After Flodden (9 page)

England was still in the clutches of winter, but in the king’s heartland, spring was not far away. The undulating fields and woods of Essex and Herefordshire passed effortlessly under
Surrey’s hooves, buds already quickening on the trees, aconites threshing in the wind as if they wanted to snap off their own heads.

As a younger man the earl would have felt a pang leaving these shires behind. They were his home, and he knew their smell and taste so intimately they still crowded his dreams. But since those
years in the Tower, when he had feared he would never set foot outside again, the south had lost its hold on him. When Henry made him Lieutenant General of the North, he had not doubted for a
second that this was the post for him. The north was a challenge for any soldier, and it promised more hardship than comfort, but a seasoned campaigner like Surrey did not want ease. Comfort meant
old age, age brought feebleness, and feebleness signalled the end.

On the ride back to Pontefract, the earl let his horse find its own pace. He spent ten nights on the road, and indulged himself, and his man, with beef and wine, to put heart into their chilled
blood. Out of the dripping mists of February the north crept up on them slowly, trees thinning, oystercatchers piping. At the first scent of peat-smoke, Surrey smiled. Yorkshire was close.

The king and his kind might call it north, but Surrey knew where true north began. The Borderlands were the limit of civilisation on these islands. Their fierce terrain and cold-blooded people
were a race apart, so heartless and unpredictable that Surrey at times found himself bereft of speech at the treachery he and his march wardens encountered there. Sons would turn in their fathers,
mothers kill their babes, sisters betray their brothers. If they had a code of honour, it was unfathomable to those unversed in its edicts.

A man who found solace in a God who had interfered little with his life beyond setting down the rule-book, Surrey often wondered if He had given up on the Borders. There was something abandoned
about this place, as if a sickness of spirit bubbled up from its springs. Abundant troubles would be found here, for king, earl and commoner. There was no tougher bailiwick in England. Henry turned
his attention across the English channel, listening for word from Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire. Surrey kept his eye on the border where, to his mind, the more desperate threat lay. It
might look like a rabble of ignorant peasantry, but in their anarchic savagery they made the serried ranks of Pope Innocent or Ferdinand look like wet nurses. Quite apart from the rumblings of war
coming from James’s court, the border promised an unquiet future. Surrey felt the familiar stir of tension and anticipation in his gut. It was time he inspected the marches.

CHAPTER FIVE

16 August 1513

‘There are five schiltron, formed from the army’s sturdiest men, each equipped with a twelve-foot pike. Forty French pikemen work tirelessly to show them how to
wield them; seventy companies of archers; seventeen cannon; various culverin, large and small; twelve carts carrying gunpowder and two score gunners. Of infantry it is hard to be sure –
twenty thousand, perhaps more, and reinforcements to be met on the march south; cavalry: at least a dozen mounted divisions. More to be met en route.’

The pen scratched on. ‘Fewer Highland divisions than anticipated; the king will not await them. None is come from the isles, but there is a full recruitment from the Lothians, Fife and
Perthshire. Word has it the army is thirty thousand strong. I believe likely more. French troops expected to land from France on the west coast in the next few weeks.’

At this hour silence closed in around the letter-writer like high tide. Enveloped in a wash of solitude and quiet, his activities by rushlight were almost as secret as his thoughts. So faint was
the glow cast on his desk from the miserable taper on the wall that its glimmer did not escape as far as the crack beneath his door. He was not fooled, though. The city might have been quiet, his
household at sleep, but if he were discovered, it would be the end of him. Writing privately in the eye of the night, in these times, would raise suspicions, shortly followed by the palace guards.
There were distractions and deceits in daytime, sleights of hand, diversions and camouflages that made it possible to ply his business under the noses of those he deceived. In daylight audacity was
his finest tool. By night, his only security was invisibility.

As he wrote, his hand grew firmer. His letter was urgent, and he had little time. Dawn approached, and with it, his messenger. In neat cramped lines he itemised King James’s forces
gathering now for the march to the muster at Ellem, near the border. He advised of the French pikemen who were training Highlanders and peasants how to wield their lances, and how to make their
fearsome hedgehog formation work on the field, when soldiers of flesh and blood were transformed into a ball of bristling pikestaff steel. He relayed the king’s intention to have a bit of fun
disguised as revenge by harrying the English border before taking the battle to Henry. That he aimed to swell his ranks with French support, and to have his business over and done within a month of
leaving Edinburgh. That he planned to return with his role as a serious player in continental affairs affirmed, and – best of all – with England squeezed into submission between its
most hated enemies, caught in a vice that could be tightened whenever they pleased.

‘James has no notion of defeat,’ the letter writer continued. ‘He truly believes God is with him. And whether or not he has harnessed God to his cause, the number of his men,
and the quality of their arms are terrifying. As already advised, the French ambassadors make the Scottish court their second home. There is no mistaking the gravity of what is about to
follow.’

The letter was signed with a flourishing initial, dusted and folded small as his thumb. From a niche in the wall, he took out a grey sliver of sheep gut, filched from the kitchen, which he
wrapped around the letter before stuffing it into a hunk of bread, whose centre had been hollowed out. This went into his pocket.

Now his pulse quickened. He opened his door, and listened. The wheezing of the dog snoring by the kitchen hearth was the only disturbance. It slumbered on as he slipped past, down the passage
and out by the scullery door.

Already the sky was lightening. The soft blackness of a summer night had been diluted as if a pitcher of water had been thrown over it, but there was an hour or more before it would be scrubbed
clean, and as yet no-one was about. Not even a gull disturbed the peace, although the smell of woodsmoke from newly laid hearths signalled the start of the day, a reminder that others in the city
were also awake. He stood in a passageway at the corner of his street, felt hat low over his face. From under its brim his eyes burned. In his belt, a small sword offered a measure of comfort. Used
well, it would give him time to make his escape. But tonight he was in luck, and his hand did not go to its hilt.

The first gull of morning had awakened and begun to harass its slumbering mates, when the muffled thud of hooves reached him. Round the corner came a black pony, ungroomed, saddle-less, its
rider in little more than rags. Its hooves were wrapped in sacking, and it approached him so softly, appeared so barely detectable in the dark, that it seemed more like a dream than a creature of
flesh and blood.

The pony put its nose into his hand, and its breath was the first comfort he had felt in days. He gave the bread to the rider, who pocketed it without a word, though he searched the face under
the hat for further instructions; at the very least for a coin.

‘Frae this evening, I’ll be wi’ the king’s troops,’ whispered the letter writer. ‘I’ll hae to make other provisions to get word to his lordship, so ye
may rest easy for a while. You’ve done good work, these past months, and I thank ye.’

He handed over a coin, and then another, both speedily hidden by a grimy hand under the rags. The rider nodded, and his neck sank back into the wreath of his plaid. He kicked his heels and pony
and rider continued up the street. Soon they had slipped back into the dark, as if a door in the night had briefly opened to allow them access to this world, and now had closed behind them.

The traitor hurried back to his house. He would catch a few hours’ sleep before saddling up and joining the king’s troops. Wrapped in his cloak, he stretched on his bed, sighed, and
slept. With a hand tucked under his cheek, his breath even and sweet, he looked as untroubled and harmless as a child.

Two days later he was riding with the army out of the city. His steel hat was heavy, and his quilted leather jerkin soaked up the sunlight, roasting his ribs as if they were a dish for dinner in
camp that night. His scabbard grazed his boot as his horse trotted over the cobbles.

He had slipped away from his company, and rode beside the outfit of French lancemen, whose spears bobbed down the street, a coppice of knives. In the rush to set off, and the buoyant humour of
the army’s ride out of Edinburgh, no-one was troubled by disorder, and his disappearance from his comrades was scarcely noticed. As the pageant of the day caught up soldiers and citizens
alike, the rules of military discipline were relaxed. Flying banners, glinting arrows, the rattle of sword on spur made this a festive scene, the brilliance of the procession as cheering as a
volley of trumpets. And there were trumpets too, and fyfes, and bodhrans, making for a joyful cacophony as the country’s finest fighters rolled their way south, their king at their head.

The letter-writer scarcely noticed the cheers of the crowd and the speedwell and forget-me-nots flung under their hooves by young women and red-eyed mothers. He edged closer to the Frenchmen.
They were saying little now, but as the army passed through the city gates and the noise died down, they might start to talk. He needed to be there when they did. He jogged by their side,
pretending to smile at the crowd, his breaking of ranks intended to look like nothing more sinister than inept, innocent enthusiasm. In the knapsack strapped to his horse’s rump was a bottle
of ink, and parchment: unusual weapons for a soldier, but in his case deadly.

The French paid him no attention as his horse blundered close to theirs. Such seasoned fighters knew that the time for strict formation would come later, when to ignore an order would be a
treasonable act. By then, the spy intended to be long gone.

*    *    *

30 August 1513

When next the spy picked up his pen, the army was camped out, deep in Border country, with one victory already to its name. Its boozy breath rose into the night air, as did its
snores. The spy’s bivouac was under a canopy of beeches and oaks where the cavalry were stationed. By using his cape as a tent, he was able to shield the meagre light of his lantern from his
sleeping companions, who, until dawn, would be woken by nothing less serious than tempest or earthquake. Was it his fate forever to write under darkness, scratching more furtively than a field
mouse? His mouth twisted with displeasure. This skulking life must soon come to an end. He could not bear sidling and eavesdropping and dissembling, as if he were a player in some cheap, gaudy
mummery, his character smiling at the crowd when behind his mask he was sneering. Their blindness deepened his contempt.

Writing on his knees, his hand was cramped but clear:

‘Beloved mother, star of my soul,

‘I write not to alarm you but, in the event of my not returning, to offer some consolation. We are stationed, for the time, on the outskirts of Norham a few miles across the English
border, once a well-favoured township, now smouldering. The cries of the dying and their kin have faded, but it is a desolate scene and I fear we are about to wreak further and far worse
devastation as we move south to meet the English king’s army.

‘That conflict may come before this letter reaches you. The Scots army is likely far to exceed that of Henry’s in men and skill, but it remains possible that I shall perish one way
or another.

‘Should I fall, I need you to know that I have all my life held you in my heart as the most dear and cherished mother a son could wish for. The trouble and torments you have endured since
my ill-fated birth have pained me almost as if they were my own sufferings. If I die, rest assured I go to the grave with your name upon my lips.

‘If the worst befalls me, I must also warn you that I stand the risk of being publicly denounced for acts of treason. A wiser man would not commit these words to the light of day, but
where you are concerned I am governed not by caution but by love. And I further tell you that I have been guided in all my deeds by the desire only for justice, for the restitution of our
family’s name and fortunes, for your happiness and future.

‘I am a man of unwavering fealty, but those to whom I give my allegiance are not always those with whom I appear to associate. If my affiliations should be discovered, and I am punished,
have no doubt that I shall meet my maker with a dignity and courage that would make you proud, and safe in the knowledge that the Almighty, who sees into my heart, will mete out the justice I
deserve on the day when the trumpets call, not as the unholy foot soldiers of the Scottish army see fit.