Falls the Shadow (73 page)

“I think,” Thomas said slowly, “that you have read Simon de Montfort’s mind, and it scares me some—how easily you did it. Have you any idea, Ned, just how much this past year has changed you?”

Edward considered that in silence for several moments. “Mayhap you’re right. If so, I do owe a debt to my uncle Simon. As you know, I do not always repay my debts. This one, though, I will repay—but in the coin of my choosing.”

With the coming of August, Simon’s luck at last changed for the better. Bran sent word of his long-awaited arrival at Kenilworth, and Simon’s scouts discovered an unguarded ford across the Severn. His army crossed the river on Sunday, August 2, passed the night and the following day at the Bishop of Worcester’s manor at Kempsey. Once sunset had flamed over the rolling Worcestershire hills, they were on the move again, heading east under cover of night. By dawn on Tuesday, they were within sight of the sweeping curve of the River Avon, could see the distant limestone walls of Evesham Abbey.

To Henry, Evesham rose up out of the gloom like a vision of salvation. Spotting his nephew not far ahead, he cried out, “Harry! I need you!”

Harry’s companions grimaced, for Henry had long since exhausted their reserves of patience, and only Simon’s formidable will kept his men from treating their King with the contempt they felt he so richly deserved.

It had begun with Edward’s escape. What should have heartened Henry seemed instead to have plunged him into a bottomless pit of selfpity and despair. He no longer made any pretense of enduring with fortitude. His complaints were constant, vociferous, quarrelsome, and often petty: unseasoned cold food, hard beds, blisters, saddle sores, cramps, stomach colics. Henry’s forced sojourn in Wales was an undeniably unpleasant experience for one accustomed to the luxuries of Westminster and Windsor. But theirs was a world in which men were expected to shrug off suffering, to make light of battle wounds and broken bones. Henry’s peevish harangues won him scant sympathy from Simon’s swaggering young knights. Their concept of kingship was, consciously or not, cast in Simon’s image, and they felt betrayed by these disillusioning glimpses of a too-mortal monarch, one who bewailed the lack of a soft pillow and whined about belly aches in the midst of a life-and-death struggle for England’s soul.

Harry alone seemed willing to humor his unhappy uncle, and when the others now muttered of wet-nurses, he came good-naturedly to Henry’s defense. “You’re a hard-hearted bunch of bastards, in truth. He’s an old man, deserves some pity.”

“Let Papa hear you say that and you’ll be the one in need of pity,” Guy warned. “Lest you forget, he’s but a year younger than Henry!”

“And are you comparing the two of them? That would be like matching a wolfhound against a lady’s lap spaniel,” Harry said with a grin, and checked his stallion in answer to Henry’s summons.

“Is that Evesham? We are going to stop at the abbey, are we not?” Henry asked eagerly, and his distress was acute when Harry shook his head.

“I doubt it, Uncle. Whilst you look at Evesham and see the abbey, my father will see only a potential trap. Look how the river curves around the town—like a horseshoe—and with but one bridge. Should an army come down upon Evesham from the north, it’d be like corking a bottle.” Good intentions aside, Harry was unable to resist a small jab. “Just as it was at Lewes.”

Henry scowled, then suddenly kicked his mount forward, taking his escort by surprise. Alarmed, they spurred after him, but Henry was already reining in his stallion, having caught up with Simon.

“Harry says we’ll not be stopping at the abbey. I’m telling you here and now that I’m not going another foot beyond it. I’ve been in the saddle all night, am bone-weary and half-starved.”

“Alcester is but another ten miles or so. We can dine there,” Simon said dispassionately. Since taking Henry hostage, he’d invariably treated him with icily correct courtesy—subject to sovereign—falling back upon all the prescribed formalities to distance himself from the distasteful reality of their mutual plight: that he was in fact holding his King against his will.

“That’s three more hours, mayhap even four!”

“It cannot be helped, my liege. Evesham is in too perilous a—”

“Harry spouted the same nonsense, babbling about a battle commander not wanting to fight with a river at his back. But I know better, Simon, for I know you expect to meet Bran today on the Kenilworth road. So the danger is past, for you’ll then have an army twice the size of my son’s. If you refuse, it can only be because you take pleasure in taunting me, in mocking my impotence!”

“That is not so. It was never my intent to humble your pride, and I have truly tried to make your predicament as tolerable as I could.”

“How? By dragging me into that accursed Welsh wasteland, by forcing me to make that odious treaty with Llewelyn ap Gruffydd? You know how wretched I was in Wales, how I sickened, but did you care? And now when all I ask is a decent meal and a chance to hear Mass, you’d begrudge me even that meagre consolation! How can you claim to be my liegeman when you would deny me God’s Word?”

The Bishop of Worcester was an intent witness to this tense exchange, to their continuing war of wills. He’d finally concluded that Henry was avenging himself the only way he could, by seeking to crack Simon’s shield, to goad him into a rage that would give the lie to his show of deference. Worcester very much doubted that Henry would succeed, no matter the provocation, for Simon was equally determined to accord Henry the trappings of kingship.

The Bishop had an astute eye for the foibles of his fellow men, and he’d soon realized why Simon was so loath to surrender this particular fiction. It validated the central core of his claim: that his was not an insurrection against his King, but only against the King’s unscrupulous advisers. To abandon that premise would be to brand himself as a rebel, and the Bishop knew Simon could never accept that. His position was ambiguous enough as it was: a man whose natural instincts were for command arguing for a government of compromise and consensus, a prideful, highborn lord drawing much of his support from the commons, a Frenchman leading a movement hostile to aliens. Worcester had eventually decided that the enigma of Simon de Montfort could be explained only in terms of Simon’s very personal vision of chivalry, in a code of ethics that somehow managed to mingle the partisan passion of the zealot with the poetic gallantry of the knight-errant. He felt no surprise, therefore, when Simon—his fabled temper notwithstanding—yielded to Henry’s extortion.

“Oliver!” He beckoned to a young knight. “Send word ahead to St Mary’s. Tell them we shall be stopping there so the King may hear Mass,” Simon said, so grimly obliging that his forbearance was in itself an insult, a peace offering to a wayward child.

The Benedictine monks of St Mary’s welcomed Simon’s army with heartfelt enthusiasm, and as word spread of their arrival, the townspeople began to trickle into the abbey precincts, bringing freshly baked bread, wineskins, sacks of apples and wild plums. Simon had found familiar solace in the shadowed, incense-scented church, in the sonorous Latin liturgy of the Blessed Eucharist. Now, watching his young soldiers flirt with pretty village lasses, he no longer regretted having given in to Henry’s tantrum.

The monks had set a bountiful breakfast for Henry, but as he followed them into the abbey frater, he looked more like a man unjustly deprived of a grievance than one savoring a victory. While the King dined, Simon made ready to depart. These preparations were interrupted, however, by the arrival of one of his scouts, bearing triumphant tidings—the approach of an army from the north, flying Simon’s forktailed lion and the Earl of Oxford’s silver star.

Simon had earlier sent a sharp-eyed lookout up into the church’s central tower, and when he now yelled down a confirmation of the scout’s report, a common sigh of relief swept the ranks of Simon’s army. For weeks they had dwelt too intimately with danger, outnumbered and outmaneuvered by an enemy who seemed to foreshadow their every move. For weeks they’d subsisted on half-rations and hope, balked by Edward and a muddy river, baffled by Bran’s laggard response to his father’s need. Only their faith in Simon had kept them from despairing, and now, with that faith justified, with deliverance at hand, they laughed and joked with the exuberant intensity peculiar to the newly reprieved. Their hardships suddenly took on the sheen of high adventure, and the abbey garth was soon a scene of cheerful bedlam. Wineskins went soaring up into the leaden sky, cheers rattled windows and spooked horses, competing with the distant echoes of summer thunder.

Simon was willing, for once, to indulge their tomfoolery. They were good lads, were entitled to kick over the traces—for the moment. He was tightening Sirocco’s girth when he sensed a presence, turned to find a young monk hovering nearby. The youngster colored, then shyly thrust toward Simon a large, red apple.

“For your horse, my lord,” he blurted out, and glowed with pleasure as Simon fed his offering to the stallion. A lover of horses, he’d never been this close to one of such high caliber, and his eyes lingered on Sirocco’s sleek lines, caressed that glossy ebony coat. Only belatedly did he remember his manners. “I am Brother Damian, my lord. We are right honored to have you at our abbey. We in Evesham believe in the reforms, believe in you. We give no credence to the lies put about by your enemies, know you do not seek to rule as a king—” He broke off in dismay, fearing his tongue had once again run away with him.

“Is that what my enemies say—that I would be a dictator?” The boy nodded, appalled to think he might have offended. “Do you know what I think, Brother Damian? That St Luke was right: ‘Woe unto you when all men should speak well of you.’ ” Simon had spoken so seriously that it was a full moment before Damian caught the amused glint in the depths of those unsettling grey eyes.

“Can you not stay longer at the abbey, my lord? There is a storm coming for certes,” he pointed out hopefully. But Simon was shaking his head.

“No, lad, as soon as my son—”

“My lord Earl!” A horseman came racing through the gateway, scattering men in all directions. He paid no heed to their startled curses, spurred his stallion across the garth and reined in before Simon. The animal came to a heaving halt, frothing at the mouth, caked with lather. The rider—one of Simon’s best scouts—was in no better shape, soaked with sweat, bleeding, an arrow shaft protruding from beneath his rib cage. “A trick,” he panted, “a foul trick… They fly your son’s banners, but the army is Edward’s!”

The wind was rising. It tore leaves from shuddering trees, flattened the marsh grass, and hurled dark clouds toward the fleeing sun. By the time Simon reached the north window in the church tower, the storm was nigh. He could see it sweeping across the vale, bearing down upon them from the north, shadowing the army of the King’s son. Edward had taken up position on the crest of Green Hill, closing off the loop of the River Avon with a line of steel. A mile lay between their thousands and Evesham, no more. Simon needed but one glance to know that he and his men were doomed.

He sucked in his breath, jolted by a surge of purely physical fear, the body’s instinctive reaction to peril. But he’d faced death too often, had long ago learned how to make fear serve him; self-preservation was a powerful motivating force in and of itself. The fright bred into bone and muscle was a familiar foe, one he knew he could vanquish. But what followed it was far more terrifying, a fear born of the brain, one that offered him a haunting glimpse of the future, a lightning-lit landscape of desolation and lost faith. Was their dream to die with them, too? Had it all been for naught?

No. No, it could not be. They would not be abandoned in their time of need, for their cause was just and would prevail. He would not fail his trial of faith, would not disavow a single yesterday. Death came to all men, but defeat only to those who doubted.
Fear not, I am thy shield, trust in me and be not afraid
. He unclenched his fist, eased his desperate grip upon the shutter latch, and then turned to face those who’d followed him up into the tower, followed wherever he led, his sons, his friends.

“We must commend our souls to God,” he said, “for our bodies are theirs.”

They looked at him, stunned, still caught up in the struggle he’d just won, groping for faith in the face of calamity. Harry swallowed, found his voice. “Is Bran dead?”

Simon hesitated only briefly; they had time for naught but truth. “Yes, most likely he is,” he said, conjuring up without warning a phantom grief in the guise of memory: a ghost with ink-black hair and cocky grin, passionate and reckless—and bloodied. He blinked and the apparition vanished, leaving only Harry and Guy, not yet understanding, clinging to hope. Sweet Christ, how young they were! How could it be God’s Will that they, too, should die this day? “Edward would be upon us ere we could all retreat across the bridge. But there is still time for you to save yourselves.” He tore his eyes from his sons. “You, too, Peter…Hugh. I’d not see you sacrifice your lives like this. For the love of God,” he said huskily, “go and go now, with my blessing!”

They would not. Even as he made the plea, Simon realized it was in vain; they’d never agree. His sons would stand by him till the last. So would Peter, no friend more faithful. And Hugh, who had a son, too, a child of three, never now to know his father. Humphrey, who’d seen his own family torn asunder by his belief in the Provisions. The young men below in the abbey garth, who’d fought with him at Lewes, only to die with him at Evesham. He could save none of them.

“Papa, you must listen to me!” Harry reached out, grasped Simon by the arm. “Do not throw away your life for naught, take what men you can and cross the bridge. I’ll hold Ned here, give you the time you need to retreat. Let me do this for you, Papa, I beg you!”

Simon’s eyes misted. “You know I cannot, lad,” he said softly, and suddenly there was nothing more to be said. They looked at one another, recognizing the moment for what it was—one of farewell. Harry made it easy for them. Stepping forward, he embraced his father, thus freeing the other men to do the same.

“Papa…” Guy seemed to have shed years in a matter of minutes; Simon had rarely seen him look so vulnerable. “What will happen to Mama and Ellen?”

That was the question Simon had been most dreading. “Edward will not make war on women, not his own blood-kin. He and Richard will speak for your mother and sister, Guy, will not see them suffer for sins not theirs.”