Crown in Candlelight (23 page)

‘But there will be the Somme to cross.’

Humphrey thrust out his lip. ‘Yes, Sire. It could be done. Yet it’s a hazard.’

The King smiled suddenly. ‘I always loved to cast the dice, my lord. Had you forgotten?’

Sir Gilbert Umfraville and Sir John Cornwall commanded the vanguard as the army set out for Calais on the hundred-and-twenty-mile march north heading towards Montivilliers. October mist steamed from the ground, lapping the horses’ hooves to the pastern with white. Behind the van rode the King’s party, Henry with Sir John Holland and Humphrey of Gloucester and other lords, the ancient knight Erpingham and Lord de Roos on either side. The Duke of York and the Earl of Oxford brought up the rear, and on both flanks of the whole cavalcade the footsoldiers, archers and light-horsemen ran or rode. The spirits of the men rose like the dispersing mist as hated Harfleur fell behind. Only essential supplies borne by mules and sumpter horses accompanied the train. There were provisions and armaments for eight days, but the great guns had been left behind at the garrison. Even the King’s own baggage was of the minimum: his more important jewels and seals, the piece of the True Cross brought back from the Holy Land long ago by a Welsh crusader; harps and lutes and velvets, a few favourite hawks and hounds. The company rode in tight swift order with Henry as their nucleus, a gaunt-faced planet whose rays spread to encompass satellites on the perimeter: the Welsh, the Dutch, and the scantily clad Irish, short and black-eyed and fleet. Davydd Gam headed one of these flanks. Owen and John Capage, who had been issued with tough little horses, rode close behind him.

That they marched at all was a minor triumph for Henry. The more experienced campaigners in his war council had been filled with trepidation. Sir Thomas Erpingham had reiterated Henry’s own fear that although Burgundy might disdain to bear arms in the service of his royal cousin, the Duke was unpredictable and well likely to direct an offensive of his own against the invaders. At Rouen, the clever Sire d’Albret had a force which could move as swiftly as Henry once it knew what he was about. The argument continued past nightfall. Only when Arundel, although desperately ill, spoke up did the opposition quieten somewhat. He had been carried into the council pavilion and lay on a pallet. He raised his ghostly face to speak; Henry bent to listen, smelling the sweet rottenness of approaching death.

‘Sire, your plan is good. At Calais you may rest and be reinforced,’ (to which Henry said curtly: ‘there
are
no reinforcements!’) but Arundel went on, eyes clenched in a spasm of pain: ‘Sire, I know the best place to ford the Somme … at the White Spot,
Blanche-Tâque
. It’s nearest, and safest and was used by your great-grandfather on his way to Crécy …’

‘He was better equipped than we are,’ said old Erpingham.

Arundel disregarded this. ‘
Blanche-Tâque
is five miles downstream from Abbeville. Twelve men can cross abreast.’

Further murmurs of dissent came from the advisors. Henry said steadily: ‘My lord, I like your counsel. I’ll send scurriers ahead to Calais, ordering the Lieutenant to keep
Blanche-Tâque
open and …’

‘Beware Rouen,’ said Arundel. Gasping, dew-faced with weakness: ‘Squire, bring me my little map. Look, my liege.’

He spread the parchment between his shaking hands.

‘Go by Fécamp, then Arques … Boves … but first send from Calais a party …’

‘Yes,’ Henry pounced his finger on the map. ‘I’ll have a detachment from Calais move south of the Somme to divert d’Albret away from our crossing.’

‘That’s it,’ said Arundel, and let the parchment slide. ‘This is great rashness, Sire,’ said Lord de Roos.

The tent-flaps parted and two scurriers were bidden entry. Their tired faces were white in the torchlight, their clothes streaked with river-mud, and their news alarming. None less than the Marshal of France, Jean Boucicaut, was gathering a force on the opposite bank of the Seine estuary, at Honfleur. They had seen standards in the glow of many campfires, heard the sound of steel on anvil. Their number was hard to determine, but there were more than was comfortable.

Henry turned to his Council, saying: ‘It seems we have no choice. Well, my lords? To Calais? or perish in this poison-pit?’ No one spoke.

When he looked back at Arundel, the Earl was smiling.

‘You have your way, Sire. Would to God I was riding with you, instead of going home to England.’ (Then, with the quiet uncaring candour of the dying): ‘I always loved you, Harry. My family were never King Richard’s men. My lord, go with God. You are no usurper.’

Wisdom from the lips of death, once more! He looked at Arundel, stunned with gratitude. The cause is good, he thought.
The cause is good
.

Now they rode through the brightening autumn morning, and at Montivilliers, a few arrows hailed them from the walls. Archers drew their weapons. The command came at once. ‘Hold! Do not answer; press on.’ The vanguard began to move faster, the moist ground sucking at hooves and feet, the standards frisking. As the walls of Montivilliers fell behind, a greyish gleam to the east showed where the Lézarde narrowed to its end in a shallow lake. Page said to Owen: ‘Two rivers to cross before the Somme—the Béthune and the Bresle. My grandsire fought at Crécy. Nursery tales. I know the whole campaign by heart.’ He glanced towards the dwindling river. From its bank a little group of people, some of them half-naked, came hastening wearily. A woman, her eyes wild with hunger, reached Page’s stirrup.

‘Those poor devils out of Harfleur,’ he said. ‘The robbers took everything.’

Lamenting in broken English, the woman stretched out her hands, making irredeemable promises. Anything, for food for her child, her blind father. Page took his ration of hard salt pork from his pouch and tossed it to her, turning away before Owen saw more than a flash of his tears, which made him recall his own tears, when Glyn Dwr had forbidden him this very campaign! That was hunger, too! he thought, and smote Page’s knee affectionately as they left the ravaged little group behind.

October deepened, shrouded in mist-fine rain. By night tents were raised for the nobles, the lesser ranks spread straw for themselves and the lowest wedged themselves into ditches and the branches of trees. The horses’ legs were splashed hock-high with mud, the lords’ armour shone with damp and the little, light-clad Irishmen were mired to the thigh. Yet, after Harfleur, it was clean mud, clean damp.

They were expected at Fécamp. A surprisingly well prepared small army rushed out through the town gates and there was a skirmish. One of the English flanks detached itself and forced a little way into the town. Men fought hand-to-hand in the meadow under the walls and a salvo of arrows killed a dozen of Sir Gilbert Umfraville’s men. Fairly swiftly the Fécamp assailants were beaten back or driven into the open country by mounted English firing after them, and the army moved briskly on, leaving a blaze and the high clamouring of a bell. Someone had fired the Abbey.

As the column of smoke behind became the size of a feather everything halted. A buzz of talk spread through the army and died. The ranks parted, revealing the King. Before him knelt one of the footsoldiers, and Humphrey of Gloucester stood near holding the soldier’s leather pack and a gleaming silver vessel. A rope was placed about the man’s neck, and he was led, thus haltered, through the ranks accompanied by a terse proclamation.

‘This man has defiled Holy Church. He robbed the Abbey of the Pyx. The penalty is death.’

They hanged him from the branch of a young oak. The watchers were awed, not least by the knowledge that this man, now an example of holy wrath, had been openly complimented at Harfleur for his prowess by the King. Leaving him blue-faced and revolving gently in the damp air, they moved on. A few days brought them to the small stone town of Arques, where the Béthune flowed sluggishly beneath a narrow bridge and a château-fort stood high above the walls. The tramping medley of hoof and foot and wheel moved towards the bridge. The château’s cannon opened fire, killing and wounding a dozen men at the mouth of the bridge. A screen of dust and shale rose, bisecting the company; horses reared and neighed, men shouted commands. Birds rose from the river, wheeling above the army and the smoke-wreathed nose of the cannon on the battlements and the scarlet oriflamme defiantly draped over the walls. At a command the vanguard turned and thundered back, away from the bridge. Someone called out: ‘Do we retreat?’ and the answer cane back after a moment.

‘The King will
parler
.’

A rider carrying a banner of St George left the vanguard and cantered towards the town gates. The cannon remained silent. After a while the castellan appeared, a portly figure flanked by two armed men, on the threshold of the main gate. The emissary addressed him from horseback; his banner flapped, brushing the horse’s ears. The animal reared and the castellan took a step backwards. He listened, shook his head in evident discomfiture, and spread his hands, while his eyes strayed to the massed army waiting down the road. A wave of whispered reckless excitement spread back among the men, and then a little burst of cheering.

‘The King has threatened to burn Arques to the ground,’ said Davydd Gam delightedly. He strained to hear, and in a moment the word came back, sweeping with triumph. ‘We may pass.
Duw
! That fat little Frenchman heard of our work at Harfleur!’

‘Prowess,’ said John Page softly. ‘No better herald. I’m proud to be an Englishman.’ Davy shot him a cynical look.

As if the one burst of cannon-fire had sapped all his defiance, the castellan seemed at pains to show goodwill. In a few hours the army passed unmolested, taking with it twenty wagon-loads of fresh bread and wine, a welcome supplement to the dwindling rations. Eat, drink, and leave us in peace, said the castellan of Arques.

‘
Now
we know how to conquer!’ Humphrey of Gloucester strutted, huge-shadowed in the King’s pavilion, which was dimly lit as by now the need to hoard candles had arisen. Henry sat listening, slightly irritated. His brother seemed full of energy, a wasteful undirected energy, and a cocksureness designed to tempt Providence.

‘Just threaten!’ he continued loudly. ‘First Arques and now this godforsaken town, and another bridge safe behind us. By God! One has only to wave a lighted torch over their crops and they can’t see our backs swiftly enough. At this pace, there’ll be no need for battles!’

They were encamped across the Béthune outside the north walls of the town of Eu. The bridge had indeed surrendered to threats, but as Humphrey now chose to ignore, there had been a sharp skirmish during which more than fifty men on both sides had been lost. Henry could hear the thud of the gravediggers’ spades. Not a pleasant sound, especially when allied to this lackwit boasting which, none the less, started in him a train of thought. Burning. Yes, men feared fire, that atavistic weapon of both godly and godless. Badby had feared it, but not enough to renege on his
credo
. Oldcastle must face it one day. And there were other, eternal flames … He frowned, hoping ardently that all went well in England, that the bedesmen continued to sing Richard’s soul to Paradise; that John of Bedford’s regency was steadfastly held. That Bishop Henry Beaufort was indulging in no controversies, and that Clarence was safely home and well again. He had been in great pain … And now Henry’s busy mind failed to distract his body from its own little secret. Since Courtenay’s death, there had been a little fretful pang deep in his belly signifying something not quite well within. So far, by drastic fasting, he had managed to keep it intermittently at bay. His skin was loose over his bones, his face cadaverous. Today the pain had sent him straining at the privy-stool several times.

He had spoken of it to none. This was his private serpent, to be strangled by his will. Breathing deeply, feeling his lower ribs suck at the pang, he longed for Calais, for this struggle along the broken roads of upper Normandy to be at an end.

‘… are you coming to table, Sire?’

He shook his head. ‘You have my leave,’ he said, seeing that his brother, bored by such an inattentive companion, was keen to depart, his mind on food, then books or women, his two passions. He had brought along part of his library and there were other rumours which Henry had not sought to confirm.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I would like music before I pray and sleep.’

‘I’ll send your minstrels.’

‘No, they are such a crowd. The Welshman, Davydd Gam’s protégé. He said he could play and sing. I’ve time now to hear him!’

Owen was finishing his supper. He crammed the last of the horrible salt pork, dry as an old saddle, into his mouth and said indistinctly to Gloucester’s esquire: ‘Are you mocking me?’

‘On your feet, lad,’ said the man. ‘God’s Eyes! You’re untidy. Haven’t you a fresh doublet?’

‘You can borrow mine,’ said John Page wistfully. ‘You’re lucky, Owen. If the King likes you, he forgets nothing. Is the harp in key?’

‘I hope so,’ He tried the instrument, adjusted two strings by the little hooks that tuned it, then, satisfied, stood while Page and the esquire helped him to dress.

‘I’m taller, broader than you. I shall burst your laces.’

‘No matter …Come back and tell me what he said. I wish I could sing. Ask him if he likes poetry.’

The esquire took him through the dusk. Suddenly Owen felt sick. What songs? Would Welsh airs offend, remembering the long campaign against Glyn Dwr? Would he request an unknown air, and be justly annoyed by ignorance? The sycamore harp slid between his wet palms. They were at the royal pavilion, past the guard, and Owen was within, kneeling before the gaunt man who sat in shadow.

Henry said in Welsh: ‘Take the seat from the corner behind you. You cannot play standing up.’

He half-smiled at Owen’s startled expression. The smile aged him, etching lines and sinews. The smile said:
I am Henry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales!

‘Show me the harp.’

He examined the instrument with minute care, turning it about so that the meagre light fell on its carvings. He studied its design, asking whose face, which bird or beast the ornaments on it represented. Suddenly confident, Owen answered him. For he remembered the long hours at Glyn Dwr’s feet, never failing to please. He was a prince, so why fear the man who claimed the Lord’s own title? Receiving back the harp, he looked into Henry’s face. In the rusty flickering light a trace of the hollow half-smile remained.
If the King likes you
… Owen thought: I must make this come to pass. And I must not try too hard.