Tombland

No more than six hundred feet before us, Warwick’s army formed into battle array, men called to take their places by shouts from their captains. Cannon – fewer than ours – were rolled into place flanking the main body of troops. Landsknecht arquebusiers, enormous, bull-like men, stood right at the front, hundreds spread out in two lines, one behind the other. Little fires were lit at various points beside them, reminding me of Simon’s terrible end, and then of the demonstration at Mousehold where a bullet had pierced armour as though it were butter. The big men stood there waiting, faces set but eyes constantly roving, big guns by their sides, the gaudy feathers in their helmets stirring in the light breeze. I glanced up at the sky; it was cloudless, the start of a perfect late summer day. As Vowell had noted, the rebels had the advantage that Warwick’s army were facing the rising sun. Some landsknechts raised their hands to shade their eyes.

Behind the arquebusiers more landsknechts formed up, holding up their twelve-foot pikes. And behind them horsemen, then foot soldiers. Apart from the shouting of orders from the captains of each army all was extraordinarily silent. Although even Warwick’s foot soldiers wore breastplates and helmets, many of the rebels – I realized I was suddenly no longer thinking of them as ‘our men’ – lacked armour.

A man on horseback rode up the side of Warwick’s men and halted beside the landsknechts. He carried a standard, the emblem of a bear chained to a tree-trunk; the bear and ragged staff, Warwick’s emblem. And then I saw the earl himself, riding through the lines, in glittering armour and helmet; I had seen him briefly four years before in Portsmouth, and recognized the hard sallow face and pointed black beard. Then, he had played a crucial part in preventing the invasion of Hampshire by the French fleet; he was known as a great commander both on land and sea. He halted near the front of his lines, looked at the ditch, the stakes, and at us standing chained behind, all with the same hard, calculating gaze. Then he looked up the slope at our army, before turning and riding back. I thought, When the warship Mary Rose

sank it had all happened in a matter of minutes, while this slow forming up seemed endless. I tried to control my shaking legs. Next to me, Nicholas grasped my arm. ‘Courage,’ he whispered.

I said, my voice breaking with emotion and fear, ‘If this is the end, know I have never had better friends than you and Barak.’

‘And I could have had no better teacher or friend. But hold fast, this may not yet be the finish.’

A little way up the line of chained gentlemen, Dale, who had reacted during the march to Dussindale by making a jest of it all, laughed. ‘A bear chained to a staff. Like us, really. What might that symbolize?’

His neighbour turned on him viciously. ‘It means we have been captured and humiliated, and are about to be killed, by a crew of peasant dogs that would have all men to be such common beasts as they. By God, if we escape with our lives – I am a magistrate – I will see them all hanged.’ He shouted out across the ditch at the landsknechts, ‘Help us, damn you! We are on your side, we’re prisoners!’

None of them reacted. ‘They’re foreign mercenaries,’ Dale said, impatiently. ‘I doubt they even understand English!’ He laughed again, but with a frantic edge now.

Four more horsemen rode through Warwick’s ranks, fully armoured with plumed helmets. One carried a white flag of truce. Two soldiers marched before them, carrying a broad wooden plank which they laid across the ditch. The riders made their way with difficulty up the earthen mound, then across the plank, between the stakes. They passed us without a look, and continued uphill to where Kett and the other leaders stood. Dale said hopefully, ‘Maybe they’re offering a pardon.’ But as they rode up alongside the rebel ranks, the chorus of boos and insults hurled at them told me what the result of that would be.

There was another wait while Kett and Warwick’s men held a parley. The last of Warwick’s troops were still riding up from Coslany gate, and I drew a sharp breath as I recognized two unmistakable blond heads among a body of men, armoured and with swords at their waists, surrounding their captain, a horseman. They were ordered into position near the front of the line.

I said, ‘I’m not sure, but I think that’s Southwell.’

Boleyn said in a dull voice, ‘And I would recognize my sons anywhere. I think that’s my steward Chawry with them. So that’s where he ended up.’

‘No Flowerdew, though,’ Nicholas said.

‘He’ll be back for the pickings afterwards,’ I answered bitterly.

Warwick’s emissaries rode back down the hill; the frowns on their faces and the fresh chorus of insults from the rebel army showed that whatever offer they had made had been rejected. I felt a new tension in the men beside me as they rode past us again, and back along the ranks of Warwick’s soldiers.