Kingdom Come Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also in the Kingmaker series

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Family Tree

  Cast of Major Historical Figures

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Two

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part Three

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part Four

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Copyright

  About the Book

  1470

  The recent tensions between King Edward and his great ally, the Earl of Warwick, lie forgotten these past months, but even as winter tightens her grip on the land, the peace is shattered by a vicious attack on one of the King’s allies.

  Long-buried secrets are brought to the surface, and Thomas and Katherine must finally decide where their loyalties lie, and choose between fight or flight, knowing either choice will incur a terrible price.

  From Lincoln to Bruges, from Barnet to the great battle at Tewkesbury, both must play their part in one of the most savage wars in history.

  The Wars of the Roses…

  About the Author

  Toby Clements was inspired to write the Kingmaker series having first become obsessed by the Wars of the Roses after a school trip to Tewkesbury Abbey, on the steps of which the Lancastrian claim to the English throne was extinguished in a welter of blood in 1471.

  Since then he has read everything he can get his hands on and spent long weekends at re-enactment fairs. He has learned to use the longbow and how to fight with the pollaxe, how to start a fire with a flint and steel and a shred of baked linen. He has even helped tan a piece of leather (a disgusting experience involving lots of urine and dog faeces). Little by little he became less interested in the dealings of the high and mighty, however colourful and amazing they might have been, and more fascinated by the common folk of the 15th century: how they lived, loved, fought and died. How tough they were, how resourceful, resilient and clever. As much as anything, this book is a hymn to them.

  He lives in London with his wife and three children.

  Also in the Kingmaker series

  Winter Pilgrims

  Broken Faith

  Divided Souls

  In memory of my much-missed friend and beloved brother-in-law,

  Ian Hanbury Philips,

  1972–2016

  Cast of Major Historical Figures

  KING EDWARD IV:

  Victor of the battle of Towton, crowned king in 1461, he has been on the throne nine years, but has yet to achieve real peace or fulfil his promises.

  WILLIAM, LORD HASTINGS:

  Ennobled after Towton and still King Edward’s Chamberlain and procurer, now with a substantial power base of his own.

  GEORGE, DUKE OF CLARENCE:

  King Edward’s younger brother, willingly used as a pawn by those seeking an alternative king.

  RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER:

  King Edward’s youngest brother. As staunch, loyal and honest as the day is long – for the moment.

  RICHARD NEVILLE, EARL OF WARWICK:

  Architect of the first Yorkist victory, later known as the Kingmaker, now dissatisfied with his lot and happy to make use of the Duke of Clarence to unseat his former protégé the King.

  JOHN NEVILLE, EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND:

  Younger brother of the Earl of Warwick, used to be Lord Montagu, promoted for services to the House of York.

  JOHN TIPTOFT, 1ST EARL OF WORCESTER:

  Constable of England, later known as the Butcher of England.

  LOUIS DE GRUUTHUSE:

  Flemish nobleman who offered succour to the exiled Edward IV.

  KING HENRY VI:

  Last Lancastrian king, who spends most of Kingdom Come locked in the Tower of London.

  QUEEN MARGARET:

  Henry VI’s almost indomitable wife, sometimes known as Margaret of Anjou, living in France, still trying to get her husband’s throne back, either for him or their son.

  EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER:

  The son of Henry VI and Queen Margaret, sometimes known as the Prince of Wales. Rumoured to be extremely warlike, as befits Henry V’s grandson.

  Prologue

  In the first few snow-girt weeks of the year 1470, the subjects of England held their breath. The Yorkist King Edward IV held the throne, while the old king, Henry of Lancaster, still languished in the Tower, his cause seemingly beyond hope. But in place of the old strife between the two royal houses, a new discord had arisen among King Edward’s kinsmen. The truth is that during this summer last past, when King Edward was held at the command of his cousin and erstwhile ally the Earl of Warwick, the late-blooming seeds of war were planted deep in fertile soil.

  And now, as the country wakes from winter’s grip, it is widely supposed these barbed and iron-tipped seeds will soon break winter’s hard-frosted skin and grow to bring misery to the land. And so it is that every wise lord keeps his men close by. And never were the country’s smiths and bowyers so busy at their forges and benches as they are today …

  PART ONE

  Marton Hall, Marton, County of Lincoln, Before Candlemas, 1470

  1

  Thomas Everingham and Jack Bradford saddle their horses in the light of a rush lamp, and they are already on the road to Gainsborough when grey dawn makes itself known in the leafless crowns of the elms to the east. Snow lingers on the ground among the trunks of the trees, and even though Thomas is wrapped in twice as many layers of linen and wool as there are Evangelists, he still feels the ache of his old wounds.

  ‘You’re getting on,’ Jack tells him.

  And Thomas supposes this is so. He must be nearly thirty, he thinks, though he can’t be sure. He pulls his rabbit-fur-lined cloak about his shoulders and settles deeper in his fine saddle, and he takes some consolation from the warmth of his smooth-pacing palfrey.

  ‘My leg hurts a bit too, though, when it’s like this,’ Jack admits, straightening it to look at it in the stirrup. ‘Where Katherine pulled that arrow out.’

  Thomas laughs because Jack makes it sound as if it’s Katherine’s fault his leg aches, rather than one of Lord Montagu’s archers who shot the arrow there in the first place, and he thinks of reminding him that Katherine did not so much pull the arrow out as hammer it through to the other side, and she did it with an old piss pot.

  Instead he turns to the boy they’ve brought with them, a sort of servant, though you’d never say that to his face.

  ‘What about you, John? You got any old scars to show us yet?’

  John is about fifteen, Thomas supposes. His mother died in childbed and his father has brought him up in rough-and-ready fashion ever since, and he’s a wild-looking boy, with a foul mouth, and it is broadly agreed that it is a miracle he has not been hanged twice over, let alone not lost both ears to the clippers. The boy extends his muddy wrist from his muddy sleeve and shows them a whorl of puckered pink flesh, only recently healed. Thomas and Jack suck their teeth sympathetically, though both have seen worse.

  ‘Hog tusk,’ the boy tell
s them proudly. ‘Bled like a Jesus Christ himself – begging your pardon – till Mistress Katherine put some of that salve on it. Then it stopped.’

  He tucks his wrist away proudly, as if it is something precious he did not want just anybody to see, and they ride on through a narrow defile in a dense wood of holly trees where birds cluster among the berries. Even their little bodies are steaming in the cold. Thomas wonders how much John Stumps must suffer in weather like this, with his arms cut so short just above the elbow? He hasn’t complained of it yet, which is a surprise, for John Stumps takes much pleasure in complaint. He moans, Jack has told them, because he cannot sleep for any length of time before he is woken by pain in his arm where the imagined bracer on his left wrist is too tight, and it pinches him, and there’s nothing more he’d like to do than run a finger under it, or loosen the strings, but he can’t for he has long since lost the wrist on which it is strapped. So it is not his fault that he grumbles so, but it makes his company heavy, and is one of the reasons Thomas did not ask him to come this morning. That and the fact that it is hard for a man with no arms to ride a horse, even over these few short miles to Gainsborough, where they’re riding this morning to see a lawyer named Mostyn.

  They could have made this journey any time, Thomas knows. They could have made it in the spring, perhaps, when the road might be busier and so presumed safer, but Thomas is anxious to buy back the last of Sir John Fakenham’s land that the old man’s stepsons sold to ease their debts, and Thomas wants to do this as soon as he can, because he has become gripped by the unvoiceable conviction that his fortunes reflect those of the country at large, so that when he has been down, as he has been, so has the country, and when he has been up, as he is now, then so is England herself. So now he believes if he can restore Sir John’s estate to wholeness, then England will knit herself up, and peace and prosperity will return.

  It is a silly thing. A dream. A fancy. He knows that, and he has never mentioned it to a soul. And yet, and yet. Look around. Since he first took possession of Marton Hall, back in the autumn, have there been rumours of insurrections in the Northern Parts or in distant Wales as was once usual? Have armies been mustered? Have Commissions of Array been sent out? Has the country seen riot and affray? No. The peace may be imperfect, true, but that – in Thomas’s mind – is because he has not yet reclaimed these last scraps of Sir John’s estate. Once he has, and once he’s ploughed his own furrows deep into its damp black earth, then everything – everything – will fall into place, and he, and England, will find this perfect, elusive peace at last.

  This is why he has pressed so hard for the sale of these last furlongs, why he is paying so much for them, and why he is now riding out so early in the day, early in the year, when all decent men should be abed, or at prayer, and with only Jack and young John for company.

  The sky above is a flat scrim of pale cloud, and the hard-frosted slips of snow and ice on the track remain brittle all morning. They ride north, with the river to their left, and all about them the sodden fenland in winter is cheerless, with rotting thistles struggling to keep their heads above the ice-veneered meres and the birch trees ringing with crows’ dismal caws.

  ‘Kind of weather you’d want to be hanged in,’ Jack notes.

  And yet Thomas is feeling buoyant and hopeful and his mood is contagious, and Jack and young John are cheerful too, and they greet those few cloak-muffled travellers they pass with blessings that are returned, and they raise the spires of Gainsborough by early mid-morning, to find a well-wrapped pack-horseman to point them in the direction of the house of Sir Thomas Burgh, Master of the King’s Horse, Sheriff of Lincolnshire, and the present owner of the parcel of land that Thomas wishes to buy back.

  Burgh bought it from Isabella’s sons for a good price when they were hard-up this last summer, and it is not absolutely in the man’s interest to sell it to Thomas, but Thomas offered him good money, and Burgh is one of the men who came to meet King Edward – and Thomas and Katherine, as it happened – in York the year before, when the King was released from the Earl of Warwick’s custody. Thomas supposes that Burgh must believe him still high in King Edward’s esteem, and this sort of exchange of favour, Katherine tells him, is how things are done among such men.

  ‘Will he be there himself?’ Jack asks.

  Thomas supposes not. While Burgh is happy to do Thomas the favour, he is far too grand a man to receive him as an equal, and so they will only be seeing his man of business, this attorney, John Mostyn, who will give him the deeds and see to what is needed.

  As they near the town, the woodland is better kept, and there are men and women in the fields with ox and plough, readying the soil for the pea and rye crop. They ride the familiar path towards All Saints, where the sun catches the vane on the spire, through the marketplace, deserted now, and past the road that leads down to the ferry dock on the river’s bank, likewise still deserted. But in a small orchard that Burgh has planted to shield his house from the town, they find a man up one of the mist-dampened trees, pruning branches with a small saw. He is in russet, with no gloves, and a black cap pulled low. His breath is like a small cloud about his head.

  ‘God’s bones,’ Jack greets him. ‘Could you not find a better day for it?’

  The man grumbles that pruning must be done when it must be done, and Thomas supposes this must be true, and wonders if it is the sort of thing they ought to be doing at Marton; he’s about to ask a few more questions, but the horses are unsettled hearing anyone talking so high in the branches, so Thomas and Jack kick on down a gentle slope to find the house – a grand thing, far finer than Marton, but still no castle – hidden now behind ash-pole scaffolds. It is as if the place is still being built, though there are no labourers to be seen since, it transpires, it is too cold for the mortar to set right and the men Burgh hired to lay the bricks are from Flanders, and are back home for the winter.

  ‘It’s why you shouldn’t build a house with those bloody bricks,’ the man who meets them at the gate tells Thomas. ‘Not that I blame them, mind, them Flems. And besides, imagine trying to daub wattle in this weather?’

  Thomas and Jack, who have both tried daubing wattle when it is so cold the mud and straw are stiff enough to strip the skin from your fingers, agree. The man – huddled in Burgh’s blue livery, with a long glaive resting on his shoulder – sends a boy off to find the attorney while Thomas and Jack wait in the yard, admiring the works; after a moment, Mostyn emerges to greet them. He’s a thin-faced, quick-eyed little man in clacking pattens, long, very dark robes and a tall red hat made of folded felt that he removes to reveal a shiny pate.

  ‘God give you good day, masters,’ he says with a smirk and what might be an ironic bow. ‘Come. Come. Warm yourselves by my fire.’

  Thomas does so, but Jack is put off by the man’s manner and stays with young John and together they go with the ostler to the stables to tend to the horses. Thomas is uncomfortable at the separation because he thinks of himself as no better than Jack; though, to be honest, he doesn’t feel the same way about Foulmouth John, who is as likely to drink the ink as write with it.

  Mostyn leads Thomas into one of the new-built chambers on the first floor warmed by a well-set fire of glowing coals. He has the papers they need weighted out on a desk alongside a jar of his pens, and a pewter jug and a couple of matching cups on a table nearby. He pours Thomas a drink of the dark wine while Thomas removes his fur-trimmed cloak to reveal his best clothes, worn in the vain hope of impressing Mostyn, and a boy is there to take it, and his hat, and Thomas rubs his hands over the flames, and then while they drink Mostyn tells him about the building works and about the Easterling builders. He speaks as if he is trying to soothe a dog, Thomas thinks. Soon the change in temperature makes Thomas’s face and ears burn, and he wishes he had not gulped the wine so, and he starts to feel fuzzy-headed; and then Mostyn refills his cup and they drink some more, after which Mostyn sighs, takes out a set of horn eyepieces that he arranges on his no
se and says: ‘So, to business.’

  This they then conduct. Money has already been deposited with a third party and these are only the final niceties, which Thomas must complete by attaching his sign to the bottom of the various papers that Mostyn has laid out. Thomas is thrilled. He can feel his heart thumping with the pleasure of it all, and as he first reads and then signs each, Mostyn, who had obviously understood Thomas to be unlettered, becomes more admiring.

  ‘You have a right fine way with letters,’ he says. ‘Neater than mine and I make my living by it.’ He speaks quickly, in fluting, breathy phrases.

  ‘By that and other things, surely?’ Thomas brushes aside the false modesty.

  ‘Well, perhaps,’ Mostyn agrees. ‘But no, sir, really? I’ve scarce seen so fine a hand outside a cathedral cloister.’

  Thomas enjoys proving his appearance has deceived Mostyn as much as Mostyn’s flattery, but it is also a welcome thing to be discussing letters and ink and the quality of paper and so on when he is usually concerned with domestic matters such as whether the pigs need gelding or the privy is full. And Mostyn knows what he is talking about, because look: Thomas does have a nice hand. Beautiful regular letters.

  ‘I was briefly in a priory,’ Thomas admits. ‘A little to the south of here.’

  He has never spoken of his time at Haverhurst Priory to anyone save his wife Katherine, and he feels a guilty thrill in doing so now. But it was such a long time ago, and really, does his past matter so very much now that he has become who he is? But there is the briefest hiccough in the flow of Mostyn’s words, and Mostyn blinks at him through the polished lenses that make his eyes very large.

  ‘A priory?’ he repeats. ‘Oh.’ And when Thomas can only nod, he goes on: ‘It is a good life, I dare say, that of an ecclesiastic, though it is not for every man, is it? The privations of the body and so on. Though I cannot see you as a white friar, nor some brown Franciscan either?’