The King's Dogge (16 page)

‘And when the Scots return?' I said wearily.

‘It won't matter by then, my lord. We'll all be too busy fighting to worry about where Middleton disappeared to,' he said cheerfully.

He was right, of course. Why bother telling the truth? Morale was sky-high as Middleton was expected any day now – better that the men lived their last day in hope rather than in despair. To maintain the fiction, I told Edward to distribute the remainder of the rations that night.

It was early the next day that the Scots returned. I did not see them, as all our men were on the southern side of the camp waiting for the first sighting of Middleton, while I was on the west with Fennell.

‘When the Scots return,' he said quietly, ‘we'll say that Middleton cannot be far behind.'

‘I think we need to move into a central defensive position,' I interrupted him. ‘The Scots will have learned their lesson by now and will attack from all sides.'

Edward Franke ran to us.

‘There's a small cloud of dust in the south,' he panted.

We walked together to the south side, pushing our way through the archers. I could see nothing, but Fennell muttered ‘horsemen'. A few moments later I could see a few specks on the horizon.

‘Probably about 500. They've got their reinforcements,' Fennell added.

I knew they were Scots, but in my tired state I pretended for a moment that they were Middleton's men. My shoulders sank; there was no chance it could be them. Even the numbers were wrong. I remembered him saying, ‘I'll bring up the Carlisle horse. They'll be 700 or 800 of us.' I pinched myself irritably; of course they were Scots. Middleton was dead anyway.

My daydream was dispersed by Fennell bellowing to his men to return to their posts; smiling broadly, the archers obeyed. With good humour, they followed him to the western barricade, and I waved my men-at-arms to the east. Edward Franke stayed with me.

It began to rain heavily, for which I was glad as it restricted visibility. With any luck the men would not know that they had been deluded for a good few hours, and we would all just fight this last battle. I pulled my cloak around me and sent Edward to the east side.

After a while he returned, his cloak steaming in the bright sunlight that had just replaced the rain.

‘Horsemen are coming up the valley, Francis.'

There was an outbreak of cheers and shouts from the men on the east side of the hill. Turning round. I saw that the men from the north side had joined them.

I swallowed; Edward would be safer with Fennell's men when the attack started.

‘Edward, will you go to Captain Fennell and tell him to prepare?'

The cheers swelled to a deafening crescendo. With an apologetic smile, Edward ran to the east. I watched him and the others shouting and waving their arms about. Some were even jumping up and down.

Dear God, I thought. I had better go and calm those fools down. I stepped forward wearily and looked down into the valley where the first horsemen moved towards our position. I sank to my knees in disbelief. While they had the same little ponies and spears that the Scots used, these troops were undoubtedly English – the sunlight behind me picked out the silver threads on their ostentatious saddle coverings.

Ignoring their captain, the archers begun to stream across the camp to see the Carlisle horse who waved back at them. I saw a party of horsemen ride up the valley to probe for Scots.

Edward Franke tugged my sleeve.

‘Francis, what did you want me to do?'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘You said “Go to Fennell and tell him to prepare…”' he prompted me.

‘Um… well yes.' My powers of inventiveness suddenly returned. ‘Yes, Edward, go to Fennell and tell him to prepare to leave.'

There were tears in my eyes.

‘You picked a good spot to defend,' Dick commented as we walked past the Scottish dead. I waved my hands about me; the flies were intolerable. ‘Fennell tells me that you killed over 400 of them, and I intercepted another 300 or so on my way up here.'

It had been a running fight, but with many of their number wounded and badly outnumbered, the Scots had soon broken and fled. Dick had detached a number of his men to pursue them and then had moved up here with the rest.

He smiled happily at me.

‘We've hurt them badly, Francis. They must have lost over 700 men and horses; they'll find it difficult to replace both.'

He chattered on while I looked at him uncertainly; there was a strange air of unreality about our meeting. I felt that I wanted to keep touching him to reassure myself that he was actually walking beside me.

‘Mind you, that does not include their wounded.'

‘Or Skiam's followers,' added Captain Fennell happily. ‘How did you manage to break through Master Middleton, when you left us?'

Dick grinned.

‘I had scouts ahead to the left and right. The Scots had not quite joined together, so I split the men into groups of twenties and thirties and we slipped through the gap in the darkness. I had all the palfreys released and then we went as quickly as we could…'

‘You released the palfreys?'

He gave me a curious look.

‘They are valuable animals to the Scots and by the time they had rounded them up, we were too far away to be pursued. It was a pity to lose them, but I thought the Scots would take them and leave us.'

‘You mean you let the horses go deliberately?' I stammered.

He stared at me.

‘Well, of course. In the darkness they provided an excellent decoy and what mattered most was to get to the border. Your lives were in danger here and, after all, they were only horses.' He frowned. ‘You can't believe that I would value horses as more important than your lives surely?'

I avoided looking at Fennell.

‘Of course not, Dick,' I said indignantly. ‘As you said, they were only horses.'

Edward Franke joined us at the bottom of the slope.

‘I've had all the men fed, so we can leave whenever you wish, Francis. I'm glad to see you Dick, although everyone knew that you would come back for us.'

‘I'm glad everyone had so much confidence in me. Thomas Broughton was worried about you, Francis. He believed that by releasing the palfreys it would cause the Scots to return to you sooner than you thought they would and you might have believed that we had been defeated.'

Edward Franke shook his head.

‘Oh no,' he said simply. ‘Francis and Captain Fennell told everyone exactly what was happening and were so confident of the time of your return that last night Francis told me to hand out the remainder of the rations.'

Dick nodded in a relieved way.

‘Well, Francis, thank you for your faith.'

Dick was an old friend and I swallowed hard. I felt bound to tell him the truth, but as I stepped forward I felt the giant paw of Captain Fennell on my shoulder.

‘Edward Franke exaggerates my part in this Master Middleton. For it was my lord here who was clever enough to work out what was happening. I just told the men what he told me.'

Dick smiled at him and turned to me.

‘I hear that Skiam is dead, Francis. How did he die exactly?'

Captain Fennell took his hand from my shoulder and cleared his throat but I thought it best to speak for him.

‘He was wounded in the second attack and died later from his wounds,' I said casually.

Dick nodded.

‘I doubt that there will be many who will mourn his passing,' he commented dryly. ‘Now, when you're ready, we will return to Carlisle.'

C
HAPTER
8

I
n the two years that followed, we continued to build up the fighting strength of the West March. In one sense it was easier than before as, with the destruction of the Debateable Land and a decisive, albeit lucky, victory over the Scots, men were keen to serve.

What surprised us though were the numbers of volunteers. Even after weeding out the more unpromising ones, we still found ourselves with a large number of men all of whom required feeding, equipping and training, and above all organising. It was a task that stretched all of us to the limit, but it was a process that forced Broughton, Middleton, Edward Franke and me to function as a proper team. We began to think and act as one and, as we did so, we came to recognise each other's strengths and to rely upon them. It was both a frustrating and exhilarating time, but it was due to our teamwork that our force grew not just in strength of numbers but in skill and confidence.

Reports of this found their way back to Richard of Gloucester, and when Nan and I visited them, I sensed that our progress pleased both him and Anne Neville, as Ratcliffe's visits to Carlisle became increasingly infrequent. When he did eventually come, his inspection was done in a perfunctory manner, and he found little to fault. Instead he used his time to tell me how Richard and Anne were continuing to build up their position in the North. Indeed, he said, that they had been so successful that even the Woodvilles had given up trying to destabilise them and had probably turned their attention to easier areas of encroachment and growth. I had heaved a sigh of relief at that and, after Ratcliffe had gone, put the Woodvilles from my mind and threw myself into our work. But the Woodvilles had deceived us all. It all started a few weeks later when I received a direct summons from Richard of Gloucester. I was to report to him and Anne Neville immediately. He regretted that on this occasion I should not bring Nan; indeed it was essential that I came alone and quickly.

The sun was just beginning to slip behind the distant hills as I slowly retraced my steps to Middleham. I stopped to gaze at the familiar outline of the castle; even allowing for its particularly squat appearance, it looked to be miles away.

I shook my head ruefully. Evidently I had been thinking so hard that I had not noticed how far I had walked. For the first time too, I noticed that I was not alone. All around me great flocks of sheep grazed peacefully on the heather-covered moorland, while startled rabbits scattered in front of me. Overhead swifts darted and swooped, while beyond them a solitary hawk circled tirelessly. I put the moors from my mind as I considered again what I had heard from Anne Neville. It had been she who had done most of the briefing. I pictured her for a moment sitting in her high-backed chair as she had shrewdly analysed the problems that confronted her and Gloucester.

As I watched the two of them, my admiration for them grew. Anne might have done most of the talking and Richard most of the listening, but you could see that theirs was the complete partnership and that Richard trusted his wife's judgement implicitly. For that I respected him. Any major decision would ultimately be his, but he was content with being guided by Anne Neville. Any man married to a woman such as Anne would have been. A man would have been a fool to have rejected such a powerful intellect and a complete idiot not to have spotted the passionate integrity with which it was being used. All of her thoughts and words were motivated by her heartfelt desire to assist Richard in every possible way. Without Nan, I arrived at the meeting feeling awkward. I felt like an interloper in their marriage. Anne Neville swiftly swept away my inhibitions. Within minutes their problems became our collective issues; they both relied upon me, she admittedly openly, and hoped that I would not fail them.