After Flodden (26 page)

Louise began to protest, but he silenced her. ‘This is no act of idle courtesy, in case that’s what’s worrying you. As in Berwick, I hope to be able to learn more about what
Surrey and Dacre are plotting for the Borders from the garrison there.’ He sipped his wine, as he waited for Louise’s answer.

She raised her bowl and drank deep, staining her lips red. ‘I cannot allow you to do this for me and my family,’ she said, at last. The words seemed to pain her, but she pressed on.
‘You took risk enough in Berwick, but the ride to Durham, and the city itself, are too much to ask from a stranger. This is something I must do alone.’

The courtier took her hand. ‘Not alone,’ he said quietly.

‘I am grateful to you, good sir,’ she said. ‘You are kindness itself.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Well then, you and I shall make our way there. We can travel
swiftly, and should we find him there, we can bring him comfort, if only in knowing he is not forgotten. To tell truth’ – she lifted her eyes, and held Crozier’s gaze –
‘to tell truth, I doubt there is a single thing on God’s earth any of us can do if he is under guard in the castle’s cells. But for the peace of my soul, and I hope for his, we
can try to see each other one last time.’ A sob rose in her chest, and she lowered her head. Gabriel put a hand on her back, and eventually she grew calm.

Crozier spoke roughly. ‘Your plan makes no sense, ma’am. You do not know these parts, or the road to England, and without a guide you would fall into the enemy’s hands within
an hour of these gates. For many years now, none of us has been able to travel in England without a pass.’ A look of disgust crossed his face. ‘That was another of King James’s
petty devices to crush the Borders.

‘However, while I can forge passes that may prove useful if you are challenged, I cannot tell you the paths through the hills. Since the battle, the patrols on the border and on the
highways will be doubled, or worse. Only the wild tracks will be safe. Unless you agree to let me be your guide, I will not allow you to leave this place.’

Gabriel drew a deep breath.

‘I can, and I will lock you both up until you see sense,’ Crozier continued.

The courtier leapt to his feet. ‘Scoundrel!’ he cried. ‘You cannot keep us prisoner. I remind you it is a capital offence to assault, far less imprison, the king’s men.
Already you have committed both crimes, and could swing for them.’

Crozier waved the flagon of wine at him, before pouring himself another draught. ‘Do take your seat, sir. My intention is not to threaten you, but to help. Such agitation is unnecessary.
Your recent beating no doubt clouds your judgement.’

Gabriel began a heated reply, but Louise put her hand on his arm. With a glower, and a fiddling with his sleeves, he sat, and leaned back in his chair. Only the trickling of wine into their cups
broke the silence.

After a long drink, Crozier spoke. ‘Here is a plan, the best I can think of. We leave tomorrow afternoon, and proceed beyond the border only after dusk. There will be a moon, cloud
permitting, to light our way. Even without it, we can make steady progress. By my calculation, it will take three hard nights on the road to reach the city. Once there, you and I, sir, will gain
entry to the castle, to inquire, in our finest English accents, what has become of a close and dear relative of yours we believe to have been wrongly imprisoned after the battle. That he is from
Spain but learnt our language from a Scot is his only sin, we will say. Otherwise, his heart is as English as roast beef.’

‘That is surely a deadly plan,’ said Louise.

‘Ma’am, every step of our way will be perilous. If any of us gets back in our same skin, I will be astonished.’

‘We must do it, dear one,’ said Gabriel. ‘I am willing. More than willing.’

‘But your head is still bleeding,’ said Louise. ‘How will you fare?’

‘I will be fit to ride, never you fear. Nothing would prevent me coming with you. And as you rightly said yesterday, you cannot afford to wait. Your brother may be suffering torments far
greater than my bruised skull.’

‘One other thing,’ said Crozier, interrupting. He stared at Louise, not unkindly. ‘It will be necessary for you to return to your matronly guise. It might be useful, if we are
stopped, to be travelling with an aged woman. We can say you are my aunt.’ He looked across the kitchen. ‘My mother will help. She has cowls and cloaks of a sort to make you drab as a
washerwoman. Hair dye too, I believe, which could turn you white overnight. Made from pigeon stoor, I am told.’

He ignored a noise from the fireside.

Louise put a hand to her net cowl, through which her auburn hair glowed in the firelight. ‘Dye?’

The Borderer looked at her, a strange light in his eyes. She wondered if he was laughing at her. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘Ashes will be sufficient.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

8 October 1513

At the gatehouse the Earl of Surrey and his men dismounted. Their spurs clinked, as did their belts, weighted with swords and daggers. Lord Dacre’s guard knew Surrey well
and stood aside with a salute. ‘Fiendish day,’ the old soldier said to him, leading his horse through the archway. The guard nodded, dislodging a runnel of rain from his helmet that
splashed onto his boots.

The horses picked their way up the track beneath the trees, snorting and shaking their sodden manes. Morpeth Castle rose out of the murk, black as soot in the downpour. It was barely midday, but
the sky was so dark it might have been dusk. A stone causeway led through the mud, and as the riders approached, a burning brazier beckoned from the castle gates.

Leaving his men to stable the horses, the earl strode across the courtyard. Dacre met him at the door, his boots red with Northumberland mud. The march warden’s unkempt appearance was at
odds with the castle’s splendour, where there was no sign, thought the earl, of the poverty its owner persistently complained of. Indeed, Morpeth was so lavishly appointed, it might have been
a royal palace.

Dacre’s greeting was brusque, but his regard for this venerable campaigner was plain. Had he heard nothing more than his reputation, he would have treated him with respect, but having seen
him in the field, transforming tired and demoralised troops into fearless fighters, he held him in awe. Surrey, he believed, was a man of his own kind.

The night after the battle, the two had shared quarters in the village of Branxton. Unsure of their losses – Surrey initially feared English casualties might be severe, Dacre cared not so
long as they had won – neither had even attempted to sleep. It was just as well. Every hour the earl’s lieutenants brought fresh news, the number of deaths mounting for the Scots with
each report, and a miraculously low toll confirmed on their side. As the picture of the final outcome emerged, the companions drank long into that cheerless dawn, reliving events by the embers of a
hearth, while the hovel’s owner, an elderly priest, whiffled and snored under his cloak as if the day had been like any other. Surrey envied him his stolid nerves; Dacre scarcely noted his
existence.

The march warden was later hailed as the saviour of the day, his cavalry holding the English line against the Scottish onslaught and turning the tide of the battle. Surrey’s own son,
Thomas Howard, was also commended for leading the vanguard, but everyone knew it was the earl who had made victory possible, and that the laurels were his. Henry, it was said, would reward him well
when he returned from France.

But reward in this life did not matter to the earl. In the weeks that followed Flodden he had barely eaten, and slept less. Pride in his army and relief in winning vied with revulsion for war,
and what it required of him, and his men. Nearly a month later he felt as tired as if the battle had just ended.

The march warden noted his wan complexion and gaunt cheeks, but with the unseeing eye of a man who had never encountered illness or doubt, he assumed these were symptoms of senility, not
conscience.

‘Come,’ he said, ushering the soldier ahead of him into the castle’s hammer beam hall, where dogs prowled the walls and servants bustled with ale and meat.

At a table near the fire sat Thomas Ruthall, Bishop of Durham, already at his dinner. He inclined his head at the earl’s arrival, but did not rise. His cheeks bulged, as did his eyes, and
his skin was mottled purple. A fur was draped around his shoulders, as if he were an old man afraid of a chill. Surrey stared. In the space of a few weeks the king’s secretary had aged like a
barrel left outside in winter. They made a matching pair.

‘Your lordship, be seated,’ said Dacre, dragging out a chair shaped like a throne. The earl took his place, and found a beaker of ale placed before him by invisible hands. He pushed
it aside, so too the food. There were more urgent matters, as his expression suggested when Dacre pulled a dish towards himself, and began to eat.

From across the table, the bishop cast a bloodshot glare on the earl. ‘I’m ruined,’ he said, his voice awash with sorrow. ‘Done for. Destroyed!’ He swept a jewelled
hand around the hall, with its carved panels and silverware, its portraits and hangings. ‘My Lord Thomas has all this, but my home, my sanctuary is gone. Razed to the ground. Reduced to
rubble.’ Tears overwhelmed him, and he buried his face in his hands, fur heaving around his shoulders as if it were still alive.

‘Ruthall exaggerates, as ever,’ said Dacre, his face stony. ‘He has many homes at his disposal. Yet one has sympathy. He talks of his pride and joy, his castle at Norham, which
the Scots levelled.’ The march warden caught the earl’s cold glance, and explained. ‘Your lordship, Ruthall is still in shock. He has only recently seen the devastation they
wrought there.’

The bishop emerged from his hands. ‘It was impregnable, or so I was assured. And they flattened it, like a child’s toy, or a beetle, crushed underfoot.’ His eyes narrowed and
he jabbed a finger at the earl. ‘And not one of them hurt in the attack. My men slain or maimed, and James’s brigands unscathed. The town a smouldering ruin, and the army, those
vandals, untouched.’

He gathered the fur close around his throat. ‘I will never recover from this. It will put me in my grave.’ His voice thinned to a hiss. ‘But every night I get down on my knees
and give thanks to the Almighty that he brought his vengeance down on that rabble. I only wish I too had seen James’s body, cut up and faceless as it was. He will have enjoyed meeting his
maker in that condition, I am sure.’ A mirthless smile fattened his cheeks.

‘No,’ said Dacre quietly, ‘you would not have wanted to see that. I wish to God I had not.’

‘Yet it served a useful purpose, did it not?’ said Surrey bracingly. ‘Since you identified the body, you can help refute the rumours which have James escaping and regrouping
his men in secret. Some say he’s plotting in a Highland glen. Others that he’s in France, where his kindred spirits hold out hope he can still come to their aid.’

The bishop scoffed. ‘French fools – pathetic, puny, and anything but a friend to James. What I’ve seen of them, they have fewer morals than the infidels. I almost pity the
Scots. I hear James had offered them the shirt off his back and they gave him nothing but empty promises. Could not even reach him in time for battle. Pah!’ He made as if to spit, but at a
glance from the earl swallowed his bile.

The march warden took a draught of ale, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘In the end we outwitted him, but James was a noble man. Treacherous maybe, but a worthy adversary. I
am sorry he is dead.’

The bishop whickered. ‘Some soldier you! If I had got my hands on James after what he did to Norham, I would have laughed at the sight of him begging for mercy, even as I choked the life
out of him.’

Dacre looked at him with dislike. ‘He did not beg, I am told, even at the very end. But shame on you, a man of God and a soldier for Christ, for your lack of heart.’

The bishop began to splutter a riposte and was rising to his feet when Surrey thumped the table.

‘Gentlemen, please! This is no time to squabble. We are here for a purpose, and I suggest we address it now.’

His voice doused the bishop’s fury. Grumbling, he sat down and began to tear a wing of chicken apart as if it had wronged him.

Dacre spoke. ‘You’re right. We must finish what we began at Flodden.’

‘His Royal Highness depends upon us,’ said the bishop thickly. ‘He was gratified at the massacre of the Scots, but it is not enough. Not nearly enough. In his absence, as his
secretary and counsellor, I speak for him, and for the privy council, and I urge – nay, demand – that the Scottish border is crushed beyond recovery. Nothing will make Henry sleep
sounder than if he knows the root of his troubles has been stamped out. James has proved to be a venomous enemy, but even though Flodden has closed that chapter, the border remains a snakepit.
Until it has been brought to heel, none in England is safe.’

The earl watched as Dacre’s eyes brightened. The march warden cracked his knuckles, staring into space, as if he were already coming face to face with the Borderers who had dared to defy
him. The call to arms was the sweetest song to this man, who lived by the sword and was at his most contented, the earl had heard, when patrolling his marches and dealing out the sort of justice
possible this far from the crown’s heartlands.