Revenge (48 page)

   Lastly, his brother James, the only one of his kin he had not been reunited with. Richard had hoped to see him at Stamford, but he wasn’t there. Or if he was, he didn’t make himself known. Richard felt disappointed. He was keen to see what kind of man his prodigal brother had grown into.

   “Straighten the line, there, in Christ’s name!” Sir Robert’s scream broke the train of Richard’s thoughts. There was a shrill and desperate quality to it, and no wonder. The left flank of the rebel army was dissolving into chaos, as drunken soldiers quarrelled with each other and their officers. Fights started to break out, and had to be broken up by marshals wielding heavy truncheons. 

   Some semblance of order was eventually restored, while the royal army drew ever closer. It was only a third the size of the rebel host, but marched with an implacable order and purpose that mocked their opponents. 

   The usurper himself was visible, riding on a dappled grey destrier at the head of his dismounted vanguard, huge and splendid in his rich armour, the spring sunshine glinting off the slender golden crown that mounted his helm. The rebel knights threw jeers and insults at him. Their half-hearted shouts died away as the royal army halted, about half a mile from the rebel lines.

   God help us
, thought Richard,
they have cannon.

   Trumpets blasted, and gaps opened in the royalist ranks as men shuffled aside to allow teams of horses through. The horses dragged wooden platforms on wheels, on which were mounted large iron tubes lashed into place with ropes. More teamsters followed with the ammunition, wicker baskets loaded with round-shot.

   Richard felt a ghostly stab of fear, like an invisible dagger slipping under his ribs. He had never faced cannon. All the battles he had fought in were straightforward melees, decided by the vicious cut and thrust of close combat. True, Warwick had used gunpowder weapons at Saint Albans, but they were mishandled and caused little damage.

   The rebels were powerless to intervene as the King’s gunners methodically unloaded their weapons and started to heave them into a line. Sir Robert might have sent forward his archers, but the royalists had plenty of their own archers to counter them.

   Not that the rebel commander seemed inclined to do anything decisive. He stood like a statue, apparently paralysed, while his captains shouted conflicting advice at him and each other.

   “Order a charge,” shouted Richard, trying to make himself heard above the babble of voices, “we have enough in the field to smother the royalists. Charge, for pity’s sake, before they have time to load those devil-weapons!”

   No-one heeded him. Richard was tempted to try and lead the line himself, and looked around to see who might follow. The faces of his comrades were a picture of misery and confusion and fear. Dismayed, he followed the example of his commander and did nothing.

   The royalist gunners worked fast. They had their guns unloaded and pointed at the rebel lines inside a few minutes, and set about priming them to fire. They used long staffs with pieces of fleece wrapped on the end to swab out the barrels, and copper shovels to pour the precious gunpowder into the base. Wooden rammers were employed to shove wadding made of bundles of cloth into the barrel after the powder. Only then was the dreaded round-shot loaded. 

   A moan of fear rippled down the rebel lines as men watched death being carefully prepared, and could do nothing to stop it. Richard chewed his lower lip until it bled.

   “For God’s sake, man, do something!” he burst out, careless of whether Sir Robert was offended or not.

   The rebel commander didn’t seem to hear him. Instead he raised his arm and pointed limply at the centre of the King’s army. Robert looked, and his heart sank when he saw the drama about to be played out.

   Lord Welles and Sir Thomas Dymmock were being brought out before the royalist lines, escorted by a strong guard of men-at-arms in royal livery. The prisoners were bareheaded and barefoot, clad in nothing but grubby white smocks, and loaded down with chains. 

   They were made to kneel before the King’s horse. Edward didn’t even deign to look at them as their heads were forced down until they touched the ground.

   Two soldiers carrying battle-axes stepped forward. Edward flung up his arm, and the steady background noise of drums, pipes and trumpets abruptly died.

   The King had warned that Welles and Dymmock would die unless his demands were carried out. He was not one to make empty threats. His arm descended, the sun flashed on the axe-blades as they swept up into the air, and a howl of despair burst from Sir Robert’s lips as two heads were deftly severed from their bodies. One of the executioners gave Dymmock’s head a hearty kick, and it bounced and rolled away before coming to rest in a hollow.  

   Sir Robert’s howl was echoed by many of his followers. Richard had experienced this before, the tipping-point when courage evaporated and men turned to thinking of nothing but their own safety. It was the death of any army.

   He heard the marshals shouting at men to hold firm. “The cowards are running!” William exclaimed behind him.

   Richard turned, fearing the worst, and saw a few of the archers on the left haring away across the fields. They had flung away their bows, and tore off their livery coats as they ran.

   A great booming noise, like the doleful roar of some fabulous beast, caused his head to whip back round. One of the cannons had fired. The shot whined overhead, far too high to do any harm, but its effect on already disintegrating rebel morale was catastrophic.

   More of the lightly-armed billmen and archers on the flanks turned and fled, disregarding the frantic attempts of the marshals to stop them. Richard saw one officer stabbed as he tried to bar their way, and collapse to the ground holding in his entrails as men stampeded all round him.

   The rest of the cannons fired in turn, filling the air with their stench and noise, save one that jammed and caused its crew to run for cover in case it exploded. They were wildly inaccurate. Most overshot the rebel army or went wide, but one smashed directly into a knot of billmen, punching a great hole through a man’s stomach and disembowelling another behind him. Their comrades scattered and fled, screaming in terror.

    Only now, when it was too late, did Sir Robert stir himself.

   “Forward,” he exhorted his knights, “yonder sits the usurper, gloating over the body of my poor murdered father. If we drag him down, we can yet retrieve the day.”

   Richard and a handful of others would have followed him, but most were unwilling. “We are lost!” shouted one knight over the din of artillery, “let us withdraw, and fight another time.”

   “Withdraw where, you fool?” snarled Richard, turning on him. The knight didn’t take kindly to being called a fool, and blows might have been exchanged if the world hadn’t suddenly dissolved in blood and thunder.

   Richard was hurled to the ground by some tremendous, irresistible force. He dropped his pole-axe and landed heavily on his side, where he lay for a few seconds, his vision blurred and his tongue swelling painfully where he had accidentally bit it.

   Someone was shrieking nearby, the unmistakable sound of a dying man in terrible pain. Richard had heard it too often in his life. His eyes re-focused and treated him to the sight of William Maker lying nearby, squirming like a worm on a hook. Both his legs were reduced to shattered, bleeding ruin, with bits of jagged bone poking through the pulped steel and flesh.

   One of the usurper’s cannons must have scored a lucky hit. Sir Robert and his knights had vanished. Doubtless they had panicked and run off.

   “William,” Richard gasped. He had known the young man, a native of Preston, for over three years, and taught him how to use sword and dagger.

   Perhaps his life could still be saved. Richard tried to stand, and found that he couldn’t. He looked down, puzzled, and saw that his right leg was missing below the knee. Hot red blood gushed from the stump.

   He stared dumbly at the crippling wound. Strangely, he felt no pain. He didn’t feel anything very much.

   A great roar burst from the west, accompanied by the shrill cry of trumpets. The usurper had ordered his army to charge.

   There was little left for them to fight. The brief cannonade had broken the spirit of the rebels, such as it was. Most were streaming away to the east, dumping their weapons and banners.

   Only those who couldn’t run stayed to face the fury of the royalists. Richard looked around for his pole-axe, spotted it, and tried to use it as a crutch to stand. Now the pain did hit him, and he groaned at the burning agony that flowed up his shattered limb.

   His blood continued to flow in a steady stream. Too much blood. He felt suddenly weak, and feared that he might faint.

  
My sword.
He still carried his father’s sword: the same sword that had cleaved through Sir Thomas Malvern’s neck and helped to slay the Duke of York. Propping his weight against the pole-axe, gritting his teeth against the pain, Richard slowly drew the blade for the last time.

   A line of billmen in royal livery was rushing towards him, their faces jubilant with victory. Richard defiantly spat a gobbet of bloody phlegm at them.

   “God for Lancaster,” he cried feebly, “God for King Henry. The White Hawk.”

   A heavy bill-blade chopped down and knocked the sword from his hand. Another cut deeply into his shoulder. His crutch was yanked away, and he was shoved onto his back.

   “The White Hawk,” he repeated, over and over, as they mercilessly hacked the life out of him.

   “The White Hawk…the White Hawk…”

END

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book was originally released in two parts as The White Hawk (I) Revenge and The White Hawk (II): Rebellion. After some - perfectly justified - criticism that both volumes were too short, I decided to reboot the series and combine the first two books into a single volume, as well as giving it a brand new cover.

The series will now be re-released as a trilogy, and Part Three will end with a new short story titled The Devil’s Due, which moves the story of the Boltons on to the era of the English (British) Civil War between King Charles I and his rebellious Parliament. This in turn will act as a lead-in to the next full-length trilogy in the cycle, which shall see the Boltons fight on both sides of the conflict... 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Pilling is a writer of historical and fantasy fiction. He was fortunate enough to grow up in West Wales, where his love of history was inspired by the dramatic landscape, dotted with ruins of castles and abbeys. The Dark Ages and the high medieval period particularly appeal to him.
His influences include: George MacDonald Fraser, Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow, Rafael Sabatini, Terry Pratchett, J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, Ian Fleming, and many others.