Stormbird (21 page)

‘Can you walk?’ Rowan whispered.

‘I think so,’ Thomas said, though he did not know. A childhood story of Samson losing his hair came to his mind and he smiled weakly to himself, using the handle of an old plough to heave himself up. He rested then, fat drops of sweat pouring from his face to strike the dust and darken it.

Rowan crossed the lines of golden sunlight streaming into the barn. He stood by the door, looking out on the morning as he gestured for his father to come over. Thomas gathered himself, feeling as if he’d been beaten the night before. He needed to sleep, or perhaps just to die. The promise of rest called to him with enough force to make black shapes swim across his vision. He shuffled across the dusty floor, trying not to gasp as his mind swam and sank in waves of sickness.

Rowan almost threw himself back as a voice spoke a torrent of French right by his head.

‘Are you hiding from me, Jacques? If I catch you asleep, I swear …’

The door came open and Rowan narrowed his eyes, seeing the man’s astonishment slide into terror at the sight of his knife and bulk in the gloom.

The man bolted, slipping and falling as he turned in panic. His voice was already rising in a shout as he scrambled up, but Rowan was on him in one great lunge, stabbing wildly through the coat. With savage strength, he reached his left arm around the man’s neck and crushed it close. The desperate noises became creaks of sound and Rowan found himself sobbing as he struck and struck, seeing red blood spatter around them. He let the body fall on to its face, standing up and panting, with senses suddenly dull in the morning sun.

The farmyard was empty, with rich green grass growing between the cracked stones. He saw a tumbledown cottage that had been invisible the night before, the door hanging open from a broken leather hinge. Rowan looked around him, then down at the vivid red drops in the dust and smeared on his knife. Just two men, looking for something worth stealing while their officers slept. Rowan knew he should have dragged the second body back into the barn, but instead he stood there in the yard, with his eyes closed and his face raised to the sun.

He heard his father come out and stand at his shoulder. Rowan didn’t look at him, preferring to let the warmth ease into his skin. He’d slaughtered animals with his father on the farm, he reminded himself. They’d killed deer while hunting, then dressed the flopping bodies on hillsides until they were covered in gore and laughing.

Thomas took a long breath, unsure if his son would want him to speak or not. Hunger pangs bit at his stomach and he found himself wondering if the two soldiers had any food with them. It was another sign that his body had fought through the illness that had struck him down.

‘Did you enjoy it?’ he asked.

Rowan opened his eyes and looked at him.

‘What?’

‘Killing. I’ve known men who enjoy it. I never did, myself. It always seemed like an odd thing to
want
to do. Too much like work, I’ve always thought. In a pinch, all right, but I wouldn’t seek out another man for killing, not for pleasure. I’ve just known men who did, that’s all.’

Rowan shook his head in dull astonishment.

‘No … I didn’t … God, no … enjoy it.’

To his surprise, his father clapped him on his back.

‘Good. There’s that. Now I find I have an appetite. I’m still weak enough to be frightened by a small boy with a stick, so would you search the house for food? We need to find a place to rest and hide for the day and I can’t do it starving, not after the sickness.’

‘What about staying in the barn?’ Rowan asked, looking back fearfully to the dark doorway.

‘Not with the bodies of soldiers and blood on the ground, son. Wake up! We’ll need to move a few miles in cover and my stomach is hurting something terrible. I need a little food and I’m not eating a Frenchman, not today anyway.’

Rowan chuckled weakly, but his eyes were still troubled. Thomas gave up on his smile, which was taking too much out of him to maintain.

‘What is it?’ He saw his son’s skin twitch like a horse beset with flies, then roughen as the hairs stood up.

‘The one in the barn … his … manhood was stiff … God, Dad, it was horrible.’

‘Ah,’ Thomas replied. He stood there, letting the sun warm them both. ‘Perhaps he liked you?’

‘Dad! Jesus!’ Rowan shivered in memory, rubbing his arms. His father laughed.

‘I had to keep watch once, after a battle,’ he said. ‘I was about twelve years old, I think. I sat all night, surrounded by dead soldiers. After a while, I heard them start to belch and
fart like living men. Twice, one of them sat up, just jerked right up like a man surprised by a thought. Sudden death is a strange thing, sunshine. The body doesn’t always know it’s dead, not at first. I’ve seen … what you saw on a hanged man before, when I was a boy. There was some old woman at the gibbet when everyone else had gone, scratching the ground by his feet. I asked her what she was doing and she said a mandrake root grows from the seed of a hanged man. I ran then, Rowan, I don’t mind telling you. I ran all the way home.’

Both men grew still as a rustling sound carried to them on the still air. They turned slowly to see an elderly goose come out of the trees by the cottage, where a rope swing hung from a branch. The bird pecked the ground and peered at the two men standing in its yard.

‘Rowan?’ Thomas murmured. ‘If you can see a stone, move slowly and pick it up. Try to break a wing.’

The goose ignored them as Rowan found a rock the size of his fist and hefted it.

‘It’s not afraid of us, I think,’ he said, walking towards the bird. It started to hiss, spreading its wings. The stone flew out, knocking the bird over with a squawk and revealing a matted underside of feathers and dirt. Rowan had it by the neck in a moment and dragged the flapping, protesting bird back to his father before silencing it with a sharp tug.

‘You may just have saved my life again this morning,’ Thomas said. ‘We can’t risk a fire, so cut it and drink while it’s warm. Well done, lad. I think I’d have wept like a child if she’d got away from us.’

His son smiled, beginning to feel his strange, fey mood pass. He took care to wipe his knife on the man lying face down in the yard before he used it on the bird.

‘I only wish your grandfather could be here,’ York said, sipping at his wine. ‘The old man took such joy in the birth of children – as you might expect, with twenty-two of his own! Still, the omens are excellent, I’ve been told. A boy, surely.’

He stood in an internal courtyard, roofed in oak and tile, with cream-coloured stone on all sides. The white rose of the house of York was much in evidence, as a painted crest on the beams or carved into the stone itself. In the rooms above his head, an unearthly cry rang out, making his companion wince.

Richard Neville was as tall as his uncle, though he had yet to grow a beard. Through two marriages, it was true his grandfather had sired so many that Richard was used to aunts who were children, or nephews of his own age. The elder Neville had been a potent man and the number of his living descendants was a source of envy to many.

Before Richard could reply, York spoke again.

‘But I am forgetting! I must congratulate you on your new title, well won. Your father must surely be pleased to see you made Earl of Warwick.’

‘You are too kind, my lord. I am still learning what it entails. My father is delighted to have the title and the lands come to the family, as I think you know. I’m afraid I never knew my grandfather.’

York chuckled, draining his cup and raising it for a servant to refill.

‘If you are half the man Ralph Neville was, you will still be twice blessed. He raised me when ill fortune made me an orphan, at the mercy of all men. Old Neville kept my estates and titles intact until I was grown. He asked for nothing in return, though I knew he wanted me to marry Cecily. Even then, he left the final choice to me. He was … a man of great personal honour. I have no higher praise than that. I just
hope you understand. I owe him more than I could ever say, Richard, no – Earl Warwick!’

York smiled at his nephew. Another screech came from the birthing room, making both men wince.

‘You are not worried?’ Richard of Warwick said, fiddling with his goblet and looking up as if he could see through the walls to the feminine mysteries within that chamber.

York made an elaborate shrug.

‘Five dead true, but six alive! If I were a gambling man, I would not bet against another healthy York boy. The twelfth birth is the number of apostles, so my learned doctor is fond of saying. He believes it is a powerful number.’

York fell silent then, considering for a moment that the twelfth apostle had been Judas. The younger man’s eyes were shadowed as he had the same thought, but chose not to voice it.

‘The seventh alive, then,’ Warwick said to break the silence. ‘A number of great fortune, I’m certain.’

York relaxed visibly as he spoke. He had been drinking heavily during the confinement, for all his semblance of being unworried. He called for the cups to be refilled once more and Warwick had to drain his own quickly, feeling the wine heat his blood. It was necessary, he’d found. Fotheringhay Castle may have been well fortified, but even in the shelter of the covered courtyard it was very cold. A fire burned in a nearby hearth, ready to consume the newborn’s caul and birth cord. The warmth seemed to disappear before it could reach the men waiting.

‘I am not sure, my lord, if I should congratulate you in turn,’ Warwick said. York looked at him with a questioning air as he went on. ‘On Ireland, my lord. My father tells me you have been appointed king’s lieutenant there.’

York waved dismissively.

‘I have enemies who would prefer me to be far away from England for the next few years, Richard. I will go where I am sent – eventually! For the moment, I am content to remain, as they climb over each other like drowning rats. I have taken my seat with the Lords Temporal more than once, just to watch and listen. I recommend you do the same, to see what fools scramble and bluster in London.’ He considered his words before continuing. ‘For those with an eye to see, this will be a year of storms, Richard. Those who survive it, well, they can only rise.’

‘My lord York!’ a voice called.

Both men leaned back to look up to the small walkway overhead, separated by a generation but joined in concern for Cecily Neville and the child. As they waited, wine forgotten in their hands, a midwife came out through thick curtains, using a cloth to wipe any remaining traces of blood from the face of a baby. The infant was tight-wrapped in swaddling bands of dark blue. It did not cry as she held it out for the father and young uncle to see.

‘It is a boy, my lord, a son,’ she said.

York breathed out through his nose, utterly delighted.

‘Have you a name for the child?’ Warwick asked, smiling. He could see the pride in Richard of York. For once, the man was almost boyish in his pleasure.

‘I have a ten-year-old named Edward, one named Edmund and a sweet little lad named George. I won’t risk offending the poor souls who perished, so not Henry, John, William or Thomas. No. I think … Yes, I think this one will be Richard.’

Richard, Earl of Warwick, barked a laugh of surprise and honest pleasure.

‘Three Richards then, between us. Richard like the Lionheart king. No, three lions, my lord! A fine omen.’

York looked a little taken aback as he followed the path taken by Warwick’s quick mind. Two centuries before, King Richard the Lionheart had adopted three lions as his royal seal. More recently, that royal emblem had been carried at Agincourt, by the house of Lancaster and the father of King Henry. It was an association that did not fill York with joy.

‘It is a good name,’ he said grudgingly, raising his cup in toast. ‘It will do.’

The city of Rouen lay around a hundred miles south and west of Calais. In normal times, William would have counted it a stronghold. As the capital of English Normandy, it had witnessed English victories, including the execution of Joan of Arc after her rebellion. William had ridden south to the city with the army, through lands that could have been English farms in Kent or Sussex for their familiarity. He’d crossed the Seine and reached Rouen on a chilly morning three days before, with dawn frost crunching under the hooves of his mount.

The city had been a silent witness to his arrival, the great gates solidly shut. William had stared up at dozens of bodies in the breeze, hanging by their necks from the walls. Almost a hundred swung and creaked, many of them still bearing the marks of violence or stained dark brown with dried blood. William had crossed himself at the sight, saying a brief prayer for the souls of good men guilty of no crime but their place of birth.

The people of Rouen knew the French king was on the march and they had taken courage from that knowledge. Consumed by fury, William could hardly bear to think of the rape and slaughter that must have gone on within those walls. There had been hundreds of English families in Rouen. He had seen cities fall before and the memories were among the ugliest things he had ever witnessed. He thought the hanged men were the lucky ones.

Denied the resources of the city, he had been forced to
open lines of supply right back to Calais, guarding the roads and losing vital men just to keep the carts coming. At least there was water. Rouen was girdled by the Seine, almost enclosed by a great curve of the river as it cut through the rich soil of the province. His army crossed the river on stone bridges, then made their camp in open fields to the south of the city. They turned their backs on Rouen and began the work of pounding sharp wooden stakes into the ground to defend the position against a cavalry charge. Still more of his men used the protection of heavy wooden mantlets to approach the silent city and spike the gates with massive beams and iron nails as long as a man’s forearm. There would be no sudden attack from the rear. William only hoped he would have the chance to visit retribution on those within for what they had done.

The scouts brought in reports every day, all worse than the ones before. William was certain the French king could not have hidden the existence of so many trained men. Half the army he would face had to be peasants drafted for the task and such men had not fared well in the past against English armies. It was a slender thread of hope, but there was not much else to raise his spirits with Rouen at his back.

The open landscape dwarfed even armies, so that it was almost a month after his arrival before William caught his first glimpse of soldiers moving in the distance. He rode closer with a dozen of his senior barons to observe the enemy. What they saw did not please any of them.

It seemed the scouts had not exaggerated. Thousands upon thousands marched north towards the city and the river. William could see blocks of cavalry and armoured knights, as well as the expected host of pikemen so favoured by the French king. From the height of a small hill, William watched them come, all the while counting and assessing,
seeing how they moved. Before long, he glimpsed a second group of colourful shields and banners snapping in the breeze. The king’s party of lords had come to the front. From a distance of more than a mile, William watched as one young fool made his horse rear, the hooves kicking air. He reviewed his own position, unpleasantly aware that he had to keep the bridges open across the Seine, or his men could be trapped against the city that had left them to stand alone.

William turned in the saddle to see Baron Alton glaring across the shrinking distance.

‘What do you think, David?’ William asked.

His senior commander shrugged eloquently.

‘I think there are a lot of them,’ he replied. ‘We may run out of arrows before they’re all dead.’

William chuckled as he was expected to do, though the jest moved him not at all. He had not seen so many French soldiers since the battle of Patay twenty years before. It made him feel old to realize how much time had passed, but he could still remember that disaster – and the slaughter of English archers that had followed. He told himself he would not make the same mistakes and could not help looking back over his shoulder to where his bowmen had prepared their killing ground. Nothing alive could reach them as long as his swordsmen held the centre. He shook his head, wishing for greater confidence in his own abilities. He would fight a strong defence, because he knew how to do it. He could at least thank the French king for not halting and forcing him to attack. King Charles would be confident, but then with such numbers he had every right to be.

‘I’ve seen enough here,’ William said firmly. ‘I think we should rejoin the men. My lords, gentlemen. With me.’ As he spoke, he turned his horse and they trotted back towards the
English lines. William forced himself to ride without looking back, though he felt the enemy coming up behind.

As they crossed the lines of pointed stakes, William waved two earls and half a dozen barons off to their positions. Each of them commanded hundreds of men-at-arms, hard men sheathed in heavy mail under their tunics. They had left their horses beyond the river, though William still fretted over what looked like an escape route. Such things did not sit well with the archers, he knew. They had no horses. William remembered again how mounted knights had fled at Patay, leaving the hapless bowmen to be slaughtered. He swore it would not happen again, but still, there were the horses, a great herd of thousands ready to race away if the battle went badly.

As the French army approached, William rode up and down the lines once more, exchanging a few words with senior men and commenting on their positions. In defending the river plain, there was nothing to do but wait, and William sipped water from a flask as the French came closer and closer. After a time, he took his place in the centre, one of the few mounted men there among those with swords and shields. His cavalry held the right wing, but they would not charge unless the French king himself was exposed or the French were routed. Swallowing drily at the size of the army coming to kill him, William doubted he would see such a thing, not that day.

As the distances shrank, William could see the bulk of mantlets being brought up by the French king’s crossbowmen. The heavy wooden shields took three men apiece to move them on their wheels, but they would provide shelter even against the arrow storm he could bring down. William frowned at the sight of the columns trudging onward with the mantlets at the front like an armoured helmet. He could
see French lords riding alongside the columns, roaring orders. They moved with solid purpose, he thought, though he would still wager on his longbows against them. His archers had their own heavy wooden barriers that they could raise or drop to protect them from barrages of bolts or sling stones. William thanked God there were no siege engines or cannon in the French army. Everything he had heard made it unlikely, but he was still relieved. The French were moving quickly, rushing to take Normandy before the summer ended. The heavy machines of war would be coming up behind them, ready for sieges to come. Until then, the most powerful weapons on the field were English longbows.

In the French centre, their cavalry trotted together as a mass. William almost smiled to see it, as one who had ridden to battle more times than he could remember. It was easy to imagine the banter and over-loud, nervous laughter as they closed on the English position. He said a short prayer to his patron saint and the Virgin, then dropped his helmet visor down, reducing what he could see to a slit of light.

‘Ready archers!’ he bellowed across the field.

William watched as the French crossbowmen wheeled their mantlets into a staggered line, giving the best cover they could. Yet to reach the English lines, the enemy knights would have to leave their shadow. He bared his teeth, hearing his own breath sound loudly inside the helmet. He would stop the French king before Rouen. He had to.

He could hear orders shouted in the distance, thin sounds borne away on the wind. The mass of enemy pikemen came to a halt and the centre cavalry reined in. The two armies faced each other, the French force almost five times the size of his own, a veritable sea of iron and shields. William crossed himself as the crossbow ranks marched on. It was a blessing that they didn’t have the reach of his archers. To get close enough
to kill, they had to come within the range of the yew bows. His archers in loose tunics and leggings were in high spirits as they waited for them to do just that.

The last two hundred yards were known as the ‘devil’s hand’ to French soldiers. William had heard the term years before and he recalled it now as the crossbowmen walked with their weapons on their shoulders, still too far off to reach the English lines. They could not run, with the heavy mantlets being wheeled along with them. Those who rushed in had paid for it in battles of the past. Instead, they had to walk the last eighth of a mile, knowing all the time that they were in range.

William raised his hand and dropped it suddenly, answered by thousands of arrows soaring out as one, then again and again. He had never lost his awe at the accuracy of men who trained for twenty years at their craft. He knew they were despised by his armoured knights, seen as men who killed like cowards. Yet those bowmen gave as much of their lives to building skill and strength as any professional soldier. Welsh and English in the main, with a few Scots and Irish sprinkled among them, they could aim and strike a man down at four hundred yards. There was nothing in the world like them and William felt a rush of joy as the crossbowmen began to fall.

The mantlets protected many of the enemy, creeping ever closer in their columns. The longbows shot over the wooden shields, letting their arrows drop on to the bunched men behind, a hundred shafts at a time, spearing into the packed ranks. William could hear screaming and he saw a ripple go through the French cavalry. There were proud men there, knights and noble lords unwilling to see the hated English archers wreaking havoc.

‘Let them charge,’ William whispered to himself. He had
seen it before, as knights driven to frenzy tried to face down the arrow storm. They knew fear against the rushing, whining shafts – and they were men who reacted to fear with rage.

‘Please,’ William whispered again. ‘Jesus and St Sebastian, let them charge.’

The devil’s hand had been passed and the crossbowmen had forced their mantlets close enough to form up and reply. For the first time, the air filled with black bolts, no longer than a man’s finger but deadly. All along the English line, shields were raised and locked together. The sound of the bolts striking was like hail, a roaring rattle that claimed men in the gaps, so that they cried out.

William raised his own shield, though he knew the iron bolts would not pierce his armour beyond the luckiest of shots. He had seen battles where the exchange of bolts and arrows could go on for days before the armies met, but he was counting on the French confidence in superior numbers. He was sure there were already voices calling for a sudden attack, beseeching the French king to let them catch his archers by surprise. He had planned for it.

White, goose-feathered shafts stood out like a mat of some strange weed around the French mantlets. The crossbowmen had suffered for their lack of accuracy and power. Hundreds of them were down, or limping back through their lines with terrible wounds. William saw the ripple pass through the French knights yet again as they shuffled forward, the horses stamping and snorting.

He shouted the order he had discussed with Baron Alton. It was passed on to the archers, who looked predictably scornful. Some of them spat on the ground in his direction, but William didn’t care what they thought of the tactic, as long as they obeyed.

As the next volley of iron bolts came over, hundreds of
archers dropped flat, as if they had been struck. A great cheer went up from the crossbowmen and it was answered by their centre. William’s heart raced as he saw the knights kick in and canter down the middle, ignoring all orders to halt in their delight at seeing archers in disarray. They had a vast and overwhelming advantage in numbers and they fought with their king on the field, determined to impress him and make their names.

William waited as they came in, waited while his heart thumped, until they were fully committed and within the range of the bows. Despite their misgivings, his archers were enjoying the subterfuge, sending a few desultory arrows out as if the great storm had been reduced to nothing.

‘Wait! Hold!’ William roared.

The men lying on the ground were smiling like idiots, he could see them. Baron Alton wore a savage expression, his eyes wide as he watched William for the order.

‘Up! Archers up!’ William shouted.

He watched as the ‘dead’ men leaped to their feet and slotted new arrows on to the bows. The French charge could not turn by then. It could not halt. The knights had passed the mantlets, streaming around them in their desire to close and slaughter the enemy. They had swallowed up their own crossbow positions, just as they had once done at Crécy. William clenched his mailed fist, making the metal and leather creak.

The charging knights were staring ahead at the massed swordsmen facing them. Those men-at-arms raised their weapons, jeering and gesturing for them to come on. With a rippling crack, hundreds of arrows were loosed from the wing, cutting through the French with buzzing terror.

The first few ranks crumpled, collapsing as the closest men and horses were struck over and over. It was as if a blackened twine had been stretched across a lonely road,
with the French knights the ones who caught it in the throat. They died in droves until the rising mass of broken men and corpses forced the charge to a furious halt.

William called an order and the entire centre of his army moved in. He rode with the sword and axemen, weapons raised to kill as they ran as fast as they could. They reached the lines of the dead in a hundred heartbeats, clambering over still-kicking horses and into the crush of mounted knights behind them. All the time, the arrows soared over their heads, killing men who never even saw what hit them.