of coins and laughed, seeing how the Irishman bulged all over. He was big enough to carry the weight.
‘It’s good to see you among the living, Jack!’ Paddy said. ‘There’s more gold here than I can believe. I have gathered a share for you, but I’m thinking we should perhaps take ourselves away now, before the king’s men come back with blood in their eyes.’
Jack sighed, satisfaction and disappointment mingling in him in equal measures. It had been a grand night, with some moments of wonder, but he knew better than to push his luck.
‘All right, lads. Pass the word. Head back to the bridge.’
The sun was up by the time Jack’s men were bullied and shoved away from their search for a few last coins at the Tower. Paddy had found a sewer-cleaner’s cart a few streets away, with a stench so strong it made the eyes water. Even so, they’d draped it in an embroidered cloth and piled it high with sacks and chests and anything else that could be lifted. There was no ox to pull it, so a dozen men grasped the shafts with great good humour, heaving it along the roads towards the river.
Hundreds more emerged from every side road they passed, some exulting at the haul or with looted items they still carried, others looking guilty or shame-faced, or just blank with horror at the things they’d seen and done. Still more were carrying jugs of spirits and roaring or singing in twos and threes, still splashed with drying blood.
The people of London had slept little, if at all. As they removed furniture from behind doors and pulled out nails from shutters, they discovered a thousand scenes of destruction, from smashed houses to piles of dead men all over the city. There was no cheering then for Jack Cade’s army of Freemen. With no single voice or signal, the men of the city came out with staffs and blades, gathering in dozens and then hundreds to block the streets leading back into the city. Those of Cade’s men who had not already reached the river were woken by hard wooden clogs or enraged householders battering at them or cutting their throats. They had suffered through a night of terror and there was no mercy to be had.
A few of the drunken Kentish men scrambled up and ran like rabbits before hounds, dragged down by the furious Londoners as they saw more and more of what Cade’s invasion had cost the city. As the sun rose, groups of Cade’s men came together, holding people at bay with swords and axes while they backed away. Some of those groups were trapped with crowds before and behind and were quickly disarmed and bound for hanging, or beaten to death in the sort of wild frenzy they knew from just hours before.
The sense of an enraged city reached even those who’d made it to London Bridge. Jack found himself glancing back over his shoulder at lines of staring Londoners, calling insults and shouting after him. Some of them even beckoned for him to come back and he could only gape at the sheer numbers the city was capable of fielding against him. He did not look at Thomas, though he knew the man would be thinking back to his warning about rape and looting. London had been late to rouse, but the idea of just strolling back in the next night was looking less and less likely.
Jack kept his head high as he walked back across the bridge. Close to the midpoint, he saw the pole with the head and the white-horse shield still bound to it. It was mud-spattered and the sight of it brought a shudder down Jack’s spine as he recalled the mad dash under pouring rain and crossbow bolts the night before. Even so, he stopped and picked it up, handing his axe to Ecclestone at his side. Nearby lay the body of the boy, Jonas, who’d carried it for a time. Jack shook his head in sorrow, feeling exhaustion hit him like a hammer blow.
With a heave, he raised the banner pole. The men around him and on the bridge behind all cheered the sight of it as they marched away from the city and the dark memories they had made.
29
Richard Neville felt blood squish in his armoured boot with every step. He thought the gash under his thigh plate wasn’t too bad, but being forced to keep walking on it meant the blood still dribbled, making his leggings sodden and staining the oily metal red and black. He’d taken the wound as his men stormed across the open square by the Guildhall, slaughtering the drunken revellers. Warwick had seen the lack of resistance and cursed himself for dropping his guard long enough for one of the prone figures to jam a knife between his plates as he stood over him. Cade had gone by then, of course. Warwick had seen the results of the man’s ‘trial’ in the purple features of Lord Say, left sprawled under the beam where they’d hanged him.
He felt as if he’d been fighting for ever in the rain and dark, and as the sun rose, he was tempted to find a place to sleep. His men were staggering with exhaustion and he couldn’t remember feeling so tired in all his young life. He just couldn’t make a good pace, even to follow the host of Cade’s men as they used the grey light before true dawn to push once more across the city.
Warwick cursed to himself as he came to the mouth of another silent road. After the rain, the damp coming off the river had filled some of the streets with thick mist. He relied only on his hearing to tell him the street was empty, but if there were men waiting in another silent ambush, he knew he’d walk right into it.
His soldiers were still among the largest forces of king’s men in the city. Their armour and iron mail had saved many of them. Even so, Warwick shuddered at dark memories, of Kentish madmen rushing them from three or four directions at once. He’d lost a hundred and eighty killed outright and another dozen too badly wounded to go on with him. He’d allowed the most seriously injured men to enter houses, calling his rank and the king’s name and then just kicking doors in when no one dared to answer.
London was terrified; he could feel it like the mist seeping beneath his armour and mingling with the blood and sweat of a night on his feet. He’d seen so many dead bodies, it was almost odd to pass a street without its complement of corpses. Far too many of them were liveried soldiers, wearing a lord’s colours on their shields or on tunics plastered over bloody mail. The night dew had frozen on some of them, so that they sparkled and gleamed as if encased in ice.
As he trudged on, Warwick was coldly furious: with himself and with King Henry for not staying to organize the defence. God, it looked as if York was right, after all. The king’s warrior father would have shown himself early and hit hard. Henry of Agincourt would have had Cade strung up by dawn, if the rebels had managed to get into the city at all. The old king would have made London a fortress.
The thought made Warwick stop in the middle of a street of butchers. The foulness underfoot was mostly red, thick with hog bristles as well as scraps of rotting flesh and bone. His nose had become used to treading in such things, but this particular lane had an acrid tang that almost helped to clear his head.
Cade’s men were streaming east and south. It was true the bridge lay in that direction, but so did the Tower and the young queen sheltering within its walls. Warwick closed his eyes for a brief moment, aching to find a place to sit. He could imagine all too easily the relief that would flood his wrists and knees if he allowed himself to stop. The thought made his legs buckle, so that he had to lock his knees with an effort.
In the growing light, his closest men were looking back at him, eyes swollen, wounds bound in grubby cloths. More than a few had strapped their hands where they had broken small bones in wrists or fingers. They looked bedraggled and miserable, but they were still his, loyal to his house and his name. Warwick straightened, summoning his will with a massive effort.
‘The queen is in the Tower, gentlemen. I’ll want to see her safe before we can rest. The day is come. There’ll be reinforcements this morning, bringing fire and the sword for all those who took part. There will be justice then.’
The heads of his soldiers drooped as they understood that their young lord would not let them stop. None of them dared to raise a voice in complaint and they pushed on through the mist, staring with bloodshot eyes as it swirled about them.
Margaret shuddered in the cold, staring out of the entrance door to the White Tower. Her field of vision was blocked by the outer walls, so that she couldn’t see much more than the results of the night’s battles around her stone fastness. Mist had begun to creep across the bodies lying on the ground below, moving on fitful breezes. It would burn off in the day, but for a time, the paleness crawled over the dead, touching them intimately and making them mere humps and hills in the white.
It had been a night of terrors, waiting for Cade’s rough men to smash their way inside. She’d done her best to show courage and keep her dignity, but the soldiers in the tower had been just as nervous as they peered out and down into blackness, straining to understand every sound.
