The Lady of the Rivers (62 page)

‘I’m coming,’ I say, and I mount and ride beside her as we go towards Blore Heath.

We are greeted with a messenger from James Touchet who suggests that we might like to go to the church at nearby Mucklestone, where we will be able to see the battlefield from the belfry. The noble lord is arranging a viewing tower as if for a day’s jousting. We clatter into the little village, sending chickens fluttering away from our horses’ hooves, and leave the horses at the village forge.

‘You can shoe my horse while he is waiting here,’ the queen says to the blacksmith, throwing him a penny, then she turns and leads the way to the church.

Inside it is quiet and dim, and we take the winding stone stair upwards and upwards to where the bell is hung in the tower. It is like a great watchtower, the bell behind us, a stone parapet before us, and clearly across the fields we can see the road from the north, and in the distance the trail of dust that is the marching army of the Earl of Salisbury.

The queen touches my arm, her face alight with excitement, and points ahead. We can see a great hedge and behind it the standards of our army. I put my hand over my eyes and scowl, trying to identify the Rivers flag in case I can make out Anthony or my husband nearby, but it is too far to see. Our forces are perfectly positioned, Salisbury will not know they are there, nor in what numbers, until he comes out of the little wood either side of his road, and then they will face him. There is something very dreadful about looking down on the battlefield, as if we were stone gargoyles on the tower, watching the deaths of mortals for sport. I look at the queen. She does not feel this, she is alight with excitement, her hands clasped tight together as the outriders at the front of the York army come briskly out from the wood, and fall back when they see the mighty force before them arranged in battle order on the little hill with a small river between them.

‘What are they doing?’ the queen demands irritably, as we see a herald ride out from each side and meet in the middle ground between the two armies.

‘Parleying?’ I ask.

‘There is nothing to talk about,’ she says. ‘He is named a traitor. Lord Audley’s instructions are to take him, or kill him, not to talk to him.’

As if to confirm the instructions, the heralds break off and ride back to their own ranks and almost at once there is a storm of arrows from the Lancaster side, shooting downhill and finding targets. A sigh, a defeated sigh, comes from the York side and we can see the men going down on their knees in a swift prayer, before rising to their feet and pulling on their helmets.

‘What are they doing?’ asks avidly.

‘They are kissing the ground,’ I say. There is something terrible about the doomed men putting their lips to the earth that they think will be their deathbed. ‘They are kissing the ground where they will be buried. They know they will be defeated and yet they are not running away.’

‘Too late to run,’ the queen says harshly. ‘We would chase them and kill them.’

From our vantage point we can see that the Yorks are outnumbered by almost two to one, perhaps even more. This is not going to be a battle, it is going to be a massacre.

‘Where is Lord Stanley?’ the queen demands. ‘He wanted to lead the attack but I ordered him to be in support. Where is he?’

I look around. ‘Could he be hiding in ambush?’

‘Look!’ she says.

The very centre of the York army, where they should be at their strongest, is giving way before the arrows. ‘They’re retreating!’ the queen cries. ‘We’re winning! So quickly!’

They are. The men at the very centre of the line are turning, dropping their weapons, and running away. At once I see our cavalry come forwards and start the charge downhill, towards the stream. I clasp my hands together as I see Elizabeth’s husband, out in front, thundering into the shallow water and riding across, struggling up the steep banks of the far side, just as the York forces inexplicably swing round and run back into the very heart of the battle, picking up their weapons and returning to the fight.

‘What’s happening?’ Margaret is as bewildered as I am. ‘What are they doing?’

‘They’ve come back,’ I say. ‘They’ve turned. It was a trick, and now our cavalry is bogged down in the river and the Yorks are able to fight them from the bank. They have tricked us off our good position, into the river, and our men can’t get out.’

It is a terrible sight. Our men in battle armour on their metal-plated horses go plunging into the water, and then struggle to get up the other side of the stream where they are battered by the York men at arms, wielding great swords, war axes and pikes. The knights fall from their horses, but cannot get to their feet to defend themselves, the horses’ hooves crash down through the water to crush them as they struggle to rise, or weighed down by their flooded breastplates they drown, scrambling in the churning waters of the stream. Those who can grab a stirrup leather try to pull themselves up but the Yorks are dancing up and down the dry banks, quick to thrust a knife in an unguarded armpit or lean towards the stream to slash at a throat, or one of the strong soldiers steps into the stream, swinging a great battle axe, and down goes the Lancaster knight into the water, which blooms red. It is a savage muddle of men and horses. There is nothing beautiful about it, or noble, or even orderly, nothing like the battles that are made into ballads or celebrated in the romances. It is a savage mess of brutish men killing each other for blood lust. A few of the Lancaster lords scramble up the bank on their great war horses and tear through the York lines and disappear – they simply run away. Worse, even more of them, hundreds of them, drop their swords point down to indicate they are not fighting, pull up their horses into a walk, and go slowly, humbly, towards the enemy lines.

‘They are changing sides,’ I say. My hand is on the base of my throat as if to hold my thudding heart. I am so afraid that John Grey may be turning traitor as the queen and I watch. Hundreds of cavalrymen have turned from our side to the Yorks’: surely, he must be among them.

‘My cavalry?’ she asks disbelievingly.

Her hand creeps into mine and we stand in silence, watching the slow progress of the horsemen across the battlefield, towards the Yorks, with their standards drooped down low in surrender. Stray horses plunge and kick and pull themselves out of the stream and trot away. But many, many men are left struggling in the stream until they do not struggle any more.

‘John,’ I say quietly, thinking of my son-in-law at the head of the cavalry charge. For all I know he is drowned in his armour, and not turned traitor at all. From this distance I can see neither his standard nor his horse. He will leave my daughter a widow and two little boys fatherless, if he is choking in that red water this afternoon.

The armies break off from engagement, retreating to their own lines. From the banks of the river, even in the water, the wounded men stir and call for help.

‘Why don’t they attack?’ Margaret demands, her teeth bared, her hands gripped tight together. ‘Why don’t they attack again?’

‘They’re regrouping,’ I say. ‘God spare them, they are regrouping to charge again.’

As we watch, the horsemen who are left of the Lancaster force charge once more, down the hill at a brave pace; but still they have to get through the stream. This time, knowing the danger, they force the horses into the water and then in a great bound, up the steep banks, spurring them on to the York lines, and battle is joined. They are followed by the men who are fighting on foot, I know that my son and my husband will be among them. I cannot see them, but I can see the movement of the Lancaster forces as they come forwards like a wave, struggle through the stream, and break on the rock of the York line which holds, and fights, and they slug at each other, until we can see our line fall back, and the men on the wings start to slip away.

‘What are they doing?’ the queen demands incredulously. ‘What are they doing?’

‘We are losing,’ I say. I hear the words in my own voice but I cannot believe it, not for a moment. I cannot believe that I am here, high as an eagle, remote as a soaring gull, watching my husband’s defeat, perhaps watching my son’s death. ‘We are losing. Our men are running away, it is a rout. We thought we were unbeatable; but we are losing.’

It is getting darker, we can see less and less. Suddenly, I realise that we are in terrible danger, and we have put ourselves here by our own folly. When the battle is lost and the York soldiers chase the Lancaster lords to their deaths, hunting them down through the lanes, they will come to this village and they will scale this tower and they will find the greatest prize of the battle: the queen. Our cause will be lost forever if they can take the queen and win control of the prince and the king. Our cause will be lost and I will have lost it, letting her persuade me to come to this church and climb up to watch a life-or-death battle as if it was a pretty day of jousting.

‘We have to go,’ I say suddenly.

She does not move, staring into the greyness of the twilight. ‘I think we’re winning,’ she says. ‘I think that was another charge and we broke through their line.’

‘We’re not winning, and we didn’t break through, we are running away and they are chasing us,’ I say harshly. ‘Margaret, come on.’

She turns to me, surprised by my use of her name, and I grab her by the hand and pull her towards the stone stairs. ‘What d’you think they’ll do with you if they catch you?’ I demand. ‘They’ll hold you in the Tower forever. Or worse, they’ll break your neck and say you fell from your horse. Come on!’

Suddenly she realises her danger, and she races down the stone steps of the tower, her feet pattering on the stone treads. ‘I’ll go alone,’ she says tersely. ‘I’ll go back to Eccleshall. You must stop them coming after me.’

She is ahead of me as we run to the forge where the blacksmith is just about to put the shoes on her horse.

‘Put them on backwards,’ she snaps.

‘Eh?’ he says.

She gives him a silver coin from her pocket. ‘Backwards,’ she says. ‘Put them on backwards. Hurry. A couple of nails to each shoe.’ To me she says, ‘If they want to follow me they will have no tracks. They will see only the horses coming here, they won’t realise I was going away.’

I realise I am staring at her, the queen of my vision, who had her horseshoes on backwards. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I’m going,’ she says. ‘Back to Eccleshall to fetch the prince and the king and to raise the main army to chase the Earl of Salisbury all the way to Ludlow if we have to.’

‘And what am I to do?’

She looks at the blacksmith. ‘Hurry. Hurry.’

‘What am I to do?’

‘Will you stay here? And if they come through, you are to tell them that I was going to meet my army at Nottingham.’

‘You’re leaving me here?’

‘They won’t hurt you, Jacquetta. They like you. Everyone likes you.’

‘They are an army hot from the battlefield, they have probably just killed my son-in-law, my husband and my son.’

‘Yes, but they won’t hurt you. They won’t make war on women. But I have to get away, and get the prince and the king safe. You will save me if you tell them I have gone to Nottingham.’

I hesitate for a moment. ‘I am afraid.’

She holds out her hand to me and she makes the gesture that I taught her myself. The pointing-finger gesture that draws the circle in the air, which shows the wheel of fortune. ‘I am afraid too,’ she says.

‘Go on then.’ I release her.

The smith hammers in the t nail, the horse walks a little awkwardly but he is sound enough. The smith drops to his hands and knees in the dirt and Margaret steps on his back to get into the saddle. She raises her hand to me. ‘À tout à l’ heure,’ she says as if she is just going out for a little ride for pleasure, and then she digs her heels in her horse’s sides and she goes flying off. I look down at the ground; the marks in the soft earth clearly show a horse coming into the forge, but there is no sign of one leaving.

Slowly, I walk to where the track goes through the little village of Mucklestone, and wait for the first York lords to ride in.

It grows dark. In the distance at Blore Heath I hear a cannon shot, and then another, slowly through the night. I wonder that they can see anything to fire upon. Groups of men come by, some of them supporting their wounded companions, some of them with their heads down, running as if from fear itself. I shrink back inside the forge and they don’t see me as they go by. They don’t even stop to ask for drink or food, all the windows and doors in the village are barred to all soldiers – whatever badge they wear. When I see a Lancaster badge I step out into the lane. ‘Lord Rivers? Sir Anthony Woodville? Sir John Grey?’ I ask.

The man shakes his head. ‘Were they on horses? They’ll be dead, missus.’

I make myself stand, though my knees are weak beneath me. I lean against the door of the forge and wonder what I should do, alone at a battlefield, and if Richard is dead out there, and my son, and my son-in-law. I wonder if I should go out to the heath and look for Richard’s body. I cannot believe I would not know of his death. I would surely sense it, when I was so close to the battle that I could even see the churning of the stream where he might have drowned?