Revenge (26 page)

Lovelace was a survivor of the Yorkist catastrophe at Wakefield, and had brought the news of it to Warwick in London. He was a tall, gangling figure with ginger whiskers, a hook nose and skin like cold porridge.

“Well?” he said sourly, planting his fists on his hips. “What is it, Sir Geoffrey? You look blown.”

“Lord Montagu sends his greetings,” said Geoffrey, “and commands you to send a detachment to shore up his position. His men are hard-pressed. The Lancastrians have attacked Saint Albans from the west.”

Lovelace made a lip. “Have they now? Poynings must have been overrun at Dunstable. Who leads the attack?”

“Sir Andrew Trollope.”

“No surprises there. You see our position, Sir Geoffrey. Are you telling me we have to abandon it?”

Geoffrey cast his eye over Lovelace’s position. It was an extremely strong one. His men were deployed behind a ragged line of hedgerows facing west, and had dug ditches in front of them. Warwick had chosen to put his faith in new-fangled military inventions, and issued his troops with some outlandish equipment. The gaps between the hedgerows were filled by nets, like giant fish-nets, with nails attached to every second bolt designed to enfold anyone that tried to break through them. Metal caltraps were liberally scattered about the ground before the ditches. The caltrops were evil, cunningly made things, designed so that they always had a spike facing upwards no matter how they were laid.

“As you can see,” said Lovelace, “anyone trying to attack us from the west will have a rough time of it. The Earl was also good enough to lend me some of his Burgundian handgunners. Vile weapons, Sir Geoffrey, all noise and stench, but I would not want to brave a storm of iron-tipped arrows and lead pellets, would you?”

Geoffrey shuddered at the thought. “You are well-entrenched, captain,” he said, “but Lord Montagu was adamant. He needs your reinforcements. The entire Lancastrian army may be about to fall on him.”

Lovelace stared at him, making Geoffrey feel like a field mouse being sized up by a hungry snake. “God forbid his lordship’s judgment should be questioned,” he muttered, scratching his whiskery cheek. “I shall take half of my command south to aid Montagu. The rest shall remain here.”

“Good,” said Geoffrey, relieved. “In the meantime I shall go to the Earl and inform him of the situation.”

Lovelace smiled and shook his head. “No, Sir Geoffrey, you shall come with us,” he said. “I may have a use for you.”

Something about the captain’s ugly visage and air of authority turned Geoffrey’s spine to water. Instead of forcefully reminding Lovelace that he was a gentleman and not obliged to follow the orders of arrogant commoners, he found himself meekly obeying.

Lovelace issued orders for half his command to turn about, and led them at a sedate march down the road. Geoffrey rode at his side, hating every step that took him back to Saint Albans. The sound of heavy fighting became audible as they drew closer to the town.

“Sounds like a lively affair,” remarked Lovelace, raising his voice above the sound of screams and clashing steel.

“Should you not hurry?” urged Geoffrey, desperate to be quit of the sinister Lovelace. “Montagu impressed on me the need for haste. His archers are poorly-armed and outnumbered. They can’t hold out for long.”

The gates of Saint Albans were now in sight. To Geoffrey’s astonishment, Lovelace held up his arm and shouted the order to halt. His drummers fell silent, and the long column of soldiers behind him clashed to a standstill.

“This is far enough,” he said to his sergeant. “Have the men deploy in line abreast.”

“What are you doing?” squawked Geoffrey as Lovelace’s troops started to spread out in a roughly east-west direction across the road. “Why are you not advancing?”

“I have been a soldier for rather longer than you have been alive,” Lovelace replied dryly. “A great deal longer. With respect, my judgment of military affairs is sounder than yours.”

Geoffrey was baffled. For a moment he thought that Lovelace perhaps shared his malady, and was too cowardly to go to Montagu’s aid. That seemed unlikely. Lovelace was said to be a veteran of many campaigns, and had survived the bloodbath at Wakefield.

A growing suspicion started to form in his mind. 
He survived Wakefield.
Lovelace wasn’t the only Yorkist to survive, of course, but he had escaped to bring news of the defeat to Warwick in London. As a reward for that service Warwick had rewarded him with a captain’s commission.

Escaped, or was sent
?

“I should go and find the Earl,” he said, turning his horse. Lovelace barred his way.

“Back to the town with you, Sir Geoffrey.”

Geoffrey quailed as he read the intent in the captain’s eyes. If he refused, or tried to ride away, he had little doubt that this dreadful man would have him murdered on the spot.

He obediently rode south, back towards Saint Albans and the din of slaughter.

Shades of Northampton greeted him as he passed through the northern gate and witnessed the battle raging in the marketplace. Montagu’s archers were bravely holding their ground, but taking fearful casualties against the swarming Lancastrians. Injured Yorkists staggered, crawled or were carried by their comrades from the fray, and the road leading out of the town was strewn with dead and wounded.

The few surgeons present did their crude best for those who clung to life, bandaging wounds and pouring raw spirits down men’s throats to deaden the pain before sawing at their shattered limbs with dirty blades. Geoffrey gagged at the spectacle of one man being held down by his mates while a drunken sawbones tugged at his leg, chopped almost clean away below the knee. Eventually the leg came off and covered everyone with a sudden gush of arterial blood. The surgeon fell to his knees and vomited, while his dying patient went into spasm and howled in unspeakable agony.

Geoffrey was not inclined to put his own precious flesh in the way of such torments. As at Northampton, his thoughts immediately turned to finding a safe place to hide until the sick horror of battle was passed.

This presented difficulties. He could not go back, for that would risk encountering Lovelace again. Ahead of him was the battle. Then he remembered a side-lane a little way down the street, called Catherine Lane. He could hide down there until the worst of the fighting was over.

Geoffrey rode on, cantering over the shuddering body of a maimed archer, until he spotted the opening. He dismounted and led his destrier down the narrow lane, looking carefully for a suitable bolt-hole.

He stopped dead, his guts dissolving in fright. A band of soldiers were creeping slowly up the opposite end of the lane. They were billmen wearing the livery of the Duke of Somerset. Having failed to force their way into the town by attacking through George Street, the Lancastrians must have sought for an unguarded route, and discovered Catherine Lane.

Geoffrey’s mind raced. If the Lancastrians launched a pincer assault on two fronts, Montagu’s men were doomed. Once they were destroyed, only the dubious Captain Lovelace would stand between the enemy and the remainder of Warwick’s army, still presumably unaware of what was happening on their left flank.

Geoffrey faced a stark choice. He was a fully armed knight with a huge destrier, and the soldiers coming up the lane were mere billmen. Honour and duty demanded that he ride straight at them, killing as many as possible before he was overwhelmed, in the hope of delaying or even turning back the Lancastrian advance. His death was almost certain, but it was the kind of death that would be remembered in song for generations.

His weasel mind sought for plausible alternatives. It didn’t seek for long.

I am the last male scion of my family,
he thought,
and my death would mean the break-up of the
Malvern estates. In addition, I can do more useful service than dying by riding back to Montagu and informing him of the enemy coming up Catherine Lane. Montagu has no men spare to plug the gap, but that is no fault of mine.

The billmen had spotted him. They lowered their weapons and broke into a charge. Sobbing with fright, Geoffrey hurled himself aboard his destrier, yanked her about and spurred her back up the lane into the marketplace.

The Yorkists were attempting a fighting retreat, with Lord Montagu to the fore, roaring at his surviving men to form up under his banner. Geoffrey rode straight at him.

“My lord, you must get out!” he wailed, jabbing his arm in the direction of Catherine Lane. “Somerset’s men are about to hit your flank!”

Montagu, his helm gone, blood pouring from a gash on his cheek, looked at Geoffrey in amazement. “What in God’s name are you doing here?” he demanded angrily. “Where are my reinforcements?”

“Captain Lovelace, lord, he would not…” Geoffrey explanation was drowned by the massed roar of hundreds of Lancastrian throats as they burst out of Catherine Lane and poured into the marketplace, hacking and stabbing at Montagu’s dismayed archers.

“That’s it, then,” Geoffrey heard Montagu say. The young nobleman bellowed at his officers to sound the retreat and get as many men out of the town as possible.

No-one was paying Geoffrey any heed. He turned and galloped back up the street towards the northern gate, determined to be the first Yorkist out of Saint Albans.

Captain Lovelace was presumably still to the north, unless he had turned traitor outright and taken his Kentishmen over to Lancaster. Caught between two awful fates, Geoffrey decided he would rather take his chances against Lovelace than stay in the town and be slaughtered by Lancastrian blades.

He thundered out of the gate and was immediately confronted by the sight of Lovelace’s men where he had left them, spread out in a long line blocking the road ahead. Geoffrey brought his destrier skidding to a halt. Fleeing west wasn’t an option, since he ran the risk of blundering into the main body of the Lancastrian army. He could still turn to the east. Misted woods and fields lay in that direction, a perfect spot for him to lay low until the battle was over.

Hoof beats sounded behind him. He turned to see Lord Montagu and a few Yorkist knights clattering out of the gate.

“The town is lost,” Montagu barked, apparently under the impression that Geoffrey had been waiting for him. “We must re-form and make a stand on Barnard’s Heath. Why are those men standing idle?”

He pointed his bloody sword at Lovelace’s troops. “I don’t know, lord,” Geoffrey replied, and decided to do Lovelace a bit of good for the scare the man had given him. “I ordered the captain to come to your aid, but he would only advance so far, and refused to enter the town.”

Montagu went purple. With a growl he slammed in his spurs and charged down the slope, followed by his knights. Geoffrey cantered in their wake. He risked a glance behind him, and saw Yorkist archers flooding out of the town like bees from a hive.

He could have cheered as he saw Montagu lean down from his saddle and strike Lovelace with the flat of his sword. The captain went down like a felled tree, blood spurting from his mouth and nose. Montagu turned his attention to Lovelace’s sergeant.

“Where is the rest of your command?” he shouted.

“Still on Barnard’s Heath, begging your pardon, lord,” the sergeant replied timidly. “The captain left the frog-eaters and the Burgundians to guard against any attack from the west.”

Montagu looked on the verge of apoplexy. “There will be no attack from the west,” he said. “The Lancastrians are back there, in the town!”

He looked around and spotted Geoffrey. “You!” he snapped. “Get up to Barnard’s Heath and order whatever men are left there to reinforce us, double quick. Then find the Earl of Warwick and inform his lordship that I am about to engage the Queen’s entire army, and would appreciate a little assistance. Understand?”

With one last delighted glance at Lovelace, grovelling in the dirt and attempting to stem the flow of blood from his nose, Geoffrey gave an elegant salute and spurred away north. His guardian angels had seen him right again, and provided him with another Heaven-sent opportunity to avoid danger while appearing to do his duty.

His destrier was starting to tire, so he stopped halfway up the road and gave her some water from his flask. He took a swallow of water himself and rode on to Barnard’s Heath. There he found Warwick’s Burgundian and French mercenaries standing idle or lounging on the grass.

“You men,” he addressed them in bad French. “Lord Montagu has urgent need of reinforcements. The enemy is in Saint Albans, and he is about to attack them. You must go to his aid, at once!
Allez!”

Grateful for some action, the mercenaries picked up their weapons and started to jog in loose order down the road. Geoffrey watched them go and wondered how many would ever see their homes again.

Now he had to find the Earl of Warwick. Humming contentedly to himself, he turned his destrier’s head north and rode on.

23.

Warwick was tired and wet and confused and frightened. So were most of his men, but he had to cope with the additional burden of command. He was in his tent surrounded by his captains, all of whom did nothing but give him bad advice and conflicting opinions. To make matters worse, the pounding headache that had afflicted him since the early hours of the morning stubbornly refused to go away, no matter how often he tried to drown it in wine.