Loyalty (17 page)

   James swallowed hard and pointed a shaking finger at the Fool. “I would recognise that man anywhere,” he stammered, “that is the man whose father conspired to butcher mine at Blore Heath. That is the man who was once my childhood friend, and is now the sworn enemy of me and my kin. That is the man who has accepted every scrap of favour thrown at him from Edward of March’s table. That is Sir Geoffrey Malvern, Viscount Malvern, and a worse man does not walk the earth.”  

   He stood up and drew his sword. The crumhorns, sacbuts and bagpipes of Bulstrode’s musicians wheezed and squealed to a halt, and the raucous buzz of conversation at the lower tables suddenly stopped.

   The Fool had ceased his ridiculous capering. His arms hung loose by his sides, and his eyes behind the mask were pools of terror. They were focused on the tip of James’ sword, pointed levelly at his throat.

   James’s hands were steady as a rock. “I know not how this man came to be here,” he said, “but I claim him as my prisoner. Geoffrey Malvern is mine, to do with as I please.”

Chapter 16

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March, Warwickshire

The Earl of Warwick did not stay in London to await the Yorkists, but abandoned the capital and marched west, to the heartlands of his estates in Warwickshire. He made his headquarters at Coventry, and from there set about mustering troops from his tenants and well-wishers.

   It was to Coventry that Martin rode with almost two hundred men at his back. Along with Warwick’s men, these were the loyal Lancastrians he had managed to raise from Staffordshire. Most of them were minor country knights and squires, though the Countess of Stafford sent ten of her knights and twenty men-at-arms to aid the cause.

   Martin rode to war with a heavy heart, full of anguish at the loss of Kate. He had left her at Buckleigh House, still refusing to talk to or even see him, and thrown himself into his task of raising troops with a passion fuelled by despair.

   That despair stemmed from the wreck of his marriage hopes, and the terrible guilt he felt for slaying Edmund Ramage. The wages of sin, as the priests had dinned into him from infancy, were death, and what was murder if not a sin?

   He spent many a sleepless night in prayer, trying to convince himself that he had killed Ramage in fair fight. To no avail: in his heart he knew that he would have killed the man by any means, whether in fair fight or with a knife in the dark. The intent to murder was there, and the result was Ramage’s bloody corpse lying at his feet.

   “The wages of sin,” he kept repeating to himself as he led his company south-east towards Coventry, two hundred men armed and mounted for war, riding through the gentle countryside with banners unfurled.

   All across England it was the same. The entire kingdom was arming for the final death-struggle between Lancaster and York. Just as it had done a decade previously, though not even the wholesale massacre of Towton had settled the issue then. Thousands of Lancastrians had died on that hell-cursed field, but they left sons behind them, sons who remembered their father’s oaths, and kept their father’s swords sharp for another day of reckoning.

   “The wages of sin…”

   Perhaps, Martin reflected, he was heading to his death. Recent events had shown that God was not his friend, and he felt like a man riding down an unfamiliar road with only darkness at the end of it. He wondered if Henry Stafford had felt like this, when he rode away from Heydon Court for the last time to find death waiting for him at Towton.

   They reached Coventry to find the city stuffed to overflowing with troops. Warwick had brought most of his retainers with him from London, leaving just a skeleton garrison to defend the city, and had summoned the local lords and their retinues to join him without delay.

   Martin had little hope of speaking with the earl, who he knew must be busy with higher matters than one mere esquire and his following. Leaving the veteran Welsh soldier, Hywel, to find a space on the already packed fields outside the walls to make camp, he went on foot into the city.

   He was in search of news, and got some from John Bury, an archer from Lancashire and one of the few survivors of those who had served in Richard Bolton’s company of outlaws. Martin’s eldest brother, whom he had little cause to remember fondly, had been known as The White Hawk during his days of outlawry. Men still sang snatches of rhymes and ballads about his exploits.

   John saw Martin first, and emerged from a throng of soldiers gathered around an upturned ale barrel. The two men had fought together at Empingham, and Martin’s initial shyness was overcome by the overflowing mug of ale John pressed into his hand.

   “Men still remember this,” said the former outlaw, tapping the white hawk badge on Martin’s chest, “they would follow The White Hawk into battle again. You have inherited the legacy.”  

   “I wear the badge because I am a Bolton, and the hawk is our sigil,” Martin replied curtly, “the tales of The White Hawk mean nothing to me. My brother and I did not part as friends. Let others remember him fondly if they wish.”

   The older man refrained from pressing the subject. “Well, it is good to see old friends,” he said cheerfully, “especially those who bring reinforcements with them. We shall have need of every man. Edward has left Nottingham. By this time tomorrow, he will have crossed the Trent.”

   Martin swore, and put aside the difficult memories of his brother that the conversation had raised.

   “He has got so far, and no-one has tried to stop him?” he shouted, causing a few heads to turn.

   “Lower your voice,” said John, giving a friendly nod to a billman wearing Oxford’s livery of a star and streams, “many of the lords who should have opposed his march are here already, with their retainers. Oxford and Exeter were going to fight him at Newark, but retreated when they saw the size of the Yorkist host. More men are flocking to Edward’s banner every day now. They see he has crossed half the country unchallenged, and take heart.”

   Martin took a hefty swig of ale. It would come to a battle, then. The storm-clouds were gathering.

   He looked around at the soldiers bustling through the streets. The entire city had been given over to Warwick’s army, and the citizens were wisely staying indoors or attempting to make a profit by selling good luck charms and other such rubbish to the troops at outrageous prices.

   Besides the inevitable bear and ragged staff, Martin identified the livery badges of Oxford, the Duke of Exeter, and sundry lesser lords.

   “Where is the Duke of Clarence?” he asked, “for that matter, where is the King?”

   John shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Clarence still skulks at Burford, dreaming of the glory he could have had,” he replied, “no great loss there. His Majesty was left behind in London, for his own safety. He cannot help us defeat our enemies in battle, poor man.”

   Martin was not so sure of that. Mad or not, King Henry’s mere presence might have been enough to dissuade men from joining the Yorkists. The sanctity of royalty still clung to Henry, even though his wits and dignity had long since departed, and many considered it a mortal sin to bear arms against the person of an anointed king.

   He talked to John a while longer on smaller matters, and then left, promising to crack a cup with him once the Yorkists were dust. Privately, Martin was reluctant to see the man again. He dredged up too many memories of Richard.

   Martin made his way back to his men, now encamped south of the city walls, to await events. Clarence’s failure to join Warwick at Coventry had cast a long shadow, and rumours were rife that he had crawled back to his brother to beg forgiveness. Not that any man missed the duke’s presence, but the loss of his soldiers was disheartening.

   A rain-soaked, seemingly endless night followed. Unable to sleep, Martin spent much of it alone in his tent, drinking and praying. Outside rain and wind added to the miseries of the army. He could hear priests passing among the men, muttering in Latin as they took confession.

   “Damn all priests,” he said, taking care to keep his voice low. He was in no mood to be shrived by some drivelling hypocrite in a tonsure. That was blasphemous, but his sin still weighed heavy, and the ale was making him resentful.   

   Martin was in his night-shirt, and his tunic and cloak were clumsily folded draped over the stool beside his bed. He reached for the tunic and stared at the badge on the breast.

   It showed the white hawk of Bolton spreading its wings against a blue field. His brother had carried the sigil into battle, and his father before him. Their great-grandfather had chosen it after making enough money at his chandler’s business to assume the style and livery of a gentleman..

   The Boltons had started in trade, but no-one could say they had not earned the right to call themselves noble. They had spilled their blood for the rightful King of England, over and over again.

   His thoughts and prayers turned to his remaining kin. To James, his last brother, a man he barely knew. No doubt he was out there somewhere, fighting his own clandestine war on behalf of Lancaster; to Mary, his poor bereaved sister, still languishing in France with her fatherless daughter.

   It occurred to Martin that the fate of the family rested on his shoulders. James was a priest, and as such barred from inheriting the Bolton estates. Martin was the lord now. He was The White Hawk.

   “No,” he whispered, bowing his head. That title was a curse. Those who carried it were destined to die bloody deaths, betrayed on all sides and hacked to pieces. That fate had befallen his father, and his brother. Even his brother-in-law had been unable to escape the family doom.

   He fought with his conscience until the small hours of the morning, when sheer exhaustion forced to him to stretch out his considerable length on the narrow camp bed and get some sleep.

   Even then, he dreamed of a white hawk spiralling through deep blue skies. There was no sun, but something illuminated the desolate heath below, littered with broken and mangled corpses. Martin briefly saw through the eyes of the hawk, and glimpsed his own lifeless body lying among the dead.

   He was woken by the clatter of drums. Thinking that the army was on the move, he scrambled out of bed and peered through the slit of his tent.

   There was no need for alarm. Some of Oxford’s men were up early, and filing through the morning mist onto an exercise-field to practise their drill. The earl himself was on the field already, a bulky figure in full armour, sparring with one of his esquires.

   Martin envied their enthusiasm. He still wanted to impress Oxford, in the hope of being allowed to enter his service instead of Warwick’s, but it was in no fit state.  Clutching his throbbing head – a victim of too much ale and mental anguish – he staggered back to bed.

   More dire news flowed in over the next few days. Edward had crossed the River Trent and reached Leicester, where he was joined by three thousand men-at-arms led by Sir William Norris, an adherent of Lord Hastings. The Yorkist army was now a serious force to be reckoned with, and could hope to take London even if the city closed its gates.

   The gloom in the Lancastrian camp was briefly lifted when word arrived that Montagu had at last shaken off his lethargy, and was racing south from Pontefract to join his allies at Coventry.

    England, Martin reflected, was like a chessboard, with great lords representing the individual pieces. For now, they were cautiously manoeuvring around each other, searching for the best advantage before striking at a weak point.

   The analogy did not quite stand up, for chess-pieces are not supposed to behave of their own accord. Two of Warwick’s most valuable pawns, the Duke of Somerset and Sir John Courtenay, chose this moment to quit London and career off to the south coast, to await the landing of Margaret of Anjou.

   “My lord of Warwick’s alliance is starting to unravel,” was the opinion of Hywel, “the likes of Somerset and Courtenay are true Lancastrians. They want the Queen back, and Warwick gone. No-one trusts him, and who can blame them? That man has trimmed his sails more often than a cog in a gale.”

   Martin snarled at Hywel to keep his opinions to himself, but the Welshman was hardly alone in his pessimism. He had noticed that men were starting to look askance at those who wore the bear and ragged staff, and doubtless recalling that Warwick had once been a mainstay of the House of York.

   “Somerset and Courtenay have not defected, as such,” he said stoutly, “but merely gone south to await the arrival of the Queen and her army. Once they have landed, we can catch Edward between our two forces.”

   His brave words sounded hollow even as he uttered them. There was no word of the Queen’s fleet putting to sea from France. Some said she was delayed by storms.

   On the first day of April, a breathless hobelar came galloping into Coventry with news that spread fear and dismay throughout the entire Lancastrian host.

   The Duke of Clarence had left his sanctuary at Burford, and was on the march with his all his retainers. Not to join Warwick at Coventry, but north, to meet with his estranged brother.  

   Clarence, a master of treachery and double-dealing, had switched his coat once again.  

Chapter 17