After Flodden (7 page)

For a short while it had seemed that the Scots army had fortune and skill on their side. There was a cruel moment of hope, on Paniter’s iron hill, as he and Borthwick and their men charged
the guns and volleyed shot over the army’s head, scarcely able to see the cannons’ mouths for smoke, but fuelled by excitement, and a furious wish to wipe out the ranks of Englishmen on
the facing slope.

But the guns were almost useless. Their range was poor, the cannons unbalanced, badly positioned and out of kilter. There had been panic as they were dragged into place, and they paid for their
loss of good sense. Balls were rammed home, and fuses lit, and at first it seemed the English were cowed. A mile distant, Paniter and Borthwick watched English footsoldiers throwing themselves to
the ground as the shot whined overhead. Some legged it off the field almost as fast as the cannonballs’ flight. It was some minutes before the secretary realised that nothing was hitting its
target, most balls soaring so high and long they seemed headed for the border. His heart clenched, and for a moment his head swam. He thought he would faint.

When Home and Huntly returned from their glorious charge, they looked less blooded or toiled than if they’d been on a day’s hunt. Even before Huntly had wheeled around and found a
vantage point close by the Scottish guns and beyond reach of the English artillery, Home was mentally stripping off his gloves, adamant he would not be going back into battle. By this time, the
Scottish foot-soldiers had begun their advance, and were already sinking to their knees in mire. Home refused to go to their aid. ‘Our work here is done. He does well that does for himself.
We have fought our vanguard already and won the same. Let others do their part as well as we.’

For Paniter, the rest of that afternoon passed in a confusion of smoke, sweat, fear and fury, the guns belching hot clouds, the ground beneath them a porridge of glaur. The noise was enemy
enough, the teeth-jarring scrape and clash of steel, the roar and scream of attacker and slain killing rational thought stillborn, and inspiring terror and despair, where courage and cunning were
required.

While the fight was on, Paniter had not one second in which to dwell on Home’s treachery. But on his slinking journey back across the border that night, and every hour since, Paniter had
thought of him, and of the ways in which he would be made to pay for his cowardice.

‘Come back in two weeks’ time,’ Paniter told Louise, ‘and I shall, I hope, have information for you.’ He hesitated, twisting his ring: ‘Young lady, I must
warn you to prepare yourself for bad news. It would be little short of a miracle if your brother had gone back into the fight, and come out alive.’ He stood. ‘I am sorry to be blunt. I
don’t mean to be cruel.’ He pressed his lips tight, refusing to relive the sight of the dead that crowded behind a door in his mind, fingers always on the latch, boots ready to kick it
down even when he’d thrown the bolt.

He led her to the door. ‘But you never know. With God’s mercy, miracles are not unknown. Now, go and look after your mother. With one daughter lost already, she will be
distraught.’ It was the only reference to Marguerite’s death, though it had hovered unspoken over their conversation, and Louise was grateful for his tact.

With a bow, she left. Before she had even untied her horse from the ring at his door, the secretary had drawn a paper from his cupboard and begun writing to his lordship. At the first
reconvening of council, with or without a regent at its head, Home’s behaviour would be judged. Before that longed-for revenge, it might prove convenient to lull him into the belief that his
reputation was intact and that he had no need to flee the country. This simple enquiry would do that.

Paniter’s pen scratched across the paper. The letter was dusted with sand, sealed with hot wax, and his servant, Kerr, dispatched to the Borders, to place it in Home’s hand.

CHAPTER FOUR

February 1511

Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, looked out across a landscape of washed fields slowly appearing in a dawn that was in no hurry to show its hand. There was more sky than land,
more reeds than trees. He smiled. After five days of rain, the clouds at last were empty. Dressed only in nightcap and gown, he opened his window and leant out, breathing in the sodden Yorkshire
air.

He had barely slept. The cause lay on the sheepskin that covered his bed. It looked quiet and unthreatening, unlikely to disturb the rest of an old soldier like Surrey, who could sleep like a
newborn on bare ground, wrapped only in a cape, with a storm flying overhead, and the prospect of hand-to-hand fighting the next day. And yet last night he had watched every hour pass, turning so
often his bedclothes were wrung out of shape as if they had been stirred by a mischievous spoon.

The thief of his slumber was a letter. Sealed with black wax, it was crossed and re-crossed with information, details and speculation. King James of Scotland, it said, was preparing for war.
Ships were being built that could sail round the world, or bring the end of the world to any their cannons were trained upon. The monarch, wrote his informant, was hiring foreigners to show the
Scots how to fashion vessels. More worryingly: how to fight. Edinburgh was filling up with Flemish wrights and French archers.

It was two years and more before Flodden, but Surrey could already smell the battlefield. Behind woodsmoke and wet earth he caught the scent of trouble ahead. His smile faded.

Scotland was a running sore on England’s flanks, but alone she was little threat to England. Her alliances, though, were powerful. It was said, and Surrey believed it, that James and the
French king Louis were thick as twins. It was one thing to have a rowdy neighbour on the border, whose behaviour was that of a resentful, ill-behaved child. However irksome he could be, James did
not have the money, the forces or the will to launch a full-scale attack across the border. But in the company of France, he could be dangerous. That was an alliance made with the devil’s
blessing, and Surrey had no intention of allowing England to become the next roast on Louis’s spit.

He ripped off his cap, and called for his man. ‘Saddle my mare,’ he said, as his valet de chambre appeared at the door, his lordship’s fresh shirt and hose over his arm.
‘And pack my gear for two weeks on the road,’ he added, stripping off his nightshirt, and reaching for the clean linen. His valet picked up the discarded clothes, and hovered, waiting
to help him on with his boots. ‘Raise William,’ said Surrey, leaning on his servant’s shoulder as he forced his way into his boots, ‘and give him something to eat.
There’s a long ride ahead. And bring me bread and meats for the journey.’

Surrey and his man were on the road to London before any, except Pontefract’s bakers, were out of their beds. They did not speak, but gripped their mounts between their knees and spurred
them on into the brightening day.

Morning had not long broken, some days later, when finally they reached the Thames and the king’s city residence. Richmond Palace was as large as a village. At its heart lay the old
castle, its moat glassy green in the early light. The expanse of modern turrets, roofs and gardens that rose around it inspired awe. It was the work of Henry’s late father, but the exuberance
and scale of the fresh palace grounds were a fitting home for the brash new monarch.

Rising from a sea of furs, Henry greeted Surrey with a kiss on each cheek. The king’s secretary, Thomas Ruthall, Bishop of Durham, stood at his side, but merely inclined his head in
acknowledgement. He and Surrey knew each other, but had no desire to deepen the acquaintance. Neither trusted the other, Surrey believing Ruthall held too much influence over the king, the bishop
disliking soldiers, whatever their rank, their company not to his taste.

The earl was saddlesore. He and his servant had spent five nights on the road, and had set out again that morning before light. When the towers and walls of London came into view they quickened
their pace. The sight of the city sent a shiver through Surrey, but by averting his gaze from the Tower, he banished unwelcome memories.

By the time he reached Richmond, he was more dust than man, and his tongue was a kipper. Henry recognised the signs. He raised a hand, and a page appeared at his side. Minutes later, a full
board was spread for the earl in Henry’s rooms, and a commoner’s version of the same laid out in the kitchens below for his servant.

Surrey reached first for ale, then for the ham. While he ate, Henry picked up a knife and whittled a leg of heron for his amusement. The bishop neither ate nor drank, though his majestic belly,
and rings embedded in fat, suggested this was a rare abstinence.

There followed a long silence, broken only by slurping. Henry sucked a string of meat into his mouth with a slither of grease. He ate until his beard glistened with oil. ‘You have vital
news for me?’ he enquired at last, rubbing his chin with a cloth, and casting it to the floor where it was retrieved by a page who hovered by the table.

‘Aye, I believe so, Your Majesty,’ said Surrey, too mindful of his manners to talk through a mumble of food, and pushing aside his plate with regret.

‘My agent in the north sends word that James is fitting out ships for war.’

‘He always was keen on boats,’ said Henry, running his tongue over his lips. ‘He has haunted the shipyards since he was a boy.’ He reached for a pork pie, jewelled
fingers dandling over the dish while he chose the plumpest.

‘Aye, very likely,’ said Surrey. ‘But the ships he has been building of late are not mere vanities. James, as you know, prefers looking at boats to sailing them. These new
craft are built for soldiers; they are handsome, but they are not works of art. They’re too cumbersome for that. They’re perhaps not beautiful, but they are fitted with gunloops,
lance-hooks and embrasures for cannon. It is hinted that they are for France’s use, not merely his own.’

Surrey held the king’s eye: ‘He is also making weapons, Your Highness. Far more than he needs for a country at peace. And last week I learned that a party of French gunners has been
invited to Edinburgh Castle, to help make weapons. There seems little doubt where his loyalty lies.’

Henry was quiet.

‘Tell me about your agent,’ he said, finally.

‘He is a quiet man, sire, and unostentatious. His credentials are watertight.’ Surrey shook his head: ‘Unlike the last,’ he added.

Henry raised a hand in irritation.

‘Quite,’ said Surrey, before the king could voice his anger. ‘I’d rather not think of Walser myself. A fool. A damnable, dangerous fool.’

‘He was exiled, was he not?’ asked the bishop.

‘Sent to Sweden,’ said Surrey. ‘He protested, but he was owed nothing more than that. He came within a whisker of being found out. Just to impress a woman, would you believe, a
jezebel who would have much preferred a couple more coins than state secrets whispered on her pillow.’

He warmed a hazelnut in his palm and rolled it across the table, as if it had been the dice that decided the agent’s fate. ‘He was lucky to survive the crossing. I was sore tempted
to give orders for him to be pitched overboard.

‘The new man, on the other hand, is far shrewder. He behaves the part, too: anyone less like a spy would be hard to imagine. He appears utterly open, and a little naive.’

‘His name?’

‘Even I do not know his real name. His public name, I am sworn not to reveal. For safety’s sake, I refer to him only as the Eye.’

‘And has he access to James’s court?’

‘Indeed he has. And his contacts are good. I trust him as I have not trusted any informer from that side of the border for many years. Some of what he has told me has later been
corroborated from our own marches.’ Surrey frowned. ‘I believe he is motivated by some strong private passion, but I see no need to know what that is. His commitment seems absolute, and
he’s brave. That’s enough for me.’

Henry nodded. He rose from the table, and sank onto a settle by the fire. He stretched out his legs and unhooked the crimson mantle at his neck, shrugging it off to lie at his side, a puddle of
velvet gore. The bishop bent to retrieve it, but the king waved him away. ‘You are not a maidservant, Ruthall. Be seated.’ The bishop took his place, and picked at his cuticles like a
sulky child.

Surrey stood with his back to the fire, the blaze easing his joints. ‘I think this is serious, Your Highness. I think it is possible that all James’s promises to you are
lies.’

‘Or that he does not know his own mind.’

‘What d’you mean?’ asked Surrey, with a hint of the sharpness his lieutenants were familiar with.

Henry stared into the fire, the flames reflected in his eyes bestowing a rare impression of warmth. ‘He is a devout man, Thomas, more interested in his soul than in war. Every year he
makes the pilgrimage across the moors to Whithorn. On foot. There’s no shrine in Scotland that he has not honoured with a visit. Or so they say. He prays morning and night, and speaks the
language of the cloister. For a man of the world, he is uncommon pious.’

He picked up an iron and poked at the logs in the grate. They sparked and hissed, sending a welcome surge of heat into the room. ‘Margaret herself was taken aback at his habits. Early in
her days as wife she wrote me that he wears a chain of iron around his waist, and every year adds one more link to it. This is his notion of paying penance for his role in his father’s death.
His murder, that is. The girdle will get heavier with every anniversary. By the time he is an old man it will weigh a ton and no horse will be able to carry him.’