The Rose at Twilight (50 page)

“Because you were furious with me, Nicholas. Even your men thought you were too harsh.”

“Aye, they did,” he said, chuckling.

She leaned up on her elbow and peered into his face. “You are pleased with yourself. You wanted them to speak up for me!”

“They would not have liked having a wench in their midst on such a day,” he said. “Some think it bad luck even to have one near a battle. I thought there would be less resentment if they felt a little sorry for you, and I did not think it would hurt you to hear what I had to say. I could not cosset you, my love.”

“Oh, Nicholas, say those words again. I am never certain whether you mean them or if they just spill out unnoticed.”

“I mean them,” he said quietly, pulling her down and folding his arms tightly around her. “Kiss me, wife.”

She chuckled, happier than she could remember ever being before, and said, “Surely you do not mean to ravish me here in the midst of all your men, sir. What would they think?”

She saw his delighted grin. “They would think me a fool for draining energy I will soon need on the battlefield. But I mean only to hold my wife and cuddle her a bit, and maybe there will be a few kisses, and maybe”—his right hand slid down to stroke her backside—“maybe a bit more than that.”

Alys did not reply. He had pressed his lips to hers, and his tongue was seeking entrance to her mouth. She welcomed it with her own, and she welcomed his hands on her body, and his kisses as well, and later, when he slept, she snuggled close to him, though her body was heated enough by then to sustain them both, even had it been a cold winter night and not summer.

They were up again and mounted before the first light of dawn, and less than a quarter hour afterward entered the silent streets of Newark. Normally a bustling place, even at such an early hour, the town appeared to be deserted that morning, its citizens no doubt cowering behind bolted doors and shuttered windows, hiding their valuables, saying their prayers, in fear that the coming battle would take place on their doorstep.

There was light enough to see more easily when they passed through the market square, past well-appointed inns, to the high-towered church. Calling a halt, Nicholas ordered Hugh to find a way up the tower. “See what you can see from up there,” he said.

Hugh returned a short time later. “You might like to look for yourself, Nick. ’Tis an awesome sight.”

“We have no time. Could you spy the royal banners?”

“Nay, but I saw what must be Lincoln Cathedral to the east and Nottingham Castle on the western horizon. The forest and long stretches of the Great North Road are teeming with movement, Nick. When the sun rises, it will see thousands of steel helms and pike-heads winking back at it. The king’s main army is moving up from the southwest, and the rebels look to be heading for Fiskerton, that place we crossed the first time we took Lady Alys to London. From here, the crossing looks narrower and more shallow than it was then—fifty feet across, maybe two deep, for it’s down a foot, maybe two, from when we last crossed there.”

“Have they begun the crossing?”

“Not yet,” Hugh said.

“Then we ride. We must be past that point on the road—Stoke, is it not?—before they arrive, or we will have to veer west, and we will lose time if we do. Kick that palfrey of yours to a lope, Alys. We have no time to lose.”

Alys was not sure her palfrey knew how to lope, but with the example set by so many other horses, it managed such speed that she was hard-pressed to stay in her saddle, and finally resorted to clinging to the palfrey’s mane. The wild ride was a short one, for they began to meet horses and men coming toward them, and heralds, weaving their mounts through the others, seeking news of the rebel positions to carry back to their leaders. It was from them that Nicholas learned the king’s whereabouts, but in the midst of what had begun to look—to Alys, at least—more and more like a sea of riders, it was nearly nine o’clock before they found him in a churchyard, nearby in the village of Elston.

Nicholas dismounted quickly and went to kneel before him, speaking as he went. Alys saw Henry frown when Nicholas gestured toward her, but when Hugh lifted her down and the two of them took a few steps forward, then hesitated, Henry beckoned them on.

Making a deep curtsy, Alys looked up to see the king’s eyes twinkling. He said, “I am told that you exerted yourself greatly on my behalf, Lady Merion. I am out of stirring speeches, for I have just delivered one to an immense gathering of men-at-arms, so I hope you will accept a simple thank you.”

Nicholas cut in, saying, “With respect, your grace, we would ask you to go above, into the tower, where you can be better protected. I will remain here, with my men—”

“No, Nicholas,” the king said. “I am sending you forward with the majority of your men to warn Oxford and the vanguard that there are rebels about whose only purpose is to slay me. You may leave ten men to augment my yeoman guard, but only because I know you will not trust the thing to be done properly if some of your own are not here.”

Nicholas nodded and turned. “Hugh?”

“I will stay,” Hugh Gower told him.

Alys reached out her hand to her husband but said nothing.

Squeezing her hand, Nicholas gave her a teasing look, as if he knew the effort it cost her to hold her tongue, not to say she did not want him in the vanguard, which would bear the brunt of the fighting. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, and turned toward his horse. When he mounted, she saw that the dagger he carried was not his own. On the hilt, shining clearly in the sunlight, was the engraving of the head of a dog.

She closed her eyes in sorrow, and said a prayer. Moments after he had ridden away, she found herself high up in the church bell tower with the man she had once thought her worst enemy. Henry moved to the far side, to the open parapet, and without a thought for his rank or her own, Alys moved quickly to stand beside him. “Goodness, we can see for miles,” she said.

The two armies looked almost toylike below. The massive royal force was drawn up in battle order, its banners resplendent and its armor shimmering in the sunlight. The vanguard alone looked formidable, and behind them waited the rest, at least twice as many men as the rebels, who could be seen taking their stand on a hill above the river, near the village of Stoke. Over the steady din of hoofbeats, upraised voices, horses’ cries, and clanking metal, Alys suddenly heard the sprightly, unnerving sound of the rebels’ fife and drum.

The royal advance was slow, deliberate. It seemed forever to her before arrows and crossbow bolts began to fly. In all the din and flurry of motion that followed, she could scarcely tell what was happening, but before long, even she could see that the rebels had little chance. Their casualties were dreadful. Their forces were boxed in, sitting targets. Once Henry had pointed them out to her, she could tell the Germans from the Irish, for the former moved with steely discipline, the latter with a shrieking frenzy. The Irish, without any armor at all, were falling everywhere that she could see them. For a short time she tried to pick out banners, looking for the golden wyvern, but it was too horrible. She turned away, unable to watch anymore.

At a burst of sound from the churchyard below, she hurried to the other side of the tower to look down, but the angle was wrong, and she could see nothing. Exchanging a wary look with the armed yeoman who stood below her on the stairs, she listened anxiously for footsteps coming up the steps, but when they came, they were those of a single man.

The yeoman lowered his pike and stood aside to let Hugh pass. The king turned then and spoke quickly. “Rebels?”

“Aye, your grace, but we set a little trap, and they are no more danger to you.”

“Prisoners?”

“Aye, not one lost.”

“Good. Keep them safe till the battle is done, God willing, I shall deal with them then.”

“How goes it?” Hugh asked, moving to the parapet.

The king grimaced. “Had we not been at Bosworth, I might worry, for they are pressing the vanguard hard, but we have men in reserve today, so our position is stronger. We shall overcome them easily enough, but I tell you here and now that this is the last time I shall attend a battle. Having made the decision to keep to the rear, I ought to have known better than to come even so close as this. And do not think,” he added gravely, “that this decision is taken out of cowardice.”

“I do not,” Hugh said mildly.

“Others might, but we won the crown through being fortunate enough to slay the opposing leader. We must not give any more of mine enemies a similar opportunity.”

Alys was listening with but half an ear. The moment the king had said the vanguard was having a hard time, she had rushed to look, to try to find Nicholas. She could not do so, however, and though the battle was short, lasting but three hours in all, by the time it was over, she was nearly frantic with worry. She had thought it ended when the king announced that a great many common soldiers and quite a few knights and gentlemen were taking flight across the river, but after that there were bursts of fierce fighting that seemed to go on forever.

Finally, with a sigh of relief, Hugh said, “They’ve planted your banner, your grace, and there is Nick’s golden wyvern, my lady. Yonder, coming toward us.”

“They would not wave his banner if he were dead,” Alys said, as much to hear the words as to invite reassurance. She strained her eyes to see him, but even finding him, she could not make herself believe him safe until he came up the tower steps and she could fling herself at him and feel his arms close around her.

“You’ll get blood on your gown, but ’tis none of mine,” he said, hugging her. Then, recalling the king’s presence, he set her aside and added, “We took few losses, your grace, and the boy-king was captured. It will not surprise you to learn that he is not Warwick but a youth who confesses to being known by many names, including the unlikely one of Lambert Simnel.”

“It matters not how he is called if he is not noble,” Henry said. “I shall make clear to one and all that he is no enemy of mine. Methinks I shall put him to work in the royal kitchens.”

Nicholas nodded but did not smile. “I have other news, your grace, that will not please you so much. Lincoln is dead.”

The king swore. “I wanted him alive. By the rood, I gave orders that he was to be taken alive so that we could get to the bottom of this conspiracy. Now, by God, we may never know it all. What of that rascal Lovell?”

Alys had not been able to take her eyes off Nicholas, and when the king asked the question, her gaze shot to the dagger at her husband’s side. The dog’s head was clearly visible. Amazed, she heard Nicholas admit that Lovell was not dead.

“He escaped, your grace, swam the river with a number of others, but most of the rebel force has fallen. At a guess, I would estimate four thousand dead, and many so full of arrows they look like hedgehogs. ’Tis not a pretty sight.”

“We will catch Lovell,” Henry said, “but now I want to see Lincoln’s corpse. My yeomen will arrange it. You see to your wife. As for Hugh Gower,” he added, “I mean to knight him when this is over, for Lady Alys’s warning was on the mark, and he was able to trap a few rebels who may prove useful to us.”

A roar from below startled them all before they realized it was the army cheering Henry. He turned and waved from the parapet, then moved toward the stairs, shouting for his yeoman guard and scarcely giving the others a chance to make their bows, but Alys did not wait for him to disappear around the first turn of the stair before demanding to know if Nicholas had really seen Lovell cross the river to safety.

“Aye,” he said with a guilty look, putting a hand to the dagger’s hilt. “We nearly had him. There were men who would have chased him down, but in their heavy armor, I feared they might drown in the river, so I called them back. In sooth,” he added carelessly, “there was such a crowd of them taking flight that he might have drowned before he reached the other side.”

Alys did not need the stifled snort from Hugh to alert her. Giving her husband a straight look, she said, “Your men?”

“Aye, others might not have heeded me so quick.”

“The river is but two feet deep at the ford, sir, and your men wear only brigandines and other light armor.”

Nicholas shot a rueful look at Hugh, but the big man said, “He was a worthy foe, Nick, true to his liege lord.”

“Aye,” Nicholas said, looking at Alys, “and there were other reasons, as well.” The warmth in his eyes left her no doubt that he had let Lovell escape because of his love for her. Then the warmth faded suddenly, and he turned back to Hugh with bleak sadness in his expression. “Hugh,” he said, “Davy Hawkins fell defending Lovell’s retreat. He is dead.”

“Oh, no!” Alys cried. That news, added to all that had gone before, was too much too bear. She burst into tears, hugging herself, scarcely heeding when Nicholas drew her into his arms.

He said over her head to Hugh, “Take a couple of stout lads and see to his burial, will you?”

“We’ll take him back with us,” Hugh said. “My lass will want him buried at home.” He shot a measuring look at Nicholas from under his brows. “There is naught to be gained by making a song here about the man’s loyalties, I’m thinking.”

“I agree,” Nicholas said. He smoothed Alys’s hair from her damp cheeks, and bent to kiss her eyelids, for once not caring whether anyone else was near. “Do as you think best, Hugh.”

“Then I am for Wolveston when we are done here.”

“We will both go,” Nicholas said quietly. “I will commit my lady to the king’s care. She will be safe with him.”

“No,” Alys said, straightening abruptly. “I go with you.”

“You cannot,” Nicholas said. “’Tis far too dangerous. Every rebel who escaped death here today will be fleeing back to the north. Go on ahead, Hugh, I will be with you shortly.”

Alys paid no heed to Hugh’s going. “I will be safe with you,” she said, giving Nicholas look for look. Seeing by his expression that he still meant to forbid her, she said in fierce desperation, “My daughter is at Wolveston, sir. I will not stay away a moment longer than I must, do what you will. If need be, I will ride there alone after you have gone on ahead!”