Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

Warwick and the Yorkists are much favoured by the City merchants for several reasons. The King, or most say the Queen in the King's name, has taxed them heavily and has also accepted huge sums from the Hanse merchants, in exchange for privileges they have not had before. The

Yorkists promise to turn all this round once they have the mad King in their power and meanwhile Warwick's ships, under flags of convenience rather than those of the Calais Pale, have taken Hanse ships on the high seas. So not only have the London merchants welcomed his army, they have even given him fourteen thousand gold coins, an enormous sum, with which to pay and feed his soldiers.

Naturally as a result, like bees to a hive, men flock to join his army. One of Lord Scales's staff has been stationed on the highest tower and has attempted to count how many have crossed the bridge. He makes it as many as forty thousand, a very considerable army indeed, though how many will remain, once they have been fed and paid and the prospect of long marches and actual fighting conies closer, remains to he seen.

Meanwhile, the bombardment of the nearer streets continues for a couple of hours each day. After that there has to be a pause while more stone balls are brought up to the pieces, and barrels of powder. At one point we heard a brief altercation between Sergeant Earwicca and Lord Scales, which went some way towards explaining the failure of the cannon to throw their projectiles as far as the bridge.

'The fucking powder, yer honour, was mixed up in Epping where the charcoal comes from.'

'I know that, you fool, but where was the powder mixed?'

'And brought in barrels down the river Lee.'

'You blithering idiot, they don't mix powder in the village of Finsbury…'

And so on, the point being that after two hours laying and firing the guns both men were deaf.

Eventually they came to an understanding of each other. The three ingredients of the powder were mixed in Epping Forest and put into barrels there. Now the constituents weigh differently and the shaking and jolting of the transports, followed by a year or more just standing, had separated them so the charcoal powder, being the lightest, was at the top, then the sulphur and finally the saltpetre.

Not completely separated, you understand, but enough to compromise the powder's performance.

Meanwhile, the roofs of the nearest houses are being shattered, and the upper rooms ruined. There have apparently been some deaths and mutilations, and a deputation came to the gates of the Tower to ask Lord Scales to desist. He went out on to the drawbridge to meet them and abused them roundly, saying, 'You scurvy miscreants, I'll blow the whole bloody city apart as long as you harbour a single Yorkist soldier among you. Now get the fuck out of it before I blast you to hell!' and his bowmen let loose a flight of arrows at their backs as they ran for it.

But one man who had had the sense to bring a buckler along with him, which quickly looked like the back of a porcupine with the arrows sticking out of it, yelled back, 'I'll fucking get you. Lord Scales, when you get out of here. One of your fucking cannon killed my daughter!' and so forth, before, walking backwards, he rejoined his friends at a safe distance, up on Tower Hill, just outside the main gate, where traitors are sometimes executed.

Our social life has been much improved by these new circumstances. A handful of lords, supporters of the Queen, who were in London, have, with their households, taken refuge with us. I won't bore you with their names, but they're an uncivilised lot. The women go about with low-cut bodices revealing their breasts almost to their nipples, and with gowns cut away in front so you can see their stockinged legs as high as the knee. All, men and women alike, wear copious amounts of jewellery, but a lot of it I have to say is fake or cheap, as garnets for rubies, feldspar for amethyst and topaz, and gold much alloyed with copper. The general effect reminds us more of temple dancers and actors at home than of princes or ministers.

Anish and I derive much amusement from watching them and conversing with them (we are both now quite at home with the Inglysshe tongue). The women talk of nothing but the expense to which their husbands and fathers have been put to provide their clothes and ornaments, the men of their prowess in the hunt, the strength of their horses, the fleetness of their hounds, and their achievements in jousting – of which more later, if I have time.

Every morning Scales sends out spies, who return every evening with news of what the Yorkists are up to in the town. They have a great asset in an Italian priest called Coppini, sent by the Pope to bring the opposing sides to a peaceful settlement, but who preaches to the citizens in favour of York. The Pope apparently expects to gain from the Yorkists various rights disputed between the Crown and the Church, and urges the King to accede to the Yorkist demands. Meanwhile, all the Yorkist lords made a great public show in the churchyard of St Paul's of swearing fealty and loyalty to the mad King, insisting that their sole aim is to restore good government to the country.

It is now the sixth day of July and the Yorkists have been on Inglysshe soil for a fortnight. The King has made no move against them out of Coventry and people say he fears an invasion in the north by York himself and durst not move. So yesterday they began their move against him instead and ten thousand men under Lord Fauconberg marched north. Today Warwick and March left with a further twenty thousand or more, leaving Warwick's father, Lord Salisbury, here with two thousand men to contain us in the Tower and hold the city.

We were to have a joust in the gardens here today, for the younger men were getting bored and restless. When that happens they fight amongst themselves like puppies while serving-girls, even some of the ladies, go about in constant fear of rape. The lists were set up and the young nobles got into their amazingly complicated heavy armour. This is a crazy sport. They mount horses and charge at each other with heavy spears and try to dislodge each other from the saddle. It looks terrifying, and there's no doubt that inside their steel shells, like crocodiles or giant turtles, those who (all are badly shaken though apparently few are hurt seriously. But it began to rain heavily in the morning, the grass lawns were turned to quagmire, and the whole thing was cancelled.

Here I must finish as Anish tells me he has heard of a carvel due to sail on the tide to the Levant, and he believes he can bribe a kitchen boy who goes down to the markets every morning to take our letters with him. I've rambled on somewhat but. believe me. I hold at the front of my mind, at all times, the plight of Prince Jehani and the hope that one-day we may yet come up with him. And both Anish and I do our best to forget that our heads remain on our necks solely at the whim of an irascible old drunk.

Your obedient and affectionate cousin.

Prince Harihara

' Rain, Mah-Lo, even warm rain like this, still fills my body with

aches and cramps, and my soul with a blank numbness.’ It was indeed raining, the steady warm rain we know will come every evening in June, following a distant rumbling and tumbling of thunder over the Ghats behind us. Because of it we had moved from the shade of the cardamom tree, but only as far as the shelter of a small free-standing kiosk in the middle of his courtyard. It had a tiled roof and upswung caves that caught the water and made it run to the comers where it fell into channels cut into the granite flags. The rain itself splashed into the little pond, and thudded on the leaves of the ornamental shrubs. Like us, the birds that haunted Ali's garden huddled along the ledges beneath the eaves, eyed it all balefully and waited for it to stop. His grey Burmese, very sleek, prowled up and down the edge of the verandah like a caged black-phase leopard, or panther, clearly longing to make a dash for it to a sheltered patch of soil where it could do its business but desperately loath to get wet.