Georgette Heyer (29 page)

‘God knows! But the Red Lion who is to conquer all is Glendower!’

‘The Red Lion, then, had best learn to face Harry in the field!’ flashed John. He crushed the paper, and flung it down. ‘Now, and at last, we may make an end! On the Cross of St Thomas did that mainsworn dog Northumberland swear fealty to my father! My father forgave him the fine;
I
have been forced to give back to him his holds, and to watch his men strengthening them! Not four months past he was calling himself the King’s humble Mattathias! Christ give me strength to bring him to neck-break!’

Ralph was startled by the leaping rage in John’s voice, for he had thought him an even-tempered boy. He looked all at once like his grandsire: stark and dangerful. Ralph grunted, and said: ‘We have need of strength. If the King is embroiled already with the Welsh – ’ He left the sentence unfinished, and tugged at his moustache.

Umfraville asked: ‘Has the King crossed the Severn, Sir John?’

‘He reached Worcester on the third day of May,’ John replied. ‘By now he must be at Hereford, or beyond.’

There was a heavy silence. It was broken by Sir Henry FitzHugh, whom King Henry had sent into the North to make enquiry. He was lord of Ravenswath, in Yorkshire, and a nephew on the distaff side of Archbishop Scrope. He said: ‘Under favour, Sir John, it is to our own strength we must look, and speedily. My uncle will bring in many who would not stir to aid a Percy.’

John saw that they were all of them watching him, waiting for something.

‘In the matter of leadership,’ said Sir Henry bluntly, ‘we await your word, my lord!’

John realised suddenly that he could claim the leadership. Only for an instant did he entertain the vision of winning worship by a glorious campaign: matters were too desperate for such dreams. He said: ‘With your good will, my lords, let our captain be my uncle of Westmoreland.’

They looked relieved; and Ralph said: ‘Well, I think it will be best, John, for I am more seasoned in war than you. You will be captain in name, of course.’

‘I care nothing for that, but only for sending these traitors hellward!’ John replied. ‘What is your rede, Ralph?’

3

Ralph’s plan was simple, and his movements swift. As he saw it, the only hope was to get between the two rebel armies before they had time to coalesce. He hurried his force south, gleaning tidings all the way from his scouts, from pedlars, and even from friars and palmers. The Archbishop, donning a warlike jack, and accompanied by Nottingham, had raised a banner displaying the Five Sacred Wounds, and was calling on all men to rally to him. He was said to have collected as many as eight thousand malcontents, while a band of some seven or eight thousand rebels, under the leadership of four Yorkshire knights, was moving from Cleveland to join him. It was a polyglot band, and badly disciplined, and it scarcely endeared itself to the country people by plundering and slaughtering, and leaving in its wake a trail of burning dwellings. Reaching Topcliffe, on the Swale, it halted to await the arrival of Northumberland. But its leisurely progress had allowed Ralph Neville to slip past, and to reach the Forest of Galtres, which was under his jurisdiction. Here he received some sorely needed reinforcements, sent from his castle at Sheriff Hutton; and here he took up his position, on the slope of a hill called Shipton Moor. It was some six miles north-west of York, on the edge of what remained of the ancient forest. But forest was already a misnomer: the ground was quite open, the only traces of the forest which remained being the stovens that were being stubbed up and carried away by the colliers.

Learning that the marauders had reached Topcliffe, in his rear, Ralph thought it prudent to send off a detachment to disperse them. Hardly had this small band of seasoned warriors left the camp than the Archbishop’s force appeared in his front, and halted with banners displayed.

‘Well,’ said Ralph doggedly, ‘we have the worst of the numbers, but the best position, and, God helping us, we will withstand attack.’

The attack, however, was not launched. Either from indecision, or as the result of counsel, the rebel host remained confronting the royal force. Sir Henry FitzHugh thought this was probably his cousin Sir William Plumpton’s rede, who was known to have thrown in his lot with their uncle the Archbishop. Sir Henry, who was of an impatient nature, urged Ralph Neville to fall upon the rebels, trusting in superior generalship, but Ralph was too ware to risk so much against such odds. He was supported by Umfraville and Sir Ralph Eure; and if John shared Sir Henry’s wish to come to grips with the rebels he had enough self-control to hold his peace.

It became increasingly hard to do so as the time crept by. For three days the armies eyed one another, neither moving from its position. Someone in the Archbishop’s council had certainly perceived the danger of attacking Westmoreland on ground of his own choosing. Had Westmoreland been awaiting the arrival of reinforcements this hesitation would have stood him in good stead; but the only expected reinforcements – and they would be overwhelming – were coming from the north, under the standard of the Luces and the rampant Blue Lion of Percy. All his being in a torment of anxiety, John was more taciturn than ever, for he dared not trust himself to speak. He had given the command to Neville, and by Neville’s decrees he must be ruled; but it sometimes seemed to him that Ralph had no understanding of the perils that menaced them, or of how much depended on their ability to crush the northern rising. If they failed, and Northumberland swept south, Glendower would strike in full force, and the King, and Harry too, must be crushed between the two armies. Across the Tweed the Scots were probably preparing to invade England, either for their own ends, or as Percy’s allies. From Calais, from Guyenne, from France, the news was all bad. The Count of St Pol was besieging Marck, in the Pale of Calais, and whether John Beaufort, with the slender resources at his command, could succeed in relieving this fortress no one yet knew. Thomas was at sea, harrying the Easterlings; but at Brest the French fleet was reported by spies to be ready to set sail.

It was torture to John to remain in impotent inactivity; almost an impossibility to deny himself the relief of railing against Ralph’s caution. He absented himself as much as he could from the councils, spending his time in going about the camp, and watching the enemy’s lines. There was never any change in the disposition of the Archbishop’s troops; never a hope of making a surprise night-attack: scouts always brought back the same tale of double guards, and sentinels on the alert.

He was beside one of the standing-watches very late one night, watching the glow of the camp-fires on the lower ground, when Ralph Neville came to join him. John heard the rustle of his hauberk, a sleeveless jacket of linked mail which he had not put off since he pitched his camp, and turned his head. The moonlight was too dim for recognition, but he knew who it must be by the hirpling stride, and spoke his name.

‘I’ve been seeking you all over,’ said Ralph.

‘Well?’

Ralph jerked his head significantly towards the sentry, and led John out of tongue-shot, walking slowly, and apparently chewing the cud of some deep thought.

‘Well?’ said John again, hearing his own voice gritty with impatience.

‘Robin, and FitzHugh, and old Eure have been with me,’ Ralph said. ‘You went away after supper, so – Well, perhaps it was as well you did.’

‘I can’t endure it!’ John said, at the end of forbearance. ‘Must we wait here to be cracked between Percy’s men, and this rabble before us? For God’s sake, let us strike before it is too late! This gait we must be shent! Ralph, every minute that we lose is a betrayal of Harry – of my father!’

‘Swef, mon amy, swef !’ Ralph said. He laid his hand on John’s mailed shoulder. ‘Never cry
sa cy avaunt
! when your hounds are on a stint! I too am pledged to keep the North. Well, God helping me, I will do it, but I can tell you this, boy: only a rash-head would fling this little force of ours at that host down there! Nay, it’s not the numbers I dread, but the leadership. I misdoubt me that only the hardiest of our men would have stomachs for a battle against the Church.’

‘Then what?’ demanded John. ‘Will you turn north to meet Percy? You cannot!’

‘You say sooth!’ returned Ralph, with a bark of mirth. ‘Witterly I don’t want Scrope and Mowbray at my heels! The matter is this, John, and it’s what I came to break to you: there is only one way for us in this pass. What we may not do by force we must do by subtlety.’

‘How?’

Ralph took a moment to answer. ‘If we had the leaders in our hands, that rabble, as you call it, would be easily dispersed,’ he remarked.

‘Affirmably! And if we had a cloud-ship at our command to snatch them up on the flukes of its anchor, and so bring them to us, we should speed well!’

‘Now, now, not so overthwart of your tongue, John!’ Ralph said. ‘There are more ways than cloud-ships to bring it about.’

John stared at him, trying to read his face in the dim light. ‘What ways?’

‘Well – ’ Ralph seemed to hesitate for words, ‘it has been decided between us – under favour, lording – that we must seek a parley with the Archbishop.’

‘Yea, and to what end?’ John asked. ‘Will you bid him to dinner with us?’

‘Him, and young Mowbray, and as many of their captains as I can lure into the net,’ replied Ralph.

John jumped under his hand. ‘
Treachery?
’

‘Need knows no law,’ said Ralph grimly. He waited for a moment, but John did not speak. ‘I daresay you’ll say the loth word, and so you may. That’s why I didn’t bid you to our council tonight. It shall be my doing, not yours.’

John shook off his hand. ‘No, for my death! What has Umfraville to say?’

‘Well, it is not what Robin would choose, nor any of us,’ said Ralph. ‘But he and I, John, are pledged to serve the King, and it seems to us that if we keep our hands overly clean all will come to cand-pie, and the whole realm be over-set. For my part, between the King and Scrope I’ll betray Scrope, be he ten times Archbishop! One of them I must betray in this pass, choose how! But as for you – ’

‘Leave that!’ John said.

Ralph was obediently silent, nor did he follow when John took a few hasty steps away from him. He had known that John would be shocked, and would have been glad to have been able to have kept all knowledge of what was intended away from him. That was not possible, of course. He wondered how the lad was going to take it. It would make no difference; still, none of them wanted to offend him, and he was at the age when his knighthood was a shining honour not lightly to be smutched. Perhaps it would have been better to have sent Robin to break the matter to him. Robin might have been able to explain that soon or late it must come to a man to choose between evils, not between evil and good, as lads were taught. Ralph thought that he would have to try to do this himself, but he was not apt of his tongue, and knew that it would probably be tied in knots if he sought to put into words all that was so clear in his mind.

It was unnecessary for him to explain anything. Even in that moment of revulsion, when he strode away from Ralph, John knew, somewhere at the back of his protesting brain, that he would make no push to stop the betrayal. He thought of the oath he had taken when he received his knighthood; of the great oath he had sworn in St George’s Chapel, when he had been invested with the habit of the Order of the Garter. Not to vilify the Law of Arms; not to proceed in anything further than Faith or Compact or the Bond of Friendship would admit: well, there was no bond of friendship in question, but what of faith and compact, he wondered? What did Ralph, who wore the Garter too, think about that? One of the lurking thoughts in his mind leaped to the fore: what would Harry think of it? Well, he knew what Harry would think, and realised that in this extremity the knowledge did not weigh with him.

His mind steadied, and grew cold. Faith was not owed to traitors. No extenuating loyalty to King Richard lay behind the insurrection. Percy had greed for his motive; Mowbray ill-will; Scrope – God and the Saints knew what had prevailed on him to raise that banner! Anger stirred in John’s breast. No hint of the Archbishop’s purpose had been allowed to appear at Westminster; he had borne himself towards the King smiling and gracious while he must have been laying his secret plans; and not until he knew the King to be across the Severn did he move into the open. Protected by his habit too, John thought bitterly. Whoever ended this adventure on the scaffold, it would not be the Archbishop, and well he must know it! As for Mowbray, whom any other than King Henry would have headed for his share in the Despenser plot, John would send him to his death without a shade of compunction.

He turned, and went back to where Ralph was standing. ‘Yea, let it be done!’ he said.

4

A messenger was sent to the rebel camp on the following day, to discover from the Archbishop what was the meaning of his warlike array. For answer he sent back to my lord of Westmoreland a copy of his manifesto. It was the same Englished version which had been distributed in York. It protested against the holding of parliaments in places under royal influence, and against interference with free election; it demanded economy, less taxation, and better treatment for the clergy and nobles. Clearly the Archbishop had been spurred to action by the suggestion of that unwitty shire-knight at Coventry that the Church’s huge revenues should be appropriated.

‘Well,’ said Neville, ‘I shall tell him that I think his proposals reasonable, and will do my power to see them adopted. Under favour, Sir John, it
would
be well if there were more strait-keeping in the regiment of the country.’