Revenge (36 page)

   James took shelter under the awning of a tradesman’s stall to listen to the officer speak.

   “Come fight for the Earl, my lads,” he bawled, “no short commons or meagre wages here. Those who wear his badge get the best meat and ale, a fine coat and a warm berth. Step forward, those of you with fire in your hearts and pith in your arms!”

   A few of the youths pushed their way towards the platform. Only the biggest and strongest would be taken for military service. Save in dire necessity, the stunted and malnourished were no use in war.

   James felt uneasy with this public display of recruitment. England was rotten with spies and double agents. There would surely be a fair number at Middleham, keeping a close watch on the movements of Warwick’s servants.

   He had not endured the past eight years of Yorkist rule, frequently risking his neck as a go-between for those who still held Lancastrian sympathies, only for the King to be warned before his enemies had a chance to rise in arms. There had been too many blunders already. The gruesome fate of Courtenay and Hungerford was a reminder of the need for caution.

   The soldiers on the platform were assessing the volunteers. Most were turned away, but a couple of the brawnier lads were accepted, to good-natured jeers and laughter from their mates.

   James made the sign of the cross. He had witnessed the reality of battle. The horror of it lurked in his nightmares. Those grinning young men might soon be lying dead on some muddy field, their bodies ripped open and entrails exposed for crows to fight over.

   Sooner yet,
he thought grimly,
if this folly continues.

   He looked up at the imposing grey pile of the castle, looming over the town. The Earl was abroad, in Calais, but his steward, Sir William Conyers, was in residence. Conyers was the man James had come to speak with. 

   With a final disapproving glance at the farce in the market square, James turned his horse’s head and made for the castle. 

5.

Martin reined in on the crest of the ridge and looked down at Malvern Hall. There was something romantic about the old house, especially at this time of day, when the sun setting over the rolling hills to the west cast a reddish glow over its crumbling, ivy-grown walls.

   It was home to Martin’s supposed enemies. Eight years ago Sir Thomas Malvern had chosen to side with the rebellious House of York and helped to cut down Martin’s father at the Battle of Blore Heath. In revenge Martin’s eldest brother, Richard, had attacked the hall with a small private army, ransacked it, butchered the servants and beheaded Sir Thomas in his own courtyard. 

   The dynastic wars between York and Lancaster had caused similar local feuds to erupt up and down the kingdom. Despite what he said to his sister, Martin had no interest in prolonging the cycle of violence, atrocity and counter-atrocity.

   He gently clapped in his spurs and guided his horse down the grassy slope. The land gradually flattened out into a few acres of parkland divided by a shallow stream and a patch of woodland.

   As always, she was waiting for him under the spreading oak tree on the edge of the woods south of the hall. Her horse, an elegant white palfrey, was tethered to the tree and peacefully cropping grass.

   Kate Malvern was fifteen now, almost a woman grown, and grew lovelier every time Martin saw her. She put him in mind of an elf: small and gracefully slender, beautiful in a pale, vulnerable sort of way, with startling crystal-green eyes that he never failed to drown in.

   Tonight she wore a black shawl over a plain white linen dress, and her curling chestnut hair hung loose to her shoulders – unfashionably so, since gentlewomen were expected to wear their hair bound up and hidden under disfiguring headgear.

   Her thin hands were clasped in anxiety, and she wore a brittle smile as he urged his horse through the stream towards her. Kate was always nervous, but he detected an extra fragility about her this evening.

   The two had scarcely known each other as children, when their families were at war. Their paths didn’t cross again until a feast at Stafford Castle, seven months ago.

   “Our eyes struck sparks,” Kate was fond of saying, “when we first looked at each other, I feared we might burst into flame.”

   Surrounded by pompous local dignitaries, they had talked little at the feast, but continued to exchange smouldering glances until Martin was almost bent double with lust.

   Kate proved the bolder. Three days later she sent a page to Heydon Court with a message for Martin’s eyes only.

   That evening he met her under the oak tree. They had met once a week at the same place ever since. There was a high risk of discovery, but they regarded the danger as an added spice.

   “Sweet Kate,” he said as she took his reins and he slid easily from the saddle, “I have thought of nothing but you since our last meeting.”

   He was a clumsy poet, tongue-tied and inexpressive when it came to romance, but tried his best. Kate’s smile warmed a little.

   “Dear heart,”she said softly. They kissed. For a long moment all was perfect peace, broken only by the jingling of harness as Martin’s horse moved away to drink from the stream.

   The lovers sank to the grass, and for a while lay quietly in each other’s arms. Kate’s head rested on Martin’s chest. She slipped off her shoes to dangle her bare feet in the cool water.

   Martin could feel the tension in her body.
She knows
, he thought,
she knows what I will say.

   “The summons has arrived,” he said bleakly.

   Kate trembled. “Ignore it,” she pleaded, “let the great lords fight their wars. One man more or less means nothing. Stay here and live in peace.”

  “My father spent his life’s blood fighting for the King,” he said gently, “my brother-in-law died at Towton. I have a duty to take up the sword.”

   She caught the fingers of his right hand as they stroked her cheek. “If we all followed our duty, then I should have cut your throat long since. Your brother murdered my father and his servants. The honour of my family demands the blood-price. But we have chosen to break with honour.”

   Their eyes met. Hers were damp with tears, but Martin had steeled himself to be resolute. “You command my heart,” he said, “but the King commands my loyalty.”

   “King Henry can barely command his own bowel movements,” she replied with the occasional coarseness that always took him unawares, “he is mad, and like to die in the Tower. You would truly abandon all you hold dear, and hazard your life in battle, for him?”  

   “Mad or not, he is the King. It is not for us to judge God’s Anointed. I am the master of Heydon Court now, and must do my duty.”

   “That word again. How I tire of it.”

   He ignored her embittered, mocking tone. “The usurper must be killed, and the rightful monarch set back in his place. Only then will England know peace.”

   “And how do you, Martin Bolton, lord of three small and insignificant manors in a tucked-away corner of England, able to summon a mighty host of four ageing men-at-arms to follow him to war, intend to achieve this glorious feat?”

   “The Bear and the Leopard will lie together,” he said, repeating the message he had received in Eccleshall, “the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence have allied against the usurper. A rebellion is already brewing in the north.”

   “I see. And you plan to join this covenant of fools.”

   Martin looked hard at her. She had wiped away the suggestion of tears, and was sitting upright, hugging her knees and staring over the treetops at the grey tower of Malvern Hall, a mile to the north.

   “If my uncle found out about us,” mused Kate, chewing her lower lip, “he would go out of his mind with rage, and have me whipped and dispatched to the nearest convent. He might try and kill you, but wouldn’t do it himself. Uncle Geoffrey has never been brave.”

   “He has done well for a coward,” said Martin, wondering why she had changed the subject. He reached for her hand again, but she plucked it away.

   “Oh yes. Geoffrey is clever, and ambitious, and knows how to say the right words in a charming way. But he is not brave.”

   “My servants are loyal,” she added, “none follow me here. They know about us, though. I can see it in their eyes. If any of them told my cousin in Hereford, or sent word to Geoffrey, your life and my freedom would be forfeit.”

   Martin felt that he was being tested. “When the true King comes into his own again,” he said firmly, “none of your family, nor all the demons in Hell, will keep us from being wed. My oath on that.”

   “Your oath,” she said sadly, “I have fallen in love with one of the few men in England who keeps to his oaths. God has an evil wit.”

   “God has a short way with oath-breakers, my love. They might thrive for a season, but the right must prevail in the end.”

   Kate gave him a long look.

   “Then you must do your duty,” she said.

6.

Calais, 11
th
July

The enormous nave of the Église Notre-Dame resounded to the boom of the Archbishop of York’s voice as he stood before the high altar and pronounced the marriage of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, and Isabel Neville.

   A stout, bullish, florid-faced man, the archbishop cut an impressive figure in his rich vestments. His loud, forceful delivery caused the words of the ceremony to echo like gun-shots through the church.

   His brother, the Earl of Warwick, stood in the front row of the packed congregation, wearing a red cloak embroidered with the complex arms of his house: a riot of escutcheons, chevrons, crosses and heraldic beasts, symbolising his tangled web of alliances and blood connections.

   Otherwise there was nothing remarkable about his appearance. Of medium height, his brown hair and clipped beard salted with grey, there were many younger, taller and better-looking men present. The five knights of the Garter that had risked King Edward’s displeasure to attend the wedding eclipsed Warwick in splendour, dressed in their flowing dark blue fur-trimmed robes and plumed hats. Warm candlelight reflected off the burnished steel of their armour under the robes.

   Even so, Warwick was the dominant force and presence in the church. He radiated a natural authority that stemmed from more than just his titles and noble birth. He stood like a statue, hardly seeming to breathe or blink, as his kinsman bound the young couple together.  

   Not just to each other, but to him. Clarence, Edward’s younger brother, was now his ally. The young man’s marriage to Warwick’s daughter, several years in the making, set the final seal on the bargain. 

   Clarence was nineteen and much like his royal brother in appearance, big and blonde and well-muscled. Unlike Edward, there was something weak about the cast of his pale, flat face, with its large, long-lashed eyes and petulant little mouth. His seventeen-year old bride was far more prepossessing, proud and unafraid as she repeated the words of the marriage oath. Isabel’s hair was chestnut-brown, like her father’s, but her willowy frame and delicate beauty were all gifts inherited from her mother, Anne Neville.

   Anne was standing by her husband’s side, and applied delicate pressure on his arm as the Archbishop formally solemnised the marriage. If she looked for a smile from Warwick, she was to be disappointed. His mind was churning with the implications of the wedding.

   He imagined himself, King Edward, Clarence, and all the other important political figures as pieces on a chessboard. The key to sweeping the board, he knew from long and bitter experience, was to think several moves ahead at all times.

   A polite rustle of applause sounded through the church as Clarence and Isabel exchanged a kiss. Warwick’s stony expression fractured as he gave a chilly little smile and turned to nod at the congregation. No crowned monarch ever patronised his subjects with more lofty grace.

   He ran his eye carefully along the lesser nobility and citizens crammed together in the back row, and found who he was looking for standing unobtrusively next to one of the giant pillars. A no-mark priest to look at him, dressed in a shabby black cloak over his habit, his red tonsure slightly overgrown, his chin bearing the scars of a clumsy shave.

   Warwick knew better than to judge by first appearances. The priest had heavy, slanting shoulders, hinting at a surprising degree of physical strength under the monkish garb. His meekly folded hands were large and callused, with hard, bony knuckles.

   Fighter’s hands
, thought Warwick,
what manner of priest is this?

  
Their eyes briefly met. Warwick held the priest’s gaze a moment before turning back to acknowledge the archbishop, who was making the sign of the cross over the newly-wedded couple and loudly proclaiming them man and wife.

   The applause rose to a crescendo, mingled with a few cheers. Remembering his wife, Warwick gave her hand a squeeze and smiled down at her: a genuine smile this time, indicative of the mutual warmth and regard that existed between them. They were business partners as well as husband and wife. He had even been known to seek her advice on occasion.