Ecclestone jerked and stumbled ahead of him. Thomas looked up in time to see a dark shape rush past Ecclestone’s feet, squealing in terror before anyone could stab it.
‘A pig! Just a bleeding, fucking pig,’ Ecclestone muttered to himself, lowering his razor.
No one laughed at the way he’d jumped and cursed. There was something terrible and frightening about Ecclestone and his bloody short-blade. He was not the sort of man to invite rough humour at his expense, not at all. Thomas noted how Ecclestone kept an eye on Jack at all times, watching his back. The thought made him look for the big Irishman, but for once, Paddy was nowhere to be seen.
As they passed a side street, Thomas looked into it automatically, almost coming to a shocked halt at the sight of ranks of armed men waiting there, just twenty paces away. He had a glimpse of iron and dark-bearded soldiers before he was carried past.
‘’Ware left!’ he shouted to those behind, trying to hold himself back against the rush of moving men for a moment before he was shoved on. Thomas moved faster to catch up with Rowan and the group around Jack.
‘Soldiers behind, Jack!’ Thomas called.
He saw the big man look over his shoulder, but he too was deep in the press and they were all moving forward, unable to slow or stop. They heard the crash and shouting begin, but by then it was a hundred yards to the rear and they could only go on.
The streets were just as thick with clotted mud underfoot as they’d been since first entering London, but Thomas could see some of the houses had changed to stone, with better gutters running along the edges of the main road, so that men lurched as they put their feet into them. A wisp of memory told him where he was and he had time to shout a warning before the front lines staggered out into a wider stone yard.
London’s Guildhall lay ahead of them under the rain, deliberately imposing, though it was less than a dozen years old. Thomas saw Jack raise his head from rebellious instinct as he caught sight of it, knowing only that it represented wealth and power and everything he had never known. The pace increased and Thomas could see king’s men scurrying around the great oak doors, screaming orders at each other in desperation as they saw hundreds of men come pouring out of the night streets at them.
On the other side, ranks of marching men appeared, their neat lines faltering as they saw Cade’s army swelling into the open like a burst blister. At both ends of the small square, captains yelled orders and men began to run towards one another, raising weapons and howling. The rain drummed hard across the wide flagstones and the sound echoed back on all sides from the buildings, magnified and frightening in the moonlight.
Derry was four streets east of the Guildhall when he heard the sounds of fresh fighting. He was still groggy from a blow taken from some swearing great farmer in a side alley as he raced through the city. Derry shook his head, feeling his eye and cheek swell until he could hardly see from his right side. He’d chopped the bastard, but left him wailing in pain when more of Cade’s men had appeared.
Derry could hear Lord Scales panting over on his right. The baron had stopped his bristling resentment some time before, after Derry had led the soldiers out of an ambush, taking alleyways that were little wider than the shoulders of a single man with unerring accuracy. They’d run through reeking filth that was almost knee-deep in places, darting along turns and pushing aside damp washing when it slapped into their faces. They’d come out on the other side of a makeshift barricade and killed a dozen rioting men before they even knew they’d been flanked.
It should have been more of an advantage, Derry told himself. He knew the city as well as any urchin used to escaping from shopkeepers and the gangs. The king’s defenders should have been able to use that knowledge to run rings around Cade’s mob. The problem was that most of them had been summoned to London from the shires or even further. Very few knew the streets they were running down. More than once that night, Derry and Scales had been brought up short by armoured men, only to discover they were on the same side. It was cold and messy and chaotic, and Derry didn’t doubt Cade was taking full advantage of the feeble defences. If they’d had one man in command, it would have been easier, but with the king out of the city, eleven or twelve lords were their own authority over the forces they led. Derry cursed, feeling his lungs burn. Even if King Henry had been there in person, he doubted the Yorkist lords would have put themselves under anyone else’s command. Not that night.
‘Next left!’ Scales shouted to those around him. ‘Head towards the Guildhall!’
Derry counted in his head. He’d just run past two side streets and was certain it hadn’t been more.
‘The Guildhall is two streets up from here,’ Derry said, his voice little more than a croak.
He could not see the baron’s expression clearly, but the soldiers running with them knew better than to question their lord’s orders. They swung left in good order, tramping around abandoned carts and a pile of bodies from some previous encounter that night. Derry thought his lungs were going to burst as he staggered over a dark mass of dead men, wincing as he heard bones creak and snap under his boots.
‘God forgive me,’ he whispered, suddenly certain he’d felt one of them move and groan under his weight.
There were moving torches ahead and the sound of a woman screaming. Derry’s face was burning and the spittle in his mouth was like thick pease pudding, but he set his jaw and stayed with the others. He told himself he’d be damned if he’d let young soldiers run the legs off him, but he was out of condition and it was beginning to show.
‘Anyone looting or raping is fair game, lads,’ Derry called.
He sensed Lord Scales jerk his head around, but it hadn’t been a true order. The growl of agreement from the soldiers made their feelings plain, but Scales took a moment to reply over his weariness and frustration.
‘Cade’s men are the priority,’ he said firmly. ‘Anything else, anything, can wait till morning.’
Derry wondered what Scales thought their fourscore could do against thousands, but he kept his silence as the light ahead grew and they saw men streaming past. Whatever else Scales may have been, the man had no sense of fear. He didn’t slow at all as he reached the junction. Derry could only heave for breath as the rest of them went with him, smacking against the bellowing crowd with a crash, followed instantly by the first screams. Scales’s soldiers wore breastplates and mail shirts. They cut into the crowd like a spear thrust, striking down anything in their path. Around them, Cade’s men fell back, scrambling to get away from soldiers who used their armour as its own weapon, smashing metal-clad elbows into the teeth of men with every swing.
Derry found himself plunging into the flow as if he’d leaped into a river. He blocked a swinging staff and stabbed out with a good bit of sharp iron that had seen service for a century or more. Scales’s men swung swords and long-handled hammers as if they’d gone berserk in a great slaughter, cutting right across the torchlit procession. They held a place in the centre of the road, blocking the onward movement as they faced those still coming up behind.
Derry glanced left and right, seeing the line stretched to the Guildhall in one direction and back around a corner on the other side. There seemed no end to the red-faced Kentish men and he realized Scales had found the wellspring. For all Derry knew, this mob stretched the whole way back to the river. In the first mad rush, Scales and his men had carried all before them and blocked the road. They now stood together, bristling with weapons, daring the heaving crowd to try and regain the ground.
Derry chuckled as he saw the lack of desire in Cade’s men. They’d been cheerfully following those in front, not quite ready to lead on their own, at least not then. The head of the snake travelled on, with the rearmost ranks looking back and calling jeers and insults, but still choosing to march on rather than turn and fight. With just eighty men, Scales had stopped the mob cold, but Derry saw them moving into side streets even as he had the thought.