Buckingham felt eyes on him as he rode along a path between hedges, seeking out flat ground. He was certain he saw avarice in his own knights and the few lords who still remained that morning. The idea of King Richard putting a price on his capture was so insulting that Buckingham still burned with it, but it had had an effect. Morton had vanished, after all. Buckingham could no longer ride or walk anywhere without eyes following him, as if he was a fortune to be watched in case it disappeared. It was infuriating. Yet even then, he did not think his plans would have fallen apart quite as quickly without the whispers from London.
One piece of news had ruined him, more than the reward on his head, or the damp, or the fear. Buckingham cared nothing for the two sons of King Edward, but half the lords who had risen against King Richard certainly did. Some had come to his rebellion to restore the rightful succession, to throw down the usurper who had moved against his brother’s widow and her sons with indecent haste, with the old king’s body still warm.
Buckingham had not worried overmuch about their reasons – just as long as they came to the field. It would not matter in the end why they had come. A rebellion grew in power and ambition and when Richard was dead, they would be swept up and see the outcome as he did. The forces of Lancaster should have landed by then, to join them in triumph. It would all have been settled on Richard’s corpse – and those Buckingham had lost could rest in peace.
The news that the princes had been killed in the Tower, no one knew how, had dealt a mortal blow to his campaign. Without them, there was no cause of York, no rallying point. In desperation, Buckingham and Bishop Morton had argued that their lords should change their alliance and fight on for Lancaster. If there had been some sign of the damned Tudors, they might have swayed the gathered lords. Yet there was not – and there were nobles on that field who would not keep their titles if Lancaster returned. They had said little as darkness came, but they’d all been gone by morning, taking thousands of soldiers away with them.
It was perhaps the most disastrous and short-lived rebellion of his lifetime, Buckingham thought ruefully. He did not think he had eight hundred men left on the field that morning, a thousand at most. God alone knew how many he faced. He had been outmanoeuvred almost from the beginning and he felt a grudging respect for King Richard that had not been there before. The rising tide Buckingham had felt for a few exciting weeks had become a still pool. He liked the image, in part because the heavens had opened yet again and the rain was hammering down, drumming unpleasantly on his armour. His iron plate was already brown with rust, though he had squires and servants to polish it each evening.
He saw a farmhouse ahead and pointed it out rather than shout over the downpour. The king’s army was a mile or two away over broken ground of fields and ditches and a river. With the rain making it all a morass, Buckingham did not think they would be advancing that morning, no matter whose banners flew, unless it was to demand his surrender. He had a little time, either way, and just the thought of a hot cup of milk made him want to groan.
He dismounted in the farmer’s yard and walked towards the door. He did not see one of his men raise a cudgel as he ducked to pass below the lintel. When the blow came down on the back of his head, the Duke of Buckingham fell senseless across the threshold. The family within were astonished and terrified at the crash of armour bringing rain and wind into their home.
The men with Buckingham said nothing as they dragged him up and tied his unconscious form to his horse, his arms securely bound behind his back. He lolled there as they looked at one another in wild surmise. Even shared between six of them, a thousand pounds was a fortune for poor knights.
The ship no longer rose and fell with the waves, but shuddered like a wounded boar. The white crests showed above the rails as they came hissing in, breaking into foam as they smacked against the sides and across her deck, sending deep groans through the whole structure. Sailors ran bare-footed along the waist, grabbing for ropes or wooden sides whenever they saw a wave coming at them, calling and pointing to one another in warning. Again and again, one of them saw the threat too late and was thrown from his feet, shooting across the boards in a flood of white until he struck something else. Some struggled to stand, bedraggled, hair streaming with salt water as they fought for breath. Others took friends away with them and went over the side into the foaming, breathing deep.
Another danger, worse than the great waves that threatened to tip the entire ship over, lay in the ships struggling along on either side, lost to sight in the unnatural darkness under the storm. The wind would fall without warning though the sea continued to plunge, leaving men to pick themselves up and search the grey for some sight of land or their own fleet. The air itself was thick with spray and there was no warning as one ship appeared on top of another, rising up and up across the waist as men screamed. The masts snapped on the ship below and it turned right over as the other shook itself like a wet dog and leaped on as if it had not just murdered scores of men.
Jasper Tudor watched in horror. He considered himself a sailor, but the open sea between France and England was one of the most dangerous stretches of water he had ever known. The storms there came out of nothing and the coast was black rock or cliffs of chalk, with no gentle harbours visible from the deep water. He prayed as he saw one ship destroy another and heard the great wail of the men on the surviving vessel as their ship broke free and went on. It looked almost untouched at first, but then began to list and the second cry was one of unending terror. There was nothing anyone could do, though he saw men dropping into the water like stones as the ship leaned and bucked. The waves would not give them a respite and the wind increased, whistling, and freezing those who watched and those who drowned.
He turned away from the disaster and saw his nephew watching with no trace of emotion. Henry Tudor had not lost that peculiar detachment that had dismayed his uncle from their first meeting. It was not that he felt nothing, though he could be cold when he chose to be. To Jasper’s eye, it was more that the young man lacked some deep connection with other men. He was subtly different from them, though he had learned to hide that difference wondrous well. In all the usual patterns of life, a stranger could not have told Henry from any other young knight or lord. Yet there were times when he was not completely sure how a man might be expected to act, times when he looked completely lost.
He did so then, staring blank-faced as one ship mounted another in terrifying union and both were torn open and went down. Heads bobbed on the water and some of the men waved, though there was no hope for them. God only knew where the coast lay, even for those few who could swim. They would be as likely to head out into the North Sea as towards any hope of shelter. There was no chance of rescue. The rest of the fleet were too intent on their own survival even to think of anyone else. Each ship had nailed wooden battens on to their hatches, preventing the breaking waves from filling the hold and dragging them all to the bottom.
For those in the water, the cold would reach into them soon enough. Either that or they would be killed by the sheer battering of waves rising and falling like ships themselves, such leviathans as to make all men no more than broken reeds and flotsam.
Jasper saw the captain yelling new orders and two of his sailors leaning their weight on to the steering bars, calling more over to fight the waves. On one side of the ship, crewmen heaved on a rope to turn the yard above. More men waited there, clinging on for their lives in the gale that plucked at them or froze them where they gripped on.
‘We’re going back!’ Jasper shouted to his nephew. He was only surprised they had gone as far as they had. The storm had come up so quickly it had smashed their fleet in all directions, racing in from the east as if it had funnelled and increased its speed all the way along the Channel coasts. Jasper only hoped they could limp to the French ports. He dreaded what he would see. King Louis had given them eighteen ships and twelve hundred men. The intention had been to land in Wales and join Buckingham’s rebellion. Jasp
er could only shake his head in frustration. The storm even seemed to be lessening, so he could hear the sailors above yelling to each other over the wind’s howl and the crack and slap of wet ropes against wood. It was as if they had been driven off and the storm would ease with each mile further away from the coast of Wales.
‘We’re going back to France,’ Jasper said again. ‘The storm was … well, we could not anchor or find our safe harbour, not in this. Is it easing, do you think?’ He closed his eyes and touched a cross hanging at his throat, praying for all the crews and ships that had dared the open sea in the season of storms. For those on land, he imagined it had meant a downpour, perhaps a few tiles dislodged from their roofs. Out on the grey deep, it had been one of the most frightening experiences of his life.
‘When can we try again?’ Henry shouted in his ear. Jasper Tudor looked at the younger man, knowing he was as intelligent as anyone he had met, but still at times, so cold as to appear unbearably cruel. Jasper was exhausted and half frozen. He had seen hundreds of men drown and for all he knew, theirs was the last bark afloat on that hissing, spiteful sea. He could not think of trying again, or even if King Louis would replace all the ships and men they had lost and think it worth the cost. Yet his nephew stared at him, waiting for an answer.
‘Soon, Harry,’ his uncle said, giving up in exasperation. ‘Let’s get back to land first and then we’ll see. Not today.’
‘Be of good cheer, Uncle,’ Henry said, smiling at him. ‘We are alive – and we are the last of Lancaster. We should show a brave face to the storm, I think.’
Jasper wiped seawater from his wide eyes and his hair, where it streamed still.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll do my best.’
In the marketplace at Salisbury, Richard looked in distaste at the young fool who had brought himself to such a point. The block lay waiting, and the executioner stood ready with a wide axe. Though the sun was barely above the eastern hills, the town had turned out to witness the death of a duke. They stood in wide-eyed fascination, watching and listening to every aspect.
Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was still Richard’s Constable of England, a man trusted with great power – and the authority to command others to come to a field of battle. Many in that crowd would take a small satisfaction from seeing a man of such estate brought low. It showed that the law applied to all, to the sheriffs and the mayors and the aldermen as well as poor and common folk brought before the king’s judges.
King Richard stood on one side of the market square, watching the proceedings. Young Buckingham had squandered his trust, and yet there was something unbearably foolish about his pitiful rebellion. Richard sighed to himself and rubbed the stubble along his jaw. His back was hurting once again. There was no help for it. Buckingham would not grow old and wise to regret his youthful foolishness. There would be no second chance for him.
Richard made his voice ring across the square.
‘It is my belief, my lord Buckingham, that you are Bishop Morton’s fool, more than the author of your own destruction. I have reports of him – and of ships sighted from the coast and forced to turn back. Your patrons will not escape my hunters, my lord, be sure of it. Yet I must punish you for your treason. You have cost me more than …’ He forced himself to stop, rather than begin to complain. The duke regarded him with an intent expression, not yet hopeless in his bonds.
‘If you truly believe that, Your Highness, then please, forgive me. Mercy is in your gift. Say one word and this fellow will cut these ropes and set me free. I would live to serve you once more.’
‘I know, my lord. What you say is true. I choose not to set a traitor free. You chose this fate when you took arms against your king. Gentlemen, carry on.’
Buckingham struggled, but he was lowered on to the block by two strong men who then stood back to give the axeman room. He was a local man, sweating with the need to make a perfect blow while everyone he knew looked on. He cut a huge arc in the air and Buckingham gave a groan of fear that ended in an instant, leaving silence behind it.
30
Middleham Castle had been Earl Warwick’s home, and his father’s before that. It had been the very hearthstone of the Neville clan. That was part of the reason Richard had made it his own, when his brother George could no longer make a claim. He had spent years of his own youth at Middleham and it had many happy memories for him. His son had been born there, when his marriage had been happier and full of laughter. Further north than the city of York, it was true that Middleham was a bleak place in winter, but when spring returned, the rambling estate could be found in green fields, streams and orchards, an Eden of the dales.
He had been king almost a year, Richard thought, as he dressed himself once more. His ritual of the heated bath by the fire in the late morning had become more a part of his normal life with each passing month. He kept each step of it the same, so that he could know on the instant when something had gone awry. His back and shoulders were a mass of ridges. On damp days, he could feel the bones twisting. He woke sometimes in darkness, convinced by some spike of pain that something had broken. It passed, so that he slipped back to dozing once again, but it came more and more often.
He hissed as some ill-judged movement sent pain through his upper body to the point of making him pant. Anger helped, always, though his growling and swearing were best kept private. He was forced to show another face to the world, then kick a gauntlet across the room when he was alone. He left the rest of his tunic fastenings untied and went out into the sun.
A suit of armour waited on his pleasure, tied and braced in leather to a pole of iron about the height of a tall man. Richard glared balefully at the thing. He practised on such a device whenever he could. Each stroke he landed sent a jolt through him, burning and stabbing at his spine and shoulders. Yet he needed the strength it lent him, when the sweat had dried and his servants had oiled his muscles like the old senators of Rome, working back and forth with strigils of brass or ivory. He had a grip to crush another’s hand, if he chose to. He could not afford to be weak, of all men.
He stood before the armour, seeing its strengths and where to put a blade. The battlefield was the only true test, of course, where an enemy would be moving and countering. Yet it helped to know where plates were weak, where a stab might break through under a raised arm, say.
The household seneschal at Middleham said nothing as he handed over Richard’s sword, gripping the scabbard to retain it as Richard pulled the blade. The old man stood respectfully to one side then, though Richard knew he would watch every stroke.
‘Go inside, sir. I would be alone today,’ he said suddenly. The seneschal bowed and moved swiftly away so that Richard was left to turn slowly in place, looking around him at the wooden balcony above and the open square below. There were no other faces peering down, no one standing in the shadows to stare at him. He was alone and he found he could not breathe.
He tore open his tunic and dropped it almost in two halves on the ground, kicking it away. Being bare-chested usually deprived him of some feeling of support so that he could not revel in it. Yet on that day, he felt choked, confined. He looked through the walls of the upper floor, beyond, to where his son lay still. The Prince of Wales had coughed and coughed while his lungs filled with blood and dark phlegm.
Richard turned to stare at the armour, an iron knight standing brokenly before him, mocking him. He attacked, landing blow after blow, left three times, then right three. Each one made him gasp as the pain built, but he kept on. It felt as if someone had pressed a burning brand into his bones and he welcomed it, telling himself in his stinging sweat that if he could only bear it, perhaps his son would be alive when he went back in. Perhaps the fever would have broken and the chamber pot of red urine that looked so much like a bowl of blood would have been healthy and yellow once more.
He stabbed, though the armour resisted the full range of his thrust. Once, twice, thrice, then up into a butcher’s cut, then backhand again
st the armoured throat. He swore under his breath as something shifted during the swing, so that the blow was an inch off as it landed. It happened at times and he could not predict the jarring clunk of his bones before it occurred. Instead of smashing through the throat, his sword skipped off the helmet, breaking the visor hinge. It would have left a man reeling with blood on his face even so, Richard thought. He was still strong, still fast.
The boy’s mother sat with little Ned in that other room, washing his son’s chest and arms. He had become so thin over the previous months. Ann had placed a bowl of water on the bedclothes and dipped a cloth into it. Richard had stood in grief as she smoothed wide circles over her son’s flesh, already growing cold under her hand.
In the yard, he began to weep as he continued his labour, spinning on his heel and crashing the blade against the other hinge, so that the helmet visor fell to the dust and left an open darkness. He stabbed into it immediately, gashing the iron, wanting to kill, wanting the pain to end that stung his eyes and made his back such an agony he could not breathe. It had begun to feel as if one of his ribs had speared a lung, so that every breath pushed a knife deeper into him. He stopped, panting, crying, watching drops of sweat fall to the dust.
Ann hadn’t seemed to hear him when he’d tried to call her away. She’d sat like a corpse herself, about as pale as his son. His only boy, who had been the one living thing he loved in all the world. The lad whom Richard had watched as he’d swung and clambered in a willow tree, just a little distance from where he stood. It did not seem right to have such a child of laughter and noise grow cold in silence, or with just Ann’s soft coughing as she leaned over him in that room.
Ten years old was the wrong age to die. It was better when they went very young, so Richard’s mother had always said, before they were much more than a name and a squalling face. When they had years in them and memories of a thousand nights talking and carrying them around on your shoulders, well, it was a hard winter in Richard, though the spring had come outside.