‘It is certainly conceivable. Now, Ralph, finish your story.’
‘We killed two,’ Ralph muttered, staring up. ‘Hard going it was, though we had an advantage being on horseback. But they were better fighters, trained soldiers I’d say, with experience. I thought they’d killed Davey. Then all of a sudden they whispered together, turned and ran off into the dark.’
‘Ran? No horses? Yet you were miles from anywhere, out on the estuary.’
‘So, some bugger was waiting, and whistled them off,’ nodded Nat.
‘That’s what I thought, too,’ Ralph said. ‘I was on the ground, winded and sick and expecting a quick stab to the guts when they left. I’m fair sure I heard what they said. Something like – Let them now, and they’ll live to take back the warning.’
Tyballis whispered, ‘Warn who?’
Ralph tried to wedge himself up. ‘I heard, Feayton – or think I did. Let them live and take the warning back to Feayton. But the wind was howling and I was half-dead. Davey – well, he wasn’t saying anything. The doctor reckons I’ll live. But Davey?’
The doctor visited three times each day and remained for many hours. For both patients he undertook the stitching, and then the cauterising. ‘To close a wound with heat is a painful business,’ he admitted. ‘But the injury to your thigh, Mister Tame, is deep. Either flame, sir, or amputate.’
Ralph nodded. ‘Then cauterise. It’s two legs I need, so hold me while I roar the house down.’
Elizabeth held his hand. ‘Squeeze hard as you like, my love,’ she said. ‘Break my fingers if you want.’
Andrew was not always present. No one questioned his absences. On each return he came immediately to the low bedside, drawing up a chair or sitting on the boards beside the fire. He spoke often with the doctor, but there was little to tell and each change was itself apparent. Ralph continued to improve. Great gashes from thigh to calf made walking impossible, and Ralph stayed on the mattress in the hall, stumbling out only for chamber pot and when the bloody sheets were changed.
But beside him, Davey sweated and moaned, delirious and incoherent. He had not once opened his eyes beyond brief bloodshot confusion. He spoke only of things long past, beatings from his mother, his misery at the loss of his sister, then the black unnatural cold and the looming face of hell.
On the second day Andrew and Nat stripped Davey, bringing bowls of warm water to wash the sweat and blood from his body. His ruined clothes, the bright silks and fine Holland shirt of which he had been so proud, were thrown to the fire. At first it seemed Davey’s wounds were minor and far less than Ralph’s. Where the massive sword slashes had cut through Ralph’s leg, pelvis and forearms, Davey carried only grazes across his ribs and shallow gashes through his knuckles, knees and back. But washing him, they found the depth of the wound to his head. His skull was crushed. Splinters of bone were caught in his curls. Drew said softly, ‘Can a man live with an injury that touches even his brain?’
The doctor did not know. ‘My lord, I am not experienced in battle wounds. But the gentleman still lives and breathes. I have done what I can. What more can I suggest, sir? If you would send for the priest?’
‘I will find a surgeon,’ Andrew said.
Tyballis went daily to the apothecary, returning with a basket full of remedies. Pounded willow bark in warm water was given a drop at a time between Davey’s lips. Widower Switt stayed many hours grinding cloves and earth of alum, mixing this with egg white for ointments. On Ralph’s wounds, the salves helped stop the bleeding. But for Davey the ointments did nothing. Finally able to walk once more, Ralph eventually limped upstairs to his own bed and the chamber he shared with his brother. Both Nat and Elizabeth continued to nurse him.
Then Andrew came back with the surgeon.
Davey’s sheets were soaked again with sweat. His head and neck were drenched in blood, baked black by the spluttering fire. He tossed violently, crying out in pain and muttering of hellfire. His eyes were open now, glazed with burst veins, and his mouth was parched, his saliva all dried up.
‘He cannot live, my lord,’ said the surgeon.
Andrew stared back at the man. ‘You’re sure, sir?’
‘My lord, I am personal barber to the Lord Hastings, and much experienced in all forms of surgery. But I am not a maker of miracles. This patient may live for a few days – giving time perhaps for a short pilgrimage, or a sacred oath taken on his behalf. But even then, I could not offer great hope. I have seen such wounds before, my lord. They are always fatal.’
‘Then go back to the Lord Hastings,’ Andrew said quietly, ‘and thank him for me. I will attend him in a day or two. But I shall stay here until my friend’s passing and when nothing more can be done, I will send for the priest.’
Tyballis lay alone in Andrew’s bed that night, and woke early as the starlight still flickered through the unshuttered window. The hearth was dark, the fire out, and the chamber was bitterly cold. She climbed from the bed and searched for Andrew’s bedrobe. Since he had not come to her, she supposed him still dressed. Then she tiptoed out to the hall.
Andrew sat on the floorboards beside the mattress and its strewn quilts and pillows. His hands loose, wrists supported by his knees, his back was bent, his head slumped forwards and there was smeared blood on his fingers. The fire still blazed and lit the great hall in leaping scarlet.
Now Davey lay undisturbed. He no longer rolled or tossed. The delirium had left him. His eyes were shut and he seemed calm. The discomfort of lying with his great wound against the pillow no longer seemed to distress him. He neither shivered nor moaned. Drew had pulled the covers up to his chin.
As Tyballis crept forward, Andrew looked up. She saw the terrible fatigue and was alarmed. His eyes, always black and unfathomable, were now moist with tears. She whispered, ‘How is Davey? He seems – he looks – a little better.’
‘He is dead,’ murmured Andrew, looking back down. ‘He died, perhaps an hour ago.’
For a moment she could think of nothing to say. Then she whispered, ‘You’re crying.’
Andrew smiled wearily. ‘I have been. This man died for me. I knew him many years, and thought him a fool. But a gentle, kindly fool, and we are all fools, after all. Only the extent of foolishness separates us.’ She crept to Andrew’s side, winding her arms around his neck. Within his bedrobe she was naked, and his hands found the way past the damask, and cradled her body. ‘Do you mind?’ he said. ‘Davey died in my arms, and I have his blood on me. Now it’s on your breasts.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry. I cared for Davey, too. Everyone will miss him.’
‘It is only death, after all,’ Andrew murmured. ‘Yet life, however temporary, is all we value, as if we hope to preserve it eternally.’
‘Have you any idea who killed him?’ Tyballis whispered.
‘I know exactly whose sword, and whose order directed the swordsman. And I will deal with both.’ He sighed, and said, ‘Now I think I will go to bed.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sir Anthony, Earl Rivers, returned to Ludlow Castle from attendance at Parliament during the first week of March 1483, but within a few days he sent word back to the city, urgently requesting copies of certain documents. This was unusual, particularly in light of his lordship having only recently been at Westminster. A young clerk working in the offices of Mister Dymmock, Earl Rivers’ London agent, noted the surprising request and promptly spoke to a gentleman who, having befriended him some weeks previously and sometimes paying him as much as a shilling for information, had asked to be kept aware of any such correspondence, however innocuous.