The Rose of York (33 page)

The two armies collided with a mighty crash of steel.

~*~

Richard heard the sounds of combat to his left, on John’s line, and knew that something was wrong. Why hadn’t he closed with the enemy? Why hadn’t his arrows been answered?

The ground had grown wet and muddy and was sloping steeply down beneath his feet. Realisation dawned. He froze. This was not the plateau. This was the marsh! In the dark, Edward had misjudged their position. The three Yorkist battalions were not directly opposite the three Lancastrian battalions, but misaligned—much too far to the right—and he was descending down into the marshy ravine that protected Exeter’s flank. If they were discovered, they’d be trapped, slaughtered like pigs in a pen.

His men had fallen silent, were looking at him. He saw that they understood all too well. He pointed left, to the west, towards the woods. Grimly they turned, groped their way up blindly, silently, into the fog. If they could make it up the slope without being discovered, they’d surprise Exeter on his rear.

~*~

As Richard was making his discomfiting discovery, the Earl of Oxford, who commanded the right wing of Warwick’s army, was learning the same and revelling in the knowledge. His right wing far outflanked Hastings, and he had no harsh terrain to contend with. He immediately swung eastward, behind Hastings, and smashed into his flank.

Men were taken by surprise. They cried out in horror, dropped their weapons, and ran. Hastings’s left wing collapsed. With Oxford himself in hot pursuit, the Lancastrians chased the fleeing Yorkists ten miles to Barnet, where the Lancastrians stopped to pillage and celebrate their victory with drink. Some of the fleeing Yorkists managed to reach London and awaken the citizens with shouts of a Yorkist defeat.

~*~

Surrounded by his squires and household knights, Richard emerged from the ravine. He’d taken Exeter by surprise, won a brief advantage, but now he and his men were fighting desperately to keep from being forced back into the marshy hollow below. Reinforcements from Warwick’s reserves had poured into Exeter’s wing, swelling his ranks. Richard’s men, outnumbered, were pressed up against a thicket of steel. His squire, John Milewater, was dead at his feet, struck down by an arrow. Beside him one of the two Toms—Tom Parr, whom he had made his new squire—was battling three yeomen at once and losing. Richard wanted to go to his aid but he himself was fighting two steel-capped yeomen. Tom fell to his knees. Richard heard his plea for quarter. He tried to cut his way to him but the yeomen were putting up too fierce a fight. He saw the poleaxe plunge downward, saw Tom’s body twitch convulsively. With a howl, Richard bitterly drove his battleaxe into the nearest stomach. One of the yeomen staggered, clutching his belly. There was a look of surprise in the man’s eyes as he crumpled, spurting blood over Richard’s armour.

While Richard watched in horror, the second yeoman charged him like a madman with his spear. Richard recovered and quickly sidesteppedthe blow byputting out a foottotrip him,amanoeuvre he’d learned years ago under John’s tutelage. He cleaved his battleaxe into his back. Killing a man in battle was not what he had expected, not glorious and heady. He swallowed the bile that rose to his mouth and turned to engage the next adversary who was already upon him. They fought hard. The knight went down, but Richard was wounded. The knight’s broadsword had pierced his pauldron, slashing his right shoulder. Thankfully, it was not his good arm. Thomas Howard, the Friendly Lion’s son, appeared at his side to ward off other challengers, and his household knights closed around him in a wall of steel so he could consult with his battle captains.

“We’re hopelessly outnumbered! We must have reinforcements!” they gasped.

“No!” shouted Richard over the crash of steel, the screams of terrified horses, the cries of dying men. He couldn’t move his right arm; his shoulder had begun to throb and his gauntlet was filling with blood. For a moment his head swam. He shook himself to clear it. “Hastings’s wing has collapsed! My brother needs his reserves! Send word to the King not to commit his reserves, that we will hold!”

“We cannot hold! ’Tis folly! We’re fighting both Exeter and Warwick! We cannot hold!” they shouted back.

“We’ll not deplete the King’s reserves!” he roared. “’Tis an order!”

~*~

In the centre, the fighting was savage. John’s green and gold Crowned Griffin, emblem of the ancient Montagues, bobbed in the fog amid a sea of spears, swords, battleaxes, and struggling men who now writhed forward, now fell back like a gargantuan tide. They were holding, but no more than that. Each time he tried to break through the Yorkist centre, Edward would appear leading reserves, an awesome mighty figure on his black warhorse, hewing a path before him with his strokes of death.

Panting for breath, John stepped back after a kill and called for a messenger. At the signal, his knights closed around him like a steel hedge.

“I need more men!” John shouted above the din of clashing metal, thundering hoofs, and cries of battle. “Send to my brother Warwick! I need more men from his reserves!”

The messenger, scarcely more than a boy, dug in his spurs and galloped off into the fog. John went back into the fray, engaged the next adversary. While he was still locked in combat, Warwick materialised out of the fog, fighting his way forward, leading men to the front. John retreated, let his knights converge around them so they could confer.

“Edward’s left wing under Hastings is destroyed!” cried Warwick. “But fighting is fierce on Exeter’s wing—Dickon continues to inch forward, though he’s heavily outnumbered!”

Beneath his visor, John couldn’t suppress a smile.

“Oxford’s sent word! When he rallies his men in Barnet, he’ll return to the fray and strike at the rear of Edward’s centre!” Warwick’s voice held a rasp of excitement. “Victory’s in sight, brother!”

John nodded his plumed helmet. Warwick withdrew to bring up more men and John went forward to exchange blows with a Yorkist knight. The knight gave ground, stumbled backwards, fell. John raised his sword. The man died. John pushed ahead, stepping on bloody dead men, severed limbs, and a sprawling body in a padded leather jerkin, ripped hideously open from throat to stomach, exposing violently red gutted entrails.

John caught his breath, momentarily unable to move. His stomach was heaving in the old familiar way and the sour taste of bile, bitter as gall, stung his throat. This was his nightmare. This was the world gone mad. This was Hell. This screaming of dying men, suffering horses; this stench of blood and gutted entrails. This vile fog that stank of offal and hid unspeakable horrors. Once he hadn’t minded killing—once, when he was young, fearless, and had fair cause. A friend’s death at the battle of St. Albans, on this very road, had changed that. Seventeen years old, sliced through the belly, disembowelled like that man, his friend had died cruelly in his arms. Since then, he’d been unable to abide the stench of blood. Just so, they told him, had his brother Thomas died at Wakefield. Sliced open.

His head cut off.

Sweat was blinding him. He could taste its pungent salt on his lips. In his gauntlets, his hands were sticky, his fingers stiff and cramped from wielding his sword. The fog swirled around him. Swords flashed; men fell. Cries of York and Neville mingled in the murk. He stumbled forward, nearly tripped over the body of a man without arms. The man moaned.

O God, my Creator, how much longer?
cried John silently.

~*~

Richard’s throat was raw from shouting commands, his ears deaf from the din of clashing metal and the shrieks of men and animals. His right arm hung limp, useless at his side, the pain was shattering now. Cannon shot and arrows rained down through the dense clouds that shrouded the field. Many of his household men were dead. Thomas Howard had taken an arrow in his gut, had fallen at his feet, and strangely, he’d had time to think of the Friendly Lion, that Thomas was his only son.

He didn’t know how much longer they could hold. With the help of Warwick’s reserves, Exeter was pressing them back, foot-by-foot back down the steep hill that they had climbed. But he had to hold! Edward needed his own reserves. By sheer force of will he gathered his failing strength and directed it into each blow of his battleaxe.

Then he heard it, the roar that came from somewhere far away in the mists, somewhere along John’s line. A thunder that first started as a growl and built into a fury that shook the earth. Richard and his adversary both lowered their weapons, turned towards the sound.

~*~

John halted when he heard it, swung around, stared into the misty reaches to the right of his line. He could see nothing of what was happening on his wing. The ground shook beneath his feet, the roar grew into a ferocious clamour. Men were cursing, shouting angrily. “Treason!” they cried. His flank guard sent a flock of arrows suddenly hissing into the milky greyness. “Treason!” came the shouts, louder now. Out of the mist rode a cavalry force bearing the Yorkist emblem of the blazing sun, cutting down his men. John pushed up his visor, turned back. Something was wrong! Terribly wrong! The Yorkist emblem loomed ahead of him. There could not be two!

In a flash, he realised the appalling, tragic error.

This was not Edward’s crimson and gold banner of the Sun in Splendour! This was Oxford’s crimson and silver banner of the Star and Streams! The two emblems were much alike. These were Oxford’s men returning from the pursuit to what they thought was the rear of the Yorkist flank! In the fog, they couldn’t see—didn’t know—that the collapse of Hastings’s wing on the east and Dickon’s flank attack on Exeter in the west, had wrenched the battle lines from east-west to north-south.

They were killing their own side!

Even as Oxford discovered his error and reared up his horse with an oath, John’s archers sent another volley of arrows into his midst. Curses and shouts of betrayal shrilled in the air. Oxford and his men recoiled, turned their horses, galloped off into the fog. John’s men picked up the cries of “
Treason!
” and ran after them.

Confusion broke the Lancastrian ranks. Throwing down their weapons, men turned and fled. Voices yelled in triumph as the Sun banner erupted from the fog and smashed through John’s centre. Weapons beat down his pennon; beat down his men. All about him they were falling. He parried the blows as best he could, but they were raining down with stunning force. Through his visor slit, he could see his enemies’ murderous eyes, hear his own panting breath. Blood was bursting in his ears and nose. The blows smashed through his armour. He slumped to his knees.

The fog thickened around him like a shroud; he couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. A fierce pain exploded in his head. His mind filled with broken images of his life: his father leading Isobel to him, eyes alight with pride; Thomas, grinning; Dickon at Barnard’s Castle, handing him the ring. Edward jesting that Italians had the right idea of war, they never fought in winter. He saw Warwick frown; heard Percy laugh. Alnwick Castle rose above the River Aln, and he had a vision of swans and Isobel’s smile.

For one soft moment he felt her arms around him.

Suddenly it was very quiet. There was blood in his eyes and he thought he’d lost his sight. Then he realised he wasn’t blind. He could make out the shadow of a crucifix in the fog. The crucifix grew, loomed large, blotted out the fog behind it and ushered in a shining bright place. He had a faint sense of surprise that he could have been so wrong, that he had so misunderstood. He had dreamed it many times, had feared it always. But there was nothing fearful in that shining place. He turned his head and smiled.

The Yorkist who stood astride John’s body plunged his sword down into John’s heart.

~ * * * ~

“Such a sleep they sleep—the men I loved.”

It was sunrise; it was over. The battle had lasted three hours and three thousand men were dead. Most of the slain came from the rank and file on Warwick’s side. In their padded tunics, sometimes without even a steel cap to protect their heads, they were easily killed by a sword thrust and, in sharp contrast to other battles, Edward did not spare them but cut them down as they fled. The common people had loved Warwick too dearly.

Edward stood amid the carnage and pushed up his visor. “Where’s John?” he yelled. “Where’s Warwick?” He looked around, shouted to a yeoman of his household, “Save Montagu and Warwick—find them and save them!” The man galloped off into the floating whiteness. Richard stumbled up to Edward’s side, panting, depleted.

Edward said, “I came face to face with John. He turned away. He wouldn’t fight me, wouldn’t fight his King.”

“Does he live?” cried Richard.

“I don’t know, but I saw his pennon go down myself…”

Richard shut his eyes.

“Sire!” a horseman cried, galloping towards Edward. He flung himself from the saddle, knelt at Edward’s feet. “John Neville, the Marquess of Montagu, is slain! He was separated from his men and fell fighting bravely in the thickest press of his enemies.”