The Knight of Swords and Spooks Read online

  “They died without a funeral – that means their spirits can’t rest. I saw them, too, last night, Ratcliffe.”

  “A dream, Your Majesty.”

  “Ghosts, Ratcliffe. And I saw Lord Rivers … and … ohhhh! My brother George! Did I tell you about George?”

  “The traitor?”

  “He asked us not to behead him. He said if we had to execute him, we should drown him in a barrel of wine!” the king sobbed. “Poor George. I saw him, too – he came to my tent. It is a sign, Ratcliffe, a sign.”

  The king moaned again and sank back on to the ground. In the darkness, young George heard him breathing heavily.

  The boy fell into a restless sleep, too.

  The noise of the camp, stirring at first light, woke him. King Richard sat up and looked across in his direction. The king’s face was as grey as any ghost. He turned to Ratcliffe. “The boy?” he said. “The boy heard what I said last night.”

  Ratcliffe gave a single nod.

  The king rose to his feet. “We can’t have him telling the world that Richard is a coward – spooked by dreams like a child,” he hissed. “If the battle goes against us, he has to die. Make sure it is done.”

  The two men turned towards the boy, their faces as twisted and ugly as ancient trees.

  George looked back steadily.

  A hooded man set George free from his chains. The battle had been thundering in the valley below, and George had been forgotten.

  The hooded man also wore a mask that covered his face. He opened the lock and led George to the door of the tent. They looked down into the valley.

  “What’s happening?” George asked, anxiously.

  The man spoke in a voice muffled by the mask. “Richard’s first line charged down the hill at Henry Tudor,” the guard said, and pointed to the valley to the west.

  “Lord Ratcliffe said they’d wait here!” George argued. “He said it would be a mistake to charge off the hilltop!”

  “A mistake,” the man nodded. “It was. But it seemed the king didn’t care to be careful. It seemed as if he was ready to die. He rode down at the head of the second charge… See? There he is!”

  George could make out the round-shouldered knight in fine armour leading a charge of knights in the noonday sun.

  They rippled like a silver stream in the light. But the army at the bottom were ready for them – a green flag with a red dragon waved over Henry Tudor.

  The king’s knights struggled to reach it, to smash the invader. But the dragon’s soldiers chopped them down and swallowed them up.

  On Coton Hill another army, the Stanley army, sat and watched. As the king’s men died, Sir Thomas Stanley did nothing to help. George would die for that treachery, he knew.

  At last, King Richard’s horse was brought down and soldiers with axes and swords swarmed around him like maggots over a piece of meat.

  Chapter Six

  Helmet and Hood

  “To the rescue!” Sir Richard Ratcliffe cried, as he gathered a fresh troop of knights. It was too late to rescue the king. All they could do was rescue his body.

  A great cheer from the valley showed the Tudor army was winning.

  Sir Richard Ratcliffe rode up to where George and the guard stood. As he turned to make his charge down the hill, he looked back.

  “Execute him!” he shouted at the man in the mask. “Kill the traitor’s son!”

  George gave a tiny smile. Of course – the man in the mask wasn’t just an ordinary guard. He was an executioner – men only wore masks if they had to execute their victim.

  Ratcliffe slammed down the face-guard on his helmet. He lowered his lance and rode down the hill to join his king.

  George turned to the man in the mask, who carried no axe, no weapon of any sort.

  “My father knew I’d die,” the boy said, “yet he did nothing to help.”

  The executioner shrugged. “Your father said he has other sons. If you die, he will not be broken-hearted.”

  George nodded. “Thank you, Father!” he shouted across the valley to the army that sat under the Stanley banner of yellow and green. The army that didn’t lift a finger to save its king.

  “Your father will be all right,” the masked man said. “Henry Tudor is his stepson. The Stanley family will be rewarded well for what they did today.”

  “And my reward? The axe? Or the sword? Or will you smother me like the princes in the Tower? Or drown me in a barrel of wine like the other George? You have no weapon. How will you kill me?”

  The executioner raised a withered hand to the top of his head … and pushed back the hood. Then he grasped the leather mask and tugged at it. “You have no idea how hot it’s been inside this hood,” he groaned.

  He gave a last pull and threw the mask away.

  George stepped back and leaned against the tent pole.

  The executioner grinned at him. “You don’t really want me to kill you, do you?”

  George looked at the old man – Robin, his servant. “No, Robin, I think I’d rather live.”

  The old servant wrapped the boy in a tight hug and the two laughed till they had no breath left.

  The king’s defeated soldiers were struggling back up the hill, running past the boy and his servant. Away from the terror of the Tudor invaders.

  Robin turned north and led George towards the Stanley army and his father. A treacherous army. A silent army. Silent as the grave.

  Epilogue

  King Richard III came to the throne of England in 1483. Some say he had murdered his nephews, aged around ten, to make sure he got the throne. They were taken as prisoners to the Tower of London and never seen again. Richard had no pity for children.

  Richard had only been on the throne for two years when his kingdom was invaded by Henry Tudor. Richard made his last stand at Bosworth Field.

  Still, with the help of Lord Stanley he should have crushed the invader and saved his throne. Just to make sure Stanley fought well, Richard held Stanley’s son, George, as a hostage. If Stanley betrayed him, then the son would die.

  The night before the battle, Richard suffered terrible nightmares – maybe haunted by the thoughts of the people he had killed.

  At the last battle, Richard charged down the hill with his knights – the last great charge of armoured knights in British history, maybe even the world. Stanley betrayed Richard, and King Richard III died fighting as a knight. There would be no more battles like that. The world of the knight was over for ever. Even the bravest knight was no use against the cannon that armies had started to use.

  Henry Tudor, the winner, took the throne and became King Henry VII. He was the first of the ruthless Tudor kings and queens of England. If Henry had lost the Battle of Bosworth Field, we would never have had his son, the famous Henry VIII, or granddaughter, Elizabeth I, as rulers of England. All of England’s history changed on that one day, 22 August, 1485.

  Sir Thomas Stanley, the traitor, was safe when his stepson Henry won the battle. But the Rat, the Cat, and Lovell the Dog were not. Sir Richard Ratcliffe died in the battle. Lovell’s skeleton was found in a dungeon a year later – it seems he had starved to death. It was fine and glorious to be a knight … but only when you were on the winning side.

  George Stanley, the hostage, should have been killed by Richard’s men when his father refused to fight for the king. For some reason, George was allowed to live.We don’t know why – this story gives a possible reason, but it is only a guess. The truth is, it’s a history mystery.

 

 

 
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