‘Take my arm, Derry, would you?’ King Henry said suddenly. His eyes were bright, like a child’s. ‘My steps are uncertain. Archbishop Neville? Go ahead, please. I will follow you.’
Derry leaned on his stick as he moved up. He took a grip on the king’s elbow with his free hand, steadying him. Sweating slightly from strain and worry, he wondered if he could signal the drummers to slow the column further. Yet apart from the cheering, it already resembled a funeral. He dismissed the idea as Henry steadied and went on.
The noise had built to the point where no orders he might give could have been heard. On all sides, Londoners did not disappoint in their enthusiasm. They craned and heaved to catch a glimpse of Henry of Lancaster, the Innocent. Those who said Henry had died years before were dark with sullen anger, while others cheered and hooted in delight, treasuring the moment and the memory, when they saw a saint and a king.
Jasper Tudor stood in the first row, raised on a wooden bench he had hired for a farthing. His nephew Henry stood with him, looking down the road with the rest to where the silver knights were assembling and the banners swept back and forth. The boy was chewing a pie with a dubious expression, having found the crust rather more appetizing than the contents, which had seen better months than that one. Jasper tried to see if his brother’s boy was enjoying himself, though it was always hard to tell.
They watched King Henry grow close to them and both Henry Tudor and his uncle cheered with the rest. Jasper thought he saw Derry Brewer’s gaze pass over him and snag. The man missed little, so he dipped his head in greeting as the small group at the heart of the procession passed on. Jasper would have turned away then, but his nephew tugged at his arm and so they stayed to watch the ranks of knights pass with helmets open, smiling at the crowd and their own colleagues lining the road. It felt like a county fair or a market day with all the noise and bustle, but Jasper had seen how frail King Henry was and he was frowning in thought as his young ward turned away at last, satisfied.
‘Must I go?’ Henry Tudor said plaintively. Jasper had explained it a dozen times and he frowned at having it brought up again.
‘Yes, Harry. As I have said. Still, there is one more you must meet before we leave. One who asked to see you.’ They walked east along the road, skirting local people gathering the rushes, the top layer still clean enough to use or sell. Jasper waved off one woman with a full bucket in each hand and she passed on to the next fine gentleman who might want a clean kitchen floor for a penny. The road ahead cleared quickly and Jasper walked with his nephew towards the Tower and the river.
‘I should not have left it as long as this,’ Jasper said, keeping his voice low. ‘As soon as we heard York had landed, I should have gone then, to France.’
‘Running, Uncle,’ Henry muttered. Jasper’s mouth tightened.
‘Call it whatever you wish, boy. I have stood my time in battle – and you are yet too young. And you are my brother’s son and yes, you are my ward and my responsibility. I could not protect your father, Harry. So I will keep you safe, until this threat is at an end.’ Jasper saw his nephew had pushed half his lower lip over the upper, a determined expression he had come to know well over the months in London lodgings.
‘Look, son, if Warwick succeeds, we’ll be just over the Channel, with news winging its way to France. King Louis will be delighted and we’ll come back to England. I’ll have my Pembroke and you’ll inherit your father’s estates as Earl of Richmond.’
‘And if King Edward wins?’ Henry asked, always prodding for more detail. Jasper sighed.
‘Then we will not return and Lancaster will be destroyed. I do not believe that poor old king who passed by just now will be allowed to live if Edward of York regains his throne. Though you should not call Edward “king”, Harry. His was the younger line. He never had a right to the crown, except by fear and force.’
‘Which served him well enough,’ Henry muttered.
‘Which meant that he could not rule a year in peace without some challenge!’ Jasper replied, exasperated. ‘I cannot remember peace, boy! There have been rebels and cannon and wildfire on this very street – and battles from house to house. I have seen men dying on thorns and …’ He shook his head, refusing to go on, though his nephew watched with greater interest. As Henry saw he would not continue, the bright attention faded and he withdrew once more, sauntering on towards the river.
‘You are my nephew, Harry. You’ll obey me in this, until it is safe to return. Perhaps that will be in just a month, in the summer! Think of that, lad! You wanted to see King Henry and I held my boat for you to watch the procession. Now, there is one more I hoped to see … ah, there she is, the dear little thing.’ Jasper waved to the small woman waiting on the Thames bank for them. Henry looked at his uncle in honest confusion as they drew close and Jasper took her hand to kiss and greet her.
‘Lady Margaret, this is Henry Tudor, your son,’ he said.
Henry’s eyes widened and he looked from his uncle to the lady staring at him with fascinated eyes, drinking in every movement he made.
‘Hello, boy,’ she said, smiling shyly. ‘I hope your uncle Jasper is looking after you.’
Henry stood rooted to the ground, unable to speak or move. His mouth gaped and Margaret Beaufort reached out and closed it gently with her hand. It was the first touch between them since she had left him at Pembroke Castle fourteen years before. He could feel it on his skin as if she had carried hot iron and seared a mark on to him.
‘I have the details of your uncle’s property in Brittany now. I will write as often as I can, if you would like that.’
‘I would like that,’ Henry echoed faintly. He looked again at his uncle, trying to see if some game was being made of him.
‘Are you … well?’ Henry said. ‘You have everything you need?’
For some reason the question made his mother chuckle, her eyes becoming slits that twinkled at him. She made a sound like a wheeze and yet seemed well enough.
‘I am, my dear. I have employment as a lady’s maid at court. I look after my lord Warwick’s daughter Ann. It is better to be busy than idle and I … enjoy being close to the beating heart of things. You are well made, Henry, like your father. Your uncle tells me you are clever and quiet, with no boasting like so many other boys. I was very pleased to hear that.’
‘Should I … stay with you?’ Henry asked. His mother shook her head, firmly.
‘No. Your uncle and I have discussed it and London is too perilous a place for you, at least for now. Let us see how things turn out. If my lord Warwick is successful, perhaps you will be back before the year is out. Would you like that?’
‘Yes, Mother, I would,’ Henry said. His eyes gleamed with tears and he knuckled them away, embarrassed in front of his uncle. Margaret Beaufort patted her son gently on the arm.
‘Be strong, Henry. We will know better times than these, I promise you. Now go on. I had only a little time to meet you and it is at an end. Go with your uncle. Pray every day and resist temptation. Go with God.’
Henry stumbled as he climbed down into the boat, all the while trying to look back at a woman he had never known. He was barely aware of his uncle taking a seat beside him. When they were settled, the little woman turned and strode away without looking back.
‘Formidable woman, your mother,’ Jasper said, a little wistfully. ‘If I had met her instead of your father, well, our lives could have been very different. Row on, lads.’
The six men at the oars took them out to the middle of the current, sweeping away downriver, where the Pembroke waited for them.
Henry Tudor looked back at the city he had grown to love, magnificent and confusing in all its noise and colours and smells and surprises. He’d experienced just one Christmas and one spring in London, but it had been more filled with events and experiences than half a dozen years in Pembroke.
He told himself in silence that he would come back, now that he had found how fascinating life could be in a great ci
ty. Now that he had met the woman he had imagined holding him through toothache and fevers, when all he had were his own arms. He showed nothing of his thoughts to his uncle, preferring always to remain hidden, where he could not be hurt. When Jasper’s gaze fell on him once more, Henry nodded politely, his thoughts far away.
15
York’s herald waited for an age before he rode back to the three brothers. Facing the city, they rested, silent and still for a long time, until the sunlight lengthened their shadows in late afternoon. They turned away then, marching two miles from the walls to a spot where they could make a formal camp. Their men spent the remaining hours piling thorn and brush in a great perimeter, ready to repel any attack that might come that night. Warwick could barely see the smudge of them when they began the work, the labouring soldiers made into tiny figures. He saw parties of men go into the woods with axes, to fell saplings and drag them back. Some part of Warwick was pleased at the good order he observed. He had been there for their training after all, with Edward and Richard more than George. It made him proud when they showed they were not fools.
He knew he had them even so – he was almost certain of it. It was true the loss of Clarence had been a blow. He supposed his son-in-law had passed on news of the numbers and lords at his command, that had to be assumed. Yet Edward’s pride would not allow him to withdraw. The young man was depending on momentum. The error of that approach was shown when an enemy held up a spear and let you run right on to the point.
A few miles further off, John Neville, Lord Montagu, would have made his battle line with three thousand men, enough to block the north. De Vere, Earl Oxford, commanded six thousand in the east, while Warwick could bring ten thousand from the city and ten thousand more from Warwickshire behind him. The sons of York had come into his heartland, his home. He had them in irons, with only the western road as a way out.
As night crept silently across the landscape, Warwick watched until torches were lit all along the edges of the York camp. Groups of lamplighters did the same on the walls of Coventry, forming two long lines of oil and flames, a thousand yards wide, facing each other.
The Duke of Exeter had sent a number of messages during the day, culminating in another attempt by the man to gain entrance at the tower, this time refused by Warwick’s own guards. Holland had gone on to the wall then, shouting up at him that he had better look sharp. Warwick had refused to reply and at the last, the furious noble had thrown up his hands and gone off to get drunk. It was disappointing that Exeter had not called him a coward in the hearing of others. Warwick would have had his head then for interfering with command in time of war and no one would have dared say a word. Unfortunately, Henry Holland knew that as well as he did and had stopped short of putting his head on the block.
Warwick slept poorly, throwing off his covers on a night too warm for comfort. He should have closed the trap he had set, once Edward walked into it. He could imagine Derry Brewer’s reaction and distrust when he heard he had not drawn the noose tight. Three sides would have been enough to crush the small force and make an ending. Warwick could hardly explain what he could not understand in himself.
At sunrise, he rose from a bed soaked in sweat and wrapped a cloak around his shoulders, gripped by a strange sense of dread. He went out to the walls and stared across swirling morning mist to the dark line of brush that lay across his horizon. The torches had all gone out, or showed as embers, a dark and sullen gleam, fading even as he stared.
There was no sign of movement in the camp, no scouts of York riding out to check the fields all around. Warwick suspected then, but he gave orders even so and watched from on high as men rode out to the camp. They returned even faster, waving their arms and shaking their heads as they came at a gallop. The York camp was deserted. The army had crept away in the night and it was Warwick who had let them go.
Edward held his horse on a short rein. He would have liked nothing more than to go racing off down the road, but the men marching behind him could not go any faster. Only eight hundred of his army were on horseback, with spare animals bringing up the rear. The rest had to walk every mile – and then fight if they were challenged once again.
They had moved out in silence the night before, just as soon as it was too dark to see them leave. Edward and Richard had given the work to their captains and those men had imposed the need for silence with hard blows and whispers promising such brutal threats as to make strong men wince. Yet there were few who had to be bullied on their way. Most of them, even those who had come with Clarence, had been caught up in the cause. The difficulty lay in stopping them calling out and laughing with their mates in their excitement. Readying the camp to move had been a fraught few hours, but the reward had been to creep silently through black countryside. The moon was still at a half with little cloud – not ideal, but they’d moved even so.
The night had covered them well enough to bring them up to Oxford’s camp. They’d rushed the guards on watch and staggered on across a field and tiny stream, plunging amidst tents with billhooks and axes swinging wildly. For a time, it had been terrifying chaos, but they were many. Those roused from sleep by strangled horns were driven to flight, most without armour or weapons. The panic spread quickly and Oxford’s men could be seen haring off over the hills around, driven out as if by a host of devils rather than men.
Edward could have rested them then, to let Warwick discover he had broken his chains the following morning. Instead, he looked south and wondered. London lay some eighty miles from where they stood. On a good road, even weary men could walk three to four miles every hour. A night and a day on the road lay ahead, at least if he had food to feed them. They’d grown hard enough, tramping about the country since his landing. More importantly, they would understand what he wanted to do. London was Parliament and power. The city protected King Henry, the heart of Lancaster. Above all that, it held Edward’s wife and daughters – and his son.
They marched down the great London road that led into the south, still with spirits like risen bread after scattering an enemy. That shine in the blood faded with each hour, until they reached the outskirts of Northampton. There, they lay down on the ground and dozed. Edward felt the same need for sleep tugging at him, making him stupid and slow. The men and women of his baggage train went into the city with purses of silver, returning with all the bread and soup they could buy. The sleeping soldiers were roused red-eyed to smile and take a bowl and a third of a loaf. They ate their fill and by then there were sausages on trays brought out on the heads of butcher boys, competing with each other to pass them out and show an empty tray to Edward’s quartermasters. Silver passed into the city about as fast as the food was made to vanish by hungry men in full health, but the sun was up by the time Edward gathered them around him, standing them in ranks. They yawned, some of them, but the sons of York had proven themselves good men to follow to that point. There were smiles as Edward looked them over and he nodded, pleased.
‘My lords, captains, gentlemen … ladies.’ He said the last word with a slight bow in the direction of the women who had accompanied the fighting ranks. A laugh went up from the army at their reaction, a pleasant sound as some of them flushed and others dipped their heads or curtsied, delighted to be mentioned.
‘From this morning,’ Edward went on, ‘I will force a good pace, one to match or better any legion of Rome before us. This road stretches unbroken, dry and wide, eighty miles to London. That is what I must ask of you. You have already shown me your strength and your loyalty. I must ask for more, for all. I must ask for your trust and your patience. You see, I am here to take back my crown. It lies in London.’
They cheered his words then, surprising and pleasing him so that he turned and laughed in delight to his brothers, standing nearby.
‘Carts and supplies to bring up the rear. Captains, form columns six abreast. God bless you all for your loyalty. I will speak to you again when we stand within London walls!’
Dutifully, they
cheered once more, though Flemish and English were already moving, their minds on collecting their tools and weapons and getting into position. It took another hour for the columns to form up, with scouts and hand-gunners vying for the front ranks to set the pace. All the women, old men and boys on the carts were waiting patiently to join the rear with whatever supplies the more enterprising of them had bargained out of the city. There were some women there who could create a feast from little more than a handful of herbs. They knew their value too, as they took up seats and reins and called out to favourite young men rushing past them, making them grin or blush. It was a fine April day and they had all marched or ridden from a dark sense of enclosure at Coventry, into freedom and spring sunshine. The mood was light as they set off, swinging along, with blades on their shoulders and pride in each step.
Edward and his brothers took the lead, trotting their horses abreast in the front rank, while their scouts cantered out on all sides to check the lay of the land ahead.
‘Forty miles today and the same tomorrow,’ Edward said. ‘It can be done. That will be enough to see the London walls before the sun sets.’ He smiled as he spoke, though he knew it would be hard on the men. He had a memory then of Warwick striking his horse dead at Towton, to march and fight on foot with the rest of the army – to show he would not retreat, no matter how the battle went. It had been a grand action and the memory did not sit well with Edward at that moment. He had admired Warwick then.
It was odd to consider that the very same man could have been following his tracks at that moment, charging along behind in a great froth of indignation. It would not matter, Edward decided. He would reach London first and shut the gates behind.
That thought brought back another memory, one that disturbed him and made him raise his head. He leaned over to his brother Richard, riding in the centre of the line.
‘What if they refuse to let us in? Like Hull or York? What if the gates are closed, Richard?’