Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

The fakir looked around, touched fingertips to the bottom hem of his turban in the Allaha Ismahrlahdik. 'Light amplified by stimulated emission through radiation,' he said, over his shoulder, as he walked off down the reverse slope, away from the battle. We did not see him again.

'And that was the battle at which Owen Tudor and his son were taken?' I asked. 'That's right.'

'And Eddie had their heads chopped off that evening.' 'That, too, is right.'

'I should not think that endeared him to Uma.' 'Well. We shall see what she has to say about that.'

The day's monsoon was over when we gathered again to hear Ali's account of the last great battle, the one that finished the war. Uma and her two children arrived a few minutes later than she had promised, which irritated Ali a little. However, generally speaking he was now in a much belter mood although the atmosphere was still humid, almost like a Turkish bath. The sun shone, the stones and flower-beds exhaled steam, the birds sang and fitted through it, the flowers opened, and the garden was filled with the most wonderful overpowering scents. The Burmese cat slept, stretched out in the shade.

‘I am sorry,' said Uma, as she handed her twins to their ayla, who took them into the shady back rooms to play, 'but they insisted I should buy them sherbets on the way.'

She took a seat next to Ali, and occasionally took his clawed left hand on to her knee and stroked it, but added little to his tale. Like me, she was there to listen.

Already a fortnight before the battle of the Three Suns in Splendour, the Queen's army had begun its march from the north. However, these huge armies of thirty, fifty thousand men, particularly if they have cannon with them, can only move a few miles in a day. Fifteen at the most, often as little as ten. It takes a lot of organising, too, to make sure that all are fed on the way and the usual practice, wherever the roads will allow it, is to split up into three columns moving by different routes, but always in touch with each other and ready to pull in together if their scurriers discover a large force of the enemy.

Feeding was not much of a problem once they were across the river Trent, which is taken as the natural border between north and south Ingerlond, and this war was in some ways becoming a Conflict between north and south. At all events, once across it the Queen unleashed the hounds of war upon the land, famine, sword and fire, urging her men to loot and destroy, bum, pillage and rape their way forward: these were the lands whose men had filled the ranks of York at the battle of Northampton. But what she saved in money she lost in time, for her progress became even slower as her men became more preoccupied with destruction and theft: many it was said attempted to carry quite large items such as chests, plate and tools with them.

And. of course, it was the coldest time of year, the days only just beginning to lengthen, and each day time was needed to find food, light fires, cook, find warm lodging for the night, rape the women and slaughter the children.

Nevertheless, she was at St Alban's by the seventeenth of February. Warwick had already inarched out with his army from London to confront her and a battle followed, at first fought mainly in the streets. However, as the Queen's army took the upper hand, Warwick pulled back to defensive positions across the London roads with cannon and anti-cavalry devices in front of him, and a group of five hundred Burgundians armed with flaming arrows and handguns. But, of course, it began to snow heavily and yet again the cannon and guns failed those who had put their trust in them. More effective was a unit of crossbowmen, some of whose weapons were very large, capable of firing a bolt into a compact group of men that would transfix three or four on it before losing momentum.

Worse than the snow for Warwick was treachery. Ah! Treachery. One of the best captains of the tune was a Sir Henry Lovelace. He had been a Yorkist, was captured at Wakefield, but escaped execution by swearing henceforth to fight for the Queen. The night before St Alban's he came into the Yorkist camp and swore to return to the Yorkist fold. However, he held back his troops until he saw how the Queen's army was gaining the upper hand when, instead of coming to Warwick's rescue, he reverted to the Queen and, just as Lord Grey had at Northampton, left a gap in Warwick's lines, through which the Queen's men streamed. Warwick now realised that the battle was lost, sounded the retreat, and managed to get clear with four thousand men.

King Henry, whom Warwick had brought with him to add credence to his cause, was found beneath an oak tree, mumbling madly. However, he seemed pleased to be reunited with his queen and putative son.

Next day, the heads of the nobler prisoners were lopped off in the marketplace, including those of the two lords whose duty had been to protect the King. The Queen asked her son, 'Fair son, what death shall these two knights die?'

'Let them have their heads taken off,' the eight-year-old replied, and stayed to see it done.

It's very likely they lost their lives for carrying out their commission too well. The Queen would have been happy to see the King, her husband, chopped up in the battle, thereby leaving the way clear for her monstrous son to rule with her as regent.

The way to London was now clear for her, but uncharacteristically she hesitated, or her captains did on her behalf. The city, though vulnerable, was for the most part Yorkist, having been taxed and bullied by the Queen for far too long. It could defend itself against a siege, could cause endless trouble if it let the army in but then refused to accommodate it properly. Then news came that Warwick had met up with Eddie at Abingdon and that was enough. A convoy of money and provisions the Mayor had put together for the relief of the Queen's army at St Alban's was seized by the citizens and disappeared. Negotiations continued for a few days but, beset with massive desertions from her starving northerners, the Queen withdrew first to Dunstable, a further ten miles or so north-west, and finally to the north.

Having won a battle at Mortimer's Cross, and lost another at St Alban's, the Yorkists, led by Eddie and Warwick, entered London in triumph on the twenty-seventh of February.

Meanwhile, our purpose was to get home as quickly as possible, and that meant finding a boat that would take us as far as the Mediterranean and into Arab lands and civilisation. This we had decided on in preference to making the trip back across France and north Italy to Venice – Prince Harihara was in something of a depression about his brother and had now developed a hate for this cold wet land we were in – well, we all had: the joys of its spring and summer now seemed a long way off, and somehow unlikely to return. He longed for his own country and was ready to risk drowning on the seas for the sake of getting home a few weeks earlier.

I recall how, one night, just before we reached Oxenford where we left Brother Peter, the Prince in his melancholy speculated about the world we live on, with these distances in mind. We were in yet another hostelry at the time.

'You know,' he said, 'no one knows just how far away India and Vijayanagara are.'

Anish waited, not wishing to show by his expression what he-thought of his master's sanity. I was less constrained. I was going through a bad time with the onset of these pains.

'Of course they bloody do,' I said, using an Inglysshe expression I had picked up. 'Give or take five hundred miles or so.'

But Brother Peter looked up from the soup he was eating, eyes shining with interest.

'We all know,' the Prince went on, 'that the world is round. A sphere, a globe. Right?'

We all nodded. Flat-earthers went out two thousand years ago – old Aristotle and his friends had seen to that.