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fought?’
    Derry noted the ‘us’. For six years, Clifford had beentrying to include himself in the ranks of nobles who had lost their fathers – along with Earl Percy of Northumberland and Somerset. Those two seemed to bear no malice towards him, but neither did they show Clifford especial warmth, as far as Derry could see. He had not answered Clifford’s first questions, suspecting they were rhetorical. He decided to let the baron blow himself out.
    ‘Well? Should spies and sneaking cutpurses decide how a royal army takes the field?’ Clifford demanded. ‘I do not believe I have ever heard the like! From what you say, it seems that
Warwick
is the one who understands honour, even if you do not! You say he has placed himself across the road to London, there to challenge us. Yes!
That
is how men of honour go to war, Brewer: without sneaking subterfuge, without lies and treacheries. I am appalled at what I have heard here today, I really am.’
    To Derry’s irritation, Margaret kept silent. She had experienced some of the joy and grief of direct command in the far north and she had not found it to her liking. More, he thought Somerset had made some private argument for her to defer to his authority. Somerset was the man he had to persuade, not Clifford, or even Earl Percy, though it would be easier if one of those agreed the course Derry had laid out.
    ‘My lord Clifford,’ Derry began. He could not say the man was a pompous simpleton, though he slowed his words to be understood. ‘With your training and experience, you know battles have been fought where one side manoeuvred before the clash of arms. Fortresses have been taken in the flank before, my lord. That is all I have proposed. My task, my charge, is to provide my lords with all the information they might require.’
    Clifford opened his mouth to speak but Derry went on, forcing an even chillier calm.
    ‘My lord, Warwick has made a fortress of the road to London, with cannon and spiked nets and ditches and ramparts and all the other things the men must overcome to take one step past him. All my reports …’ He paused as Clifford snorted. ‘
All
my reports say he faces north, my lords. That he has set his spears and cannon to destroy an enemy coming from the north. It is, I suggest, the
merest
common sense to swing past him and avoid the most vicious part of his defence.’
    ‘And show
fear
to a smaller force!’ Clifford said in exasperation. ‘To show our fellows that we take the Neville dogs seriously, that we respect traitors and treat them as equals rather than dead wasps to be swept away and burned. By those same reports, Master Brewer, we have five
thousand
more men in the field! Do you deny it? Ours are the victors against York! We outnumber Warwick’s Kent farmers and London beggars – and you would have us dodge and weave like a boy stealing apples? I say to you all – where is the
honour
in that?’
    ‘You do have a fine turn of phrase, my lord Clifford,’ Derry replied, his voice and smile growing tighter, ‘but there is a chance here to keep the lives of those men you command – to damage Warwick or even destroy him, without breaking your ranks on the defences he has set up. My lord, I see
little
honour in …’
    ‘I believe that will do, Master Brewer,’ Somerset murmured, raising his hand. ‘Your argument does not grow stronger by repeating it. I am certain we have understood the main thrust.’
    ‘Yes, my lord.’ Derry said. ‘Thank you.’
    He sat down on a chair that wobbled, wincing as his right knee twinged and threatened to cramp. He was cold, aching and fed up with arguing with fools and younger men who outranked him. He had been so long away from King Henry that the font of his authority had run dry. There had been a time when all men had feared Derry Brewer, for his connections to men of power – and to the fountainhead itself. These days, he had to argue his points with asses like Clifford who needed to have their