‘Get some sleep, Woodchurch,’ Jack replied. ‘It’ll be a busy night for both of us.’
Derry Brewer was in a foul mood. With his boots clacking on the wooden floor, he paced the room above the water gate of the Tower, looking out on the slate-grey Thames rushing past. Margaret watched him from a bench seat, her hands held tightly in her lap.
‘I’m not saying they’ll ever get closer than they are now, my lady, but there’s an army on the edge of London and the whole city is either terrified or wanting to join them. I have Lord Scales and Lord Grey at me every day to send out royal soldiers to scatter Cade’s men, as if they’re all peasants who’ll run from the sight of a few horses.’
‘Are they not peasants, Derihew?’ she said, awkwardly using his Christian name. Since they’d been thrown together as allies, she’d asked Derry to call her Margaret, but he resisted still. She looked up as he stopped and turned, wondering whether he saw strength or weakness.
‘My lady, I have men strolling right through their camp. That fool Cade knows nothing about passwords or guards. In that drunken crowd, anyone can come or go as they please and, yes, most of them are labourers, apprentices, hard men. There are gentlemen there too, though, with friends in London. They have voices calling everywhere in their support and I smell York’s coins behind them.’ He blew out a breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘And I knew Jack Cade once, when he was just another big … um … devil, standing in ranks against the French. I heard he even fought for the French once, when they were paying better than us. There’s anger enough in him to burn London to the ground, my lady, if he gets the chance.’
He stopped speaking, considering whether he could ask one of his spies to put a dagger in Cade’s eye. It would mean the man’s death, of course, but Derry had the king’s purse available to him. He could pay a fortune to a widow and children, enough to tempt, at least.
‘No matter who they are, or why they’ve gathered, there’s a right horde of them, my lady, all shouting and giving speeches and working each other up to a fine lather. With a spark, London could be sacked. I’d be happier if I didn’t have to plan for the king’s safety, as well as everything else. If he was away from the city, I could act with a free hand.’
Margaret dipped her gaze, rather than be caught staring at her husband’s spymaster. She did not trust Derry Brewer completely, or understand him. She’d known he was on her side over the fate of William de la Pole, but it was weeks since a headless body had washed up with a dozen others at Dover. She closed her eyes briefly at a stab of pain for her friend. One of her hands clenched over the other.
Whether she trusted Derry Brewer or not, she knew she had few other allies at court. The riots seemed to be spreading and those lords who supported the Duke of York were not working too hard to put them down. It suited his faction of lords to have the country up in arms, roaring their discontent. She had learned to hate Richard of York, but hatred wouldn’t jar him from his course. London and her husband had to be made safe before anything else.
As Derry turned back to the window, she ran a hand lightly over her womb, praying for life within. Henry didn’t seem to remember their first stolen intimacy, as drugged and ill as he had been at the time. She had been bold enough to go to him half a dozen times since and it was true her fluxes were late that month. She tried not to hope too desperately.
‘My lady? Are you unwell?’
Her eyes came open and she blushed, unaware that it made her pretty. She looked away from Derry’s searching gaze.
‘I am a little weary, is all, Derry. I know my husband does not want to leave London. He says he must remain, to shame them for their treason.’
‘Whatever he wants, my lady, it will not help him if thousands of men tear London apart. I cannot say for certain that he is safe here; do you understand me? York has his whisperers in as many ears as I have — and a fat purse to bribe weak men. If Cade’s army comes in, it would be too easy to stage an attack on the king — and too hard to protect him with the city under siege.’
He stepped closer and his hand came up for a moment as if he might take hers in his grasp. He let it drop, thinking better of it.
‘Please, Your Highness. I asked to see you for this reason. King Henry has a castle at Kenilworth, not eighty miles from London on good roads. If he is well enough to travel, he could be there in just a few days by carriage. I would know my king is safe and it would be one less burden in defeating the rabble with Cade.’ He hesitated, then spoke again, his voice dropping. ‘Margaret, you should go with him. We have loyal soldiers, but with Cade so close, the people themselves are rioting and looting. They block roads and there are mobs gathering all over the city. Cade coming in will be the tipping point, the spark. This could go badly for us and I do not doubt York’s supporters have marked you well. After all, your fine and loyal members of Parliament have made York the royal heir “in the event of misfortunes”.’ Derry almost spat the words of the decree. ‘It would be madness to invite exactly what they want. To stay is to hold the knife to your own breast.’
Margaret looked steadily into his eyes as he spoke, asking herself again how much she trusted this man. What advantage would he gain with the king and queen gone from London, beyond his claims and the ease of his fears? She knew by then that Derry Brewer was not a simple man. There was rarely one reason for him to do anything. Yet she had seen his grief and rage when he heard of William’s murder. Derry had disappeared for two days, drinking himself into a stupor in one London tap-house after another. That had been real enough. She made her decision.
‘Very well, Derry. I will ask my husband to go to Kenilworth. I will stay in London.’
‘You’d be safer away,’ he said immediately.
Margaret didn’t waver.
‘There is nowhere safe for me, Derry, not as things stand. I am not a child any longer, to have the truth hidden from me. I am not safe while other men covet my husband’s throne. I am not safe while my womb is empty! Well, a pox on all that! I will stay here and I will watch my husband’s lords and soldiers defend the capital. Who knows, you may have need of me, before the end.’
Cade rolled his shoulders, looking out over a host of men that stretched far beyond the light of the crackling torches. He was feeling strong, though his throat was dry and he would have liked another drink to warm his belly. The summer twilight had faded slowly, but darkness was truly upon them at last and an army waited on his word. God knew, he’d stood with smaller forces against the French! He looked around him in awe, sensing rather than seeing the extraordinary number of men who’d gathered. He knew at least half of them had come to him after some injustice. He’d heard a hundred angry stories, more. Men who had lost everything in France, or had their lives and families wrecked by some judgment of the courts. With everything taken away from them, they’d all come to walk with Jack Cade.
His original few thousand men of Kent had almost been swallowed by the mass of latecomers from Essex and London itself. He shook his head in wonder at that thought. There were scores there who lived within London’s walls yet were willing to march with billhook and sword against their own city. He didn’t understand them, but then they weren’t Kentish men, so he didn’t try.
His lieutenants had been busy all day, taking names and getting the army ready to march. Over the previous few weeks, the newcomers had arrived in such numbers it had been all he could do to assign them to a particular officer and leave them to find weapons for themselves. Paddy seemed to enjoy the work and Jack thought he’d have made a fine sergeant in the real army. With Ecclestone and Woodchurch, he’d worked to bring some order to the mass of men, especially those who had no training at all. The vast majority had some sort of iron in their hands and there was only one way to point them. Jack had no idea how they’d fare against royal troops in mail and plate, but at least the narrow streets of London would take away the threat of horsemen at the charge. His men walked, foot soldiers all, but then that was the sort of army he understood and he didn’t sweat too hard at the lack of mounts.