The King Must Die (The Isabella Books) (10 page)

“My lord,” he said, “have you any thoughts on the matter?”

Beneath my mail, an itchy rash demanded I scratch at places I could not reach. Sweat trickled from my temples, down my neck, dampening my padded gambeson. I spread my fingers on the table’s edge and bent closer to the map. “Why not unload ourselves of our burdens,” I offered, then quickly added, “I mean ... since they’re so close, couldn’t we catch them in a day or two, if we could move more lightly—like they do?”

Stroking his stubbled chin, Mortimer eased back from the table. “Lord Edmund?”

Kent flapped his eyelids and shrugged. “I suppose we could leave the supplies and cannons here with the infantry. Take the cavalry, our best archers, some swift-footed men-at-arms as well maybe, and go after them. They’ll have to cross the river somewhere. There is a ford at Corbridge, another one at Tyne.”

“We’d have to march through the night,” Mortimer said. “If we don’t, they’ll be out of reach again by tomorrow.”

Norfolk nodded at their every word. He seemed unwilling to openly disagree with anything. “They’d never expect it of us.”

“Do you agree, Sir John,” I said, hoping this sudden shift in tactics would not erupt into a heated argument and thankful Lancaster was not with us, or else it surely would have, “that if we are to trap them along the river, we must abandon the cannons for now? We’ll need your mounted knights.”

Readjusting his sword belt, he nodded. “I will do as you command, my lord.”

His ready obedience took me aback. I expected that one day I would hear the same words from all my lords, but not so soon. I barely knew how to block Will’s blunted sword in training, let alone how to lead an army into battle.

It was not enough to be a king in name; I had to act as one, even if that meant stepping aside when those around me knew better than me how things should be done. Not doing so had been one of my father’s greatest failings. I would not make the same mistakes. I would seek counsel, listen to it, learn, and when the time came that I knew, beyond all hesitation, what needed to be done, I would do it.

But today ... today was not the day. I was not ready to carry that burden on my slight shoulders.

***

We left in blackest night, stars shrouded by a blanket of clouds. The infantry, the cannons, and any supplies that could not be carried on our saddles were left behind. The road to Barnard Castle twisted and turned. The miles went on and on. I was lulled by a monotony of endlessly plodding hooves, the mournful creak of leather and the sporadic jangle of bits. I closed my eyes and must have fallen asleep, for my body jerked upright as my horse skittered. A stag, its great pronged horns gleaming white in the darkness, bounded onto the path before us. It turned with a kick and crashed into a thicket of woods, branches snapping.

The jolt had more than awakened me, it set my heart racing. My thighs were cramped, my back aching from lack of rest. Again, I closed my eyes, my horse following my standard bearer before me.

From time to time, I took a glimpse around me and for hour after hour everything was black and oddly silent. I kept waiting for dawn’s first light to break beyond the western hills, but the clouds remained thick, the world beneath a cavern of nothingness.

A burst of light blazed across the sky, followed by the ear-splitting crack of thunder. The shrill whinny of horses rent the air. Moments later, lightning flashed again and again, until night became day then became night again. Then, the rain began. It poured from above as if we stood beneath a mighty waterfall and could not move from it.

The sky was a watery gray, every image around me blurred by the deluge. Yet we rode on, shoulders slumped beneath the pounding rain, water leaking into the cracks of our armor, soaking our shirts beneath. Wind stirred across my face. Shivering now, I realized it must be morning, even though there was no sun to be seen.

The front line lurched to a halt at a row of pine trees spread across the top of a hill. In the valley before us lay a mud-engorged river. A stone bridge, leading to a small town, spanned its width. Surprisingly, there was no sign that the Scots had laid ruin to the town. Had they indeed run back north? Or had we passed them in the night as they watched from the forest depths, laughing? Somewhere in the branches above, an irritated
‘chuck, chuck’
sounded. I glanced up to see a red squirrel grasping its pine cone, tufted ears pointed alertly forward.

Mortimer blinked against the rain pelting his face. “Haydon Bridge.”

“What river is that?”

“That, my lord, is the South Tyne. But it doesn’t look as if they’ve crossed here. We should rest a few hours, allow the men to eat.”

I nodded dully. A burning cramp spread from my neck through my shoulders and upper back. I reached inside the sack slung from my saddle and groped for the loaf of bread. My fingers met a soggy lump. I pulled it out, wrinkled my nose, and tore off a piece with my teeth. Rank with mold, I spit it at the ground and then flung the entire loaf away. It smacked against a tree with a dull thud. The squirrel scampered down the pine’s trunk, tail flicking wildly as it eyed the tainted food.

My stomach groaned. I unstoppered my flask of wine and took a long swallow, even though I was too wet to be thirsty and knew it would do little to fill my belly. I might have asked for a cake made of oats, but there would be no fires in this downpour. “What next then?”

Climbing down from his saddle, Mortimer glanced about. The others had already staggered beneath the trees, but there was no dry shelter to be found there, and so they crumpled into sodden heaps beneath their horses’ bellies, reins clutched in stiff hands, or made a tent of their cloaks barely big enough to keep the rain off their faces.

“Same as before.” His voice cracked with fatigue and he sank to his haunches. “First, we must find them.”

I swung a leg over my saddle and slid to the ground, clutching the cantle to keep from falling. “It seems it would be easier if they found us.”

Mortimer’s lip twitched, as if to answer. But instead, he flopped over on his side with a grunt and curled into a ball, pulling his wet cloak over his head.

***

For days it rained. Heavy, relentless rain, stabbing the misery sharply into the marrow of our bones. Food was quickly becoming scarce, for we had each packed no more than a few days’ worth and much of that had been ruined by the rain and the sweat of our horses. We drank from the rivers, brown and gritty with silt, and took sleep when we could. Armor rusted, although we dared not abandon it, and leather became so rotted that straps and cinches were in danger of breaking.

Always, they were one day ahead of us, the hoofprints fresh in ankle-deep mud. Gentle valleys became seas, as streams overflowed their banks, and bogs lay all about in scattered pockets, impassable and reeking of stagnant water. The Scots’ looping trail wandered up and down hills, dove deep into forests, and crossed stream after stream. Pressed hard, many a horse went lame. Daily, we left some of our men behind, some ill, some whose horses had sunk belly-deep in the muck. As we rode off, we knew there was every chance the Scots would fall upon them and murder them.

Our formation disintegrated with each passing day, until our column straggled out far behind, more a scattering of clumps than orderly lines. Those who had somehow kept up their strength forged ahead, while those whose spirits were lagging trailed behind.

One night—I don’t know how many days ago it was that we had left camp, for every day seemed much the same—we bedded down in a thick woods somewhere in the valley of the River Gaunless. We knew they had been here, because villages had been ransacked and there was no shortage of victims to attest to their ruthless brutality. Still, we were in danger of losing them altogether. The trail that day had been nearly washed away, even though the rain had lightened and eventually stopped.

Someone had gathered wood and after much flint striking, a smoky fire sputtered. As tired as I was, sleeping on the hard, wet ground held no allure. Lightheaded from not eating, I stretched my palms toward the fire and dreamt of a table heaped high with food and a dry bed piled with pillows. Either we had to find them and fight—or go back home. If we left, they would run rampant and burn every town between here and Newcastle. I couldn’t let that happen.

“I would grant a lifelong fortune,” I thought aloud, “to the man who could track them down.”

Kent and Norfolk stood on the other side of the fire, their faces sallow in the wan, amber glow. They looked at each other.

“Why not send out more scouts?” Kent said.

Clasping my hands together, I looked up, smiled. “Yes, why not?”

I offered up the challenge to any who would accept. It would only take one man to find the Scots and return with word of their whereabouts for us to succeed and end this frustration. In the end, only one man came forward: Thomas Rokeby. He rode off at dawn as the first pale slice of sunlight in what seemed like weeks beamed from the east.

The next afternoon, he stumbled horseless into our makeshift camp, his face purpled with bruises and a jagged line of blood oozing across his forehead.

Mortimer strode forward and looked him over. “I take it you found them?”

Rokeby clenched his trembling knees with filthy hands. Mud caked his legs and arms, as if he had traversed a bog and fallen more than once. “More like they found me.”

My gut was grinding with emptiness, my head pounding with an ache that made it hard to think. I glanced at Mortimer, but he was intent on hearing what Rokeby had to say.

“You saw Douglas?” Mortimer said.

“Spoke to the devil himself.” Rokeby’s fingers probed the swollen flesh beneath his left eye. Next to it, a smear of dried blood ran from temple to jawline. Standing, he swiped a hand across his face and gazed intently at me. “Says he’ll wait for you, my lord, on the banks of the River Wear.”

At last!

“Show the way,” I told him and went to my horse. My knees folded beneath me. I flailed a hand out, catching hold of my stirrup, and quickly righted myself. My mounting weakness made me wonder if they were as hungry as us.

Damn Douglas to hell and back. I will not let him jeer at us from across the river, then run home laughing. He will bleed his last drop of blood on England’s soil—or be the death of me.

***

They were perched, like crows sunning themselves, atop a steep outcrop on the other side of a loop in the Wear. Thousands. An array of demons, with their flowing hair and naked arms. Whooping and waving their hands high in the air.

Norfolk tusked and shook his head. “Out of bowshot.”

“Which is precisely why he’s there,” Kent added. He cinched his sword belt tighter, so it no longer drooped low on his thinning hips.

We stood in the broad plain of the river across from them, holding the reins of our horses. Without fodder and the grass gone scant because of all the mud, our beasts’ ribs were showing. The journey had been as hard on them as us. My steed hung his head low between bony withers. He sniffed the grass, brown with mud where the water had flowed over it, and snorted loudly. I slipped my fingers through his silver mane to untangle the knots, but they were so many I gave up the cause. I had discarded most of his trappings days ago, not wanting to burden him to the point of lameness. Yet every night, I had slept in my armor, mindful that we were probably being watched. How else had they known where to go to stay ahead of us, always out of reach?

“My lords.” Mortimer’s armor, like the rest of ours, was dulled and pitted with rust. Still, he carried himself with his shoulders back, his chin thrust slightly forward and his eyes, hard as flint, taking in everything around him. His helmet was tucked beneath his arm, ready to be donned, should some stealthy Scot hiding in concealment let loose an arrow. “They’ll stand there taunting us like that forever if we let them. No, they’re not likely to advance. But
we
could strike.”