His uncle watched from the side and wore both pride and grief when he thought of what Owen Tudor would have said, lost so many years. The old man would have beamed at them both to see them back. He would have said he’d known all along that his line would save Wales.
It had been too great a risk to let anyone know they were coming, or so Henry had said. It would mean days lost as word spread and their friends and supporters heard they had come. The delay would be difficult to endure after so long, but it was better than finding a vast English army waiting for them as they landed.
Jasper tried not to stare as his nephew spoke a few words to half of the men standing in small groups on those docks. When he moved on to the next, they turned to follow him with their eyes in the pale morning. Perhaps it was just that he carried the last, desperate hopes of those families.
Though he would never have said so, Jasper suspected the young man lacked the subtle shades of understanding that might undermine his confidence. In some ways, his nephew was extraordinarily quick, yet there were parts of him that were still almost childlike, obstinate in his refusal to see the world as it was.
Henry Tudor had accepted that others would follow him. He’d understood he had a tenuous claim that might just carry him as far as a battle, with the throne as the stake. Beyond that, he seemed to think no more on the matter. As far as Jasper could tell, his nephew had grown into authority because he saw no possibility of an order being refused or his cause denied. Men sensed no doubt or indecision in him because there truly was none. Jasper wasn’t sure whether to admire this peculiarity or to find his nephew’s confidence terrifying.
They faced a king who had known success in battle at Barnet and Tewkesbury and in putting down Buckingham’s rebellion. No one who had landed at Milford Haven thought they would have an easy time of it. The days were long and sultry, with the scent of pollen on the air, but they would be met by a cold and implacable enemy, with nothing left to lose.
As the sun climbed, the last of the ships returned to sea, leaving two thousand men and a dozen cannon to be rolled along the roads. The men breathed a little faster as they shuffled and stood, gathering anything they had laid down while they waited. Jasper saw his nephew speak to a herald and the man raised a horn to his lips, blowing a single note that echoed back across them all. Men-at-arms raised the banner poles embroidered over months in Brittany, tugging loose the ties that would allow them to unfurl, then swishing them back and forth until they opened out to their full length. The Ddraig Goch, or red dragon, swirled above them all. With it opened up the red rose of Lancaster and the portcullis and chains of Beaufort, but the dragon was the symbol that had men crossing themselves and bowing their heads in prayer. They were few, but they would stand.
In the early afternoon, the scouts came back in to report a force of soldiers and archers barring the road ahead. Henry and Jasper came to the front and brought their horses alongside to talk in low voices. The messengers had reported the colours of Rhys ap Thomas, a warlike soldier who had pledged to the house of York, so it was said. It was also true that he had exchanged letters with the Tudor men over the previous year, but the real test would come only when he either knelt or took up arms against them. Jasper had the sinking feeling that for such a grim warrior in his prime, the moment would be one of true decision. It did not matter what had been said before or what promises had been made. Only when Rhys ap Thomas looked at Henry Tudor and made his choice would they know. Jasper gripped the hilt of his sword and wondered if he would see blood that day.
They could not appear weak, that was clear enough. The news went back to be ready for attack or ambush and then they went forward in good array along two narrow roads the scouts said would bring them up against the Thomas force.
For Jasper, it was one of the hardest miles he had ever ridden. From the vantage point of horseback, he could see before the marchers that a great force lay ahead of them, across the road and stretching over the fields. There were certainly hundreds of men in mail, carrying axes and hammers and a great host of pikes. The fields and hedges could have hidden a thousand of them. At the head sat a bare-armed and burly figure with a great mass of red hair, tied into a braid. The man wore a tunic and mail rather than full armour, though there was no question who led those men as he gazed balefully along the road. Rhys ap Thomas was the captain charged with keeping that coast safe from any invasion. He had been trusted by the York king to respond with utter savagery against anyone landing. The bonfires had been lit to summon him, no other. And he had come.
‘Show no fear to this man,’ Jasper murmured to his nephew. Henry looked curiously at him.
‘Why would I show fear?’ he said. His uncle clenched his jaw, unable to explain the danger then, as close as they were. He had tucked a relic from Brittany into his shirt, a tiny flask containing the blood of a saint. He wished he could have reached it then, to pray that Henry would not say the wrong thing to a man like Captain Rhys ap Thomas.
As they reined in, Jasper saw the Welsh captain was larger than he had realized across the shoulders, a great door of a man whose gaze was fixed on the red dragon flying a little way behind them.
‘That is a grand claim, my lords,’ Rhys called to them, indicating the swirling banner. It was a good start, if he would allow them their titles. The earldoms of both Pembroke and Richmond had been denied and attainted over previous years. Yet the greeting seemed unaffected and natural.
Jasper cleared his throat to reply and Henry turned to look at him, saying nothing. It was a reminder that he had agreed to keep silence unless it was to head off disaster. There could not be two red dragons, two men of destiny. Jasper knew that and had accepted it. It was still hard.
When Henry was sure his uncle would not speak, he turned back to the man watching so closely.
‘Who are you to block my path?’ Henry said clearly.
‘I am Rhys ap Thomas, son of Thomas ap Gruffyd ap Nicolas,’ he said, in the manner of those parts, naming his forebears. ‘This coast is under my authority, see? When you land here, you must answer to me.’
‘I am Henry Tudor, son of Edmund Tudor, son of Owen.’
‘And you sit under the red dragon.’
‘I am a descendant of Cadwallader; it is my right.’
The two men faced each other with identical frowns. Neither seemed to have expected the meeting to go the way it had. Jasper fidgeted, but he had promised to be still and he kept his word.
Rhys ap Thomas shook his head.
‘I do not think you are the Son of Prophecy. I’m sorry. Perhaps you are of the line, but I do not see greatness in you.’
Henry Tudor kicked his mount closer by a step. All the men tensed as he came within arm’s reach of the captain. Rhys ap Thomas made a great show of sitting relaxed with his hands on the reins, but there was strain around his eyes even so.
‘I do not depend on what you see in me,’ Henry said. His voice was low, but his uncle could hear nothing else around them. The birdsong and noise of other men seemed to have vanished and he listened in cold fear as his nephew went on.
‘Perhaps you thought to test me, Rhys ap Thomas. I am not interested. You bar my way – and I have business beyond, with King Richard of York. It is my belief that you took a solemn oath to him, so hear this from me: if you thought you might walk with me, my answer is no. I will not have an oath-breaker. If you thought you would keep your oath, draw your sword and I will see you broken on the road. Either way, I do not depend on what you see in me.’
‘I … don’t …’ the captain began. Henry talked over him, his voice growing louder with every beat.
‘And I stand under the Ddraig Goch because I am the last of Lancaster, the red rose. I am the red – and I go to take the field against the white rose of York, the white dragon, Captain Thomas! Now, what is it to be? Will you break your oath, or will you give up your life?’
‘I cannot break my oath,’ Rhys ap Thomas said. He had gone pale and Jasper wondered whether i
t was from anger or fear. Some of the best men he had known were those for whom their word was something rarely given, but then given unto death. It could not be broken lightly, at the cost of their soul. Seeing Rhys ap Thomas was one of those, Jasper despaired. They could have used his men.
‘I swore I would not allow an enemy to enter Wales but over my body,’ Rhys ap Thomas said, ashen. ‘Will you choose a champion, my lord? Or face me yourself?’
‘Over your body?’ Henry said. ‘Can I not just step over you, then? And let you keep your oath?’
Captain Rhys ap Thomas blinked at him.
‘Step over me?’
‘If that is the oath you took. If you gave an oath to let me in only over your body, then you should lie on this road. My army will step over you – and your oath is unbroken.’
‘I am not lying down on the ground,’ Rhys ap Thomas said. ‘It would be a great burden to watch your men step over me. I think I won’t do that.’
A little way behind, Jasper’s smile of incredulous delight began to fade. He’d thought for a moment that Henry’s odd way of looking at the world had achieved the impossible. To see it snatched away once more was a cruel blow. As Jasper watched, one of the Welsh captain’s men brought his own horse in and leaned to murmur in the ear of Rhys ap Thomas. The man’s eyebrows rose in surmise.
‘There is a bridge nearby, so my lad says, where the river has run almost dry this summer. If I stood in the riverbed, your army could ride over the bridge. I could keep my oath in that way – and still let you in.’
‘I accept,’ Henry said, as if it had been a definite proposal. In that moment, he made Rhys ap Thomas consider it as if it had been. At last the man nodded.
‘Very well, my lord. You can say you came to Wales over my body.’
‘I will not say that, Captain Thomas,’ Henry replied. ‘I will say you delayed me half a day with foolishness.’
The man’s pride wilted at the rebuke and Jasper felt a twinge of pity for Captain Rhys ap Thomas, having come to like him.
‘How many men are yours, Captain Thomas?’ Jasper called, in part to distract him. The man turned away in something like relief from the cool gaze of Henry Tudor.
‘Twelve hundred in all, my lord, though I have only eight hundred of them with me here. I’ll bring the rest tonight and they will send the call for more. Wales will give its sons to your care, my lords, to follow the red dragon.’
Richard sat alone in the audience chamber at Westminster, looking out on the Thames as it wound its shining path through the clusters of buildings and warehouses springing up all along its banks, new ones every year. From that high room, he could see the marks of man spreading out into virgin fields, taming the wild moors with roads, felling trees for charcoal and construction, cutting great swathes through land that had grown nothing more than nettles and beggars before. Lines of smoke rose from a hundred bonfires, or chimneys browning malt for beer, or forges melting iron in a greater heat, or town houses standing proud on clean streets of stone. It was all rather beautiful, he thought.
The room was silent, with even the servants who might have stood to answer his whims dismissed. He had never been a solitary man, but it had crept upon him even so. His father had been in the ground for more than twenty years, killed in the struggle against Lancaster. His three brothers had gone, murdered or executed for treason or at the last, broken by some great paroxysm of the brain. The only other man Richard had admired had been Earl Warwick. He had fallen in battle, standing against Richard as his enemy, bent on his destruction. That had been as cruel as all the rest.
His son had been the sharpest cut of all, he thought. He had adored the boy, though he had not shown too much of that. It had been the strangest thing, to take such joy in the mere existence of his son, Ned, yet still have wished not to show it, for fear of ruining the boy. Gentleness and love did not make a strong man, certes not a strong king. Richard knew that well enough. He had been made the man he was by pain and by loss, so that when his wife died, it was no more than a sting compared to all the rest. Of course Ann had slipped away. How could such as he be left with anyone to love? It seemed of a piece, that somewhere it had been decreed that King Richard must be utterly alone.
He missed them all. He was the last man of his line, he thought, savouring the sadness of it. He was the last Plantagenet.
‘Your Highness, there is a herald, asking to be admitted to your presence.’
‘Has he been searched?’
His steward looked affronted.
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
‘Send him in then,’ Richard said. He turned away, leaning his chin on his palm and his elbow on his knee. He looked out over the setting sun at London, the warmth still in the air as birds came to roost.
He did not look round as the herald came into the room, bringing a scent of fresh mud and the outside into that still air. Richard heard him kneel and waved a hand for him to speak.
‘Your Highness, I have come from Ludlow. A man came in from the western coast, exhausted almost to death.’
Richard felt the great sluggish weight of his thoughts pinning him down, so that it was hard to do anything but stare out at the golden light of sunset over the capital.
‘Go on,’ he murmured.
‘He said a great force landed on the coast, of French and Welsh, he was not sure. He said they were Tudors, my lord, come under a red dragon.’
Richard raised his head, pulling in a slow breath.
‘What news of my captain there? What was his name? Evans? Thomas?’ he asked. The herald apologized and muttered that he did not know.
It did not matter, Richard knew. He would send for his most loyal lords, as he had during Buckingham’s rebellion. He would summon the greatest army he could put in the field and he would … He stopped the rush of thoughts and considered.
‘The Tudors? For Lancaster, is it? But they have no right of claim. Why would anyone follow that family?’
‘I do not know, Your Highness,’ the herald stammered.
‘You have done well enough, sir, with what you have told me. How long is it since the landing, did you discover that much?’
‘I was six days on the road, Your Highness. I believe the man who reached me at Ludlow had ridden for four or five.’
‘Eleven days then, or thereabouts,’ Richard said. ‘Go now, with my thanks, sir. I will make myself ready.’
The herald made his way out of the royal rooms and Richard sat in thought for a time, letting the silence seep back into him. He had no one: no wife, no heir, no brothers. He was utterly alone. If he fell in battle, it would be the end of his house, his family, his line. In that instant, he accepted it, however it turned out. He called for his steward once more. The man appeared instantly, having been standing just outside.
‘Bring me my armour,’ Richard said. ‘I have been challenged.’
32
There was the faintest haze in the air as the sun rose. The army of Welsh and French soldiers had tripled in size since their first landing almost a month before. As they’d come east, Rhys ap Thomas had proved the most earnest advocate of Henry Tudor, calling on men to follow the red dragon, or the Mab Darogan, in every village they passed.
Six thousand marched along the road at the end of August, in a great triple column across the land. The Earl of Oxford reached them, bringing horsemen and archers as well as his own much-needed experience. There were simply no other great names, which made Jasper Tudor privately furious. He’d sent letters to every lord who had stood for Lancaster in the past, but the replies had been few. Perhaps it was that they were afraid of King Richard, who had triumphed at Barnet and Tewkesbury, who had made Buckingham’s rebellion look like a child’s challenge. Or perhaps it was just that too many of them owed estates and titles to the house of York and were loath to gamble once more with all they had won.
Whatever the reasons, public and private, the Lancaster force was weaker than it might have been. The scouts said King Richa
rd had gathered ten thousand to himself, or even more. Jasper still hoped the tallies were exaggerated, but it did seem as if he and his nephew would be outnumbered. As a result, Jasper Tudor could not escape the sensation that they were marching cheerfully to their destruction.
Apart from the men under Rhys ap Thomas, the rest of those who had joined them were untrained Welsh lads. They were strong enough and fit, of course. Any man who had butchered a hog or cut down a tree could wield a falchion blade or a billhook with some sort of ability. The most valuable of them carried longbows and a quiver of arrows fletched by their own hand. Yet such things were not sufficient preparation for war.
Trained men knew when to seek cover, where to strike a man in armour to kill him or render him helpless, how to respond to a horseman bearing down, to give you some small chance to survive. They understood discipline on the field and the giving of trust to those who led them. An army was not a rabble, not a mob. They would slaughter a mob.
There was also a reason soldiers trained to brutal fitness, far beyond the wind and stamina of farmers. The ability to stand when others were dropping in exhaustion would save their lives, it was as simple as that. It was not enough just to swing a piece of iron with strength and courage. War was a hard trade, a brutal craft. Jasper had seen the results once before, when an enemy had all the advantages. He could still recall Edward, Earl of March, stalking the battlefield of Mortimer’s Cross in red armour, shining with it. A giant of an earl who had eaten meat and fish and trained hard all his young life, with weapons and armour and horses. Jasper did not talk much of that day, but he remembered it only too well.