York’s eyes were wary and Salisbury wondered if the duke intended to keep his heir away from danger. With so many listening ears around them, Salisbury could not ask. Even as he tried to frame the question delicately, the doors opened and huge trays of food were carried in by sweating servants. A cheer went up from the gathered men, echoed all around the castle and its grounds as the kitchen staff found mouths to feed.
They had marched two hundred miles on poor rations and they fell on the dishes like the starving men they were, stripping them clean and then wiping fingers around the edges of the platters in search of the last traces of grease. Salisbury looked on in dismay until he felt a touch on his shoulder and saw Edmund had returned with a wooden trencher of cold meats and a half-loaf.
‘No rice pudding?’ Salisbury said. ‘I’m joking. Bless you, lad, for remembering.’ His stomach was growling.
Edmund smiled and bowed, heading back to his own meal in the kitchens.
York had barely noticed the exchange as he pored over his maps. Salisbury joined him at his elbow, sharing the trencher as he and York ate and drank standing up. They could both hear rain spattering against the roof, increasing in force until it was a hissing roar.
‘I don’t envy the men outside,’ York said grimly, ‘but Sandal is too small for so many. Warwick will have to camp on the cleared land, when he comes. I don’t think we could squeeze one more soldier inside these walls.’
‘It’ll do the men of Kent good to see what a bit of real weather is like,’ Salisbury said cheerfully. ‘I only hope they are bringing food north with them.’ He gestured to the platters only to notice they had all been emptied. ‘My goodness, Richard. I hope you have stores for winter. These hounds will eat you out of house and home.’
He turned back, expecting his friend to smile. To his surprise, York looked uncomfortable.
‘I told the cooks to feed as many as they could, but eight thousand! Even a single meal has stripped every larder and storeroom. I’ll send out hunting parties tomorrow, if this rain lets up a little.’
Salisbury found himself yawning and smiled at the same time, so his jaw cracked.
‘You should get some sleep yourself, Richard. Hungry or full, you must rest. You and I are not as young as we were.’
‘You have a few years on me, old man,’ York replied. ‘Anyway, I doubt I could sleep for worrying.’
‘Well, I cannot stay awake,’ Salisbury said, yawning mightily once again. The hand he raised to his mouth was copied across the room and many of the men began to settle down where they sat, shoving and cursing for the best places by the fire. The dogs had already curled up and the castle had quietened around them, so that the stillness of a winter night stole upon them all.
‘I’m for bed, then,’ Salisbury said. ‘If my bones are not too sore tomorrow, I’ll bring in a fine buck for you. We’ll have a roast in the yard for all those who missed a full share tonight.’
York looked up from his maps for just an instant, smiling as the older man winked and made his way across the crowded floor.
In the darkness, Derry Brewer cursed to himself, muttering under his breath as he trudged through leaf litter and felt his cloak snag on brambles for the thousandth time. He held up his lamp, but without opening the shutters, it gave barely enough light for him to see his feet. The cloak tugged against his throat, choking him. In a temper, he pushed on like a horse in harness until the cloth tore free and sent him staggering. One of his boots sank into a pool of water up to his ankle.
The forest was a frightening place at night, especially for one city born and bred. Derry had never gone poaching, unless robbing a butcher’s shop counted. The trees were not so much black as utterly invisible, with ferns and thorns clustered so deeply between them that he felt his skin was torn to ribbons already. He’d stopped to suck a wound on his hands a dozen times. More than once, he’d found small thorns embedded there for him to worry out with his teeth. The worst of it was when he’d startle some sleeping animal, so that it would explode against his legs, all terror and wet fur and wide eyes, barely glimpsed in his lamplight before whatever beast it was crashed through the undergrowth, hooting in warning. So far away from the haunts of man, Derry also failed to understand why any bird would roost on the ground, only to startle him with suddenly beating wings as he stepped past. Given a choice, he would have preferred the rookeries in London.
He looked left and right, checking once again that he was keeping up with the line of lamps. They stretched as far as he could see in both directions as the army made their way deeper and deeper into the forest. Somerset had ordered silence on the outskirts, but still men swore and cursed as branches slapped their faces, bent back by those going before. Those who had armour were the only ones who could stride through the thickest briars, though even they could snag a foot, and when they fell, it made enough noise to wake heaven. Derry raised his eyes in disgust as one of them did just that, not forty paces away, some knight shouting a curse at the top of his voice as he twisted his ankle. If their business hadn’t been so serious, Derry would have seen the humour in it. As things were, he staggered grimly on with the rest, feeling as if every thorn or stinging branch, every plunging hole or drift of wet leaves, sucked away some of his strength. They were just past midwinter and the nights were at their longest, but this one seemed to have no end at all.
The line of lamps moved on. Trees dribbled fat drops above them, soaking them through. The rain had stopped for a time, but under the canopy the pattering went on for much longer, adding to their misery. The only glimmer of pleasure for Derry Brewer was that men like that pompous ass, Clifford, had been forced to dismount and trudge with the rest. He hoped the man fell into a badger sett, or better still, was bitten by something vicious.
It had not been luck that had placed scouts around Sandal Castle, watching for York’s forces. Derry Brewer had sent those men out days before and yet, when he’d suggested it, Clifford had merely snorted at him and peered down his nose. By the time the scouts returned with news of York’s army, the baron was nowhere to be seen and Derry had not been able to enjoy the man’s embarrassment.
Thick clouds made any glimpse of the moon or stars impossible, even if they could have seen through a canopy that would have looked much the same before the Romans had come. As he grew weary, Derry worried that they would either miss the fortress completely in the dark, or worse, break out on to the cleared land as the sun came up. He had never actually seen Sandal Castle and it was hard to make plans without that detailed knowledge.
He took a moment to peer into his lamp, checking the candle within was not about to burn out. He saw the wick was sitting in a pool of tallow and searched his pouches for a replacement stub. It was much easier to light a new one from the old rather than trying to strike a flint in the dark, or make his way over to the next man. Without stopping, Derry carefully opened the side of the pewter box, reaching in. He could see the men around him more clearly as he did so, glimpsing a line of striding Scots, all turning to see who was lighting them up. Then the wind gusted and his candle went out, making him swear.
‘Keep that noise down!’ someone said sharply, twenty paces or so behind.
Derry recognized Clifford’s voice and, in the pitch darkness, he was tempted to fall back and land the man a good belt while he couldn’t be seen. He clenched his jaw, moving across the line to the next swinging lamp instead. Hundreds of trudging men followed on his heels, needing his point of light to hold them on course. Without it, they’d wander off and vanish in the deep woods, never to be seen again.
32
Salisbury awoke feeling old. His hips and lower back were just about locked solid, so that he had to sit and stretch out his legs while the sun rose, groaning softly as the aches became sharp pain and then dulled again, loosening. His packs had been unloaded the night before, the servants of Sandal working long after the rest of the castle had gone to sleep. He had no memory of anyone entering his room, but a fresh bowl of water and clean hose and undergarments had been laid out for him. He used a linen cloth to wipe himself down, cleaning away the old sweat and smell of horse from his skin. His questing hands found a thick earthenware pot under the bed and he placed it carefully on the dresser to empty his bladder, sighing to himself with closed eyes before dressing.
A soft knock sounded at the door and Salisbury called, ‘Enter!’ admitting two servants.
One carried a leather bundle of shaving materials and the other bore a bowl of steaming water, heated in the castle kitchens. He rubbed his chin, feeling the white bristles. Alice said they made him look like an old man when he let them grow. The fellow stropping a razor on a strip of leather seemed steady enough, but Salisbury was still sorry Rankin was not there. It took a certain level of trust to let another man near his throat with a knife. Salisbury grunted to himself, raising his eyes in amusement at his own caution while he took a seat. As the barber rubbed warm oil into his skin, Salisbury could hear his stomach creaking, close enough to a voice to make him chuckle. Eight thousand men would be waking with the same pangs of hunger and there was nothing for them.
The sun was still rising as Salisbury reached the main yard, stopping at the door and looking out on the packed ground, still in the shadow of the walls so that frost gleamed on every surface. Many of the men were up and about, swinging their arms, blowing and stamping, doing anything they could to bring some life back to numb limbs. Others lay curled up, groaning and snoring in tightly packed groups like sleeping dogs. One enterprising captain was bullying and cajoling out a stream of those who had slept inside, ignoring their drowsy curses and sending half-frozen lads in to warm up. Salisbury approved. Good officers looked after their men.
The earl shivered at the thought of spending the night outside. They were all young men, of course, but with December almost over, the cold was simply brutal. The thought made Salisbury raise his eyes to the keep, already lit gold. Three men stood up at the highest point, watching the cleared land all around the fortress and buffeted by a wind that must have chilled them to the marrow. They were not even allowed a brazier before the sun rose, for fear that the light would spoil their ability to watch for enemies. The men turned slowly as Salisbury watched them, sweeping their gaze back and forth with no sign of alarm.
The earl collared a passing captain and passed on the responsibility of putting a hunting party together. It was one of the perks of his rank that he only had to stand and wait, blowing long plumes of mist through his hands, while the man sent runners to the stables and called for volunteers who wanted first choice of whatever meat they could find. Around thirty men raised their hands at that, the number trebling quickly as news spread of the hunt.
Salisbury crossed the open ground as they began to gather at the gatehouse, fastening his cloak at his throat and wrapping himself in the thick folds. When he’d been young, he’d seen those who complained of the cold as somehow weaker than him. He just hadn’t felt it the way they seemed to then, though the passing years had stolen away much of his immunity. The wind seemed to reach over the walls, tugging and blustering at the men so that they staggered with the force of it. At least the sky was clear, a small blessing. Before the sunlight had spread right across the yard, Salisbury had mounted with three knight-captains and two hundred men waiting on foot to flush game. He was pleased to see a dozen carried bows and quivers. They’d need anything they could find to feed so many in the castle, from birds and rabbits even to foxes or wolves unlucky enough to cross their path. The kitchen spits would take any living thing for roasting, though Salisbury hoped most of all to bring back a fine doe or stag.
The soldiers at the gatehouse whistled up to those in the keep. Those shivering men stared out one last time before calling, ‘Clear!’ down to them. The massive wooden door was pushed outwards and the portcullis raised. Six soldiers pushed the drawbridge out, dropping it into its ruts over the gap.
Salisbury looked out at a sodden field beyond the outer moat, with patches of water shining in the morning sun. He mounted as the first ranks of archers marched out, chatting and laughing with each other as they went. The forest lay ahead of them, at the end of half a mile of open land, an artificial line marked by the groundskeepers of centuries before and never allowed to grow too close to the castle.
With the gate open, every man within seemed to tense, made suddenly vulnerable, so that hands crept to sword hilts and hundreds stood who had been lying down. Salisbury rode out, feeling his heart beat faster with sheer joy as the exertion brought life to his limbs and blood coursing through him. His hips settled back into aching pain, but he ignored it, looking ahead for the best spot to enter the treeline. By his side and behind him, two hundred men broke into a trot, breathing harder as they strung bows and called out to friends. Behind them, the drawbridge was taken up, leaving a yawning gap down to the moat. The portcullis was winched back down to its slots in the stone and the castle gate was drawn in and barred once more. Salisbury looked back at the castle, seeing one of the guards on the keep raise his hand to them. He replied with the same gesture as his troop of hunters crossed the cleared land and approached the treeline, still in deep shadow.
York came awake suddenly, jerking up in his bed and wondering vaguely what had dragged him from sleep. He had stayed up very late, marking his maps and trying to plan for every possible combination of forces against him. For a moment, he turned over and began to drift back to sleep once again, then another horn sounded, high above his head.
The keep.
He threw himself out of bed, stripping off his bedshift and yanking on tunic and hose without conscious thought, swearing as he found one of his boots had somehow vanished under the bed in the night. His cloak hung over a chair and he grabbed it along with his sword and baldric, stumbling out into the corridor and strapping the weapon over his shoulder and around his waist as he went. The horn sounded again, over and over, the call to arms, to rouse the fortress against an enemy force. York began to run, shoving his loose hair back from where it fell over his face.