he stood away from the edge, unable to watch.

  “Cannon. Load ball and fire!” he said, too quietly. The gun teams could not hear him and he walked along the battlements, repeating the order so that they set to in a flurry of activity. He did not look down again as the first guns thundered, followed instantly by screams. More and more of the cannons on the walls poured shot into the massed crowd, tearing them apart.

  Scales stopped by one of the small catapults, resting his hand on the great twist of horsehair that was the spring, thicker than a man’s thigh. The clay balls were in place, with rags dangling from the top of each one. Three of them were spaced along the walls and Scales crossed himself, muttering a prayer as he nodded to the men watching.

  Each dangling twist was lit and the catapults released almost instantly. No one on the walls wanted to be close to that foul substance once it was aflame. Even the cannon teams stood back from their weapons, ready to run if one was broken and spilled.

  The smoke was still thick in the air and Scales watched as the heavy clay balls went soaring out, dropping quickly as streaks of brightness in the fog. He closed his eyes.

  The sound of the crowd seemed to drop away to stunned silence for a single beat. Then the screaming began again and this time it built and built, the noise of insanity. Flames lit the gunsmoke and soared up at furnace heat, burning any living thing they touched. Scales shuddered. He had overseen the production of the wildfire himself, a foul blend of naphtha and niter, sulfur and burned lime. It stuck to whatever it touched and it consumed all flesh. Water merely fed the flames and could not put it out. He thought he could hear splashes as burning men threw themselves into the Thames, then screamed as they drowned, finding the fires of hell still eating at their skin.

  Scales raised his chin. The gun crews were staring at him, waiting for fresh orders. He did not meet their eyes and went back to his spot on the walls. He clenched his right fist at the sight of the crowd streaming away like rats. Some of them still burned, staggering and wailing, setting others alight with their touch until their voices were choked by flame. The smell was sickening and Scales could hear some of the gunners vomit as they realized what it was. He breathed hard in satisfaction. As ugly as it had been, the mob knew by then what awaited them in their madness. The Tower would be defended with fire and iron. It would not fall.

  —

  WARWICK SAW the first empty flames spitting across the heads of the crowd. He looked again at the number of cannons facing them and turned, white-faced, to his father.

  “Pull the men back! We don’t need to break the gate, just to hold the garrison in London. If they’ll fire on their own, we have no choice.”

  Salisbury sat stunned as he saw how many women and children were in that heaving crowd. He looked up in disgust at the battlements, unable to believe the commander would slaughter the people he was sworn to protect.

  In ignorance or terror, the vast mob pressed even closer to the Tower walls. Salisbury could see axemen attacking the gatehouse and knew they had to be called back. He pressed a horn to his lips and found himself panting too hard to use it. Instead, he tossed it to his son and watched as Warwick blew a falling note, repeating the call for retreat.

  Above them, white smoke billowed again and a rolling thunder began. Iron balls that could cross a mile of air were sent crashing through the crowd, killing
dozens at a time in great bloody smears. The sound of the people changed to a moan then, an animal sound of distress as they began to push away from the Tower, searching for any path out of that open space. The rippling cracks kept sounding and nowhere was safe.

  Warwick jerked his head up as something snagged him, leaving a line of blood on his cheek as if he had been caught by a blade. An iron ball had ripped through the crowd near him, too fast to see. He was thanking God for his luck when his horse coughed, spraying blood from its muzzle. Warwick threw his leg over and stood clear as the animal sank to its knees. Wherever the iron balls struck stone, splinters filled the air, ripping through the packed crowd. In desperation, Warwick blew retreat again and was almost knocked down as a man and woman rushed blindly past him, heading away.

  Over the sounds of pain and rage, no one heard the catapults. Warwick saw three black balls leap out from the battlements, moving much more slowly than the cannon shot, so that his eyes fixed on them in confusion. He saw them vanish into the crowd and a breath of warmth bloomed, rolling across the open space. Three pools of fire erupted, liquid flames leaping and splashing over the struggling crowd.

  They surged away from the heat in complete panic and the screaming of those caught was raw and pitiful to hear. Warwick stayed close to his father’s horse, but they were both shoved back. He caught sight of Edward of March, unhorsed in the flood of rushing men. Though Jameson and Sir Robert still guarded him, even those three could not resist the flood of people pressing to get away. March struck out around him, clearing a space. No one who fell in that mad rush would ever get up again, their bodies trampled and crushed as the mob streamed back from the walls.

  Hard voices called in outrage at the edges of the square, shouting for others to follow. As far as Warwick or his father could see, it was the Londoners themselves, gesturing back to the bridge. Thousands broke into a run as they left the Tower behind and it was all Warwick could do to press against a wall with his father’s horse and let them go past. The killing ground emptied as quickly as it had filled, leaving smears of broken flesh, rings of burning bodies and black smoke. Above their heads, men leaned over the walls, pointing and shouting.

  Warwick saw Edward of March staggering past him. The smith, Jameson, was at his back, though Sir Robert Dalton had vanished somewhere in the crush. Warwick reached out to snag Edward’s chestplate, dragging him out of the clutches of the crowd. Jameson came with him, resting one arm against a wall and blowing hard.

  March nodded to Warwick in wide-eyed thanks. His great strength had counted for nothing in that crowd and he had been frightened for the first time in his life. The multitude still rushed past them all, and the three earls could only pant and look on. More of their men struggled to that spot, until around forty had gathered against the walls. Dozens had been right at the base of the Tower when the wildfire crashed among them. Those flames still burned, flickering on bodies and stone like living things.

  “We should get further back,” Salisbury said. He was pale and exhausted-looking, worn down by fear and the battering of the crowd.

  A side road lay just a dozen yards away from the open space around the Tower and the three earls made their way to it, seeing the gray Thames at the far end. Their men came with them, casting nervous glances behind as they went.

  “Go on,” Salisbury said, guiding his horse along it.

  They were safe from the Tower cannon, at least. Six or seven houses long, the tiny street ended at the river and they could all see blackened corpses floating on the surface as they stopped. Some of the soldiers began to point and Warwick looked up to see a moving mass of men on the far side of the river. The Londoners had already crossed the bridge and made their way back along the opposite bank. He thought at first that they were still running in terror. It made no sense, and Warwick stared.

  There were many buildings on the other side of the river, businesses and homes that had spilled across from the city, taking valuable land around the only bridge. Storehouses and meat markets thrived there. Warwick caught glimpses of the torrent of men as they passed between houses of wood and brick.

  “What are they doing, over there?” he heard March asking.

  Warwick could only shrug. Londoners knew their city better than he ever would. He could see the running men gathering in one place, using their weapons to break into one brick building, squat and low, as it stood on the banks of the Thames.

  “It must be for weapons,” Salisbury said. “Is there an armory there?”

  One of the nearby soldiers swore suddenly. Warwick recalled he was a London man and he called him forward.

  “I know it, my lord,” the man said, his face awed. “It’s a royal depot, where they make cannon.”

  Every man there turned in dawning amazement, in time to see a black gun carriage wheeled out along the bank path, pushed by a great knot of Londoners. The length of iron it carried could have been one of those that had torn through the crowd. Despite its ponderous weight, the roaring mob pushed it on and on, until it faced the Tower’s southern wall, where no guns were.

  They had found bags of powder and other men staggered along with round shot held in their arms. Warwick craned out as far as he could, catching a glimpse of scurrying figures on the high walls of the Tower. The river was a quarter of a mile wide, but the rushing water would be no protection.

  The first ball cracked out, smashing into the Tower walls and falling back with lumps of stone and masonry dropping onto the paths below. The water of the river rippled as a thousand smaller pieces struck and sank. A savage cheer went up from that side of the river, but it was not a joyous sound, rather the cry of wolves, meant to terrify. It took an age between shots, but a second cannon had been brought out from the royal works and pointed across the river. The iron balls smashed hard against old stones again and again, until a huge crack could be seen and part of the curtain wall crumbled outwards.

  Warwick watched, stunned, as the men of London adjusted their aim and blew out another piece the size of a horse with a single shot. Smoke and dust hid the extent of the damage for a time, but when it cleared, the sight pleased those who had worked so hard for it.

  They abandoned the guns where they stood and began to stream back along the bank to London Bridge. Warwick had no doubt they would be returning to that spot and shook his head, imagining the slaughter that would surely follow.

  “That’s it now,” he said to his father. “They’ve made their breach. Will you stay to keep order? I’ve lost enough time here already and my aim is more than one Tower, or London herself.”

  “Go, by God,” Salisbury said, looking from his son to Edward of March. If anything, Salisbury was relieved at the chance to remain, rather than trying to force his old bones another eighty or ninety miles to Coventry. “Leave me a few hundred soldiers and I’ll keep an eye on the mob, though I think their anger will burn as long as the wildfire. God’s bones, I never thought to see that filthy muck used against my own people. Someone will suffer for it.”

  The older earl sat back as his son and March raced off with two dozen of the men, already raising the horn to call in the rest. Salisbury knew it would take forever to bring the Kentish lads to order and then turn them onto the road north. He was proud of his son then. In all the chaos, Warwick had not lost sight of the path. Whatever horrors they had witnessed, London was just a step and the beginning of it.

  —

  DARKNESS WAS EDGING closer by the time Warwick and March had their army gathered once again on the north side of the city walls. Over the hours of twilight, something like calm had been restored among them, though a number of the Kent men had looted ale and others stank of smoke and stood stupefied at what they had witnessed.

  The captains had been busy gathering the men and had to batter a few before they would agree to leave the city. They had witnessed the sort of violence against innocents that made them cry out for vengean
ce. Women and children had been burned in that crowd by the Tower and they wanted to see blood in return. Warwick had harangued a dozen surly groups, reminding them that they had come to strike a blow against the king himself. That was enough for most and Warwick could see how they took a grip on their axes and imagined using them, paying back something of what they had seen. He did not doubt the fervor of the Kentish men, frightening in its intensity.

  The church bells were ringing across London by then, led by Old Edward’s muffled note at the Palace of Westminster a mile away. The air was warm and thick with darkness around ten thousand men. The road lay at their feet, good Roman stones. Warwick could only wish he had the time to take some of those London cannon with him, but such lumbering things would be left far behind. Speed was the key to it all, he knew it. His men had found two carthorses in a stable by the city wall. The animals snorted and whickered, less than happy at the weight of armored men on their backs.

  “Sixty miles!” Warwick bellowed suddenly to the men all around. “Just eighty miles on fine roads—and you will see the king’s own army, quaking in fear. Men who have taken everything from me—and men who would take everything from you. Cry ‘Warwick,’ cry ‘March!’ Cry ‘York’ and ‘Jack Cade!’ Will you walk with me?”

  They growled and stamped in response, and he led them north.

  CHAPTER 26

  Thomas, Lord Egremont, preferred to look down at his boots rather than face the anger of the queen. He stood under a huge swathe of canvas, aware of the six-year-old prince tugging at his mother’s skirts and demanding her attention, asking question after question while Margaret glared at Egremont and ignored her son.

  “Your Highness,” Thomas tried again. “I have sent my fastest scouts to my brother. I cannot give them wings, but he will already be marching his army here to support your husband. Beyond that, I have the men with me and my own personal guard.”