Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims (56 page)

‘Tied it myself,’ he says. ‘I wished we’d had Kit with us still. He was – well, he had a gift that one, didn’t he, Richard?’

Richard grunts.

‘He cut me,’ Sir John continues, addressing Katherine now. ‘This last autumn. Before all this. I had a fistula. You know what that is, hmmm? Nasty, anyway. Could hardly walk for the pain of the thing. Anyway. Kit learned to read, can you believe? Only a boy, but he learned to read, and then got hold of some old leech’s instructions about how to cut out a fistula, and he cut mine out. Simple as that. Bloody miracle it was, wasn’t it? Richard? A bloody miracle.’

Katherine blinks away the tears that gather in her lashes. Richard says nothing. She peels away the last wrap of linen and there are his eyelids, sunken and gummed together, crusted with what looks like sand and blood. A smell rises from them, a sort of sweet fug.

Sir John sucks his teeth.

Katherine fetches the last of the wine and some fresh linen from the coffer in the room above and she washes Richard’s eyes, wiping away the crust and the traces of blood with a good pad of the material so that she does not have to feel the emptiness. When she has finished she sees that there is no real need to cover his eyes, except that it is such a terrible shock to see the empty sockets. So she cuts some dry linen with her knife and reties it around his head. She can smell Richard now and she thinks how he needs a wash, and she wonders whether it will be her task to insist on this kind of thing in the future.

‘Where did you learn your skills, my lady?’ Sir John asks.

She does not answer. She does not understand that Sir John is talking to her.

‘There,’ she says. ‘Better, I think.’

And now Sir John is looking at her through narrowed eyes, but then Thomas returns with some wood for the fire and the body of a heavy duck with a limp neck. Sir John cackles and they set to work gutting and plucking it.

‘Your swineherd is back,’ Thomas tells them. ‘And he says the others will be back soon.’

Sir John nods.

‘To my shame I sent them to Lincoln,’ he says, ‘since I could not guarantee their safety with Riven and his men in the Hundred.’

The next day Katherine catches the scent of wood smoke in the air and there are some women bent-backed in the fields and a sense that everything might return to the way it was. She gets Thomas to carry the linen up the old lane to the river, where she rolls up her skirts and sets about the washing. It is so cold she can stand it for no more than a few minutes at a time and is pleased when one of the women from the village finds her way to the riverbank and agrees to help for a cost Katherine would gladly double. At the end of the day they wring out the not very much cleaner linen and spread it on the hawthorn branches and when Katherine returns to the hall exhausted, there is soup and ale and news from the south.

The Queen’s army has not taken London, but has turned and is making its way back up north, to York, just as William Hastings had hoped.

‘Praise Jesus,’ Sir John says, ‘thought we had better ready ourselves lest they come this way.’

‘Won’t they take the shortest route?’ Thomas asks.

Sir John grunts to admit the possibility but the following days are spent anxiously. They have hoarded as much food as they can buy: apples, smoked mutton, dried peas and beans, three barrels of ale. Thomas has his new bow and two more sheaves of arrows and he has collected up the quarrels and the crossbow stands by the door, ready for use.

Then they wait by the damped fire and hope the smoke does not broadcast their presence and Katherine sleeps, and thinks, and prepares herself.

As the days pass, the tension slowly tightens, and they take turns at the windows and one of them is always awake through the night, but then there comes a point when nothing has happened and they begin to believe the Queen’s army has passed them by, and then, the next week, when it snows again, there is a day afterwards when the sky is clear and blue, and they gather outside to listen to distant bells, from as far away as Lincoln perhaps, sounding in the icy air.

‘Is it a warning?’ Thomas asks, his breath fogging his face.

‘Too fast,’ Richard says. It is good to hear him have an opinion on something. He looks better now that he is shaved and washed and his eyes trouble him less since Katherine washed them, and while the others cover their eyes from the sun on the snow, he stands perfectly still and faces south.

‘I think they must be to celebrate something,’ he says.

‘But what?’ Sir John asks.

They must wait until the next day to find out. It is another friar, in grey this time, garrulous and travelling south, who has met a man travelling north, a Scot, who robbed him.

‘I thank St Matthew that he did not take my beads,’ the friar says, touching the loop at his belt. ‘Though he took all I had to eat and shared my fire to cook it over.’

In exchange for the food the Scot had shared his news though, and once they set beans and ale before the friar, he divulges it as if it were worth gold.

‘Only that in London Edward of March has been proclaimed king!’

Sir John whistles.

‘Edward of March is king!’ he says. ‘So that is what the bells were for.’

‘Aye,’ the friar agrees. ‘They did not ring them sooner for fear of attracting the attention of the Queen’s army.

There is a long moment while they consider this. Katherine remembers the lanky boy with the big feet and the strange leer she could not understand at the time. What has God seen in him that he should be king? Something that Henry lacked, she supposes: some vigour, some youth. A fresh start perhaps, a new green shoot in the garden, but then what about the old growths? What will happen to all those dukes and earls and lords that fought for Henry in the past?

‘And what about King Henry?’ Sir John asks. ‘What will become of him?’

‘King Edward’s affinity says that King Henry broke some Act of Parliament, and that because he’s done so, he is rightly deposed, and that from now on we are to call him just Henry of Lancaster.’

‘Henry of Lancaster,’ Sir John repeats, his voice soft with regret. ‘Don’t suppose he’ll like that. Still less his queen.’

The friar nods.

‘No,’ he says. ‘The Scotsman says the Queen has retired to York and has gathered a power of nobles such as has never been seen in England, and that she means to smash this new king Edward, and put his head up on a spike along with his father’s and brother’s.’

‘And what is King Edward doing?’ Katherine asks.

There is a moment’s silence while the friar eats another spoonful.

‘Oh,’ he says, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, ‘he is at the head of his own army, marching north to meet Henry of Lancaster in a battle he says will prove God’s will once and for all.’

Katherine notices Thomas is gripping his cup too hard and that his face has grown pale, but it is only the next morning, as they are walking to the churchyard to say prayers over Geoffrey’s new-dug grave, that they have a moment alone together.

‘Did you know this would happen?’ she asks.

He nods.

‘And I must go,’ he says.

She stops. It is the most senseless thing she has ever heard.

‘Go?’ she repeats. ‘Go back to the fighting? No. No. You cannot. Thomas. You cannot.’

‘I must,’ he says, and looks away, suddenly evasive. ‘William Hastings—’ he starts. ‘William Hastings has asked me to take command of some men. Some archers. A hundred of them. And I said I would. I gave my word. It was why he let us leave Hereford and ride up here to find Sir John. And Richard.’

She is aghast. She nearly grabs his jacket.

‘Dear God, Thomas,’ she says. ‘You cannot go. You will be killed.’

‘Don’t say it, Katherine.’

‘No. You are right. I will not. But— But what about us? You cannot leave us here. If Riven knew we were here—? What then?’

Thomas sighs lengthily. His feet are heavy on the snow.

‘What would you have me do?’ he asks, just as if he has already discarded all other options. ‘What else can I do?’

‘Stay,’ she says. ‘Stay here. Where you are needed most. You can see: Sir John, Richard, me. We need you. As Hastings and March and Warwick do not.’

‘Riven is with the Queen’s army,’ he says. ‘I will find him this time. Put an end to all this. Finally. For good. Then I will come back. We will plant the fields or whatever it is you want me to do then.’

They are at the churchyard now, and Geoffrey’s grave is below a yew by the gate. Katherine wonders where Goodwife Popham is buried, and Liz, but there is nothing to be gained from thinking that way, she knows, and so she closes her eyes and kneels next to Thomas on the icy earth and while he repeats the prayers for the dead, just as he did over Margaret Cornford’s body in the hills in Wales, all she can do is pray that he will not leave her.

When they get back to the hall, Sir John is sharpening his sword on the same step that Walter used.

‘I am coming with you, Thomas,’ he says. ‘Or rather, you are coming with me.’

Thomas frowns.

‘No,’ he says. ‘There is no need.’

Sir John stands up. He has lost weight since this ordeal started, but he is still a formidable presence, with an old soldier’s heft and a cunning cast in his eye.

‘There is every need,’ he says. ‘I can no longer live like this, huddled away, waiting for news, and you forget I am indentured to my lord Fauconberg. I promised to provide him with fifteen archers, and if I cannot do that, then I must do what I can. Besides, this battle will be the greatest yet. It will end this for once and for all, and I want to be there, Thomas. I want to see if I can find Riven myself before it is too late.’

Thomas almost laughs.

‘Sir John,’ he says, ‘these battles – they are not like that. You will not know if you do find him. You will just find yourself face to face with a man in harness who will try to kill you as quickly as he can. He will try to open your face with a hammer. Something like that. Or his men will use their bills to pull you over and one of them’ll stab you in the balls while you cry out for mercy.’

Now Sir John laughs.

‘So it has not changed so very much from my day,’ he says. ‘Come on. Get your gear. We must make ourselves ready.’

‘What of us?’ Katherine asks. She is standing beside Thomas and her pulse is hammering and she feels faint. Sir John turns to her as if he has only just noticed her.

‘Ah,’ he says, and she watches him glance back at Thomas. ‘Ah. I thought, perhaps, you would stay here with Richard? To maintain the house? I have asked one of the women in the village to come. Also called Margaret, though she is Meg. She will be here.’

Katherine feels like shouting at him, like grabbing his neck and wringing it.

‘No,’ she says. ‘You cannot leave us here alone. What if Giles Riven is not with the Queen’s army? What if his son is not? What if that giant of his is still here? What then? It is just me, and Richard, and this Meg.’

Sir John is ashamed but his shoulders are already in mid-shrug.

‘My lady—’ he says.

‘We are coming with you,’ she interrupts. ‘We will not stay here to be murdered.’

Sir John is stricken. He looks at Thomas. Thomas nods slightly.

Sir John lets out his breath.

‘Very well, my lady,’ he says. ‘Very well. We shall leave at first light tomorrow.’

IT IS A
clear morning and the sun comes up behind them, throwing their shadows long across the frosted mud of the road. Thomas is up front, then Sir John leading Richard by a rope, and then Katherine. Thomas has packed everything he owns because he does not think he will come back to Marton Hall, and just before he loses sight of it for the final time, he turns and tries to remember the happy times. Then he rides on.

The land north of Marton has been spared, and it is only when they cross the Trent at Gainsborough that they encounter the waste left by the northerners again: buildings pulled down for firewood, pens and sties emptied of livestock. There is that smell of something left to rot and ungainly crows squabble in the lower branches.

They ride on through the day towards Doncaster. The road improves, but a sheet of pale cloud obscures the sun and later it begins sleeting again. Sometime in the early afternoon they see a band of eight men on horseback riding ahead. Thomas notches an arrow and waits. Then Katherine recognises Fauconberg’s blue and white livery.

‘Good eyes you’ve got, my lady,’ Sir John says without looking at her.

Soon the men reach them. They are a picket, riding from Pontefract Castle, in full harness.

‘How many men has Fauconberg?’ Sir John asks their captain, a big man who keeps his eyes on Katherine.

‘Six thousand?’ the man guesses. ‘Archers, in the main. King Edward and the Earl of Warwick are bringing more men-at-arms and what have you, and the Duke of Norfolk is expected to bring yet more from the east. We should number something like twenty thousand in the field.’

Sir John whistles admiringly.

‘Such a host!’ he says.

‘Perhaps,’ the captain agrees. ‘But the Queen’s power is greater yet. Almost all the lords are with her. Somerset, of course, Northumberland, Exeter, Dacre, Roos, Devon, Clifford . . .’

He continues naming men of whom Thomas has never heard, but Sir John looks steadily more wintry. When the man finishes the list, Sir John does his best to sound confident.

‘Have no fear, my boy,’ he says. ‘I’ve been in worse binds than this. So long as God is on our side, and He is, then we shall prevail. Besides, we are coming to join you. And look at us! An old man, a blind man, a woman and a single archer, though he is a good one, mind. What more could you need?’

Sir John laughs. No one else does. They ride up towards the crest of a hill together, and the captain asks Katherine what she is doing, riding to war.

‘I am with William Hastings’s retinue,’ she tells him. ‘I am to attend to the wounded.’

The captain looks askance.

‘You are some sort of barber surgeon?’ he asks.

‘Of course not,’ she tells him, ‘but after the battle by Mortimer’s Cross this last Candlemas I extracted arrowheads from many a man’s body and stitched many a wound. I can staunch blood, apply salves, tie bandages as well as any man. Better, in fact.’