Revenge (23 page)

“Our intelligence must have been at fault,” said York, startled by the older man’s wrath. “These things happen in war.”

“These things happen?” Salisbury echoed, throwing up his hands in disbelief. “My lord, we now face an army three times our number. If we advance on Pontefract, we will be destroyed. We must retreat!”

“Turn and run? From her? Not while I draw breath! Perhaps we cannot face them in the field as we are, but I will not countenance any talk of abandoning the north.”

York thought quickly, plucking at his beard in agitation. “We shall make for my castle at Sandal, near Wakefield,” he said, “and wait for my son’s reinforcements from Wales.”

“What if March is defeated by Pembroke?” demanded Salisbury, “or does not reach us in time? If we hole up at Sandal, the Lancastrians could starve us out. I have not survived these many years to reach the winter of my days, only to step into a bear-trap that a child might avoid!”

York’s temper snapped. “Shut your mouth, you craven old fool!” he bawled, half-drawing his sword. “I am in command here, and you will do as I say, or as Christ is my Saviour I will stretch your neck from the nearest tree!”

He regretted the words as soon he uttered them. The two battle-hardened peers eyeballed each other, neither of them willing to back down. York’s second son, Edmund of Rutland, watched in silent, open-mouthed fright. The only other man present was Sir David Hall, an old comrade of York’s from the French wars. From the corner of his eye York noticed Hall’s hand creeping to his dagger, ready to draw if Salisbury went for his sword.

Faced with this double threat, Salisbury broke. “Let it be your conscience, then, my lord,” he said, and stormed out of the pavilion.

The Yorkist army turned off the Great North Road and marched on towards Wakefield, its general mood reflected by the lowering grey clouds. At Worksop part of the vanguard ran into an ambush staged by men wearing the livery of the Duke of Somerset, and routed with heavy loss. York was shaken by the news of the massacre, brought to him by a group of tattered and blood-stained outriders, but resolved to carry on.

They reached his castle at Sandal, beside the town of Wakefield, on a dark and snowbound Christmas Eve. Sandal was an impressive fortress, surrounded by a moat and dominated by a multi-towered keep, but much smaller than the main northern strongholds such as Pontefract and Dunstanburgh.

“Most of the men will have to camp outside the walls,” said York as he held a council of war in the hall, “and make themselves comfortable in the woods and fields.”

“God help them,” grunted Salisbury, who had grown more truculent with every passing mile. He had a point. The army was fast running out of supplies, and the vile weather had eroded whatever small comfort could be offered to men obliged to camp in the open.

The soldiers had to make the best of it, and were encouraged to send out foraging parties to gather supplies where they may. This proved a terrible blunder. York’s starving soldiers immediately pillaged the town of Wakefield and surrounding homesteads, ruining his hopes of attracting local people to his banner.

He and his commanders spent a miserable Christmas inside the castle, short of food and wine and even shorter on seasonal cheer. On Christmas Day a spark of hope arrived in the form of John Neville, Baron of Raby and one of Salisbury’s kinsmen. He was a compact and smooth-tongued man with an ingratiating manner and a blandly forgettable face.

“My lord,” said Neville, kneeling before York’s chair, “I come as your friend, and request a commission to raise the people hereabouts in your cause.”

“You are most welcome,” replied York, gratified by the man’s humble attitude. “I have few enough friends in these parts. Certainly you can have a commission, though I doubt it will do any good. The people of the north have set their faces against me.”

“Be not dismayed, my lord,” Neville replied with his enigmatic smile. “I am a northerner, and known and trusted in this country. I can raise as many men as are needed.”

For the first time in many weeks York’s face cracked into a smile. “Then go, man,” he urged, “and hurry back with sixty thousand lances at your back!”

Four days later Sir David Hall came to him in the freezing semi-darkness of the hall with news of the Lancastrians.

“They are advancing from Pontefract,” he said, “with the Duke of Somerset at their head. My scouts saw no sign of the Queen. Lord Clifford and the Yorkshire lords lead the van, Exeter and Devon and Northumberland march alongside Somerset in the centre, and Wiltshire and Sir Andrew Trollope command the rearguard.”

York chewed his nails. “Clifford,” he mused. “It is like him to be in the van. We killed his father at Saint Albans. There is no-one like a northerner for bearing a grudge.

“Order our men outside to pull back,” he ordered, “and take up position to the north of the castle.”

Hall nodded and hurried away, and York yelled for his squires to fetch his harness. Once they had finished arming him he made his way to the battlements to watch the Lancastrian advance.

He spied the banners of Northumberland and Somerset first, moving from the direction of the town. Then the long lines of billmen and dismounted men-at-arms came into view, filing out of the trees to take up position on the edge of the flat, open ground north of the castle and south of the River Calder.

York was puzzled. Judging from the panicky reports of his scouts, he had expected to witness a horde of monstrous proportions. Here he counted no more than five thousand men, less than equal to his own army.

“Where is Clifford’s banner?” he demanded, but got no answer. His only companion was his son, Rutland. The youth was pale and trembling and looked on the verge of throwing up his breakfast.

“Take heart,” said York, trying to sound confident as he clapped Rutland on the shoulder. “Go and find your tutor. He will look after you.”

“Sir,” Rutland stammered, his eyes glimmering with tears, “if all goes ill today, I…”

“It won’t,” York said hurriedly, embarrassed lest the boy started weeping. “Off you go, and God be with you.”

He turned his attention back to the enemy. Clifford’s banner was visible now, as were those of Exeter and Wiltshire. All in all, the Lancastrian host numbered some six or seven thousand. They had no siege equipment that he could see.

York felt a surge of anger at being misled by his own scouts, mixed with a sense of relief and triumph. He had no fears of taking on an army only slightly larger than his, and scant respect for the military ability of most of the Lancastrian commanders. Of them all, only Somerset and Trollope gave him pause. Somerset’s undoubted valour was offset by his complete lack of success in attempting to dislodge Warwick from Calais. That left Sir Andrew Trollope, probably the most experienced English soldier alive and the man who had betrayed York at Ludford Bridge.

“There will be a reckoning with that one,” York said to himself. Having seen enough, he went back down the stair to the hall.

He was singing a few snatches of The Song of Roland under his breath and cutting the air with his sword when Sir David Hall came in to inform him that his troops were drawn up north of the castle and awaiting his orders.

“Ah, Davy,” York said brightly. “Do you mind our time in France, when I was Regent of Normandy and we chased the Dauphin’s men like hares? Great days, eh?”

“They were, lord,” replied Hall with a tense smile, “and long past now.”

“Long past,” York agreed. “We grow old. I can see fifty on the horizon. How much longer might God grant me, do you think? Another ten years? I should hate to die with my work undone.”

“Take my counsel, lord,” said Hall. “Stay inside the castle and wait for the Earl of March to come up with his power from Wales.”

“Stay inside the castle,” York echoed. “The Duke of York should hide behind his walls, and wait to be rescued by his son. Hardly the stuff of legend.”

Hall declined to reply, and York strutted about the room, slaughtering the invisible ghosts of his enemies. Somerset he felled with his swashing stroke, Northumberland with a clever back-slash, and Exeter and Clifford he simply hacked up like sides of beef. Both men were mere animals, he reflected, and deserved nothing less.

Salisbury hobbled into the room, agitated and out of breath. “One of our foraging parties has been caught in the open,” he panted, leaning against a wall for support. “They are being slaughtered.”

York’s good humour dissolved. “I thought all our foragers had been called in?” he shouted, glaring at Hall.

“These must be latecomers, lord,” he replied helplessly. York raged out of the hall and onto the rampart of the wall that connected the keep to the lower ward. He looked north, to the Lancastrian position. A detachment of hobelars wearing his livery were indeed embroiled in a fight, having ridden out of the woods to the south-east and been set upon by a troop of Lancastrian horse. The Yorkists were already outnumbered, and hundreds of enemy footmen were pouring into the fray.

“They are lost, my lord,” said Hall. “We cannot do anything for them.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” snarled York, clenching his fist. “Where is your valour? We shall sally out and drive them off.”

“You can’t mean it!” exclaimed Salisbury. “We must stay inside the castle, no matter what!”

“Stay here then, and wring your hands,” York said scornfully. “Am I to cower here while those traitors make faces at us and butcher my retainers? Davy, follow me. It’s time to get some blood on our swords.”

He hurried down to the lower ward, ignoring Salisbury’s bleats and yelling for his horse.

Thank you, Lord,
he thought exultantly. After all the months of politics and manoeuvring, the fate of England was going to be settled by the sword.

20.

From his vantage point at the edge of the woods east of Sandal Castle, Richard Bolton watched with mounting excitement as the gates of the lower ward swung open and disgorged a column of armoured horsemen.

They rode under the Duke of York’s own banner, a falcon volant argent within a fetterlock. Richard noticed the sigil had been altered – the falcon’s wing was extended slightly, as through trying to open the lock. York must have meant to symbolise his reaching for the throne, but the effect was of a bird trying to escape a trap.

Most appropriate, given the circumstances, except the Duke was blundering straight into a trap rather than escaping one. The woods east and west of the open ground in front of the castle were packed with Lancastrian troops, well-hidden and out of sight of the walls.

Richard was one of the few fully-armed knights among them. Most were ‘prickers’ or light horsemen armed with fifteen-foot lances. His brother-in-law, Henry of Sedgley, was one. The Queen had rewarded Henry with a captain’s commission for his loyal service in Wales, and thirty of the lancers were under his command.

Richard and Henry’s reunion at Pontefract had been as warm as their parting at Tamworth was bitter. As Henry said, a lifelong friendship was too precious to be broken by one petty argument.

“We have both suffered much since our last meeting,” he added, “and the world has taught us some harsh lessons.”

Privately, Richard thought he had endured a harder time of it. His escape from Exeter, bleeding and naked but for a pair of shit-stained drawers, had been hazardous in the extreme. He owed his life to the kindly monks of a priory just outside the city walls. They hid him inside their cellar until the manhunt had died down, and then had bound up his hurts and given him food and clothing for the journey to Wells.

His meeting there with Thomas Courtenay, the young Earl of Devon, was not a pleasant one. Courtenay proved to be a brutal, intolerant, pig-headed character, completely unimpressed by Richard’s heroics, though he thanked him offhand for delivering Somerset’s letters and gave him a bag of silver.

From there Richard accompanied Devon’s retinue to Corfe, where the Duke of Somerset had just arrived from France. In stark contrast to the graceless Courtenay, Somerset congratulated Richard for his efforts with genuine warmth. He also returned his destrier, Gwen, and his father’s sword and harness, which the Duke had thoughtfully brought with him from Guines.

The combined army of Devon and Somerset had marched swiftly north to join the Queen, and gathered a great force of gentlemen, knights and soldiers on their route via Bath and Coventry. All roads had finally led here, to Wakefield, and the carefully-planned annihilation of the Duke of York.

Queen Margaret delegated most of the planning to Somerset and Trollope, rating them her best commanders. Their strategy was devious and effective. The ‘foraging party’ ambushed by Somerset were in reality Trollope’s men, disguised in Yorkist livery captured at Worksop. Their plight was a ruse, involving the killing of several horses to make the fight look real, and designed to draw York out of his castle.

It had worked, and now York was thundering out of the gates at the head of his household knights. His infantry gathered outside the walls streamed brainlessly in the wake like dogs after their master, trumpets screaming and banners held aloft.

The Yorkist knights smashed into the Lancastrians drawn up on the open ground to the south, scattering or riding down the forward ranks. Richard glimpsed York himself, a surprisingly small man performing horrid execution with his sword, lopping off heads and limbs with brutal skill. He and his closest retainers punched deeper into the Lancastrian lines, forcing the hard-pressed infantry to give ground.