‘A City of Robbers, a den of thieves, the manor of murder and the haunt of lost souls.’ Such was the judgement of the Chronicler of St Paul’s who maintained the Annals of the City. A truly scathing description of London in the late October of the year of our Lord 1471. A keen observer of the foibles of his fellow citizens, especially the Lords of the Earth, the Chronicler had reviewed and stridently proclaimed his chilling conclusions. Certainly this was the season of murder and sudden death, as the great ones clashed at the ferocious battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury in the early summer of that same year. The city had also suffered the bloody violence of the age: the clash of sword against shield whilst the bray of war trumpets rang along London’s streets. Parts of the city had been burnt to the ground as the gorgeously embroidered standards and banners of both York and Lancaster fought their way through the columns of smoke which hung like clouds over the narrow, stinking streets. It truly was a fight to the death. King Edward, York’s own champion, had passed the order ‘to spare the little ones of the earth and kill the leaders’ amongst their enemy. In the end, however, Death was the only victor. Corpses cluttered the alleyways. The remains of the dead littered the city streets, as common as leaves driven by the wind. Cadavers rotted in lay stalls, sewers, ditches, cellars, and all the other stinking, dark holes of the city.
The different guilds tried to do their best. Men and women who belonged to fraternities such as ‘The Souls of the Dead’, ‘The Guild of the Hanged’ and ‘The Hope of the Faithful’ tried to provide decent burial. Great pits were dug in graveyards and along the great common beyond the city walls. Nevertheless, Death reigned supreme. Unburied corpses, bloated and ruptured, were stacked like slabs of unwanted meat in many city churchyards. Funeral pyres burned day and night, their fearful flames illuminating the sky, their black smoke curling along the arrow-thin runnels. The cadavers of the great ones, those lords defeated and killed by the power of York, were treated with a little more respect. However, this was only because Edward the King, along with his two brothers George of Clarence and Richard of Gloucester wanted to proclaim to all, both at home and abroad, that their enemies were truly dead. Accordingly, the corpses of the old Lancastrian King Henry VI, together with those of his principal commanders, were exposed in different churches for the good citizens to view. St Paul’s was commonly used for this macabre ceremony and the citizens turned up to queue, as they would for a mummers’ play or a Christmas masque. The corpse of King Henry was abruptly removed when it began to bleed, drenching the inside of his coffin and forcing the world to wonder what had truly happened to the old King during his sojourn in the Tower. Had he suffered an accident or been murdered at the dead of night? The Chronicler of St Paul’s dared not comment on that except to write, ‘that only God knew the truth so it was best to leave it at that’.
Peace came at last though fraught with fresh dangers. The soldiers who fought for York and Lancaster were freed from their indentures. After the great Yorkist victories, there would be no more alarums in this shire or that. Some former soldiers took themselves off out of the city, tramping the winding lanes and coffin paths to seek employment or return to half-forgotten trades. Many former soldiers, however, stayed in London, and looked for mischief to replenish both purse and belly.
Foremost amongst these was Otto Zeigler, a giant of a man with a fearsome reputation as a soldier in the service of York: a mercenary with a special hatred for the Welsh and the House of Tudor in particular. According to common report, Zeigler was the by-blow of a Breton woman and a Flemish merchant. Skilled in language, Zeigler was even more proficient in the use of arms and, since his youth, had donned the mailed jacket of the professional mercenary. Once the struggle between York and Lancaster subsided, rumour and gossip seeped like a mist into the city about the atrocities perpetrated in the shires after the great Yorkist triumphs. The cruel executions and hideous punishments inflicted became common knowledge, and people whispered that Zeigler had carried out the most gruesome tortures on those he captured. Zeigler also acquired a most fearsome reputation as a dagger man, a born street fighter, a reputation he cleverly exploited after he’d been dismissed from the royal array. Zeigler became a riffler, a member of one of those fearsome gangs which prowled the nightmare of London’s underworld. These street warriors were truly feared and, in some cases, protected and favoured by the city merchants, who used the rifflers for their own secret purposes. Zeigler soon won their attention as he fought his way through the ranks to become a captain of the Sangliers – the Wild Boars, a pack of cutthroats and murderers who sported the livery of a scarlet neckband. Zeigler, dressed in the garb of a Franciscan friar, a mark of respect to a priest who’d treated him kindly, the only soul who ever had, was often seen in the city swaggering through the markets to receive the bows and curtseys of those who should have known better.
Nevertheless, despite all his arrogance, Zeigler sensed the dangers. If he was leader of the pack, then he had to ensure that when they hunted they caught their prey. Accordingly, Zeigler, his fat-shaven face glistening with sweat which also laced his bald, dome-like head, was delighted to hear reports of a treasure trove, a truly juicy plum, ripe for the plucking. Apparently there was a warehouse near Baynard’s Castle crammed with luxurious goods imported from the Baltic by the prosperous Philpot family of merchants. These included costly furs, precious woods, skilfully woven tapestries as well as chests full of vessels and other ornaments fashioned out of gold and silver and studded with the most precious stones.
Zeigler’s appetite was whetted. The warehouse was undoubtedly secure, standing as it did in the garden of Philpot’s riverside mansion; a strong, one-storey, red-brick building with reinforced doors and shutters. Usually this warehouse stood empty. However, according to the reports Zeigler had received, Edmund Philpot had decided to store his treasure there before moving it in a well-guarded convoy to the Great Wardrobe, a truly formidable and fortified arca or strong room close to the Guildhall. Edmund Philpot was being cautious: the treasures he owned had been brought from a cog berthed at Queenhithe only a short distance from his mansion. However the journey to the Great Wardrobe was long, tortuous and fraught with all kinds of danger, so Philpot was waiting to muster a strong enough guard from the Guildhall.
Zeigler paid well for such information; what he learned seemed to be the truth. Sir Edmund had tried to keep the garden warehouse a secret. The merchant certainly did not wish to attract attention to what he had arranged, paying only two of his bailiffs to guard his treasure trove both day and night. Zeigler made his decision. He and his henchman Joachim chose a dozen of their cohort, secured a war barge and prepared to seize what Zeigler called ‘a prize for the taking’.
On the eve of the feast of St Erconwald’s, long after the vesper bell had tolled and the great candles and lanterns been lit in the soaring steeples of the city churches, Zeigler led his coven down to a deserted Dowgate quayside and boarded the waiting war barge. Zeigler had chosen well. Six of his coven had worked on the river; these now acted as oarsmen and the barge was soon untied and made to depart. Zeigler, standing in the prow, stared into the freezing cold mist now spreading across the river, blinding the view and deadening all sound.
‘We are truly blessed with a night like this,’ Zeigler whispered to his henchman Joachim. ‘We will slip like ghosts along the river.’ Zeigler, pleased with himself, gazed around. The Thames was deathly quiet. The nearby quayside empty, nothing but the constant horde of hump-backed rats foraging for food whilst trying to avoid the feral cats which hunted them. The mist shifted and Zeigler glimpsed ‘Death’s Own Gibbet’, as the river people called it, a monstrous, six-branched gallows used by the city sheriffs to hang river pirates and other such malefactors. Thankfully, it was now empty of its rotting fruits. Nevertheless, the stark, soaring, sinister column was a chilling sight.
Once again, Zeigler reflected on the information he’d been given. Apparently one of Philpot’s own clerks had stumbled into a tavern, much the worse for drink, and sat muttering about the busy day he’d spent organising an inventory for Sir Edmund’s chancery. Deep in his cups, unaware of the true identity of Joachim who sat drinking close by, the clerk had referred to the garden warehouse and all it contained. At first Zeigler couldn’t believe his ears; nevertheless he led a pack of wolves and they had to be fed. He and Joachim could always hold their own but, if they successfully plundered that warehouse, they’d be rich and free of all danger.
Zeigler scratched the side of his head, wiping away the spray as the tillerman whispered instructions and the barge surged forward, battling the strong pull of the river. Zeigler tapped the pommel of his sword, there would be no turning back. Fortune had cast her dice and they were committed. Zeigler half closed his eyes as he quietly cursed the House of York who’d employed him as a captain of mercenaries in their struggle but, once they were done, had dismissed the likes of Zeigler to fend for themselves. Times were hard. Winter had arrived. Last summer’s harvest had not been good. Food was scarce, prices were rising. During his service as a mercenary, Zeigler could help himself to what he wanted. Now he had been turned out, it was different.
After London had been pillaged and looted, Edward of York had moved to crush all opposition and impose his own peace. The scaffolds and gibbets were busy and Zeigler’s concern for himself had only deepened. He needed treasure, gold and silver coin to buy sustenance for himself and the pack he led. There were already grumblings amongst the Sangliers and Joachim had warned that they would not be the first riffler leaders to be assassinated. Zeigler had to establish himself as a successful freebooter. Philpot’s warehouse and the treasure it contained would undoubtedly make him a prince amongst thieves. He recognised the risks but the dangers of doing nothing were even greater.
‘We are almost there,’ Grimwood, the sharp-eyed lookout, whispered hoarsely. ‘Turn the barge in.’
The oarsmen, on the direction of the tillerman, did so. The river mist shifted and the barge slid gently along the jetty. Ropes were fastened tight. Zeigler and his gang put on their visors and pulled deep hoods over their heads. They grasped weapons, silently disembarked and made their way forward towards the lanternhorn glowing on the post of the water-gate leading into the garden of Philpot’s mansion. Zeigler and his coven were grateful for the cloying mist which closed in about them, though they were wary of slipping as a fall into the freezing-cold river would be fatal.
They reached the gate. Zeigler pressed against it and could not believe his good fortune. The gate had not been barred, bolted or locked from within. A costly mistake! They pushed the gate open onto the pebble-crammed path which wound by flower, herb and spice plots all tinged white by the constant frosts. Lights glowed from the rear of the stately mansion. The rifflers edged forward; the soles of their boots had been wrapped in soft leather cloths to deaden all sound. Nevertheless, they moved cautiously. Zeigler lifted a hand. The rifflers paused, staring through the dark at the two guards sitting in a roughly built bothy before the warehouse: both men were warming their hands before a weak fire.
‘Now,’ Zeigler ordered.
Two of his coven, seasoned crossbow archers, lifted their arbalests and released the catch. The bolts sped out; one struck a guard, smashing into his skull. The other caught the second high in the shoulder. The latter staggered to his feet, his ragged clothing flapping under the cutting breeze: a grotesque sight illuminated by the flames leaping up from the makeshift fire. A second bolt was loosed, catching him full in his bearded face, and the guard fell back.
‘Quick, quick!’ Zeigler urged his men towards the door of the warehouse. The riffler chieftain realised it was unbarred and glimpsed the beam lying on the ground pushed deep into the shadows. Zeigler froze, mouth gaping. Something was very wrong! A spurt of fear made him stare back the way they’d come. He cursed his own recklessness. He’d been too greedy, too quick! The garden gate had been left open, the bar to the warehouse door was off its clasp. As for the guards, that second one – with his unkempt hair and beard, garbed in motley rags – was no bailiff, the other was no better. They were not household retainers but beggars. Zeigler took a step forward, his coven were opening the warehouse door, thronging together, eager to seize the piles of promised plunder.
‘On your guard!’ Zeigler shouted.
He hastened towards his comrades. The door swung open, his men faltered, staring into the dark but it was too late. An arrow storm whipped through the air followed by a clatter of weapons as the mailed men-at-arms sheltering deep in the warehouse, soldiers wearing the Guildhall livery, seemed to emerge as if from nowhere. The riffler leader drew his sword to meet hobelars all harnessed for battle; these swiftly ringed him, blades at the ready. One of them carried a sconce torch lit from the makeshift hearth. Zeigler turned like an animal at bay even as his heart sank: his coven were either being cut down or fleeing for their lives. He was now trapped by a circle of armed men. Zeigler’s fear deepened. He knew he was immediately recognisable in his earth-brown Franciscan robe, yet he had not been harmed; no arrow, no swift blade thrust, so why? He decided to test his opponents. He darted forward but the hobelars, swords still extended, simply retreated.
‘Well, well, well.’ A cheery voice hailed from the darkness. ‘Good morrow, Master Zeigler, we are ill-met by moonlight. Yes?’ The circle of hobelars parted to allow Sir Thomas Urswicke, Recorder of London and great Lord of the Guildhall, to come sauntering through. Sir Thomas hitched the costly, fur-edged robe more firmly about his shoulders to provide greater warmth as well as to enhance the gleam of his elegant Milanese breastplate. The Recorder pulled back his hood and loosened the delicately linked coif which framed his smooth, smiling face. ‘Put down your weapons, Master Zeigler.’ The riffler did so. Sir Thomas snapped his fingers for silence then cocked his head as he listened to the moans and groans of those rifflers brought down by arrow or sword. ‘In heaven’s name,’ he shouted, ‘cut their throats and stop their moaning. As for him,’ the Recorder pointed to Zeigler, ‘bind him fast and follow me.’
The Recorder led his cohort across the garden and through a wicket gate guarded by a company of Tower archers. They went along the side of the elegant mansion and onto the broad cobbled expanse which stretched along the thoroughfare and its row of the stateliest mansions in the city. Zeigler, surrounded by hobelars and Tower archers, realised it was futile to resist; his hands were bound tightly with a lead fastened around his neck as if he was a dog. The mailed procession moved swiftly as they entered the demon-filled darkness of what became the city after dark. On either side of the column, soldiers carried fiercely burning cresset torches, these illuminated the hideous spectres of the night, more dire and dreadful than any poem or fresco describing the horrors of Hell. Beggars, faces and hands mutilated and bruised, lurked in the shadows whining for alms. A cohort of lepers, dressed in dingy white robes, had been released from the lazar house: these could only beg for help during the hours of darkness, though they would be lucky to receive even a pittance. The lepers passed like a tribe of chattering ghosts going deeper into the blackness around them. The shadow-dwellers, the men and women of London’s Hades also prowled; they stayed out of the light searching for anything or anyone they could profit from. Such denizens of the night disappeared like snow under the sun at the approach of the armoured cohort.
Cursing and spitting, struggling violently against the harsh rope around his neck, Zeigler, sweat-soaked and exhausted, realised they were now approaching the heart of the city, the great open expanse of Cheapside. The stalls, of course, had been cleared and were nothing more than row upon row of long, high tables beneath which the poor now sheltered. Great bonfires had been lit to burn the rubbish from that day’s trading, as well as to afford some solace and comfort to the homeless and dispossessed who gathered around to seek warmth and cook their putrid meat over the flames. The constantly darting tongues of fire also illuminated the brooding mass of Newgate prison. The great concourse before it was now the hunting ground for a horde of vermin which scurried across to forage amongst the stinking, steaming midden heaps piled either side of the prison’s iron-barred gates. Zeigler thought they would enter Newgate but the Recorder’s cohort abruptly turned left in the direction of the Fleet and, Zeigler quietly moaned, the grim gibbet yard overlooking Tyburn stream. They proceeded up past the Inns of Court and onto the execution ground, a truly macabre place with its row of four-branched gallows. From some of these the cadavers of the hanged, bound tightly in tarred ropes, shifted eerily in the blustery night breeze.
Sir Thomas Urswicke had definitely prepared well: bonfires roared around one of the gallows, empty and desolate, except for the ladder leaning against the main gibbet post and the black-masked hangman waiting patiently beside it. The cohort stopped before the steps leading up to the execution platform. Zeigler began to panic. Seasoned felon, he recognised what was about to happen; it would be futile to protest. He had been caught red-handed committing the most serious felonies so he could be hanged out of hand. Sir Thomas strolled out of the darkness, his hooded face smiling, as if he deeply relished what was about to happen. He ordered Zeigler to be tied more securely, feet as well as hands, he then dismissed the guards out of earshot. Once they had withdrawn, Sir Thomas stepped closer.
‘You can hang, sir,’ the Recorder hissed, ‘and I could arrange that now.’ Zeigler remained tight-lipped. ‘You once fought for York,’ the Recorder continued, ‘a captain of mercenaries. You have a Breton mother and a Flemish father. For God knows what reason, you were brought up in Wales. Something happened there, I am not too sure what, and I don’t really care. One thing I have learnt, you hate the Welsh.’
‘What you say is true,’ Zeigler rasped. ‘But why do you mention it now, Sir Thomas?’
‘You recognised me immediately.’ Sir Thomas seized the end of the rope tied around Zeigler’s neck and pulled hard so the knot dug deep into the prisoner’s flesh. ‘You recognised me, sir?’ he repeated.
‘Of course I did. Your face is well-known, Sir Thomas, as is your loyalty to the House of York.’ The Recorder once again pulled at the rope and Zeigler gasped in pain. ‘Good, good,’ Sir Thomas whispered, ‘you know my name and now you know my nature. So, Master Zeigler, you too fought for York at Tewkesbury, you were with Hastings’ phalanx. Your task was to seek out a coven of traitors, Welshmen under the command of their leader Gareth Morgan, now popularly known as Pembroke. Yes?’
‘I recall that bastard and the tribe of traitorous turds he commanded.’
‘Quite, quite. They called themselves the Red Dragon Battle Group because they fought under the treasonous standard of Jasper Tudor who failed to join that fight. You do remember?’
‘As I said, of course.’
‘Now the Red Dragon Battle Group were to seek out our noble King Edward, together with his two brothers, and kill them. They were following the pattern of the great conflict at Evesham over two hundred years earlier when the household knights of Prince Edward, son of King Henry III, vowed to search out and kill the Crown’s most insidious rebel, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. They were successful, Pembroke was not.’
‘We wreaked great damage on them. They broke, they fled. I nearly captured Morgan, or Pembroke as he now calls himself. I threw him into a bear pit after Townton: if I had caught him at Tewkesbury I would have impaled him.’
‘I know what you did, Otto Zeigler, and I know who you are. Now listen carefully. You will be lodged in Newgate and, when I decide, you will be visited. We shall reach an agreement. Either that,’ Sir Thomas shrugged, ‘or you will strangle on that gibbet.’
‘How do I know that? You tricked me once, did you not, my Lord? That clerk who claimed to be from Sir Edmund Philpot was your creature, and not as deep in his cups as he pretended to be? You left that gate open, the door unbarred whilst those guards were beggars from the street?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Sir Thomas took a step forward. ‘So, Master Zeigler, when you enter my employ, I sincerely hope, for your sake, that your wits are sharper than in this present situation.’
Zeigler stared at the ever-smiling Sir Thomas. The riffler felt a deep sense of relief even as he abruptly realised that he could not die here. Just before the battle of Tewkesbury he had visited a witch outside Ludlow: she had told him that he would only die if he entered a wooden cage floating on water, and he had no intention of doing that.
‘You have a henchman Joachim?’ Sir Thomas continued. ‘He also dresses in a brown robe. We allowed him to escape tonight. I shall arrange for Joachim to be our intermediary, and he will be faithful, yes?’ Sir Thomas’s smile widened. ‘If not to you, certainly to me otherwise I will hang him out of hand. Now Joachim will bring my messages.’ He sighed noisily. ‘And, at the appointed time, your fortune Master Zeigler will take a turn for the better. But, let me whet your appetite. Pembroke is back in the city! Oh yes,’ Sir Thomas smiled at Zeigler’s abrupt change of expression, ‘the man you threw into a bear pit is back and, listen to this, he is not alone. So,’ the Recorder rubbed his hands, he then pulled his gauntlets out of his warbelt and put them on, ‘we have talked enough. Master Zeigler, your Newgate chamber awaits you.’ Sir Thomas patted Zeigler on the cheek. ‘I am going to place great trust in you, yes Otto? I have a very special task for you to complete. First, in this kingdom, and then beyond the seas in Brittany. You are fluent in the Breton tongue I understand. What if, my friend,’ the Recorder took a step closer, ‘what if I also gave you the opportunity to strike at Pembroke?’
‘I would seize it.’
‘And the traitor Henry Tudor in exile abroad?’
‘I would be equally eager.’
‘Good, good. My task, Master Zeigler, could make you and yours very wealthy, rich beyond your wildest dreams. If you fail or you don’t keep troth, if your wits are not sharper than they were this evening, well, as we take you back to Newgate you will pass the common gibbet: those of your company whom we cut down tonight are to be hanged there naked as they were born, throats all cut. A warning to other rifflers not to break the law.’ Sir Thomas’s smile widened. ‘But, as we both recognise, my friend, it’s also a reminder and a threat to you about the cost of failure.’
‘When will all this happen?’
‘When I decide, Master Zeigler. And now your chamber at Newgate awaits whilst I have other urgent business to attend to …’
The great two-masted war cog The Glory of Lancaster, was battling the waves off the small inlet at Walton-on-the-Naze Essex. Some dark-winged demon of the abyss had flown up to stir the seas and create a heavy swell which threatened to drive the cog and all it carried onto the ever hungry rocks. John de Vere, thirteenth Earl of Oxford, master and owner of the cog, stood leaning against the taffrail of his battered vessel. He watched the ship’s bum-boat being lowered down the cog’s side, clattering and banging as his ship pitched and rolled, plunged and shuddered on the fast-running sea. De Vere scratched his unshaven chin, half listening to members of his crew as they lowered the boat, desperate to keep it in place, safe and secure for the four men who would follow it down. De Vere peered through the dark; his watchmen had glimpsed the message sent from a shuttered lanternhorn somewhere along that lonely sea-swept beach. Yet, this was England, his country, his home. De Vere swallowed hard at a stab of profound homesickness. He had attached his star, his personal escutcheon, the five-pointed silver mullet of Oxford to the House of Lancaster and, because of that, he and all his own had been forced into exile. York was triumphant. Edward IV, as he styled himself, was King, supported by a cohort of loyal and ruthless henchmen, such as Hastings, Norfolk and others of that ilk, not to mention Edward’s two dark shadows, Richard of Gloucester and George of Clarence. Oxford steadied himself against the rolling pitch of the tide and watched the bum-boat on its slow descent, inch by inch to the waiting sea. He glanced at the four men waiting to go down the rope ladder once the boat was ready.
‘God have mercy on you!’ Oxford called out. ‘I call upon the Holy Trinity with faith in the Threeness and trust in the Oneness of the world’s great maker. May he have great pity on you for our enemies certainly will not.’
Oxford wiped his salt-caked lips on the back of his arm sleeve. What he’d just said was the truth. In the life-and-death struggle between York and Lancaster no mercy was shown, no quarter given. Edward and his henchmen had inflicted grievous damage on Oxford and all his kin and he would return blow for blow, but not just yet. England was now a Yorkist fief. The power of Lancaster had been utterly shattered at those two devastating battles of Barnet and Tewksbury earlier in the year.
‘Bloody defeat and total annihilation,’ Oxford whispered to himself. Two great disasters in which the House of Lancaster had been truly culled, its great lords either killed in the battle slaughter or executed on makeshift scaffolds soon afterwards. Horrible, cruel deaths; hanged, drawn, quartered and disembowelled. The tattered heads of Oxford’s friends and family now decorated the gateways of many English cities, be it Bristol, York or Canterbury. De Vere thanked God every day that he had been spared. He also prayed that Lancaster’s one and only hope, Henry Tudor, son of the redoubtable Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, would survive. Prince Henry was now safely in Brittany whilst his mother Margaret sheltered deep in the shadows, smiling and bowing to her Yorkist masters whilst playing the most dangerous secret game, to sustain and strengthen the fortunes of her depleted house and exiled son.
Oxford closed his eyes as he recalled the diminutive Margaret, small of body but with the courage and the stamina many warriors would envy. Margaret was a mistress of deception. She would smile and smile again at her enemies whilst devising her own day of destruction, a time when the Yorkist strongholds would fall, the board be cleared and a new reign begin. The countess plotted for the return of her son with an army which would be welcomed, but that was for the future. In the meantime, the likes of Oxford could only wait and watch as they were doing now, yet it was so hard! Edward of York was wearing his enemies down with the humdrum passing of the days which showed little hope for their cause. Oxford acknowledged this was true of himself. He was growing tired of this wolfshead’s life, lurking in crumbling taverns, sleeping on mattresses with nothing in them but chopped straw crammed with fleas, the stumps of twigs piercing the ragged coverlet. A bed of pain with stinking, threadbare blankets affording the only protection against the winter damp and cold. Once again Oxford peered through the dark which was now beginning to thin, the rising sun’s light tingeing the sky behind him. He would land these men and then go back to sea. In the meantime …
The exiled earl stared longingly at the coastline; beyond that dark ridge stretched fertile fields. His fields! His orchards which, when spring came, would bend their branches to the ground, their fruit so heavy, full and luscious. Around such orchards stretched meadows which housed wild deer, fleet hares, fat cattle and heavy-bellied swine; the source of much good food and revelry. But not now. This was a dark hour. He and other Lancastrians had no choice but to shelter in foreign parts beyond the Narrow Seas. They were reduced to begging for help and favour from this great lord or that powerful duke. They dealt with princes who could not be trusted and would soon play the Judas if the price was right. Oxford and his ilk lived in constant fear of being betrayed, arrested, bundled into some filthy prison before being bound hand and foot and delivered to an English cog despatched by Edward of York.
Oxford shook his head, wiping the spray from his face. He glanced over the side. The bum-boat was now down and its oarsmen would see their four passengers safely ashore. Oxford crossed himself and murmured a prayer to St Anne, his patron saint. What was happening now was the other side of the coin he’d been dealt. Sheltering in foreign parts could only be for so long, it was not just a matter of waiting. Pressing business demanded their attention. Oxford and other Lancastrians needed to fan the flames of rebellion and dissent across England, and so it came to this, sailing one of his precious war cogs off the English coast. He heard a voice hailing from across the water. Oxford raised a hand in salute at the fast disappearing boat, its rowers forcing it forward against the stiff-running tide.
On the moorland overlooking the beach two others watched the sea and both whispered a prayer of thanksgiving as they glimpsed the faint outlines of the approaching bum-boat. The two watchers, garbed completely in black, had hidden themselves cleverly in a thick clump of gorse using their gauntleted hands to pull across the bracken and sharp twigs, over and around their place of concealment. Christopher Urswicke, clerk of the privy chamber in the household of Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, had chosen the place. Now he crouched, hood pulled across his gleaming auburn hair, his fair-skinned face, which one court lady had likened to a cherub, daubed black. Urswicke’s companion and comrade Reginald Bray, steward of the same countess, needed no such disguise. ‘Black of hair, black of soul and black of face.’ As Bray had once described himself.
Bray was a street fighter, a man who found it hard to keep still, and now the steward just wished he shared some of his companion’s calm composure. Indeed, Bray was deeply agitated and had been so since they first arrived. They had been despatched to greet the four men in the approaching bum-boat, here on this desolate wind-swept beach well away from the busy ports of Harwich and Orwell. The Essex coastline was a place of darkness and the stretch of beach below them was a truly lonely haunt. Nevertheless Bray, who had fought as a secret assassin in France, believed his own apprehension was justified. Despite the darkness, the rolling crash of the sea and the occasional shriek of some bird, Bray just felt that they were not alone. Some danger threatened. Some terror was closing fast. He had sniffed the sea-salted breeze. He was sure he caught other smells: horseflesh, leather, dung and the waft of unwashed bodies. Bray prided himself on his keen sense of smell and his sharp eyes. They were not alone! He had hoarsely whispered his suspicions to Urswicke but the young clerk just shook his head. In reply Bray had quoted his own experience. He was thirty-five years old to Urswicke’s twenty-six. He had, as he reminded his companion, fought on land and sea across Europe. He had served on the carracks of the knights hospitallers. He was a skilled seaman as well as a soldier, a dagger man and a spy. In reply Urswicke had just given that lovely smile, patted his companion on the arm and said they must wait and see.
They now crouched, staring into the darkness. The bum-boat had breasted the waves, the rowers resting on their oars as the boat entered the shallows, its keel crunching through the pebbled sand. Urswicke stared out at sea. He could make out the faint outlines of Oxford’s cog waiting for its boat to return. Urswicke abruptly tensed. A thin mist rolled across the water yet he was sure he had glimpsed, just for a few heartbeats, flickering lights to the right and left of Oxford’s cog. Was that an illusion? A deceit of the eyes? A trick of the mind, or were those lights from Yorkist warships closing in on Oxford’s cog? Had they been standing off the coast waiting for this moment? Urswicke glanced down at the shoreline. The bum-boat was now beached, its passengers climbing out, all four of them staggering across the sand whilst the rowers pushed their boat back into the water. Urswicke sensed that they too were alarmed by those lights out at sea which now glowed more constantly. The men left on shore also paused. The light of a full moon in a cloud-free sky bathed the beach clearly enough for Urswicke to see what was happening. There was danger out at sea but the four men who had just landed were now looking to their left. Bray cursed, clutching Urswicke’s arm with one hand as he pointed up the beach with the other.
‘Horsemen, Christopher!’ he hissed.
Urswicke, heart in mouth, stared into the darkness on his right. At first he hoped, he prayed that it was all an illusion. The mist cleared. Urswicke heard the rumble of iron-shod hooves and the clink of steel. Then he glimpsed them. A cohort of fast-moving horsemen pounding along the beach. Even as Urswicke stared, the cavalcade broke up, fanning out on each flank.
‘Stay.’ Bray pressed his arm. ‘Stay, Christopher, there is nothing we can do.’
Urswicke watched despairingly as the four men fled, desperate to leave the open beach and lose themselves in the gorse land overlooking the coast. The horsemen closed, garbed in battle harness, weapons gleaming; they spread out in an arc, a cohort of death’s dark messengers. Some of the riders carried crossbows, these turned into the waves, loosing bolt after bolt at the sailors manning the bum-boat. All four were struck, collapsing into the water, their boat twirling pathetically, a plaything of the tide. Urswicke stared out at sea: those lights now glowed stronger. Urswicke realised that Oxford’s cog would be desperate to break free of the closing trap and lose itself before daylight. Onshore, meanwhile, the horsemen had caught up and surrounded the four men. Urswicke and Bray could only watch and weep at the cruelty shown. Some of the riders had dismounted, punching and kicking their prisoners. Men and horses swirled. Abruptly two of the prisoners broke free, fleeing swift as hares with crossbow bolts whirling above them. They reached the sand hills, scrambling up to hide themselves in the sea of sharp gorse. So easy for them on foot, whilst the horsemen who had set off in pursuit found it almost impossible to spur their mounts up the shifting, sand-strewn slide. The three who managed to, had to turn back from the forest of thick, sharp bramble.
The pursuers returned to the beach and joined the circle of horsemen surrounding the remaining two prisoners. The view was clear enough. Urswicke could only stare in horror at the collapse of their plan and, more importantly, that of his mistress, the diminutive, manipulative Margaret Beaufort. The melee below was a disaster for them. Four of her most valued agents had been trapped, two taken and the others fleeing for their lives. These men were strong links, clasps in a secret chain which bound the countess to her beloved son, Henry, as well his protector and Margaret’s close kinsman, Jasper Tudor, now sheltering in the Breton court. Urswicke, distracted and agitated, half rose, staring down at the beach watching the two prisoners being roped. One rider broke free from the rest, urging his mount closer to the two prisoners. Urswicke, Bray clutching his arm and begging him to be careful, moaned as the lead rider pushed back his cowl and pulled down the bottom half of his woollen coif.
‘Father!’ Christopher hissed. ‘My father Sir Thomas Urswicke, Recorder of London!’
‘And at this moment our most mortal enemy,’ Bray whispered hoarsely. ‘For the love of God and his angels, Christopher, compose yourself or we,’ he pointed to the beach, ‘will be as trapped as they are. Please!’
Urswicke crouched and watched what was happening below. Sir Thomas was now shouting at the prisoners but the wind carried his words away. Urswicke glanced up, the salt-laden sea breeze was strengthening, dark clouds sweeping in. A flock of gulls appeared, white slivers of white circling above the bum-boat now at the mercy of the surging tide, its rowers floating nearby, legs and arms splayed out, all caught and killed by the arrow storm from the riders on the beach. Out at sea the lights had disappeared. Urswicke could only pray that Oxford’s cog had given the enemy the slip, using his vessel’s speed to go deeper into the northern seas and lose itself in the rolling banks of fog which constantly hung over those freezing waters. Oxford had escaped, but two of the men he had sent ashore were doomed. Sir Thomas Urswicke, standing high in the stirrups, was now gesturing further down the coastline. Bray followed his direction.
‘The gallows, Christopher,’ Bray declared, ‘they are going to hang their prisoners out of hand.’
Urswicke turned and glimpsed the outline of a soaring three-branched gibbet, built on a rocky outcrop just below the summit of the sand hills. The two prisoners were dragged towards this. Some of the horsemen dismounted, pushing and shoving their captives towards the scaffold. The prisoners fiercely resisted, kicking and screaming. Sir Thomas Urswicke replied with a litany of curses but the prisoners just yelled back. Christopher’s father dismounted, drew his sword and, without a moment’s hesitation, drove its two-edged blade into one prisoner’s chest and then the other. Both men collapsed, their spraying blood greedily swallowed by the sand. The grim pageant then continued. The corpses were inspected, their belts, pouches and other items removed before being dragged to the foot of the gibbet. Two of the Recorder’s retainers climbed up using the step spikes driven into the main post of the gallows. Ropes were fastened and the two bloodied corpses hoisted to dangle by their necks. Urswicke groaned and sank deeper into the protective gorse.
‘We will wait,’ Bray whispered. ‘We will wait, then we will be gone.’
Jacob Cromart, mailed clerk in the service of the Countess Margaret and Jasper Tudor, squatted in the sanctuary enclave behind the high altar of the ancient church of St Michael, which stood within arrow-shot of the Thames. Cromart closed his eyes, trying to ignore the disquiet in his belly. He sat, legs stretched out, his back against the cold stone wall as he listened to the different eerie sounds of that truly ancient place. St Michael’s was a simple, stark building, standing in its own stretch of land surrounded by an overgrown, weed-choked cemetery – God’s Acre, though it looked as if neither God nor man cared a whit about it. St Michael’s certainly held no mystery: it consisted of a nave with two transepts added on. The floor was mildewed paving stones, which stretched up to the roughly hewn rood screen carved decades ago, its wood and paint slowly crumbling. The narrow door through the rood screen led into the sanctuary which contained the high altar with a pyx chain hanging beside it. Behind the altar stretched the apse which housed the sanctuary enclave. Cromart had fled here, a place of safety in London where he could invoke some protection. Cromart now knew every inch of the church. He had arrived two days previously, grasping the horn of the high altar as he gasped out his desire for sanctuary.
The parish priest, Parson Austin Richards, had come bustling down to read the petition of acceptance. Once he had finished gabbling through the words as he stood next to the high altar, the priest turned on Cromart and delivered a short, sharp homily on what sanctuary entailed. Cromart was now protected by the church against summary arrest by any royal official or law officer in the kingdom. Violation of that right would incur the most serious sanctions the church could impose: excommunication by bell, book and candle, which decreed that the violator of sanctuary was cursed for life and damned for eternity. He or she would burn in hell and suffer the full consequences of his heinous sin against Holy Mother Church. In return, Cromart could stay in the church for up to forty days. He must carry no weapons or take any sustenance from anyone except the parish priest, who would serve him a simple meal three times a day. The parson would also provide water and a napkin to wash and, when Cromart left, some clothing, sturdy boots and a penny. The sanctuary man could use the jake’s hole which stood outside the sacristy door in a makeshift garderobe built into an enclave of the church above a sewer. Parson Austin declared that he didn’t care why Cromart was in sanctuary or what would happen to him in the future. St Michael’s was an ancient church which enjoyed the right of sanctuary and that was enough.
Cromart crossed himself, his belly now truly agitated. He scrambled to his feet and wondered about the cause. Earlier in the day he had eaten nothing except what the good parson had brought and he had shared the bread, water and wine with the other sanctuary man, a city pick-lock, hotly pursued by Guildhall bailiffs. Ratstail, as the felon called himself, certainly showed no sign of any belly upset as he lay sprawled in the sanctuary enclave with a bundle for a pillow and his ragged cloak wrapped tightly around him. Ratstail now slept like a babe, impervious to the world or to the misty, clammy dampness of St Michael’s. Cromart, rubbing his belly, inspected the hour cradle, crossed the sanctuary and entered the sacristy. It was almost time. He opened the door leading out to the jake’s hole, undid his points and squatted down in relief above the reeking sewer. The pain subsided. Cromart drew himself up, made sure he was comfortable and walked back into the sacristy. He heard a sound behind him and turned as a shape emerged from the murk.
‘Ratstail?’ he demanded. ‘Or is it …’
The dark figure swept towards him. Cromart saw the crossbow levelled. He stopped gaping as the hand-held arbalest was pushed closer towards him. Cromart heard the click of the cord and gagged as the barbed bolt smashed into the left side of his chest …
Parson Austin Richards rolled over in his cotbed and then pulled himself up. He thought he had been dreaming of a clanging bell echoing through the darkness. It was no dream! No trick of the mind! Someone was ringing the church bell, sounding the tocsin at some danger pressing close. But what could that be? Parson Austin sat on the edge of the bed and groaned. He realised something like this might happen ever since he became involved, once again, with Master Pembroke. ‘The past never leaves you alone,’ he murmured, ‘it simply reaches out to catch you when you least expect it.’
Parson Austin closed his eyes. He momentarily recalled those hurling days when he served as a chaplain in the Yorkist array; those were sterling times and he had been rewarded with this small yet fairly wealthy parish close to the Thames. St Michael’s was well-endowed with legacies from merchants who plied their trade in the nearby quaysides. Life had been sweet and serene, but now this! Groaning and moaning, the parson pushed back the coverlets, slipped his feet into sturdy sandals, wrapped a hooded cloak about him and went down out of the priest house. The night was very cold, the breeze sharp and cutting. Yet it was one of those strange English autumn days with clear skies but hard morning frosts. Parson Austin crossed himself as he stumbled up the corpse path to the main door of the church. The bell was still tolling, its metal tongue a constant peal warning of impending danger, then it abruptly stopped. Parson Austin dug into the pocket of his robe, drew out the cumbersome keyring and thrust the longest into the lock, turning it fully. He paused, drew a deep breath and pushed the door open. He expected to see some light, some indication of who might be pulling at the belfry ropes but there was none. The bell now being quiet. An eerie silence reigned. Parson Austin stared into the darkness of his church. The only break in the blackness was the flickering sanctuary lamp burning beside the pyx hanging on its chain. He could glimpse this through the open door of the rood screen. Parson Austin stared around. All the candles and tapers before the different statues and shrines had long fluttered out leaving nothing but a deep stillness broken only by the squeak and scrabbling of vermin.
‘Is there anyone here?’ he called out, his voice echoing along the nave. The priest tried to curb his growing fear. He turned to the left and hurried across to the door leading into the bell tower. He pushed this open and went into the musty stairwell. Again, no light. No sign of who had been there to pull so strenuously on the belfry ropes. Parson Austin walked further in, stumbling over different items stored there. He crouched down, his hand going out until he felt the huge lanternhorn with a tinder kept in the tray next to it. Quietly cursing the cold and his own chilling fear, Parson Austin struck the tinder until he had a flame to light the thick, squat tallow candle fixed in the centre of the lanternhorn. He sighed with relief as the flame burned greedily on the oily wick. He fastened the shutter and, lifting the lanternhorn, made his way up the stairwell which housed the long bell ropes. There was no one there. The ropes dangled with no sign of who had pulled at them so vigorously.
Parson Austin, now truly alarmed, left the bell tower. He locked the main door and walked up the nave holding the lanternhorn before him. The dancing light illuminated the garish paintings on the pillars which divided the nave from the narrow, shadow-filled transepts. Pictures and images which he usually ignored now caught his eye. Frightful scenes depicted in garish paint by long dead artists who had laid out a nightmare landscape thronged with bellowing, venomous demons, fiery-haired devils, great-jawed lions, plunging hawks, roaring dragons, all the denizens of Hell, that place of everlasting fire.
Parson Austin paused, closed his eyes, blessed himself and continued on. He walked through the open door of the rood screen and into the sanctuary. He heard a moan, a stifled cry, and edged around the altar into the apse which housed the sanctuary enclave. Ratstail the pick-lock cowered against the wall, his unshaven, unwashed face lit by the single candle he held on its pewter spigot.
‘In God’s name!’ the priest exclaimed.
Ratstail, his face all wet with tears, simply pointed across to the sacristy. Parson Austin walked across into the room which reeked of incense and charcoal. He lifted the lantern and glimpsed what looked like a bundle of clothing strewn on the floor. At the same time, he abruptly recalled that Cromart was not to be seen. The priest, now drenched with sweat, resisted the urge to flee. He walked forward, lifted the lantern again and breathed a prayer. Cromart lay sprawled in a thick puddle of his own blood. Parson Austin crouched down, placing the lantern beside him as he fought to control the fear seething within him. He muttered prayer after prayer, gabbling the words, begging for divine help. He sketched a blessing in the direction of the corpse, clambered to his feet and staggered back out across the sanctuary. Hobbling and stumbling, he hastened down the nave, desperate to reach the bell tower and ring his own tocsin, a plea for help against the abomination his church now housed.