Thomas chuckled at the sight of Jack Cade resting on the stone.
‘Do you know what that is, Jack?’ he said.
His voice was strange and Jack looked again at the rock under his hands. It seemed ordinary enough, though he was struck again at finding such a massive natural thing marking a city crossroads.
‘It’s the London Stone, Jack,’ Thomas went on, his voice awed. There had to be some fate at work that had led Jack Cade along roads he didn’t know to that very spot.
‘Well, I can see that, Tom. It’s a stone and it’s in London. What of it?’
Woodchurch laughed, reaching out himself and patting the stone for luck.
‘It’s older than the city, Jack. Some say it was a piece of King Arthur’s stone, the one that split when he pulled a sword out of it. Or they say it was brought over from Troy to found a city here by the river.’ He shook his head in amusement. ‘Or it could just be the stone they measure the mile markers from, all over England. Either way, you have your hand on the cold stone heart of London, Jack.’
‘I do, do I?’ Jack said, looking down at the boulder with new appreciation. On impulse, he stood back and swung his axe, making the blade skip and spark across the surface. ‘Then it’s a good place to declare Jack Cade has entered London with his Freemen!’ He laughed aloud then. ‘The man who will be king!’
The men around him looked serious and their voices stilled.
‘Well, all right, Jack,’ Woodchurch murmured. ‘If we survive till morning, why not?’
‘Christ, such fancies,’ Jack said, shaking his big head. ‘Show me which road leads quickest to the Guildhall, Tom. That’s what matters.’
27
Richard Neville was beginning to appreciate the accuracy of Brewer’s warnings. His headlong rush across the city had been hampered by crowds of drunken, violent men and even women, screeching and jeering at his soldiers. Entire streets had been blocked by makeshift barricades so that he had to divert again and again, guided by his London-born captains towards the Kentish Freemen.
He could not understand the mood on the streets, beyond a cold contempt for opportunists and wrong-headed fools. Cade’s army was a threat to London and there Warwick was, rushing to their defence, only to be pelted with cold slop, stones and tiles whenever a mob gathered in his way. It was infuriating, but there were not yet enough of them to block his path completely. He was ready to give the order to draw swords on any rioters and ne’er-do-wells, but for the moment, his captains led him on a twisting path through the heart, heading south with six hundred men.
The knights and men-at-arms he had brought to London were not enough to take on Cade directly, he knew that much. Yet his captains assured him Cade’s mob would be spread out along miles of streets and tracks. The young earl knew his best chance would be to cut the line at any one of a dozen places, then withdraw quickly to strike again somewhere else. He knew he should avoid a major clash — the numbers invading the city were just too high.
His first chance came as he had imagined it, as Warwick turned a corner and looked down a slight hill to a junction, skidding to a stop at the sight of armed men streaming past in a great hurry. He stood under the downpour in relative safety, not twenty yards from Cade’s main forces as they headed unaware across his route. Some of them even looked left as they passed the mouth of the road, catching a glimpse of Warwick’s soldiers in the dark side street, watching them. Caught up in the snake of angry men, they were carried on past before they could stop.
‘Keep a line of retreat,’ Warwick ordered. To his disgust, his voice trembled and he cleared his throat loudly before going on with his orders. ‘They are traitors all. We go in, kill as many as we can in the surprise, then pull back into …’ He looked around, seeing a small wooden signpost. He leaned closer to read it and for an instant raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Back into Shiteburn Lane.’
It helped to explain what he had sunk ankle-deep into, at least. He spent a moment longing for wooden overshoes to raise him up above the slop, though he could hardly have fought in those. His boots would just have to be burned afterwards.
He drew his sword, the hilt still new, with the Warwick coat of arms enamelled on silver. Rain streamed down it, joining a slurry of filth at his feet. He settled his shield against his left forearm and briefly touched the iron visor across his brow. Unconsciously, he shook his head, almost shuddering at the thought of disappearing into that mass of armed men with just a slit of light to see through. He left the visor up and turned to his men.
‘Cut the line, gentlemen. Let’s see if we can hold a single street. With me now.’
Raising his sword, Warwick strode forward to the road crossing, his men forming up around him for the first strike.
Thomas dogtrotted along roads he kept remembering from his youth, so that moments of nostalgia would strike him, set against the insane reality of following Jack Cade and his bloodstained rabble through the heart of London. He kept Rowan close as they went and both of them wore the longbows strung on their shoulders, useless now with rain-stretched strings and all the arrows gone on the bridge. Swords were in short supply and Thomas had only a stout oak club he’d wrestled from a dying man. Rowan was armed with a stabbing dagger he’d picked up from one of the soldiers foolish enough to stand in their way.
Jack’s men took better weapons from each group they came across, overwhelming lines of soldiers and then robbing the bodies, replacing daggers with swords, bucklers with full shields, regardless of whose colours they carried. Even then, there were not enough for all those behind still clamouring for a good length of sharp iron.
The storm squalls were growing weaker and the moon had risen overhead, lending its light to the streets running directly beneath. The violence Thomas had seen in the previous hour had been simply breathtaking as Cade’s men cut anyone in front of them to pieces and then walked on over the dead. The soldiers defending the city were in disarray, appearing in side streets or standing in panic as they realized they had manoeuvred themselves into Cade’s path. The king’s men simply had too much ground to cover. Even if they guessed Cade’s intentions from his path towards the Guildhall, they couldn’t communicate to the individual forces in the streets. Roaming troops of soldiers either manned barricades in the wrong places, or followed the sounds of fighting as best they could in the maze.
Cade’s front ranks had come across one group of around eighty men in mail just standing in an empty street under the moonlight, with their heads cocked as they listened to the night noise of the city. They had been cut apart, then suffered the indignity of having their greasy mail shirts wrenched from still-warm bodies.
The snake of Kent and Essex men had spread out as the streets diverged, adding new tails and routes as men lost track of each other in the darkness. The general direction was north, into the city, with Cannon Street and the London Stone far behind.
Thomas stretched his memory back, checking every crossroads for some sign that he was on the right path. He knew Jack looked to him to know the way, but the truth was he hadn’t been in the city for twenty years and the streets always looked different at night. He chuckled at the thought of Jack’s reaction if he led them round in a great circle and they saw the Thames again.
One street wider than the rest allowed Thomas to check his bearings on the moon and as soon as he was sure, he urged the others on. He sensed they had to keep moving, that the king’s forces would be massing somewhere close. Thomas wanted to see the Guildhall, that symbol of the city’s wealth and strength. He wanted the king and his lords to know they’d been in a real fight, not just some petty squabble with angry traders giving speeches and stamping their feet.