Sacrifice (19 page)

   “Don’t be ridiculous,” he replied, more harshly than he intended, “we will have enough to occupy us, without worrying about you into the bargain. Stay in Paris and keep my Diana company.”

   Her response frightened him. Martin could have coped with tears, but not this sudden explosion of wrath. She shrieked and clawed at her brother, denounced him as traitor and coward and worse.

   “I will not languish here in Paris, swapping jests with your Austrian whore!” she shrieked, “I have earned the right to kill Yorkists, just as much as you!”

   “She is my wife, not a whore,” he bellowed back, “call her that again, and, niece or no, I will have you flogged through the streets!”

   “Try it,” she snarled, reaching for the knife she carried everywhere with her, “I’ll carve your ugly face like a pie.”

   In the end Martin avoided further unpleasantness by agreeing to let Elizabeth ride with the expedition, but not as far as Hammes.

   “As soon as the castle is in sight, you will turn around and ride back to Paris,” he said, “that is my final word on the matter. I am your uncle, and your protector now.”

   “Protect yourself,” she retorted, but made no further protest.

   Secretly, he admired Elizabeth’s boldness. She possessed more courage than him, for all his brute strength and martial skill, and had suffered indignities that would have broken him several times over. She and Diana were kindred spirits, though his wife was far more circumspect, and saw Martin off to Hammes with little obvious sorrow.

   “Men call me your whore,” she said, pecking him lightly on the cheek, “though you made me your wife. Try not to make me a widow.”

   Martin was almost relieved to reach the dank marshlands near Hammes, and to hear the distant thunder of cannon.

   Brandon lumbered a few steps ahead. He was a huge man, not suited to moving swiftly and silently, and waded through the marsh with exaggerated caution. His men were strung out around him in loose order, making use of every scrap of cover.

   Fortunately there was plenty of it. Martin kept low, sometimes dropping on all fours, careless of the brackish water and wet, stinking mud. Soon he was splattered from head to toe in filth, but the castle was getting closer, and the Yorkists remained ignorant of their presence.

   He and his companions wore half-armour, breastplates and greaves over padded leather jerkins. This was no place for full harness. There were whirlpools and bogs hidden among the marshes. A man weighed down by too much steel might easily be sucked down into the depths.

  Brandon stopped suddenly, and raised his shaggy head, like a bear sniffing the wind. “See there,” he hissed, pointing at one of the towers, “the postern gate is just to the left. With luck, the garrison will see us and leave it open.”

   Martin strained his eyes, and made out a narrow wooden door, just beside the foot of the tower. Dreary winter sunlight glinted off a helm or two on the battlements above.

   They continued to plod through the mire. Martin gulped down his excitement as they drew ever closer. Now was the most dangerous time, when their goal was almost within touching distance. This was when men lost their heads, and threw away all their good work with one moment of rashness.

   A few of the men were getting too far ahead of the others. “Damn their enthusiasm,” he muttered, and looked to Brandon to call them back.

   The big knight did nothing. All his attention was on the castle.

   Martin swore under his breath. He had taken part in countless raids and ambushes of this sort, and so had the men of his Company. Brandon was acting like a rank amateur.

Twenty-five of Martin’s followers survived the battle at Stink Hold, most of them loyal to him. He hanged the treacherous Casimir and three of his supporters outside the walls of the castle, which left twenty-one.

  
Bound by Meurig’s dying oath, he had brought the survivors west, across the length of Austria and Germany and into France, to join Henry of Richmond.

   Martin found the pretender at Paris, and now found himself here, flirting with death in the marshes.

   He heard a crackle of gunfire somewhere to his left, followed by a scream. A man staggered out of the reeds, clutching his shoulder.

   “Yorkists,” the wounded man gasped, his face taut with pain, “they were hiding in the reeds. Run!”

   More gunshots split the air. Most of the bullets missed, but one hit him square in the back of the skull. His body jerked, eyes wide as the soft lump of iron blew his head apart, and he flopped, stone dead, into the mud.

Soldiers emerged from the thick clump of reeds to the west. Martin hurriedly counted nine, armed with arquebuses and crossbows. 

   The crossbowmen jogged towards the Lancastrians, while the men with arquebuses stopped to reload their clumsy weapons.

   Brandon panicked. “To the castle,” he yelled, waving frantically at his men, “quickly, for your lives!”

   “Sir,” shouted Martin, “take half the men. I’ll take the rest and hold off the Yorkists.”

   Brandon, who had made it clear he regarded Martin as a mere sell-sword, and the scum of the earth, looked startled. “Ah…yes,” he stammered, “do so. Charles, Edmund, stay with him.”

   Charles and Edmund, two of Brandon’s retainers from Suffolk, shouted at their mates to follow Martin. He was already sprinting towards the nearest crossbowman, shouting curses to put him off his aim.

   The Yorkist was young, with barely a fuzz of beard on his cheeks, and his nerve broke. He had ample time to aim and shoot, but instead he dropped the crossbow and reached for his sword.

   A bad mistake, and the last he made on earth. His blade was barely half-drawn before Martin was on him.

   “God for Lancaster and Saint George! The White Hawk!”

   Martin’s sabre cut through the air and sliced into the youth’s neck, cleaving downward in until it reached his hip, virtually cutting him in half. His body collapsed in a shower of blood and entrails, plastering Martin’s already filthy armour in hot gore.

   Something whipped over Martin’s head as he wiped his face clean of blood, and almost parted his hair. One of the Yorkists had taken a pot-shot at him.

   “You handless swine,” he roared, shaking his bloody sabre, “where in hells did you learn to shoot? If any man in my Company shot like that, I’d have his hide for a belt!”

   His men tore into the outnumbered Yorkists. One lay in the mire with a crossbow bolt imbedded in his guts. Leaving the others to their work, Martin jogged over to him and knelt to inspect the wound.

   “Sorry, lad,” he said, patting the dying man’s arm, “we would need a good surgeon to get that out, and we ain’t got one.”

   He laid down his sabre and drew his dagger. “Best this way,” he said shortly, and plunged the blade into the man’s heart, leaning his weight on the hilt to make it as swift as possible.

  
Two dead.
He looked towards the castle, and saw Brandon and his men streaming through the postern gate. The garrison had spotted their approach, thank God.

   More Yorkists advanced from the north, drawn by the sound of fighting. A few were mounted, light horse with lances, guiding their horses carefully over the difficult ground.

   Martin rose to his feet. “Leave off,” he shouted, “get to the castle. The castle!”

   The others heard him and fled for the safety of the walls. They left five Yorkists dead and dying in the marsh, which Martin considered a decent tally.

   He was the first to reach the gate, and the last through it, standing guard with his sabre while the others ran inside.

  
My, the brave officer
, he thought,
what a reputation you shall make.No-one shall know how you pissed yourself in terror at the Siege of Stein, or used a dying comrade as a shield against gunfire at Gozzoburg.

  
The Yorkists were careful to stay well beyond range of the walls, and confined themselves to insults. Martin grinned, stuck two fingers up at them, and heaved the door shut.

   He was stuck inside Hammes Castle for another month. The Yorkists sent for reinforcements from Calais, so they could throw a tighter cordon around the walls.

   “God help poor soldiers,” he remarked one glum afternoon, leaning idly on a merlon and picking at a bit of loose masonry. About quarter of a mile to the west the Yorkists were hard at work priming their artillery, such as it was.

   “Two pathetic little demi-culverins,” he sneered, “pop-guns, scarcely able to knock over a tree. What is the point? They might as well save their powder.”

   “They have to be seen to make an effort,” said Brandon, “King Richard is a hard master, and expects results.”

   Martin wagged a finger at him. “Richard Plantagenet, not King Richard,” he said in a tone of mock reproof, “or else you may call him false usurper, homicide and kinslayer. Those are the rules, as set down by our lord and king, Henry the Seventh.”

   Brandon smiled, white teeth showing in a hedge of black beard. “Thank you. I was forgetting. Richmond already calls himself king, and seals his letters with a royal signet. Yet he has fought no battles, and won not a foot of land.”

   “Yet,” said Martin. He and Brandon had become unlikely friends. The knight was not too proud to admit he panicked during the Yorkist ambush, or to acknowledge Martin’s part in rescuing the situation.

   Martin snorted with laughter. One of the Yorkist crewman had accidentally dropped a cannonball on his mate’s foot, and the two had fallen to blows. A third man tried to intervene and suffered a fat lip for his pains.

   “Fifteen hundred men,” said Martin, “that was the number of mercenaries promised by Lord Cordes, last we were in Paris.”

   Brandon looked unconvinced. “Sell-swords,” he muttered, “cowardly Frenchmen and beggarly Bretons. We can’t hope to invade England with such a rag-bag little force.”

   “You might regard those cowards and beggars in a different light when it comes to battle,” replied Martin, “I know proper soldiers when I see them. So does Lord Cordes. I had a good look at those fifteen hundred at Pont de l’Arche. Good lads, and they know their business. Swiss, some of them. Best soldiers in Europe.”

   “You think so? Against mounted knights and men-at-arms? They would be swept away in the first melee.”

   Martin whistled through his teeth. Brandon was a brave knight, but knew nothing of the latest developments in war outside England. He hoped the Yorkists were in a similar state of ignorance.

   “Have you ever seen a charge of knights against a disciplined wall of pikes and arquebuses?” he asked, “I have. Alas for chivalry! The old ways are dying out, Thomas. Gunpowder and shot take the place of lance and sword.”

   Brandon didn’t look happy with that, and turned his attention to the Yorkist cannon. “Watch out,” he said, “they are about to fire.”

   “Oh dear,” Martin replied indifferently, “should we surrender now, or later?”

   There was a brief roar of gunfire, followed by a sharp crack as one of the seven-pounder balls smashed against the foot of the wall they stood on. It chipped off a small piece of mortar, rebounded and bounced away. The other gun missed completely, no mean feat given the size of its target.

Martin laughed, and went off in search of supper.

   The futile siege dragged on to the end of February, when the Yorkists sent an envoy under a flag of truce to the gate.

   As captain of the garrison, Brandon spoke with him from the rampart. Martin and a few of Brandon’s retainers were also present.

   “We offer terms,” declared the envoy, “in return for surrendering the castle, you and your men will be given safe-conduct, and allowed to depart in peace with your baggage and weapons. Lady Blount is permitted to go with you.”

Sir James Blount had left his wife behind when he fled from Hammes. She was a stolid, pleasant woman with a dry wit, and Martin had whiled away many hours playing chess with her.

   Brandon turned to Martin. “What do you think?” he asked, “it sounds reasonable. They can’t get in, and I’m sick of this bloody place.”

   Martin thought for a moment. “Oxford must be somewhere nearby,” he said, “he promised to relieve us once he had gathered enough men. The Yorkists don’t want to be caught between two fires, so they offer terms while they can get them. I suggest you accept. This castle is of little use to our cause.”

   Brandon agreed, and soon afterwards the entire garrison, with Lady Blount to the fore, rode out of Hammes with banners flying and honour intact.

   “A little victory,” remarked Martin, “and another fifty men to join Richmond’s cause. Not a bad bit of work.”

   He spoke lightly, but his intent was deadly serious. The war, and Martin’s personal quest for redemption, had only just begun.  

Chapter 19

Rouen, April 1485

There were times when Elizabeth missed her alter-ego. Her uncle insisted she put aside Maud the Knife and behave like a lady, which meant doffing her men’s clothes and wearing a dress.