Somerset shook his head, flushed and uncomfortable.
‘I am sorry if I have embarrassed you, Your Highness. If I could, I would offer my life tomorrow and see you spared from harm. I have no sons of my own – and you are … you were my father’s hope when he died, my brother’s when he stretched his neck on a York block. In their memory, I would give my life to save yours – all to see the sons of York made cold and
broke
.’
There was a terrible passion in Somerset as he spoke the last and both Prince Edward and his mother looked away rather than observe his most intimate pain.
‘I will command the centre square,’ Edward murmured once again. He had not understood all he had heard and he wished to be certain the lords had not taken away what he wanted with their speeches.
‘I’ll stand with you then, if I may, lad,’ Lord Wenlock said. When Prince Edward nodded, the old man reached out and clapped him soundly on the back.
Somerset came back to himself at the words and nodded. With formality, he bowed to queen and prince.
‘It is settled then. My lord Courtenay, Earl Devon, will take the left wing. I will take the right – and Prince Edward and Wenlock the centre square. Very well. I will tell the men
to sleep, as best they can. When it is over tomorrow, I am at your orders. I’ll know better then if we should go on into Wales – or back to London to display the body of York for the crowds.’
‘I will pray for it,’ Margaret said. ‘Go to your own rest now, Edmund. I will ask God for our victory tomorrow. We can make it all anew if Edward falls. With men like you, my lords, we can begin again.’
Edward could already see the sun’s dim haze of gold in the east and he breathed out, relieved it would not be like Barnet. He’d understood how much good fortune had played a part in his victory there. He did not dwell on it, as he did not dwell on anything, but it had given him pause. Perhaps luck had given him Warwick and Montagu in the end. He would win the rest with strength and endurance – and he would be more ruthless than those who faced him.
His weary army had moved up at first light, bringing a dozen cannon carts trundling along with them. The teams of young men who had bowled them along the roads were just about finished, bent over and staggering, so tired they could barely stand. A few had gone down on the way, feet broken under a wheel or with an arm wrenched by the spokes. Yet the rest would still play their part.
As the mists continued to thin and swirl, it did not please Edward to see the forces of Lancaster arrayed across a wide line and somehow six or eight yards above his men, as if they floated on air. It was no more than a mild rise in the land, but still it meant his soldiers would be fighting uphill as they attacked. They were already tired after the vast distance they had marched to cut Margaret off.
Edward grumbled to himself, but there was little he could do, at least before the sun thinned the mists and he could see the landscape around them. His brother George sat just a few places away in line, looking up at the standing ranks of Lancaster in awe almost, as if they were a religious vision.
Edward tightened his mouth in reaction to seeing Clarence with his own hanging open. They made a fine, brave sight, it was true, with huge banners flying, the blue and yellow of Somerset, the red and yellow of Devon, the black and white feathers of a Prince of Wales. Edward did not know the three black heads on Wenlock’s banners and had to point and ask one of his heralds. He knew old man Wenlock by reputation and was just surprised to find he was still alive. Edward wondered if Margaret had lost so many that she had to rely on boys and ancients.
His brother Richard came cantering across the marching lines, kicking up clods of loose earth and mud as he went.
‘Did you see Somerset on our left?’ he called. ‘He bears a grudge, they say, for his father and his brother.’
‘Why not?’ Edward retorted. ‘I do myself – and I lost better men than old Somerset and his lad.’
‘Yes, Brother, I believe I am aware. Still, I heard he has fire in his blood. If you’ll let me take the left wing, I would sting him first with cannon and arrow. Let me see if I can enrage and draw him out, away from that ridge.’
Edward nodded his assent. He trusted his brother – and Lord Hastings, for that matter. He understood how much a battle depended upon that trust. It could not be one great general leading his men, at least not with so many. It was a brotherhood and he realized he was more comfortable on the field of war than any quiet room in London or Windsor. He was made for the battle shout, the clash of arms. Silence and peace wore him down like a mill wheel held to him.
While Edward brooded, Richard of Gloucester raced off with a dozen captains falling in behind him, rearranging entire companies so that they halted and took up new positions on both flanks. The task was made no easier by the land they crossed. The forces of Lancaster sat serene on their
escarpment, but every York company was forced down tiny paths between hedges, or made to seek out a gate at the end of a field bordered in hawthorn bushes they could not push through. It was deliberate, of course, which did not make it easier to bear. Edward could hardly blame his enemies for choosing a spot that suited them and interfered with his best deployment. Yet he found himself trotting down a labyrinth of hedge-alleys, separated from his own men as if he was working through a maze. He’d lose sight of the Lancaster forces in the mist or just by the lay of the land and overgrown banks of thorn. In armour, he was sweating like a blacksmith, lacking the vital calm he needed to command well. He could feel anger simmering in him. He welcomed it.
Edmund Beaufort, Duke Somerset, looked down on a landscape of white and dark green, broken by patches of marching men or horsemen hurrying the rest along. What he saw pleased him well enough. He’d seen the extent of the farming ditches that lay to the south of his position as he’d formed the men. It gave him some satisfaction to watch the banners of York go wandering off down ancient tracks as they tried to find their way back to the main direction of advance. If it would not have meant sending orderly ranks into that broken ground and losing their advantage, he’d have been tempted to make a dash down and surprise the enemy before they could truly form up. He did not give the order and watched instead as they found their way closer and closer. They would arrive sweating and weary, he thought.
At one point, the centre of York’s army trudged up a rise in the ground so that they were almost level with Somerset’s banners, but then had to watch them rise once more as the ground dropped into a culvert between the two forces. Somerset smiled at a glimpse of armoured men clambering over
a stile in a field, half a mile off. He had no desire to give them the slightest advantage, not when he stood for the rightful king of England and his son.
Margaret had ridden away with just four guards at first light, seeking out a spot in the town where she would have to wait for news. Somerset did not envy her that. For all the danger he would face, he did not think he could have endured hours of silent worry, waiting for word from the field.
His men were ready, armed in good iron that would not break, clad in fine mail or the best plate. Many of them had painted the metal, so that they stood like shining beetles in dark green or red. The poorer knights and men-at-arms stood clad in shades of rust, in armour their fathers had worn.
Somerset could see their confidence. They had the rising ground and the numbers to hold it. More, they seemed to understand how right it was to consider themselves superior to the stumbling, perspiring ranks coming along towards them. Somerset saw determination in his men and he was well pleased. He saw some of them gesture mutely to those they glimpsed in the parting mists. They wanted to
begin
. Numbers were not the only coin on the scale of victory in battle, Somerset knew that very well. There would come a moment in any conflict of arms when an ordinary man would want to run. If he did, and if the contagion of his fear spread to those around him, his cause would be broken, his women taken, his land enjoyed by others. Yet if somehow he did
not
, if he could find it within himself to remain with his friends and his companions in iron, he would be Sparta, he would be Rome, he would be England.
‘I believe we will break them here,’ Somerset called suddenly across the heads of his men. His horse snorted and threw its head up, forcing him to walk it in a tight circle as it
settled back down. ‘They will come against us and we will say “Enough” to them all. Enough to their petty spite, their ambition! Call enough to all of it. We
have
a king. His son, the Prince of Wales, stands here on the field with us.’ They cheered as he took another breath and his usual dour mood eased just a fraction, warmed by their voices.
‘Call “Lancaster” or call “Wales” if you will. But call an end to these usurping beggars, who are not fit to wear the crown of our realm.’
The cheering grew louder as they laughed and stamped in reply, showing their approval and casting off the nervousness of waiting to be attacked. As he cheered with them, Somerset saw the banners of Gloucester come through the mist ahead, seeming close enough to touch. He looked for the man himself and saw him there, in armour of green or black, his dark-blond hair unbound and no sign of a helmet. He looked every inch a cruel knight. Somerset felt all his years as he stared down at the eighteen-year-old, riding with his hands held high and lightly on the reins, making his horse step over the rough-turned rows of clay and grass.
The mist was thinning then under the sun’s warmth. Though dawn had barely come, Somerset could watch as Richard of Gloucester brought a mass of brown-clothed archers up on his wing. He saw too the black pipes of cannons held between two cartwheels, aimed and set with blocks and braziers. Trails of grey smoke carried far on the morning breeze that stole the mist away.
Somerset was aware of his captains calling orders for shields to be brought up. His men would have to endure for a time, that was what came of choosing a spot and deciding to stand there. His own archers would answer. Though Somerset had no cannon, he had yet to see one worth its name on the field. They had a place in battering down the walls of a
fortress, that was proven work, beyond any doubt. Where there was movement, where men could overwhelm the cannon teams, he saw no future in the filthy things, all noise and smoke, as if brave men should run screaming from those things alone.
He watched as a thin line gathered ahead of the archers, carrying short lances over their shoulders. Somerset nodded in irritation as he understood the smoking fuses. Hand-gunners. It seemed he would have to stand straight through a swarm of bees that day. He did not intend to show any fear, or anything at all. He did not like his men to see him flinch, in case they thought he was afraid. Richard of Gloucester would have to attack, in the end. Somerset clenched a gauntlet in prospect. His men would have the chance then to take back any drop of blood they had lost. He wished only to have the chance to face the younger son of York himself. Under his breath, he began to murmur silent prayers.
‘Almighty God, an it pleaseth you, remember well my brother and my father. Welcome them into your embrace and peace. I pray today, only to find Richard of Gloucester within my arm’s reach. I ask for nothing more, Lord, but that small kindness. If I am to live, I ask for the will to see this through. If I am to die, I ask only to see my kin again.’
Richard of Gloucester looked left and right, pleased with the array of silent ranks. They still stood below the rise of the land, but the mist had withered away and the sun was rising warm. There was a reason why battles were fought in spring and they felt it then, with blood running hot in their veins. Somerset had chosen his high ground and stood still for all of their approach. His archers would have an advantage of range, but there was no help for that. Richard halted his men
at four hundred yards from Lancaster, a dark line running across the ridge ahead. A challenge lay in those still ranks. It was one they wanted to answer, as stags will answer, smashing together in a great crunch of bone, antler against antler.
Richard filled his chest, sitting tall with one hand on his sword hilt, still undrawn.
‘Ready, archers! Ready, cannon. Slow advance into range!’
It was the moment all men hated, when they would approach in line, staring across a field, waiting for the air to spring dark with thousands of shafts, for gunpowder to billow its white smoke across from them as they marched in.
Somerset gave no order and Richard swallowed nervously. He knew he made a fine target in his black armour. It was hard to force his mount forward with the men, but he was certain he would not die. Other men would, without a doubt. Yet Richard was touched and blessed, he could feel it. Death would not come for him, no matter how he called for it.
His archers bent their bows as they walked, knowing his next order. It came as Somerset roared and the air blackened with whining shafts.
‘Halt! Archers, nock and draw! Release!’ Richard’s orders were taken up by the captains, each tending to men he knew well. The hand-gunners knelt to fire ahead of his archers and for the first time, Richard saw men fall in the lines above them, when their smoke cleared. Still, he did not like to be blinded as arrows dropped down at him. The range was short and brutal and he held no shield, relying instead on his armour. He knew it would take the most perfect of shots to pierce his carapace, but still it was hard not to flinch away from arrows falling. Only his horse seemed unaffected, or unaware, standing calm as shafts thumped and cracked into the ground all around them.
It showed then, what he had done. With his brother’s
blessing, Richard had concentrated all his fire on Somerset’s own position. Arrow, ball and shot had torn into a narrow strip around Somerset’s banners, killing dozens of men who had found themselves in a hail of steel points and lead balls, while cannon shot ripped through a standing line, taking down two or three at a time. One of Somerset’s banners wavered and fell and of course the York army cheered the sight, delighted by the first fruits of success.
Somerset’s archers had aimed their shafts all along the advancing York line, where men waited with shields and the best armour. There had been injuries. Men in mail or plate lay perfectly still amidst their fellows, almost as if they were asleep. They were not too many.
Richard raised and dropped his hand and by then his cannon teams had reloaded. There was a visible flinch in the lines around Somerset. They had seen they were the target and not one of them wanted to stand close to Somerset himself.
Edmund Beaufort sat his mount, apparently untouched. His horse wore an armoured headpiece set with a spike for close combat against foot soldiers. It pawed the ground as his banner-bearers edged back. The duke sensed their movement and turned his head to snap an order at them.
Down below, Richard of Gloucester saw the movement and smiled to himself.
‘Archers! Again. At Somerset!’ They were more accurate than his cannon teams and far more frightening. Some stood in lines like foot soldiers, while others jerked forward in stabbing thrusts, giving themselves a few more yards of range as they loosed and darted back to their friends. They called out, judging each other’s shots all the time, hooting when a bow snapped or a man slipped and sent his arrow plunging into the ground ahead of him. They were merciless
in their mockery of poor skill, as it was all they had and all they valued.
Richard wished he’d brought more of them, that his brother had waited for another thousand bowmen. They would have torn Somerset’s wing to pieces. He found his mind fastening on small details as his archers hammered the wing. Somerset still lived. His banner had been raised up once again and the man carrying it had lasted just a moment before he too fell, pierced by shafts. Somerset roared a challenge, but they poured fire up at him still, cannon and ball and arrow. The smoke of the guns went some way to make them all blind. The archers kept casting poisonous glances at the teams ruining their perfect aim, but the combination had torn great gaps in the Lancaster lines, while the rest lay untouched. No one there understood why Gloucester was driving his entire store of missiles against one man, except Richard himself and Edward in the centre. For an hour, he made that spot a hell and Somerset knew it was all at him. His armour was smacked and rocked a dozen times, so that he could taste blood on his lips. He had accepted a shield and drawn a studded mace. The solid heft of the weapon felt good in his hand. He felt anger rising like steam in him and then something snapped his head back so that his helmet rang. He called a messenger to him and the young man came cringing, so that Somerset scorned his cowardice as he spoke.