Stormbird

sprawling behind him. Two pirates had a hold on his armpits and they grunted with his weight as he sagged and stumbled. He guessed they would take him across to their ship like a trussed sheep and only hoped that they wouldn’t drop him on the way, with the whitecaps tossing spume into the air and every step a challenge to remain upright.

He did not understand as they dragged him right to the prow of the Bernice, so that William looked out over the stays and the churning water below. The man the others obeyed came round into his sight and William looked up in confusion.

The pirate captain was both scarred and sallow, a hard sort such as William had seen butchering pigs in the Shambles of London. The man’s face bore old pox marks in great pits on the cheeks and when he smiled, his teeth were mostly dark brown and lined in black, as if he chewed charcoal. The captain leered down at his prisoner, his eyes alive with satisfaction.

‘William de la Pole? Lord Suffolk?’ he said with relish.

William’s heart sank and his thoughts cleared and settled, the nausea in his gut becoming a distant annoyance. He had not given his family name and those were not the sort of men to know it, unless they had been looking for his ship from the beginning.

‘You know my name, then,’ he said. ‘Who gave it to you?’

The captain smiled and tutted at him in reproof.

‘Men who expected justice from a weak king, Lord Suffolk. Men who demanded it and were denied.’

William watched in sick fascination as the man unsheathed a rusty-looking blade and ran his thumb across it.

‘I have surrendered, to be held for ransom!’ William said desperately, his voice cracking in fear. Despite his broken hand, he struggled against the ropes, but sailors knew how to tie a knot and there was no give in them. The captain smiled again.

‘I do not accept your surrender. You are a convicted traitor, William de la Pole. There are some who feel you should not be allowed to walk free, not with treason around your neck.’

William could feel himself growing pale as the blood drained from his face. His heart was beating strongly as he understood. He closed his eyes for a moment, struggling to find dignity as the deck climbed and fell beneath his feet.

His eyes opened as he felt a rough hand in his hair, gripping him and forcing his head forward.

‘No!’ he shouted. ‘I have given parole!’

The captain ignored his protest, taking a great bunch of the grey hair and lifting it up to reveal the seamed neck beneath, paler than the rest. With grim purpose, the man began sawing into the muscle. William’s outraged shout turned to a grunt of agony as blood spattered and greased the deck in all directions, whipped and carried by the spray. He jerked and shuddered, but he was held firmly until he slumped forward, thumping hard on the deck.

The captain ruined the blade chopping through the thick muscle and bone. He threw the weapon aside carelessly as he reached down and held up the severed head. His crew cheered the sight as it was put into a canvas bag and William’s body was left in a crumpled heap on the deck.

The Bernice was freed from the ropes that bound her, left behind to buck and toss on the seas alone as the pirate ship headed back for the coast of England.

PART THREE

There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass.

Shakespeare’s Jack Cade: Henry VI, Part 2, act 4, scene 2

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

Henry VI, Part 2, act 4, scene 2

25

‘The London gates are closed at night, Jack,’ Thomas said, pointing at the floor. The two men were alone on the upper floor of an inn in the town of Southwark, just across the river from the city. With a rug pulled back to reveal ancient floorboards, Thomas had scratched a rough map, marking the Thames and the line of Roman wall that enclosed the heart of the ancient city.

‘What, all of them?’ Jack replied. He’d never been to the capital and he was still convinced Woodchurch had to be exaggerating. Talk of sixty or eighty thousand people seemed impossible, and now he was supposed to believe there were huge great gates all around it?

‘That is the point of city gates, Jack, so yes. Either way, if we’re looking to reach the Tower, it’s inside the wall. Cripplegate and Moorgate are out — we’d have to march right round the city and the villagers there would be rushing off to fetch the king’s soldiers while we did. Aldgate to the east — you see it there? That one has its own garrison. I used to walk the streets there when I was courting Joan. We could cross the Fleet river to the west perhaps, and come in by the cathedral, but no matter where we enter, we have to go over the Thames — and there’s only one bridge.’

Jack frowned at the chicken scratches on the floor, trying to make sense of them.

‘I don’t much like the idea of charging down a road they know we have to take, Tom. You mentioned ferries before. What about using those, maybe further along, where it’s quieter?’

‘For a dozen men, that would be your answer. But how many do you have since Blackheath?’

Cade shrugged. ‘They keep coming in, Tom! Essex men, though, even some from London. Eight or nine thousand, maybe? No one’s counting them.’

‘Too many to ferry over anyway. There aren’t boats enough and it would take too long. We need to get in and out again ’fore the sun comes up. That’s if you want to live to a ripe old age. Of course, there’s still the chance the king and his lords will answer our petition, don’t you think?’

The two men looked at each other and laughed cynically, raising the cups they both held in silent toast to their enemies. At Thomas’s urging, Jack had allowed a list of demands to be taken to the London Guildhall on behalf of ‘The Captain of the Great Assembly in Kent’. Some of the men had suggested virgins and crowns for their personal use, of course, but the discussion had eventually settled down to genuine grievances. They were all sick of high taxes and cruel laws that applied only to those who could not buy their way out. The petition they’d sent to the London mayor and his aldermen would change the country if the king agreed. Neither Jack nor Thomas expected King Henry even to see it.

‘They won’t answer us,’ Thomas said. ‘Not without crossing the interests of all those who take bribes and keep the common families under their boot heels. They’ve no interest in treating us fair, so we’ll just have to knock sense into them. Look there — the Tower is close by London Bridge — no more than half a mile at most. If we take any other route in, we’ll have to find our way through a maze of streets even local men don’t know that well. You asked for my advice and that’s it. We come up from Southwark and cross the bridge around sunset, then cut east for the Tower before the king’s men even know we’re there amongst them. We’ll have to crack a few pates along the way, but if we keep moving, there aren’t enough soldiers in London to stop us. As long as we don’t get jammed into a small space, Jack.’