Conn Iggulden - Stormbird

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.

Margaret dipped her head, saying a prayer for Captain Brown, now lying sightless and still where he’d fallen in her defence. Her view of the fighting had been in spots and gleams of moonlight, a frozen witness to rushing, bawling shadows and a constant clash of metal that was like a whispering voice.

That voice had fallen silent as the hours passed, replaced by the loud talk and hard laughter of Cade’s men. As the sun rose, she saw his followers running riot, breaking into the mint and staggering out under the weight of anything they could carry. She’d heard the mob hooting in delight and seen gold and silver coins spilled as carelessly as lives, to roll and spin untended on the stones.

There had been a moment when one of them stood and looked up at the tower, as if he could see her standing back in the shadows of the door. Whoever he was, the man stood head and shoulders above those around him. She’d wondered then if it was Cade himself, but the name she spat in her thoughts was called from the walls and the big man trotted away to meet his master. The sun was up and the tower had held. She gave thanks for that much.

Others came past the outer walls then, to stare up at the White Tower. Margaret could feel their gaze creeping over it and her, making her want to scratch. If she’d had crossbows, it would have been the time to order their use, but such weapons as they’d had lay in dead hands on the ground below. It was strange to look down on the enemies who’d assaulted the city and be unable to do anything, though they stood within reach and walked as if they owned the land around them.

By the time the sun cleared the outer walls, flooding gold light across the White Tower, they were marching away, carrying their spoils and leaving their dead behind for the Tower ravens to pluck and snag. The mist was thinning and Margaret slumped against the frozen doorway, making one of the guards reach nervously out to her in case she fell. He caught himself before he laid hands on the queen and she never noticed the movement, her attention captured by the jingling sound of armoured men coming through the broken gate.

It was with an odd sensation of relief that she recognized Derry Brewer walking at the head of a small group. As he spotted the bodies and broke into a lurching run, she saw how filthy he was, spattered to the thighs with all manner of foul muck. He came right to the foot of the tower, standing in the smashed wood of the stairs and looking up at the doorway.

Margaret came forward into the sunlight and she could have blessed him for the look of relief on his face as he caught sight of her.

‘Thank God,’ he said softly. ‘Cade’s men are on their way out of the city, my lady. I am pleased to see you well.’ Derry looked around. ‘It’s difficult to think of a safer place in London at this moment, but I imagine you are sick of this tower, at least for today. If you’ll allow me, I’ll have men sent to find ladders, or to build them.’

‘Let down a rope to him,’ Margaret ordered the soldiers clustering behind her. ‘While they find me a way down, Derry, you can climb up.’

He didn’t question the command and only groaned quietly to himself, wondering if he had the strength. In the end, it took three men pulling on the rope above before he reached the lip and they were able to heave him over. Derry lay gasping on the stone floor, quite unable to rise until the guards helped him. He attempted a bow and almost fell.

‘You are exhausted,’ Margaret said, reaching out to take his arm. ‘Come in further. There is food enough and wine.’

‘Ah, that would be very welcome, my lady. I am not quite at my best, I admit.’

Half an hour later, he was seated in a room within the tower, wrapped in a blanket by the fire and chewing fat slices of cured ham as he fought against the desire to sleep. Outside, the noise of hammers told him Lord Scales was busying himself constructing rough steps. Some of the men inside had already climbed down to help with the work. Derry was left alone with the young queen, watching him with large brown eyes that missed nothing.

Margaret bit her lip with impatience, forcing herself to wait until he had satisfied his hunger and belched into his fist, the platter of ham polished clean. She needed to know what Derry had witnessed in the night. Perhaps first, she needed him to know what had been done for her.

‘Captain Brown was a good, brave man,’ she said.

Derry looked up sharply, seeing the unnatural paleness of her face, the fear and exhaustion still showing in her.

‘I knew him well, my lady. I was sorry to see he hadn’t come through. It was a hard night for all of us.’