Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims (20 page)

‘All I recall of life before the priory is a hearth, with a fire,’ she says. ‘And of being warm beside it.’

‘That’s all?’

‘I thought for a long time that the memory was just something I’d imagined, but there are odd details about it that I do not think I can have invented, such as a window filled with coloured glass. Yet I am sure I have not knowingly ever seen such a thing.’

‘Do you recall anything about your arrival at the priory?’

They are on easier terms already.

‘I can picture it so easily in my mind, that I may have invented it.’

‘How does it go?’

‘I was five, or thereabouts. It is snowing but I was not cold. Not then, anyway, and I have some letters the words of which I cannot read, of course, and a heavy purse, and whoever I am with – I think it is a man but I cannot be sure, and when I think of it now it cannot have been a man for they would never have let one into the priory – but whoever I am with, they make me give the letters and the purse to an old lady in black, who must have been the prioress before the Prioress. I recall her being kind. Or having a kind face.’

‘Then?’

‘Then, nothing. I remember the person I was with leaving and then the Life began.’

She does not want to tell him about all the punishments and the beatings and the humiliations and the coldness of the place. She does not want to tell him about the Prioress. Or Sister Joan.

‘The money must have been for your keep,’ he says. ‘Someone will still be paying it. Someone will be worrying about you.’

The idea that someone has been paying for her keep when all she ever did was work until her fingers bled makes her smile. The thought that there might be someone out there to care what happens to her though, that is beyond comprehension.

‘Someone worrying about me?’

For a moment she is at a loss for more words. Then a flush rises within her. Someone is paying for her keep, someone who knows who she was; someone is worrying about her. It is as if some previously dead part of her body is coming back to life, and she cannot stop the tears. She drops the wood again and turns so Thomas cannot see her crying.

‘Kit,’ he says. ‘Katherine.’

He takes a step down the dune towards her and tries to put his arms around her shoulders, but she flinches and stretches her hand to hold him away. Tears are spilling down her cheeks. She tries to rub them away and spreads soot on her face.

Unable to speak for a moment, she looks out to sea; then she turns back.

‘Thomas,’ she begins, ‘I have something I must tell you—’

But before she can say more, the alarm bell in the fort rings out.

IT WAS BRAMPTON
John who saw the Duke of Somerset’s men first.

‘About three hundred archers,’ he tells the company. ‘Maybe more. And about two hundred billmen. Coming up the Boulogne road.’

‘Any horsemen?’ Walter asks. Brampton John tries to think.

‘Not so many as to make a difference,’ he says after a moment.

Walter grunts and hurries to catch Richard. They are moving down the road as it passes through a pocket of dead ground and for the moment Newnham Bridge and its fort are hidden from them just as they are hidden from it. When they emerge over the rise and begin their descent again they hear a crack that splits the silence of the day.

The men duck as one.

‘Lord above!’ someone cries.

When Thomas raises his head he sees a sallow puff of smoke hanging in the air above the battlements of the fort.

‘It’s all right, lads. It’s all right,’ Walter says. ‘It’s one of ours.’

Nevertheless the noise of the gun is impressive, and for a moment they are so absorbed in the sight of the smoke drifting inland that none notice the mass of men moving in three blocks up the Boulogne road.

When they do, they swallow hard.

Banners are unfurled, and Thomas can hear the drums beating and the high pitch of a fife, and a trumpet blowing. Dafydd crosses himself. Walter licks his finger and posts it in the air, checking the wind.

‘Whatever can they hope to achieve?’ Richard wonders aloud. He is sitting on his horse, war hammer across his lap, with a better view than them. ‘They have no siege weapons to break the castle and surely not enough men to invest it.’

‘Must have run out of beans and women then,’ Walter says. ‘They’ll take everything in the town that isn’t nailed down, torch it and piss off back to Guisnes. What I’d do.’

‘Will the Newnham garrison come out, d’you think?’ Richard asks.

‘Got to,’ Walter says. ‘But there aren’t enough of ’em to stop that lot. Calais garrison’ll have to come out too.’

They watch the last of the townspeople hurry across the bridge under the fort, trying to get away from Somerset’s men. They seem to share Walter’s opinion on what will happen next and they are pulling carts laden with everything they can carry. In the distance the Calais garrison are already emerging from the Boulogne Gate, moving up in order: archers, billmen and a handful of horsemen, all hurrying. Walter is more interested in Somerset’s men though, who are arranging themselves in their own blocks on the far side of the town.

‘Something funny about this,’ he says. ‘They’re holding their shape. Normal men’d be in there, grabbing everything they can get their bloody hands on, finding a woman before anyone else.’

‘And they can’t have had it easy these last few months,’ Geoffrey agrees.

Since the Duke of Somerset had taken Guisnes Castle the year before, he’d been cut off from supplies. He’d promised the garrison prompt payment of their wages just as soon as a relief force came from England, but when that fleet reached the coast of France, the wind had turned and the fleet had drifted helplessly into Calais harbour where its supplies had been snapped up by the grateful Earl of Warwick. Warwick had then lined up every man of the relief force and those he recognised as having switched sides with Andrew Trollope the year before at Ludford, he hanged on the quayside.

Another force was fitted out back in England, but that too was captured, this time in a dawn raid while it was still moored in the harbour at Sandwich. Warwick’s men caught the admiral in bed, and brought him back to Calais as a prisoner along with some others the Earl had enjoyed mocking at the dinner board.

Since then Somerset’s men have lived hand to mouth, scavenging, bartering their futures and begging off the local population.

Now here they are, though, positioned across the road just beyond Newnham, ready to make a fight of it. Thomas watches as a detachment of soldiers breaks ranks and runs forward into the town.

‘Here we go,’ Walter mutters.

A moment later a plume of pale smoke spews from a straw roof, then another, then another.

‘Trying to draw the garrison out,’ Walter says.

If this is their plan it is working. The Newnham garrison in their red livery are now crossing the bridge to take up position along the town road west of the bridge. Thomas can even make out the garrison captain and the sergeants shouting at the men, keeping order. They watch in silence for a moment, impressed by the display. Three men on horseback ride the line, scanning the houses ahead for any sign of the enemy.

‘That’s it,’ Richard says suddenly. ‘Where are his horse? Why hasn’t Somerset brought his prickers? His scurriers? His scouts? Where are they?’

Walter nods.

‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘Don’t tell me the nobs walked all that way?’

‘Can you see any?’

‘Where’s Kit? He has the best eyes. Come up here, boy.’

Katherine hurries forward, pushing past Thomas. She still has no helmet for none would fit so small a head, even with a woollen cap beneath, nor any sword.

‘Can you see any horsemen among them?’ Richard asks.

There is a pause while Katherine scans Somerset’s army. The men gather around, staring through the trees.

‘None,’ she says.

‘Not even the banner-carriers?’ Richard asks.

Katherine shakes her head.

‘And if there are none on the field . . .’ Richard begins.

‘Then where are they?’ Walter finishes.

They scour the flat landscape below. Thomas can see nothing of any note. There are various stands of trees among the furlongs and baulks, and there is the broad skirt of green-coated marshland down by the village, but not much else.

‘Perhaps he has no horse?’ Richard is suggesting. ‘Perhaps he’s eaten them?’

Walter doesn’t look convinced.

‘Can you make out the banners, Kit?’ Richard asks.

‘There is one divided into fourths,’ she says. ‘Red and blue, with some flowers or something, and the white one has what look like black marks on it.’

‘Are they birds?’ Richard snaps.

‘I cannot say. They might be.’

Richard is sharp.

‘Look again,’ he demands. ‘Look again. Is the edge of the white flag chequered?’

‘I can’t see. It is too far.’

‘How many birds are there?’

Katherine counts them.

‘Six,’ she says. ‘But they . . .’

Thomas is on his tiptoes, peering into the distance; his heart is pounding.

‘It’s Riven,’ Richard says, turning to Geoffrey. ‘Riven’s here. I know it. It is him. Look.’

Thomas nearly shouts something. He too is sure Riven is here.

‘What about the horsemen?’

‘We can worry about them later. Let’s go.’

Richard wrenches his bridle around, and is about to jam his heel in when Katherine starts.

‘There,’ she says, pointing. Richard stops, wheels around again, drags his nervous horse prancing across and follows her directions.

‘Christ on His cross!’ he breathes. ‘Where did they come from?’

There are about fifty of them, filtering along a narrow path between two orchards, using the trees as cover, moving up like grey wraiths in a grey land, each carrying one of the long lances and each wrapped in a thick travelling cloak so the spring sun won’t shine on their harness. Even their horses wear sackcloth.

As they come up on the Newnham garrison’s flank, obscured from view by a copse of poplars, Somerset’s archers and billmen are retreating back down the road to Boulogne, luring Warwick’s men further into the trap.

‘Must have moved up in the night,’ Walter says. ‘They’ll wait until the garrison have shot all their arrows, then they’ll get in among ’em.’

‘The priests’ll be busy then,’ Geoffrey agrees. ‘It’ll be a slaughter.’

‘We’ve got to stop them.’

‘Hard to see how.’

Richard throws his leg over his horse and drops to the ground, his armour ringing. He turns to Katherine and passes her the reins.

‘We can come behind them,’ he says. ‘That’s what we can do. Tie her up, Kit, will you?’ He nods to his horse. ‘Then follow with the arrows. We’ll need every one of them.’

Katherine pauses, her gaze still on the flat lands below. She opens her mouth to say something, but it is too late, Richard has hurried forward. Walter is rubbing his hands, his eyes shining like a ferret about to kill.

‘All right, this is it, boys,’ he says. ‘This is it. We won’t have time to cut stakes so we’ll have to shoot quick and accurate and pray they don’t catch us in the open.’

Thomas checks his bow, his arrows, his blade. He presses the helmet down on to his head and all sounds are muffled. He wishes he had found a buckler like the other men. He glances at Katherine, still unsettled by what happened between them on the beach. He had not meant anything by trying to hold her, only that . . . What? He shakes his head.

She is tying Richard’s horse’s reins to the bough of a tree. Yet he must say something. If he is going into battle and is killed – well, she must know what he meant and what he didn’t mean. She turns and catches his gaze. He almost glances away, ashamed, but she hurries to him.

‘Thomas,’ she begins. ‘Listen to me—’

‘I’m sorry,’ he interrupts. ‘For earlier.’

Katherine waves it away. It is as if she has already forgotten it.

‘It’s not about that,’ she says. ‘Look. I’ve been watching the men in the butts. I’ve seen how you shoot. You form a pattern, like a block, don’t you? And then loose your arrows.’

Thomas nods. It is exactly as she imagines.

‘So?’ he asks.

‘So if you come up behind the horsemen, when you shoot at them they’ll ride out of range, won’t they? Or they’ll turn and ride you down. They’ll still be able to attack the garrison troops. But if you cross the marsh and follow the dyke there’ – she steps up to the brow of the hill and points to a length of earthwork that runs beside the road – ‘you might get alongside the horsemen as they charge the garrison. That way you’ll get each and every one of them. That way Riven will not get away.’

Thomas sees what she means. The road along which the horsemen will ride is bracketed on one side by a steep dyke that holds back the marsh and the cesspit. If they can cross the marsh they might reach the dyke and from there they can cut the horsemen off before they reach Newnham.

‘Tell Richard, will you?’ she asks.

Thomas nods and sets off after the archers as they hurry down the slope. All chatter has stopped now. Faces are pale. Hands keep moving from bow to string to arrow bag to crown of helmeted head as each man checks his equipment over and over again. They run down the sandy lane until it bottoms out and then rises again between two muddy furlongs where onions grow. Here they pause so that Walter can sight the horsemen. Thomas crouches next to Richard.

‘Godspeed, Thomas,’ Richard says, fiddling with his visor. ‘Remember our practice and we shall come through this with our smiles in place.’

Thomas repeats what Katherine has told him. He does not tell him it is Katherine’s idea. Richard listens. Then he stands and studies the way the land lies.

‘It is a good plan,’ he decides, but when Walter comes back he isn’t happy.

‘No time,’ he says, dismissing Richard. He turns to the archers. ‘Now, the horses are in a stand of trees on the other side of the road, so we’ll set up here. Harrow formation,’ he says. ‘Six in each rank.’

Richard wets his lips. ‘We’ll do it Thomas’s way, Walter.’

Walter stops, turns, spits.

‘Thomas’s way, is it? Not how Sir John’d want it.’