Revenge (27 page)

“Look here,” he said, stabbing his finger at the Great North Road on the map laid out on the barrelhead. “The last our scouts saw or heard of the Lancastrians, they were at Royston, looting the town. Since then, we’ve heard nothing certain of their movements.”

“It’s this damned fog,” said the Earl of Arundel. “Once it starts to clear, our scouts will have an easier time of it.”

“But it isn’t clearing, is it?” snarled Warwick, whose patience with Arundel and his habit of stating the obvious was fast wearing thin. “The sun is well up in the sky, and we still can’t see a damned thing.”

He closed his eyes and massaged his temples. His head felt like it was about to crack open and spew its contents all over the floor. “When did we last get a message from Poynings at Dunstable?”

“Some hours ago,” volunteered the Earl of Suffolk. “I forget when, exactly. I haven’t had any proper sleep for two days. One loses track of time.”

“Useful,” said Warwick, breathing out slowly, “that was very useful, Suffolk. I don’t know what we should do without you. So the Queen’s army has vanished from the Great North Road, and no-one can remember precisely when we last heard from our outpost at Dunstable. Is that correct?”

A general murmur indicated that it probably was. Warwick felt the pressing need for some fresh air.

“Wait here,” he ordered, and limped out of the tent, feeling like death. Outside the fog was still lying in thick, gently rolling heaps across the land in all directions, though there were signs of it starting to lift in the south.

Barnard’s Heath was to the south, and the left flank of his army under Lord Montagu. Warwick had great confidence in his brother, which was more than he could say for the men in the tent. Committed, all of them, brave and honourable in their way, but somewhere along the line of their noble ancestry the intelligence had been bred out.

He looked at his men, or those he could see in the murk. They had been standing in ordered ranks since daybreak. Warwick had chosen to deploy them in a landscape of narrow lanes and tall hedgerows, thinking that would make his position unassailable. Instead it had only added to his confusion, and now he had no real idea where many of his troops were.

He considered allowing them a rest. Men suffering from cramp and hunger were hardly likely to give of their best when the fighting started. Assuming it would ever start. Where in the name of Christ were the enemy?

The sound of demented singing reached his ears. King Henry was nearby, sitting under a tree and surrounded by a strong guard. Henry was having one of his bad days, when his lucidity deserted him for long periods. All he had done for hours was hug his knees, giggle and sing hymns.

“Please, God, make him stop,” Warwick prayed. His strategy of bringing the King along to encourage the troops had gone horribly wrong, for no-one could be encouraged by this drivelling, wildly gesticulating lunatic. Instead Henry’s presence was having an adverse effect on morale. Warwick wondered if Henry was feigning a severe bout of madness in order to demoralise the Yorkists. If so, the ploy was working.

“My lord!” cried a familiar voice. Warwick looked to his left and saw a big knight cantering towards him on a grey destrier. He shaded his eyes and recognised Sir Geoffrey Malvern. Horse and rider looked exhausted, and the horse’s flanks were slick with blood from Malvern’s spurs.

Despite his black mood, Warwick allowed himself a smile. He approved of Malvern – such a handsome, debonair youth, with the enviable gift of putting people in a good humour.

“Sir Geoffrey,” he said, “what brings you here? Have you come from my brother?”

Malvern paused to gulp in breath, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “I came as fast as I could,” he panted, “but these damned winding roads delayed me. Lord Montagu sent me to tell you that the Queen’s entire army has fallen on his position at Saint Albans. The town is lost, and now he is trying to prevent them advancing to Barnard’s Heath.”

The news dashed over Warwick like an ice-bath, and for the first time in hours he could think clearly. He did some hasty mental calculation. The Lancastrians must have turned west off the Great North Road and overwhelmed the small Yorkist garrison at Dunstable. That would explain the lack of communication from Poynings. Now they had pushed Montagu out of Saint Albans, and were advancing up the road to roll up Warwick’s flank.

He turned on his heel, yelling for Arundel and Suffolk. The flushed faces of those two worthies peered out of the tent-flap.

“We’re moving south in strength,” he rapped out, “horse, foot and guns. Leave nothing behind. Our army is facing the wrong way, for Lancaster is advancing from the south.”

The two earls looked dumbfounded, and he had to repeat his orders before they jerked into life.

“Sir Geoffrey,” said Warwick as the air filled with shouts and general commotion, “oblige me by finding a fresh horse, and then ride on to the Duke of Norfolk at Sandridge. Tell him that our left flank is now our front line, and that he must bring his power south in all haste, to Barnard’s Heath.”

Malvern seemed only too happy to obey, and Warwick was touched by the boy’s earnestness.
That one has a great future,
he thought.
If he lives through the day.

It soon became apparent that ordering a general advance was a mistake. The mass of Warwick’s infantry were hindered by the maze of roads and hedgerows, and it took some time for the order to reach all of them. His mounted knights and men-at-arms, having no patience with mere footmen, attempted to force their way through. Predictably, chaos ensued, and heated arguments and scuffles broke out all along the line.

“For God’s sake,” Warwick screamed as he witnessed the mess he had created. Arundel and Suffolk were little help, bawling at their captains to do something, who in turn bullied the lower ranks. Orders and counter-orders went back and forth, adding to the general confusion and slowing the advance to a pitiful crawl.

Warwick’s patience dissolved. “Never mind the bloody infantry,” he shouted to Arundel. “They can catch up later. Bring as many of the horses as you can.”

Somehow he managed to extricate a few hundred of his retainers from the throng, and led them out into the open country leading to Barnard’s Heath. By now it was noon, and the wretched mist had cleared sufficiently for him to see knots of broken and wounded men limping across the fields. Some were supported by their comrades, while others had to make their own way, using the staffs of spears and billhooks as crutches. All were bleeding, glassy-eyed and grey of pallor.

Warwick recognised some of the casualties as his French mercenaries. The rest wore Montagu’s livery. If the weight of the Lancastrian army had indeed fallen on his left flank, then his brother must be taking a fearful battering. Maybe he was defeated already, or dead.

The thought of losing another member of his already decimated family drove Warwick on, careless that most of his army were still lagging far behind. He galloped through the last shreds of mist obscuring his view, and the carnage of Barnard’s Heath appeared before him like a vision of Hell.

He was too late. Montagu’s command was smashed all to pieces, and the bodies of Yorkist solders covered the road and adjoining fields in great heaps. Here and there a few survivors were stubbornly fighting to the last around their banners, but that was all. Victorious Lancastrian soldiers swarmed over the field like greedy ants, men in the livery of Somerset and Clifford and Talbot and other lords, pillaging and mutilating the dead.

Warwick could see thousands more Lancastrians marching up the road from Saint Albans. Company after company, horse and foot, all marching in good order and discipline. Rumours of the Queen’s army being little more than a disorganised mob were just that.

Warwick was no coward, but saw little point in throwing his life away in some vainglorious charge against vastly superior numbers. Bringing his destrier to a halt, he raised his visor and gagged at the stench of death.

A wounded esquire came staggering towards him, cradling his shattered forearm against his chest.

“You!” Warwick shouted. “Where are Lord Montagu and Captain Lovelace?”

The esquire squinted up at the massive iron-clad apparition, and fell to his knees when he recognised the sigil of the bear and ragged staff on Warwick’s surcoat.

“I saw Montagu taken prisoner, lord,” he croaked, his voice hoarse with pain. “As for Lovelace, I know not, but wish him dead and consigned to Hell. He turned traitor. While the fight raged on the heath he led his Kentishmen over to Lancaster, and broke our line all to pieces.”

This is what comes of snatching at crowns
, Warwick thought, turning his horse and riding back to his retainers.

If only York had consulted him before taking the insane decision to ride into London and proclaim himself King. All these recent disasters may have been avoided, and Warwick would not have been on a bloody, rain-sodden heath outside Saint Albans, contemplating his first ever defeat in battle.

The Duke, he remembered, used to lecture him on fortune’s wheel, and how Warwick had never known it to turn against him. The wheel had turned now, and hurled him face-down into a pit of snakes.

“Fall back to No Man’s Land,” he ordered his marshals, “and reform behind the infantry. We’ll make a stand there, and dare the Lancastrians to come against us in open battle.”

Heartening words, but in the pit of his stomach Warwick knew it was hopeless. He had witnessed the disintegration of armies before, though always from the opposing side, and recognised the shadow of defeat in the faces of his men.

He saw it again when they reached the ragged lines of his infantry trudging across the fields to the north. Arundel, Surrey and his other captains were clearly demoralised. All were slow to respond to his orders, and Warwick himself felt his own will ebbing away as he bullied and cajoled his men to form some semblance of a battle-line.

Yorkist fugitives from the fighting at Saint Albans and Barnards Heath struggled into view, pathetic, ghostly figures carrying dreadful wounds. Warwick sensed the already low morale of his men plummeting at the sight of these ruined scarecrows. Panic, the incurable disease of all armies, started to set in.

A few men in the rear ranks cast down their weapons and stole away, ignoring the shouts of their sergeants. Warwick sent light horsemen in pursuit, to round up the deserters and herd them back into line. The lancers themselves were infected by the disease, and many joined in the rout.

“I suggest we withdraw,” cried Arundel, raising his voice above the ominous thunder of marching feet and pounding drums from the south. “The men won’t stand. Our flank is caved in, and the Lancastrians have the greater numbers.”

“You choose a fine time to advise me on strategy,” Warwick shouted, but it was wasted malice. If even a third-rate mind like Arundel’s could see that the game was up, it was surely time to throw down the dice and retire.

“Norfolk will come to our aid,” he said. Arundel looked doubtfully to the north, where Norfolk’s advancing banners were conspicuous by their absence.

“He is not a well man,” he said, “and his infantry were scattered as they tried to deploy in the dark last night. I’m not sure how many he managed to round up. My lord, we cannot rely on Norfolk coming to our aid.”

There was a furious roar, a last frenzied rattle of drums, and then the lingering fog erupted with Lancastrians, yelling hordes of blood-spattered billmen, archers and halberdiers. They broke upon Warwick’s wavering infantry like a storm-tossed sea, and the Yorkist ranks swiftly eroded under the impact. Great holes appeared in the line as men were beaten to the ground or took to their heels, throwing down their weapons and banners.

The Earl of Suffolk was already riding for his life to the north, and his colleague Arundel looked ready to bolt. “The day is lost,” he shouted, frantically tugging at Warwick’s bridle. “We must leave the field, at once.”

Warwick ignored him. His thoughts were full of the King, whom he had left sitting under a tree, guarded by Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriel. If Warwick fled now, Henry would fall back into the hands of the Lancastrians. The royal puppet whose presence nevertheless lent moral authority to whatever faction had him in their custody, would be lost.

He shook himself. Arundel was right, he had to get away. One look at the crumbling wreckage of the Yorkist army was enough to tell him that. To admit defeat was bitter, almost unbearable, but at least he was alive. And the Yorkist cause was not lost. Edward of March still had an army in Wales, and Warwick could scrape together the remnants of his host during the retreat to London.

With the screams of his doomed soldiers ringing in his ears, the Earl of Warwick fled the field.

24.

The late winter of 1461 was a time Mary would remember for one of the greatest joys in her life, and one of the greatest sorrows. Many years later, the effort of remembrance still conjured up raw memories of that season, of lives ended and crowns trampled in the dust.

Her family had settled back into life at Heydon Court, though their circumstances were much reduced, and the shadow of death hung over the house. The Sheriff proved as good as his word, and forced his erstwhile allies, the Huntleys, to pay for the repair of the damage his artillery had caused. The cost almost beggared them, which was some consolation. Still, Heydon Court was not the same as before. At times Mary could sense the shades of the murdered servants stalking the corridors, and a strange, oppressive atmosphere hung over the place.