Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors

  ‘Mount up, Brother,’ Edward said, chuckling. ‘You think too long, on everything. There are times when you must just ride out – and be damned to all those who would hold you back.’

  The warhorse was a fine mount, though Edward was sure to have his usual gelding brought along as well in case the new one was too skittish for fighting. As with men, a steady nerve was at least as important in a horse as strength or even training. He patted the blue-and-red silk that draped the warhorse, stepping on to a block to throw his leg over. His men watched him, ready and calm. Edward smiled and raised his open hand to them. They cheered, as he’d known they would, lifted by his great spirit, to joy. The city of Leicester dwindled behind them as they marched away, taking another two hundred volunteers.

  The road was flat and dry and the sun rose into a sky studded with white, warming the marching men. Coventry was barely fifteen miles from where they had made their camp and the word among them was that Edward would march them right down Warwick’s throat, that they would see battle that very day. Yet it was not even noon when the scouts came racing back, on mounts still fresh. The men trudging along on Roman stones glanced at one another and were not surprised when they were made to halt. The captains went forward for orders and brought back the command to form squares for battle.

  Richard of Gloucester commanded two thousand on the right wing, his own banners raised there by knights in full armour. Edward held the centre: three thousand men who were the strongest and most experienced he had. The left wing, staggered back, was commanded by Earl Rivers with Hastings and Stanley as his seconds, the three men waiting patiently as their captains assembled the ranks. It was not an impressive manoeuvre from men who had not known each other even a month before. There was a great deal of swearing and shoving and loss of tempers. Yet when they had found the places to stand, they took good grips on billhooks and pikes, on pollaxe and woodaxe, like men who knew how to use them. Archers assembled on the outer wings under their own bow captains, while ahead of the front rank, the hand-gunners gathered, just a hundred with matches smoking thin trails into the air. Two dogs had followed the army as it moved on from Leicester. They were bounding along the front ranks in enormous excitement, barking at all the men who stood and looked into the distance. There was some nervous talk and laughter in the ranks then, as old friends mocked each other’s nervousness to ease their own. More than a few crossed themselves and touched relics hidden beneath shirts, glancing up to heaven as their lips moved.

  Complete silence fell as the three battles of men sighted an enemy trudging towards them across the fields. The sight brought a chill and one of the men sent a dog yelping with a great kick when it barked at him. Another said something wry in response and a ripple of laughter sounded in that part of the army, though the rest did not hear it and waited quietly.

  Only the scouts knew how many they had seen and even then, the numbers would be the best guess of untutored boys. The only reality that mattered was to watch the ranks forming and widening with each step, though at least the day was clear. In fog or darkness, there was no way to know how many they faced. Men like Edward who had fought in snow and through the night at Towton could remember the horror of it, the sense of endless hordes of enemies who would never falter, never stop coming, while your strength and your will faded with every step. It was a memory of such fear and despair that they did not think of it, until it came upon them again.

  ‘Hold this ground!’ Edward roared across the lines. He had brought his new destrier to the front rank of the centre and drawn his sword to hold aloft. ‘My lord Gloucester, you will attend me here.’

  The ranks of men watched in confusion as that order was carried across the lines and Richard Plantagenet rode in from the right wing, joining his brother. The two of them called over one of the scouts and spoke earnestly to him, the young man’s head bobbing as he confirmed what he had seen. Once again, men who knew each other in the ranks looked round and shrugged. They were ready to fight, their hearts pounding, all aches vanishing. They watched as a dozen senior captains gathered and trotted off together, for all the world a parley group. It made no sense to those who had come to fight for York.

  A mile away, just over, some eighteen hundred yards, those with the sharpest eyes could make out banners brought up by the enemy. Whoever commanded them had matched their width, though no one could say even then how many ranks they faced, how deep the companies and squares were. The banners they saw were quartered, just as Edward’s shield was, containing two squares of three lions and two of the fleurs-de-lis of France. Yet the banners held across the field and still approaching had a strap of silver across them. George of Clarence, a royal duke of the house of York, was on the field. As the men in ranks watched, the great force came to a halt, some eight hundred yards away. It was close enough to be a threat and they gripped axe-handles and retied belts and loose pieces of kit, aware that the peace of the day could be broken at any moment by wild yells and horns. It took only two minutes for opposing armies to crash together at that range, a period of rushing terror that no one who had experienced it would ever forget.

  The order to attack did not come and those in the front ranks saw captains and knights ride out from Clarence. They met in the middle of the field, grim and serious men, gauging the intentions of the others. They would have talked longer if Edward and Richard had not ridden up to that central point with Earl Rivers and half a dozen guards. Edward’s confidence showed clearly in his manner, as if he could not imagine being in danger.

  Some of Clarence’s men trotted away to take Edward’s promise of safe passage and it was then that George of Clarence rode out, bare-headed, to that central point. He smiled nervously as he reined in, facing his brothers.

  ‘I accept safe conduct and grant it,’ Edward called to the men gathered around to protect them. ‘You have my thanks, gentlemen. Return now, that my brothers and I may speak alone.’

  George of Clarence echoed the order and all those who had ridden out turned their horses away without a word and cantered off, leaving the three men staring at each other.

  ‘Did my Irishman reach you?’ Richard asked. George nodded, his tongue thick in his mouth so that he did not know what to say. They all sensed the wrong word would have them bickering and silence seemed almost the better alternative.

  ‘Well, George?’ Edward said. He wore no helmet, but beyond that he had not unbent in any sense. He sat his warhorse with a straight back, his gauntlets resting easily on a knot of reins. ‘Do you expect me to make this easy for you?’

  George of Clarence made a sharp grimace and shook his head. Without hurry, he dismounted and approached. Armed and clad in iron, merely walking towards his brothers made both men straighten and ready themselves. Sensing their response, Clarence unbuckled his sword belt and held scabbard and blade out to one side. It was more a gesture than actually disarming himself, Richard noted. He would have to remember it.

  The Duke of Clarence nodded to Richard, then addressed his gaze to the older brother he had betrayed.

  ‘I am sorry, Edward. I broke my word to you, my oath. It was losing the child. In my grief …’

  ‘We have all lost those we love, George,’ Edward said softly. Richard shot a glance at him. He had thought he knew his brother’s mind, but there was something threatening in the way Edward regarded their brother still, as if he had not forgiven him at all. For an instant, Richard had to consider if he would or even could stop Edward from striking George down. The men who had come to that field for Clarence could well be taken under the wing of his older brother. Edward lowered his head a touch further, staring down at a man who had chosen Warwick over his family.

  George flinched as Edward went from stillness to sudden movement, dismounting lightly into the thick mud. In two strides, he was able to take his brother’s outstretched hand, then pull him into an embrace. George of Clarence laughed in honest relief.

  ‘You worried me, then,’ he said. ‘I thought when you saw
I brought three thousand to fight for you, I would surely be forgiven, but I did not know. I have had so little sleep, Edward, in the last few days! Ever since you were said to have landed …’

  Richard dismounted in turn, listening to his brother babbling. George had been more afraid than he’d let on, that much was clear from the torrent of words he could not seem to bring to an end. Edward stood back from him, still weighing him with that odd expression Richard had observed before.

  ‘We will put the past behind, George,’ Edward said. ‘That’s the place for it, don’t you think?’

  ‘I will make it right, Brother, I swear it. I was made a fool by Warwick, gulled by him with promises and lies. We all were! He is an asp, Edward. Those Nevilles … I swear your wife was right. They are a rotten heart, wherever they touch. We will put it right, Brother. I will put it right.’

  ‘As you say, George,’ Edward said. ‘Bring your captains here and place them under my command – so there is no confusion amongst them.’

  ‘Brother, they are loyal, I swear. I have marched them all the way from Cornwall, some of them. Kernow men who hardly speak English, but they know the sharp end of an axe.’

  ‘Good, George. Bring your captains in now, as I asked you once. If you make me ask a third time, I will strike you dead on this field. You will earn my trust again, Brother. You do not have it now.’

  George stammered and went red, nodding and backing away as he waved in his captains. They approached warily and Edward addressed them, his voice firm and clear.

  ‘I’ll place a thousand of you on each wing, the rest to support me in the centre. I expect you to follow the orders of my lords as if they were my own – as if they were your father’s orders, or Almighty God come to tell you to stand and fight for me. I will reward bravery and great feats of arms, without limit of any kind. If you would earn a manor or a knighthood or a barony or even an earldom, you would do well to follow me today. Know that my enemy is Earl Warwick and he is the richest man in England. When he falls, there will be a fair share made to you in my name. Is that understood?’

  There was a gleam of avarice in some of the eyes that watched Edward, but Richard saw a touch of the old magic as well. There were men there, hard and experienced men, who were telling themselves they would come to the notice of the giant in polished plate. They would accomplish such deeds as would impress him. Edward brought out the best in the men who came under his command, that was the truth of it. It was not even in his words, but in the way he looked at them and the way he saw them.

  When the Clarence captains returned to their lines, there was an immediate lurch forward. They carried their pikes and weapons aloft on shoulders, rather than pointed out in hostile array.

  Edward saw his brother George was standing disconsolately, deprived of his command and still unsure of his new place with his brother the king of England. With a visible effort, Edward spoke to him again, putting aside his disdain.

  ‘You’ll prove yourself, George, I don’t doubt. You are our father’s son, just as I am. Just as Richard is. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘I won’t,’ George replied and to Richard’s astonishment, he sobbed suddenly, dipping his head into the crook of his elbow so that they would not see. Edward stared and Richard spoke to cover the muffled sounds of grief.

  ‘Come now, Brother. Mount up before your men see you … We’ll stop here and eat, perhaps …’ He broke off as Edward shook his head in answer.

  ‘No. Coventry is just five or six miles away. We still have Montagu shadowing us behind. When the new men are settled and arranged in column, we’ll walk there, today. Stay at my side, George, would you? You can tell me all you know, before the fighting begins.’

  George blinked at the reckless confidence in his older brother. He knew Warwick’s army outnumbered those he saw, three times over, a host of a size that had not been seen since Towton. He had expected Edward to be in command of an army to equal it, just as he had been before. The reality was different enough to make him perspire.

  After a moment of silence, George remembered himself. He swallowed his fear and bowed his head, accepting his brother’s authority over him without another word.

  Warwick felt a sudden chill of sadness as he stood in spring sunshine. The day was beautiful, the last rags of winter blown away so that the sun warmed a green earth and brought back a sense of life and desire, thinning the blood and making all things well.

  He leaned forward, hunching his shoulders atop the Coventry walls. A tower loomed over him on his right and he considered walking up that last flight of steps to see to the furthest point. The bricks in the tower’s shadow were still damp as he laid his hand on them, though they would grow warm as the day ended. Some part of him observed his reactions, thinking how strange it was that he could be aware of the roughness of stone while the banners of York were still lurching into view, at the head of an army. Warwick had thought they were a hundred miles to the north, building the great force Edward would surely need to reclaim all he had lost. It was nothing less than madness for the sons of York to have raised war banners before they had the numbers to support them. Yet Warwick felt cold clutch at him.

  The banners of Clarence lay alongside those of York and Gloucester. Three brothers together – and one more knife thrust into Warwick’s side to cause him pain. As he looked out from Coventry’s wall over the fields around, he thought of how his daughter would react when she heard. He grieved as a father for her then.

  Warwick himself had gone to King Edward to ask permission for that marriage. It was he who had counselled the giddy young lovers to elope to France and gone with them. It had been Warwick who rode to save George and Isabel when Edward’s wrath turned on them and they had to run.

  Braced on stone, Warwick pulled in enormous breaths, filling himself with clean air above the winding streets and cooking fires of the city. He had seen their child, his grandchild, born at sea and named, only to die unbaptized in the salt spray. It was King Edward’s orders that had prevented their little boat from landing in Calais. It was the fleet of Lord Rivers that had hunted them on the south coast of England and had driven them out.

  Warwick dragged the steel knuckles of his gauntlet back and forth across the brick, scoring deeper and deeper, unnoticed, unfelt. He had known Edward when he was just a great bullock of a lad, delighted to fight and drink and whore with the garrison at Calais. Edward of March he had been then, and he had accepted Warwick’s guidance, the young man wise enough to see something worth learning in him. So it had seemed. Warwick had been Edward’s guide, his teacher. He knew he was responsible in some part for the man Edward had become. He was not responsible for all he had become. The young king had married poorly and perhaps there had always been weaknesses in him, as in marble that seemed strong, but shattered at the touch of a chisel. Or perhaps the weaknesses would never have shown if Warwick had not helped him to reach for the throne, to stretch out his hand and touch a crown Edward had not earned and surely did not deserve. They had deposed a saint and Edward had become king in blood and vengeance. Perhaps his sins had rotted him. Or his pride.

  Warwick scratched the metal joints harder across the stone, wanting to destroy something, wanting to leave a mark. He wished Derry Brewer could have been there to advise him. He had grown used to the man’s scorn and found it oddly comforting.

  Edward Plantagenet was on the field once more. Anyone who remembered Towton or had survived Mortimer’s Cross would feel a twinge of fear at that news. Warwick could not deny it in himself, as he watched the army of York tramp forward in well-spaced ranks, spreading as wide as the city itself. Over a thousand yards of them in the front rank and God alone knew how many stretched behind.

  On sudden impulse, Warwick turned to the watch tower and climbed quickly up the steps inside. In moments, he reached an octagonal crest that allowed him to see miles further over the great flat plain in the heart of England. It was land Caesar himself would have allowed was a place to give batt
le. Warwick felt his heart thumping faster. He saw Edward had not gathered the vast host that he had feared. Clarence had given him three thousand – and denied as many to Warwick by that betrayal. Even then, Edward’s army was no more than ten, perhaps eleven thousand men.

  Warwick could remember standing before the hill at St Albans, staring across roads blocked with thorns and broken furniture. He and his father had stood with Richard, Duke of York, and between them they’d mustered only three thousand men, a force that would be dwarfed by those of later days. Warwick knew the merchant guilds complained that trade had suffered and the country had grown poorer as a result, that they made weapons and raised men for slaughter, rather than iron and pewter – and mutton, beef and pork. War had hurt them all and as Warwick looked over the standing ranks, he thought of his father and was pleased the breeze was there to dry the brightness that came to his eyes. They were good men, those who had gone. Better than all those poor bastards they left behind.

  He watched, dragging the same gauntlet across a block as Edward of York rode forward with his two brothers and half a dozen knights in armour, banners streaming out. Edward and Richard both wore long surcoats over their armour, the sword belts sitting over quarters of glorious colours: red and blue and gold, lions and fleurs-de-lis. The banners were a fine mixture of York and Gloucester and Clarence, a calculated display: the house of York returned and united against him. In many ways it was more for those who stared down from the walls than Warwick himself.

  His own banners flew above his head, facing them. Warwick glanced up at the colours of his shield and thought how strange it was that every man in command that day was a member of the same order of chivalry. York, Gloucester, Clarence, Hastings, Warwick himself, his brother Montagu edging down from the north – all were members of the Order of the Garter, with the legend embroidered around their family crests: ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ – ‘Evil be to him who evil thinks’.