Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

The Queen then turned to her captains, Somerset and Northumberland. 'Sound drum and trumpet," she cried. 'Let the men go to the positions we have already decided upon.'

What we were about to see was the first of four battles that all took place within a quarter of a year of each other. It was the only one where it could be said of one side that a coherent plan had been formed in advance and was more or less adhered to, right from the ruse of persuading York to venture out by Trollope's apparent treachery. Each succeeding engagement was worse than the one before. This one was straightforward slaughter. I have already described to you the ground on which it was fought. As was the custom the Queen's army was divided into three. The central body was commanded by Somerset, with the Queen and her seven-year-old son at his side. Other lords led large bodies of men into the woods on either side of Wakefield Green, by devious routes so their presence was not detected by the Yorkists. Though a flurry of soaring crows might have given them cause to wonder if they had had the eyes of a simple ploughman amongst them. All they could see was a single line of men-at-arms, in hill armour but most unmounted, along the low ridge in front of them.

They came down across the grass, and across the rivulet at the bottom. They formed up, all six thousand in a solid line six deep, with their cannon in front. And still the Queen did not move. Presently three men, fully armed, with squires carrying their battle standards with them, rode out in front of the rest. The Queen's herald, standing near us, interpreted their armorial bearings. 'The royal arms, madam, and the royal arms with a difference. Must be York and his younger son Rutland. And the white saltire on red for a Neville – Salisbury, I suppose.'

'I'm not an idiot. Garter,' she said. 'I've got eyes in my head and, believe it or not, I know the royal arms when I see them.'

York now turned in his saddle, drew his sword and waved it at the troops behind him. The cannon fired once, but firing uphill their shot fell short. They began to move forward, away from the rivulet and uphill.

'All right,' said the Queen, and her eyes were now alight with satisfaction. She was riding side-saddle, a newish fashion, especially designed for ladies, I suppose to protect their private parts from unnecessary chafing, and was dressed in hunting gear, a long crimson velvet gown, black boots. She had on a crown. 'Tell Somerset he can go for it.'

And a page trotted along the line with the message.

And over the top they went, about six thousand, no great numerical advantage, but with the slope in their favour, good ground hardened by the frost but not so hard or slippery as to be a hazard, the lords and knights horsed but scattered throughput the body to provide leadership and rallying points, reined in to a slow trot so the men-at-arms, for the most part in full armour but on foot, could keep up. And just as the two bodies of men clashed the two wings of the Queen's army, with archers in the front on York's right, where they were not protected by their shields held on their left sides, came streaming out of the woods.

York's men would have run. But they had nowhere to run to. Even the castle was cut off from them as Trollope's troops, having come round the back, had already got between them and it. Moreover, no one had thought to raise the drawbridge or lower the portcullis and there was no garrison save potboys and kitchen hands to hold it. It was very soon in Trollope's hands.

York was pulled from his horse and killed almost straight away. Rutland, accompanied by his standard-bearer who was also his tutor, got away and over the bridge across the main river into Wakefield where he was caught by Lord Clifford, who had chased Eddie March out of Alderman Dawtrey's house in London nearly a year earlier. Salisbury, old man though he was, got clear away but Trollope saw him go and sent a troop after him. They caught up with him ten miles away just as he was about to get into another castle – Pontefract, it was called.

The upshot was that next morning, the last day of 1460 by their reckoning, the Queen was presented by Clifford with three heads. 'Madam, your war is done.' he said.

Some say she went white, but not that I saw. She slapped York's cold dead cheek, then ordered them to put a paper crown on him. 'Stick it on a pike and put it above Micklegate Bar at York,' she said, and her voice rang out. 'Let York overlook York.'

Then she paused, her mouth worked, and she spat at it.

Later that day she went over the list of all who had been caught and ordered more executions, beginning what became routine on both sides, the summary murder of all nobles and gentry taken, with their families attainted, that is all their lands and titles forfeit. She pricked the names, marked up on parchment. 'Chop his head off! Get the kids too. if you can. I want to see that one die myself,' and so on. She even extended the lists to include those who took no side and no part: 'For as Jesus said: He that is not with me is against me.'

All this and the battle before it made me wonder: just what is it makes a man get inside so much steel casing, and lumber down a hill to strike and be struck until one or another tails to the ground to be skewered through the interstices of his armour? Or, worse than that, hacked at with mace and axe until the steel casing crushes him? Fear that if he doesn't his lands and life will be forfeit anyway? Maybe. The hope of ransom or loot from a vanquished foe? Loot, perhaps, but not much, for who takes valuables on to a battlefield? And no ransom, not while neither side is taking prisoners. I noted, too, though, a strange sort of camaraderie amongst many of the men, an eagerness to band together and, in their words, 'go for it', coupled with a fear of being thought cowardly or idle by their fellows. Drink too. Both sides drank huge amounts of beer and wine before the battle started. Finally… being Inglysshe helps.

Your affectionate and obedient cousin,

Harihara Kurteishi, Prince of Vijayanagara

It's all about contrast, difference, is it not?' Uma murmured. For next day she was back with us again. Her gentle but knowing eyes were unfocused by the power of memory. She sighed. 'He was the best, you know.'

Contrast and difference. Let's begin at the top and work down. His short white hair that I run my fingertips through and that strange black streak just long enough for me to wind once round my finger: my hair, almost back to its fullest length now, dark but hennaed to a red with occasional wires of bright gold in it and glossy, silky, fragrant. His chin and cheek, bristly with white above the coppery red, against mine, which has the bloom and colour of a ripe peach. His breath a touch sharp, like milk on the turn: mine like currants and honey. The squareness of his chin and the roundness of mine; the sinews and wrinkles in his neck – well, I have those now, but then… My shoulders creamy and smooth, rounded yet delicate: his twice as broad and white, with, I have to say, red spots to match the mole or two I have. My breasts like pomegranates, but soft and with large nipples that corrugate at his touch and even leak a sweet drop of ichor; his, massively wide and flat with nipples like pimples, which yet my tongue can raise so they feel hard as grain, and a mat of iron hair between. His anus like the roots of the banyan, strong and sturdy yet capable of grace in their slow yet greedy grasp; mine like the smooth branches of a tall aspen tree. My stomach a shallow dome with a whorled dent in the middle where Parvati pressed her thumb: his hard and six times ridged with muscle.

He has short, strong white toes that, even so, can grip a coin or feather while mine are long, with, when I can get the lacquer, painted nails. His ankles are finer than I would expect, which indicates nobility, but not as fine as mine, which put him in mind, he says, of things as fragile as glass. His calves are twin cords of muscle hazed with hair brindled grey and brown like a cat, and his knees, which he grumbles about at times, but nothing like as often as Ali does, are broad and strong, mine smooth like butter but as firm as apples. His thighs are pillars to support a temple, his buttocks like twin coconuts in a palm-tree; mine are like the mangoes he's never seen.