‘I think so,’ Thomas said, though he did not know. A childhood story of Samson losing his hair came to his mind and he smiled weakly to himself, using the handle of an old plough to heave himself up. He rested then, fat drops of sweat pouring from his face to strike the dust and darken it.
Rowan crossed the lines of golden sunlight streaming into the barn. He stood by the door, looking out on the morning as he gestured for his father to come over. Thomas gathered himself, feeling as if he’d been beaten the night before. He needed to sleep, or perhaps just to die. The promise of rest called to him with enough force to make black shapes swim across his vision. He shuffled across the dusty floor, trying not to gasp as his mind swam and sank in waves of sickness.
Rowan almost threw himself back as a voice spoke a torrent of French right by his head.
‘Are you hiding from me, Jacques? If I catch you asleep, I swear …’
The door came open and Rowan narrowed his eyes, seeing the man’s astonishment slide into terror at the sight of his knife and bulk in the gloom.
The man bolted, slipping and falling as he turned in panic. His voice was already rising in a shout as he scrambled up, but Rowan was on him in one great lunge, stabbing wildly through the coat. With savage strength, he reached his left arm around the man’s neck and crushed it close. The desperate noises became creaks of sound and Rowan found himself sobbing as he struck and struck, seeing red blood spatter around them. He let the body fall on to its face, standing up and panting, with senses suddenly dull in the morning sun.
The farmyard was empty, with rich green grass growing between the cracked stones. He saw a tumbledown cottage that had been invisible the night before, the door hanging open from a broken leather hinge. Rowan looked around him, then down at the vivid red drops in the dust and smeared on his knife. Just two men, looking for something worth stealing while their officers slept. Rowan knew he should have dragged the second body back into the barn, but instead he stood there in the yard, with his eyes closed and his face raised to the sun.
He heard his father come out and stand at his shoulder. Rowan didn’t look at him, preferring to let the warmth ease into his skin. He’d slaughtered animals with his father on the farm, he reminded himself. They’d killed deer while hunting, then dressed the flopping bodies on hillsides until they were covered in gore and laughing.
Thomas took a long breath, unsure if his son would want him to speak or not. Hunger pangs bit at his stomach and he found himself wondering if the two soldiers had any food with them. It was another sign that his body had fought through the illness that had struck him down.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ he asked.
Rowan opened his eyes and looked at him.
‘What?’
‘Killing. I’ve known men who enjoy it. I never did, myself. It always seemed like an odd thing to want to do. Too much like work, I’ve always thought. In a pinch, all right, but I wouldn’t seek out another man for killing, not for pleasure. I’ve just known men who did, that’s all.’
Rowan shook his head in dull astonishment.
‘No … I didn’t … God, no … enjoy it.’
To his surprise, his father clapped him on his back.
‘Good. There’s that. Now I find I have an appetite. I’m still weak enough to be frightened by a small boy with a stick, so would you search the house for food? We need to find a place to rest and hide for the day and I can’t do it starving, not after the sickness.’
‘What about staying in the barn?’ Rowan asked, looking back fearfully to the dark doorway.
‘Not with the bodies of soldiers and blood on the ground, son. Wake up! We’ll need to move a few miles in cover and my stomach is hurting something terrible. I need a little food and I’m not eating a Frenchman, not today anyway.’
Rowan chuckled weakly, but his eyes were still troubled. Thomas gave up on his smile, which was taking too much out of him to maintain.
‘What is it?’ He saw his son’s skin twitch like a horse beset with flies, then roughen as the hairs stood up.
‘The one in the barn … his … manhood was stiff … God, Dad, it was horrible.’
‘Ah,’ Thomas replied. He stood there, letting the sun warm them both. ‘Perhaps he liked you?’
‘Dad! Jesus!’ Rowan shivered in memory, rubbing his arms. His father laughed.
‘I had to keep watch once, after a battle,’ he said. ‘I was about twelve years old, I think. I sat all night, surrounded by dead soldiers. After a while, I heard them start to belch and fart like living men. Twice, one of them sat up, just jerked right up like a man surprised by a thought. Sudden death is a strange thing, sunshine. The body doesn’t always know it’s dead, not at first. I’ve seen … what you saw on a hanged man before, when I was a boy. There was some old woman at the gibbet when everyone else had gone, scratching the ground by his feet. I asked her what she was doing and she said a mandrake root grows from the seed of a hanged man. I ran then, Rowan, I don’t mind telling you. I ran all the way home.’
Both men grew still as a rustling sound carried to them on the still air. They turned slowly to see an elderly goose come out of the trees by the cottage, where a rope swing hung from a branch. The bird pecked the ground and peered at the two men standing in its yard.
‘Rowan?’ Thomas murmured. ‘If you can see a stone, move slowly and pick it up. Try to break a wing.’
The goose ignored them as Rowan found a rock the size of his fist and hefted it.
‘It’s not afraid of us, I think,’ he said, walking towards the bird. It started to hiss, spreading its wings. The stone flew out, knocking the bird over with a squawk and revealing a matted underside of feathers and dirt. Rowan had it by the neck in a moment and dragged the flapping, protesting bird back to his father before silencing it with a sharp tug.
‘You may just have saved my life again this morning,’ Thomas said. ‘We can’t risk a fire, so cut it and drink while it’s warm. Well done, lad. I think I’d have wept like a child if she’d got away from us.’
His son smiled, beginning to feel his strange, fey mood pass. He took care to wipe his knife on the man lying face down in the yard before he used it on the bird.
‘I only wish your grandfather could be here,’ York said, sipping at his wine. ‘The old man took such joy in the birth of children — as you might expect, with twenty-two of his own! Still, the omens are excellent, I’ve been told. A boy, surely.’
He stood in an internal courtyard, roofed in oak and tile, with cream-coloured stone on all sides. The white rose of the house of York was much in evidence, as a painted crest on the beams or carved into the stone itself. In the rooms above his head, an unearthly cry rang out, making his companion wince.
Richard Neville was as tall as his uncle, though he had yet to grow a beard. Through two marriages, it was true his grandfather had sired so many that Richard was used to aunts who were children, or nephews of his own age. The elder Neville had been a potent man and the number of his living descendants was a source of envy to many.
Before Richard could reply, York spoke again.
‘But I am forgetting! I must congratulate you on your new title, well won. Your father must surely be pleased to see you made Earl of Warwick.’
‘You are too kind, my lord. I am still learning what it entails. My father is delighted to have the title and the lands come to the family, as I think you know. I’m afraid I never knew my grandfather.’
York chuckled, draining his cup and raising it for a servant to refill.
‘If you are half the man Ralph Neville was, you will still be twice blessed. He raised me when ill fortune made me an orphan, at the mercy of all men. Old Neville kept my estates and titles intact until I was grown. He asked for nothing in return, though I knew he wanted me to marry Cecily. Even then, he left the final choice to me. He was … a man of great personal honour. I have no higher praise than that. I just hope you understand. I owe him more than I could ever say, Richard, no — Earl Warwick!’