Page 95 of The Queen’s Witch

Nor could I.

Lincoln sprawled from the top of a hill crowned by a cathedral, down the hillside to flatter land by the River Witham. Here most of the common-folk rebels camped. I assumed that the gentry who supported the rebellion were barricaded in the rich dwellings at the top of the hill, but I learned that was not true. The gentry had already fled, departing as soon as Suffolk’s army reached the border of Lincolnshire. Now the landowners claimed they had joined the rebels only to control them, to hold them at Lincoln so that they would not overrun England. The gentry and nobles declared that they were and always had been loyal king’s men, God save the king!

Had Roger, a landowner, also abandoned the cause? I did not think so.

“Whoresons, all,” muttered a huge man in a leather tunic as he pushed past me. “I knew they would prove traitors. Better if we had killed them first.”

Cobbler Melton shouted from on a platform erected at the base of the hill. “Friends! Englishmen! A reply from our most noble sovereign King Henry. Ye must hear it, but then ye must stand firm! His Grace once more be misled. Our loyalty be to the king, but to God first!”

A few men shouted, “Read the king’s answer!” The rest fell silent, waiting.

Melton did not, continuing to shout, “Hold firm! We will not be beaten!”

More impatient cries of “Read it! Read it!”

Melton stood mute, and I realized that he could not read, or not read well enough for Henry’s letter. A royal herald mounted the steps, snatched the paper from Melton, and read it in a strong voice.

Henry refuted each of the rebels’ demands, one by one, and each denial carried his rage: “No houses suppressed where God was well served . . . We marvel what madness is in your brain . . . Think ye that we be so faint-hearted, that perforce ye of one shire . . . could compel us with your insurrections . . . You have no grace nor naturalness in you to consider your duty of allegiance to your king and sovereign lord . . . Do rebel and unlawfully rise against your prince, contrary to the duty of allegiance and God’s commandment . . .”

The herald’s voice rose as he proclaimed Henry’s orders and threats: “And thus we pray unto Almighty God, to give you grace to do your duties, to use yourselves towards us like true and faithful subjects.” And then, chillingly, the order to “obediently . . . consent amongst you to deliver into the hands of our lieutenant a hundred persons, to be ordered according to their demerits, at our will and pleasure, than, by your obstinacy and wilfulness, to put yourselves, your wives, children, lands, goods, and chattels, besides the indignation of God, in the utter adventure of total destruction, and utter ruin, by force and violence of the sword.”

A hundred men, leaders of the rebellion, to be turned over to Suffolk, or else all rebels would face “total destruction” of their families and all they owned, all they had worked for, all they loved.

The rebels remained quiet for a long moment, considering what they had heard. Then began the push to flee. Men shoved each other to get to their campsites and retrieve their belongings. Some did not even do that; they made for the roads out of Lincoln with only the clothes and weapons on their bodies, hurrying before Suffolk’s army should arrive, before they could be counted among the hundred marked for the king’s judgment.

Melton shouted for all to stay, to fight on, to hold to the cause of the true God. From the bell tower of the cathedral, still held by the rebels, smoke drifted into the sky in timed puffs: a signal. I knew, then. Suffolk’s army was close.

Finally I saw Roger. Mounted on his bay, he was accompanied by a few other horsemen beside the river at the far edge of the crowd. They conferred, the horses pawing the ground, the men shouting. None of them wore armor; the attack had been too sudden.

The royal army rounded the base of the hill, cavalry and archers both. Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, rode a huge white horse beside the soldier carrying the king’s standard.

The horsemen conferring with Roger all wheeled and galloped away. Roger, far to Suffolk’s left, started toward him at a slow, nonthreatening trot—to do what? Would he attempt to reason with the duke, as he had tried to reason with Melton and the rebels at Saint James’ Church? That attempt had failed. Roger had been forced to choose and had chosen to stand with the rebels. If he did so now, he would die, either cut down now in battle or hanged later for treason. He might even be tortured into a confession. Suffolk would want to impress the king that he had put down a truly dangerous insurrection.

Suffolk shouted an order. Archers fired; cavalry stormed toward the rebels; soldiers assaulted the platform where Melton still yelled his futile commands.

Men began to die.

An arrow found Roger’s bay. The horse reared and then collapsed, throwing Roger, whose head hit the ground. He tried to rise but fell back, blood streaking his face. His horse lay still beside him. A horseman of Suffolk’s army, helmeted but not in full armor, his sword drawn, rode past me toward Roger.

I did not hesitate. I spoke the spell of binding, and the rider froze on his mount. The horse, too, was held immobile. A rebel arrow hit the rider square in the back and slowly, slowly, he toppled from his mount and lay still.

A wild, hot pleasure spread through me, an exultation at taking a mortal life. You did not take a life, a small part of my mind insisted, but it was not true. The arrow was not mine, but I had spellbound the rider, as good as killing, and the joy of it burned in me like wine, like arousal, like love. I felt it in every part of my body, and I laughed aloud.

But only for a moment. Before I could even be appalled at what I had done, more soldiers rounded the hill, and I saw how large Suffolk’s forces actually were. These men had been only an advance group.

Deliver into the hands of our lieutenant a hundred persons, to be ordered according to their demerits at our will and pleasure. I knew what Henry’s will and pleasure would be.

Roger again struggled to sit upright, blood from his wound streaming into his eyes. Roger was a landowner but not nobility, without champions or allies at court. A good target for Suffolk to name as a leader of the rebellion, to torture for a confession.

I sank to my knees and summoned every trace of power I possessed, expending it all at once, shaking and shouting my spell, ancient words lost in the din of battle.

A black cloud arose from the river, sodden and heavy with water, moving with the swiftness of magick. It enveloped the entire field and partway up the hill in a dense fog. Men shouted curses and prayers, fear and anger. Their voices carried through the fog until the winds began, whipping away their words but not the magicked fog. Rain fell in dense sheets and did not cease; it fed on the wind and the wind fed on it, a thick black miasma from which men stumbled away, screaming.

Like my mother before me, I had summoned a storm from the Dark One.

His unholy laugh was the final thing I heard, monstrous and echoing in my skull as I expended the last of my power and fell into blackness on the drenched ground.

Hard, dry ground. The smells of earth and gillyflowers. A crow scolding. Weakness so great I could not at first even open my eyes. My breeches and tunic, still wet, clung unpleasantly to my body.