Roseblood (2 page)

An eerie, sinister figure, Cade first prowled the roads of Kent and Essex. Sometimes he called himself King of the Faerie Realm and preached hotly against the powers-that-be. On occasion, he would slip into the city. Rumour had it that he’d murdered two Hanse merchants from their enclosure at the Steelyard, who were found floating face down in the Thames. Others claimed he used to beg around St Paul’s graveyard when he lived in Pie Powder Alley just off the Crutched Friars. He had even tried to trade musty velvet in a stinking dark shop; when this failed, he sold face washes of hog’s gristle mixed with oil of cloves, to remove flushes from the face and prevent pimples from erupting. The lotions did more harm than good, so Cade turned to pimp and pander.

Nobody perceived Cade as a danger to the Crown until he allegedly received secret monies and the support of a cohort of mysterious French mercenaries whose livery was a dark red coat and a badge depicting a flying crow against a light blue field. Ragged mercenaries were flocking to England, but this cohort was special, well financed and armed. They called themselves LeCorbeil, and were reputed to be master bowmen, very skilled with the arbalests hanging by leather cords from their saddle horns. LeCorbeil were seen here and there, but mostly in the wastelands of Essex, north of London, lurking on the fringes of the dense sprawling forest of Epping. No one dared accost them. Rumour claimed they were here to support the Duke of York, and what could local levies do against such well-armed, professional mercenaries?

Nevertheless, Cade and LeCorbeil were not the root of the present evil; merely the offshoots of a deeper malignancy. The chroniclers in the monasteries and abbeys sat at their lamp-shrouded desks and described the true cause of the growing chaos: the King. They pricked the point of how Henry V, of not so blessed memory, that great punisher of the French, had died, his bowels turned to a filthy fluid amongst the marshes of Meaux, screaming into the darkness, ‘No, no, my lot lies with the Lord Jesus.’ Those present around the royal deathbed believed that the myriads Henry had slaughtered in northern France must have assembled to greet him on either side of that broad thoroughfare sweeping down into Hell.

Henry left a baby son, christened with the same name, born of tainted Valois stock; his mother was Queen Katherine, daughter of the mad Charles VI of France, who believed he was fashioned out of glass. Henry VI grew and matured, more sinned against than sinning, a holy man, living proof of the words of scripture: ‘That the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than the children of the light.’ Certainly a child of the light, who sat closer to the angels than many, Henry could not deal with the great warlords who snarled around him, though his beautiful, hot-tempered wife-queen, Margaret of Anjou, certainly could. Their marriage was one of milk and wine. Margaret was passionate in her pursuit and defence of her rights and those of her husband and family. She gathered to herself three great lords: William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk; John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset; and the latter’s brother Edmund. This precious trinity served as a living shield for Margaret, her husband and the entire House of Lancaster against the fervent ambitions of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who believed himself to be the King’s heir if Henry died without male issue. York also secretly considered that he had a better claim to the throne: the House of Lancaster only descended from the third son of Edward III, whilst the House of York claimed descent from the second son, Lionel of Clarence.

The Year of Our Lord 1450 swept all of England’s troubles to full bursting, and the putrid mess of failure, frustration, defeat and incompetence seeped out to taint the entire kingdom. When John Beaufort lost Normandy, the archers who’d proudly garrisoned the great castles and towns of northern France were shipped home humiliated, miserable and poor. Bishop Moleyns was sent by the Exchequer to meet these returning soldiers and pacify them. He took with him their long-overdue wages, but the archers thought the good bishop had not brought enough. They fell on Moleyns and cruelly murdered him. Worse came, swift and hard like the charge of a warhorse. The English were defeated at Formigny, and all of France except Calais was lost. The Commons at Westminster turned in fury on Suffolk and Somerset, determined to kill both. Dark souls steeped in malice plotted to seize the two dukes and sever their heads on Tower Hill.

Queen Margaret, who loved the Duke of Suffolk to distraction, urged him to flee abroad. On 30 April 1450, Suffolk, in disguise, embarked at Ipswich, but his flight was discovered by Richard of York. The French mercenary troop LeCorbeil suddenly appeared outside Dover. They hired a pirate cog,
The Nicholas of the Tower
, to stand off Dover Head and wait. Suffolk’s ship was intercepted, and Queen Margaret’s good duke resigned himself to death. A witch had prophesied that he would die at the Tower. Suffolk had always thought the allusion was to London’s great fortress, but when he learnt the name of the ship bearing down on his, he lost all will to fight. He was arrested and taken aboard the cog, and after a brutal court-martial was thrust into the vessel’s bumboat and made to kneel before a block. LeCorbeil gave a rusty sword to one of the pirates, who took the duke’s head with a dozen hacking strokes. Suffolk’s corpse was then left on the sands beneath Dover Castle, his severed head impaled on a pole, beside it the corpse of a crow.

LeCorbeil were not finished. Once Suffolk’s grisly execution was known, rumours spread throughout the Kentish villages that the Sheriff of Kent and his father-in-law, Lord Saye, Treasurer of England, both Lancastrians body and soul and favourites of the Queen, were plotting revenge. They maintained that Kentish folk were responsible for Suffolk’s murder and so should face devastation by fire and sword. According to a report coursing swiftly as a breeze through the shire, both Saye and the sheriff had sworn that Kent would be reduced to nothing more than a royal deer park. Alarmed by such vicious rumours, the country people of Kent flocked to the shire’s May Day celebrations, which rapidly changed into commissions of array when all men capable of bearing arms were assembled. A deep fear descended. The black banners of anarchy were hoisted. Shouts of ‘Harrow! Harrow!’ echoed across the mustering grounds as the hue and cry was raised against so-called traitors ‘intent on murdering the common people’.

It was at these May Day celebrations that Cade, taking the name of Mortimer, emerged, with the support of LeCorbeil, that mysterious company of French mercenaries. He and his army swept through Kent, camping at Blackheath and publishing their grievances. The rebel army denounced the King’s advisers who had persuaded the royal mind against true lords such as the Duke of York, as well as against the King’s faithful commons. They proclaimed how false councillors had lost royal land. How the King’s merchants were greatly despoiled on both land and sea, and how the French were now raiding the southern coasts of England. They spread their message by proclamation and charter.

Armed bands from Surrey, Suffolk and Essex marched to join them under great flapping standards of red and black. In London, Queen Margaret mustered royal troops and sent them south against the rebels. Cade immediately withdrew to Sevenoaks. The royal vanguard under the two Stafford brothers hastily pursued him, intent on bringing the rebels to battle and utterly destroying them. Instead they clattered into an ambush, and both leaders and a host of their retinue were cruelly slaughtered. The rebels poured back into London. They forced the Constable of the Tower to hand over Lord Saye, who was immediately arraigned at the Guildhall and charged with treason.

The following morning, at eleven of the clock, Cade, along with some of LeCorbeil and others of his retinue, rode into the city. The self-proclaimed Great Captain, clad in a blue gown of velvet with sable furs, a straw hat on his head and a naked sword in his hand, ordered Saye to be dragged from the Guildhall and taken to the Standard in Cheapside. He was not even allowed to finish his confession to a priest before his hair was grabbed and his head severed and placed on a pole. Afterwards, his blood-soaked trunk was stripped, tied by the legs to the rear of a horse and dragged around the city, the poled head carried before it. Now and again the macabre procession would pause so that Saye’s severed head could kiss that of his son-in-law, the Sheriff of Kent, whom the Essex bands had also caught and executed.

Such blasphemous desecration provoked opposition to Cade. On the night following Saye’s murder, the mayor and certain aldermen decided to resist. Once Cade had withdrawn to Southwark, the city council fortified London Bridge. Fierce, resolute street fighting took place. Old grudges and grievances were settled. Householders opened their doors to find corpses dangling from shop signs and the eaves of their gabled homes. Murder prowled the streets; revenge, hatred and curdling resentment followed in its retinue. Long-buried blood feuds, their tangled roots deeply embedded, came to full poisonous flower.

Edmund Roseblood recognised that as he knelt on the filthy shale left by the retreating river tide. He moved on his knees, the small, sharp stones biting into his flesh. Hands tied behind his back, he stared up at the ripe summer moon and the glorious flowers of heaven. He wondered how his brother, Simon, and the rest of the family would be dealing with the malice of Cade, LeCorbeil and others of that coven. He himself had been tricked and betrayed. Guilt about the past and a desire to begin again now held him fast, and the hunter’s snare could not be broken. Edmund Roseblood was about to die.

They had promised to be swift. He gazed at the three sinister figures before him, cowled and visored; their eyes, hard and cold, reflected their hate-filled souls and marble hearts. They had invoked a blood feud that was almost fifteen years old, ignoring his pleas of innocence. According to them, he had been at LeCorbeil when that French town was put to fire and sword. Others had paid; now, they claimed, so must he. They had provided a priest, some wretched hedge-parson shivering with terror, to shrive him before he died.

‘You have one request, one favour.’ LeCorbeil’s voice was harsh.

Edmund stared at that sombre figure who had trapped him with such sweet promises. LeCorbeil was the name of a village, of a hideous massacre, and of a group of vengeance seekers. Each who sought revenge took on the LeCorbeil name in waging their blood feud. Edmund could only distinguish the leader of the coven by the snow-white coif beneath the deep hood. He closed his eyes and breathed in. Simon would avenge him; Simon always did, in his own time and in a place of his own choosing.

‘You have one last boon, a final favour,’ LeCorbeil repeated. ‘More than you gave my people.’

‘I am innocent.’

‘No one is innocent. Well?’

Edmund indicated with his head. ‘Untie my hands. Where can I go? To whom can I flee?’

LeCorbeil whispered an order. One of his company approached, boots crunching on the shale. Edmund felt the knife sawing at the bonds about his wrists. He shook these free, drawing himself up. He made sure his shirt collar was clear of his neck and caught a sob in his throat. Eleanor had sewn that collar. She had been there when he had put this shirt on.

‘I’ll stretch out my hands,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Do it then.’

Edmund closed his eyes and summoned up Eleanor’s sweet face, so perfectly formed: the arching brows, the lustrous grey eyes, the full lips he’d kissed so merrily. Yet Eleanor was the reason he was here. She had persuaded him to try and escape from the past, as well as from his own brother. Now all that was gone…

‘May you walk the rest of your life in peace and friendship.’ he whispered. ‘May your path stretch long and straight before you. May the sun always be on your back. May you drink the cup of life in all its richness. May you see the length of days, and when your day is done, the shadows lengthen and the hush descends, come out to meet me as I will always wait for you.’

Edmund opened his eyes and stretched out his hands, and LeCorbeil’s great two-handed sword severed his head in one clean cut.

London, April 1455

S
mithfield was in gloriously hideous turmoil. Executions always drew the crowds, especially when the sun burnt strong and a swift breeze wafted away some of the more pungent odours. The beggars had assembled in all their tawdry glory, with their lank bellies, hemp-like hair, hammer heads, beetle brows and bottled noses, their cheeks festooned with warts and carbuncles, their jagged teeth turning yellow or black. One of these ancient beauties, Pannikin, who styled himself a story-teller, perched on an overturned barrel to report the wondrous news from Oxford. According to Pannikin, a monster had been born with only one hand, one leg and no nose, with one eye in the centre of its forehead and its two ears sprouting from the nape of its neck. The crowd laughed this to scorn, as Pannikin was regarded as a born liar, twice as fit for Hell as any Southwark rogue.

A more enterprising character, Lazarus, named because of the multitude of black spots that mottled his shrivelled face, was closely studying the clerk who stood next to the barber’s stool under the sprawling ancient elm tree formerly used for hangings. A court clerk, Lazarus decided, scrutinising his intended victim’s expensive dark robes and snowy-white cambric shirt, yet he had the shorn head, shaven face and harsh look of a soldier. Lazarus noted the war belt strapped around the clerk’s slim waist, as well as the clinking silver spurs on his high-heeled Castilian riding boots. The scavenger’s real quarry, however, was the bulging coin purse hanging by cords from that belt. Lazarus, a skilled foist and nip, drew his needle-thin dagger and edged closer.