Revenge (29 page)

Edward wondered if he was being rash. He was desperate for revenge on Clifford for the cold-blooded murder of his brother, but also aware that a king shouldn’t let his passions rule him. Warwick’s plan appeared sound, though he had somewhat lost faith in the man since the debacle at Saint Albans: only Edward’s swift advance from Wales to London, gathering up Warwick’s battered forces at Chipping Norton, had saved the Yorkist cause from destruction.

It was too late to reverse his decision now. The rafts, packed with troops, were being poled out into the river, and a trumpet sounded the assault on the bridge.

“Jesus,” Edward said, appalled, as he watched Fauconberg’s men-at-arms shuffle precariously onto the narrow timber skeleton of the bridge, using their pole-arms as balancing aids.

From behind their barricade of planks Clifford’s dismounted archers unleashed a murderous hail of clothyard shafts, plucking men off the wall with ease. More arrows were directed at the Yorkists crammed board the rafts, already struggling thanks to the fast flow of the river.

The result was bloody catastrophe. Those few of the assault party that made it to the barricade were confronted by Clifford’s spearmen, thrusting ten-foot long spears through gaps in the planks, and pitchforked off the bridge into the river. Most were drowned, dragged down by their armour, or died from the heart-seizing shock of icy water.

More men were fed into the doomed assault, brave men, the flower of Edward’s army, but they could make no headway. His engineers worked feverishly to cobble together new rafts to replace those swept downriver when all the troops aboard were shot or drowned. There was a noticeable lack of volunteers to board them, and the Yorkist captains took to shoving and whipping men towards the riverbank.

After an hour of this bloody futility Lord Fauconberg approached Edward. “Sire,” he said in a low voice, “give me leave to take three thousand hobelars and ride upriver to Castleford. There is an old Roman ford there. The Lancastrians may have it guarded, but I could try and force the passage, seize the bridgehead and outflank Clifford.”

Edward looked at him with narrowed eyes. “You might have suggested this before,” he said coldly, “or did you delay on purpose, to humiliate Warwick?”

Lord Fauconberg’s face was a study in self-possession. “Not at all, sire. The idea only just occurred to me.”

Edward rather doubted that, but ordered Fauconberg to take his mounted archers and ride with all speed to Castleford.

***

On the opposite side of the river, Lord Clifford frowned as he observed a large body of horsemen in Fauconberg’s livery leave the Yorkist army and ride away, following the road that curved around his position to the east. It didn’t take a wise man to realise their intention.

He banged his armoured thigh in frustration. All had been going so well. The Yorkists seemed intent on battering away at the bridgehead until nightfall, for the afternoon was wearing on to dusk, or until their men dropped from exhaustion.

“Where are they going?” asked Lord Neville, displaying his usual fine grasp of strategy. Clifford sucked in his teeth and willed himself not to strike the man.

“Up to the ford at Castleford,” he said irritably, “beyond the Fairburn marshes. I have men posted there, but not enough to defend the causeway against so many cavalry. They won’t be able to stop the Yorkists crossing and riding here to take us in flank.”

“Oh God!” Neville exclaimed, turning pale. He looked down at the river, where the latest Yorkist assault had just been repelled. “We can’t hold here much longer.”

“No,” agreed Clifford, “unless you think you can do the King better service dead than alive. We must withdraw at once.”

The Flower of Craven quickly mounted and departed, leaving the wreckage of the bridge behind them and scores of arrow-riddled Yorkist corpses bobbing gently in the river. Desperate to reach the safety of the main army, they pushed their horses hard along the Great North Road, riding via Milford and Sherburn-in-Elmet.

Clifford’s hope was that Fauconberg’s cavalry would turn south after fording the river at Castleford, to secure Ferrybridge and clear the barricades to allow the rest of the Yorkists to cross over. He congratulated himself on holding the bridge for so long. Valuable hours had been gained, allowing the Duke of Somerset time to ready the Lancastrian army.

The Flower of Craven reached as far as Dintingdale, but there Clifford’s hopes dissolved. Horns sounded to the north-east, and a long line of horsemen suddenly appeared over the ridge in that direction, thundering down to cut off his men as they proceeded along the road leading north.

Clifford swore. Towton, and the safety of the Lancastrian lines, was less than a mile ahead. He spied the figure of Lord Fauconberg himself among the cavalry spreading out to cut off his escape. The wily old soldier had outfoxed him.

“We are lost!” he heard Lord Neville squeal, just behind him. “All is lost!”

Clifford’s temper broke. Neville was not only unfit for command, he was unfit to live. Unlooping his mace from his saddle-bow, Clifford twisted and smashed the weapon into Neville’s face, knocking him clean out of the saddle. A horse galloped over the fallen man, crushing his spine and reducing what was left of his face to red mush.

“Form up!” roared Clifford, his blood fired by Neville’s death. He would charge, and smash straight through the middle of the Yorkist line.

The Flower of Craven were willing to follow their lord into the mouth of Hell, but Fauconberg had already given orders for half his men to light down and string their bows. As the Lancastrians charged forward in a single body, lances lowered, his archers let fly a volley that dropped the foremost in their tracks, bringing horses and riders tumbling to earth.

In the haste of the retreat from Ferrybridge, Clifford had neglected to don his helm and gorget. A shaft pierced his throat, and he slumped sideways, dark blood pouring from the puncture in his neck.

The Butcher dropped from his saddle and landed heavily on the road. He gasped for air that wouldn’t come, steel fingers fumbling uselessly at the fatal arrow. The sound of battle raged dimly around him, fading to a noise like the crashing of a distant sea. His sight dimmed. Clifford’s last vision on earth was of Edmund of Rutland, pleading for his life on bended knee near Wakefield Bridge.

***

Palm Sunday, the day Christ entered Jerusalem, dawned grey and bitterly cold. A vicious, biting wind stormed the plateau south of Towton, bringing with it fresh snow that quickly settled and covered the land in a thick white blanket. The early morning air was as still as the grave.

Richard Bolton, standing in the front rank of the vanguard of the Lancastrian army, watched the Yorkists slowly advancing onto the ridge overlooking the valley of Towton Dale to the south. He could hear the bells of York Minster, over fifteen miles away, tolling across the waste, and shivered at the mournful noise.

Some of the more devout of his comrades believed that the Day of Judgment was near. Richard could well believe it. To his eye it seemed that all the fighting men in England had gathered here, on this bleak and windswept spot, to decide once and for all who sat on the throne of England.

“The presumption of men is endless,” a drunken archer had insisted on telling him at supper last night, “for the only true King is God.”

A cold and comfortless night, but at least it had been worse for the Yorkists. After crossing at Ferrybridge the usurper’s army had trudged up the Great North Road to make camp between Sherburn-in Elmet and Saxton. There, according to the Lancastrian scouts, they had endured the long hours of darkness without tents, food, mess equipment or bedding. All their supply wagons were still coming up the road.

By contrast, the Lancastrians were warm and well-supplied. News of the slaughter of Lord Clifford and his Flower of Craven depressed Lancastrian morale, but it lifted again with the coming of day. The leaden morning light revealed that the Yorkist host was smaller, for Edward’s ally the Duke of Norfolk had not yet come up with reinforcements.

Some seventy thousand souls were now drawn up on the bleak plateau, ripe for a harvesting of Biblical proportions. Richard doubted there had ever been a muster like it in England, or the world, in all the annals of war.

He glanced to his left and exchanged reassuring smiles with his brother-in-law Henry. In a moment of ale-inspired vainglory, both had volunteered for the front line in the Duke of Somerset’s vanguard. Richard recalled a similar mistake he had made months ago in France, challenging all comers to a duel at Guines Castle. He survived the consequences of that. God grant he was so fortunate again.

To his right, just a few feet away, stood the Duke of Somerset, commander-in-chief of the Lancastrian army. King Henry, the Queen and the Prince of Wales had been left behind at York.

Somerset stood proudly under his banner, surrounded by his retainers. Like Richard he favoured the poleaxe in battle, and his body was sheathed in costly steel harness. After the Lancastrian victories at Wakefield and Saint Albans, both masterminded by Somerset and his able lieutenant, Sir Andrew Trollope, Richard had come to revere the Duke.

Today,
he thought,
we shall stand side-by-side in the press and carve out a new future for England in the bodies of our enemies.

His own body was stiff and aching. Four long, muscle-wearing hours had elapsed since dawn, while the armies adjusted their ranks and waited for stragglers to catch up.

Please God, let it begin soon
, Richard prayed,
before my courage fails.

At that moment, the howling wind changed direction and started to blow in the faces of the Lancastrians, spattering them with flurries of snow and sleet. Through the blizzard Richard saw the archers of the Yorkist vanguard, commanded by Lord Fauconberg, rush down into the valley.

As soon as the archers came within bowshot of the Lancastrian lines they stopped, notched, drew, and shot their arrows high into the air. Driven on a tail wind, the arrows dropped deep into the cramped ranks of Somerset’s men.

Richard held his hand in front of his face, gritting his teeth as he anticipated the bite of a bodkin head in his flesh. Screams and yells erupted behind him. Memories of braving the arrow-storm at Blore Heath flashed through his mind.

The Lancastrian archers, stung into responding, ran a little way down the slope and started shooting at a furious rate. Half-blinded by the snow, and shooting against the wind, their sheaves were quickly spent, and almost all their arrows fell short. Curses rippled up and down the line of Somerset’s vanguard as the Yorkist archers ran down to collect the arrows and promptly send them back.

Richard cringed as a shaft whipped past his ear. Gaps appeared in the line as more men fell, and he wondered if Somerset meant to keep them standing there until their line was shot to pieces. The vanguard was the main target for the Yorkists, though the Earl of Northumberland’s division on the left flank was also taking some punishment.

Richard had spent most of the night dreading the prospect of this battle. At Wakefield he had fought on horseback in a one-sided massacre, and at Saint Albans he had been posted in the rearguard and seen little actual fighting. Here, however, he would have to engage in close-quarter combat on foot, the most murderous form of warfare.

He found it a blessed relief when trumpets blasted through the air to signal the advance. True to his aggressive nature, Somerset had lost patience with the unequal archery duel and decided to take the fight to the enemy.

The Lancastrian vanguard, some fourteen thousand men, surged down the slope of Towton Dale. Richard moved in step with the rest, careful to watch his footing on the uneven, snow-covered ground. A man to his left gurgled wetly as a Yorkist arrow smacked into his neck, but then the arrow-hail died away. Fauconberg’s archers hurriedly fell back to their main army, leaving a few shafts sticking out of the ground to impede the oncoming Lancastrians.

There was no stopping the remorseless tide of Lancastrian infantry. Somerset and his retainers led the way, like the steel tip of a lance. Richard felt the confidence and hatred fuelling the men around him. He absorbed it, used it to drown his fears and drive him on.

Veins pounding in his neck, he strode up the opposite slope, holding his poleaxe at shoulder height in a two-handed grip. He wore his father’s sword as a secondary weapon, thrust into his belt, along with a mace and a dagger.

Though outnumbered, Fauconberg’s vanguard moved down to meet their enemy. The momentum of the slope caused their advance to spill into a headlong rush. At the same time the eager press of men behind Richard shoved him forward. In his battle-fury he welcomed the encounter, and snarled like an animal as the opposing front ranks impacted and crushed hard against each other.

He found himself pressed against a Yorkist, neither man able to use their poleaxes, only grip each other in a parody of a lover’s embrace. The Yorkist’s face was hidden by his gorget and helm, but his eyes – emerald green, Richard noticed, with long lashes like a girl’s – were brimful of terror. Screams and war-shouts and the scrape and grind of metal resounded in Richard’s ears as the rear ranks of both armies lunged with staff weapons over the heads of those in front.