Conn Iggulden - Stormbird

Captain Brown had yelled for a group of crossbowmen to come down off the walls and do their work below. Margaret had found herself shuddering in the night air as he sent them right up to the portcullis, so that they put their weapons almost to the iron lattice before pulling the triggers. The hammering had fallen away to nothing for a time, as those outside arranged their shields against the iron. The speed of the blows had surely lessened, but they still came. One by one, the bolts and junctions sheared with a hard note, different from the striking blows. Margaret felt herself jump as each one failed, forcing herself to smile and stand still on the steps.

As the ranks of king’s men took their positions to withstand the first rush, Margaret saw the white tabard of Captain Brown as he came striding back, looking up at his queen from across the open space. She waited for him, her hands gripping the wooden railing tightly.

‘Your Royal Highness,’ he called up. ‘I’d hoped for reinforcements, but without a miracle, I think these men will be upon us at any moment.’

‘What would you have me do?’ Margaret replied, pleased that she too could affect calm and that her voice didn’t tremble.

‘If you’ll permit, my lady, I’ll have a few of the men destroy these stairs. If you wouldn’t mind standing back, we’ll have them down in an instant. I have left six good men to hold the doorway of the White Tower. You have my word that you’ll be safe, as long as you stay up there.’

Margaret bit her lip, looking from the face of the earnest young officer to those waiting to withstand the flood.

‘Can you not join your men here in the tower, captain? I …’ She blushed, unsure how to make the offer of sanctuary without offending him. To her surprise, he beamed up at her, delighted at something.

‘You could order it, my lady, but um … if you don’t mind, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. My place is down here and, who knows, we may send them running yet.’

Before Margaret could speak again, a dozen men carrying axes and hammers had run up and Captain Brown was busy giving instructions.

‘Stand clear now, if you please, Your Highness,’ he called from below.

Margaret took a step back, crossing from the wooden stairs to the open stone door of the tower, even as the steps began to shudder and shake. It was not long before the whole structure collapsed and Margaret watched from a height as the men set about reducing each piece to useless kindling. She found there were tears in her eyes as Captain Brown saluted her before returning to his men, all waiting for the portcullis to fail and the fighting to begin.

Jack Cade came out of the Guildhall, winding a bit of rough hemp rope in his hands. He’d cheered with Ecclestone and the others when the king’s own treasurer had been strung up to dance, the lord’s face growing purple as they watched and laughed. Lord Say had been one of those responsible for the king’s taxes and Jack felt no remorse at all. In fact, he’d cut the piece of rope as a keepsake and he was only sorry he couldn’t find a few more of those who commanded the bailiffs and sheriffs around the country.

When he looked up from his thoughts, his eyes widened. There were still men coming into the open square around the Guildhall. Those who had been there for some time had found barrels of beer or spirits, that much was clear. Already drunk on violence and success, they’d used the time he’d been inside to loot every house around. Some of them were singing, others lying completely senseless, or dozing with their arms wrapped around cork-stoppered clay bottles. Still more were taking out their spite on the survivors of the last group to attack them. The few king’s soldiers left alive had been disarmed and were being shoved back and forth in a ring of men, punched and kicked wherever they turned.

Jack glanced at Ecclestone in disbelief as he saw staggering men walk past with armfuls of stolen goods. Two of them were wrestling with a bolt of shimmering cloth, coming to blows and knocking each other down as he stared at them. Jack frowned as a woman began screaming nearby, the sound becoming a croak as someone choked her to silence.

Thomas Woodchurch came out behind Cade, his expression hardening as he viewed the chaos and blood-spattered stones.

‘Sodom and Gomorrah, Jack,’ he muttered. ‘If it goes on, they’ll all be asleep by dawn and they’ll find their throats cut. Can you put them back in harness? We’re vulnerable here — and drunken fools can’t fight.’

Cade was a little tired of Woodchurch thinking he knew best all the time. He kept silent, thinking. His own throat ached for a drink, but it would wait, he told himself. The rainstorm had passed, but London was still reeling. He sensed his one chance was in danger of slipping away. He’d bowed his head to king’s men all his life, been forced to look down from the hard eyes of judges as they put on the red or green robe and pronounced their judgments. For just a time, he could kick their teeth in, but he knew it wouldn’t last.

‘Come tomorrow, they’ll appoint new men to chase us,’ he grumbled. ‘But what if they do? I have put the fear of God into them tonight. They’ll remember that.’

Woodchurch looked up at the Kentish captain, his irritation showing. He’d hoped for more than just a night of bloodshed and looting. With a fair number of the men, he’d hoped to change the city, perhaps even to wrench some sort of freedom from the hands of the king’s men. They’d all learned King Henry was long gone by then, but it didn’t have to end in drunken madness, not if Cade kept going. A few dead nobles, a few bits of cloth and pouches of gold. It was nowhere near enough to repay what had been taken.

‘Dawn can’t be far off now,’ Woodchurch said. ‘I’m for the Tower. If the king is gone as they say, at least I can leave London a rich man. Are you game, Jack?’

Cade smiled, looking up at the passage of the moon overhead.

‘I sent Paddy there in the first rush. He’s either dead or in by now. I’ll walk with you, Tom Woodchurch, if you’ll walk with me.’

They laughed like boys then, while Ecclestone looked on sourly at this display of camaraderie. A moment later, Jack began ordering his men back to the streets. His voice was a bass roar that echoed back from the houses of aldermen all around.

Derry was exhausted. He knew he was a dozen years younger than Lord Scales and could only wonder at the source of the man’s manic energy as they reached yet another alleyway and trotted down it in pitch darkness. At least the rain had eased off. They had four men out before and behind, calling warnings or opportunities as they found them. They’d been fighting in the streets for hours and Derry had lost count of the men he’d killed in the black night, small moments of horror and fear while he cut strangers or felt the pain as their knives and clubs got through to him in turn.

He’d bound his leg where some nameless Kentish ploughboy had stuck a spear into it. A spear! Derry could still hardly believe he’d been wounded by something that had decorative ribbons on the shaft. He carried the first few feet of it in his left hand by then, having ripped the last owner from life. A heavy seax was stuck through his belt and Derry wasn’t alone in having picked up weapons from the dead. After so long struggling with strangers in the wind and dark, he was just desperate to see the sun again.

Scales’s men were down to just three dozen from the original eighty. They’d lost only a few at a time before running straight into a couple of hundred looters. Those men had been stinking drunk, which was a blessing as it had slowed them down. Yet that little stand had left almost half Scales’s men dying on their backs in filth and their own blood.