Heather Graham (8 page)

Philippa left the room with her, and Edward thought that Lenore had soundly bested him in the end. This child of theirs was destined to plague him until death.

“Out!” Edward commanded Danielle’s ladies, and both departed the chamber with haste.

He stood and paced for several minutes, feeling the knotting tension of his anger like a cape around his shoulders. He didn’t like losing battles—especially to his own children.

“You! Little witch!” he whispered to the air. “Lady daughter, you will learn to surrender to me.”

He felt a shiver snake down his spine again, and though he would not admit it, he knew he might be wrong. In time, the little emerald-eyed vixen of his own creation would surely try to force him, the king, to beg mercy. No. He’d not have it. In time, there would surely be another man to deal with her. In fact …

He realized that he now had another pawn in the political game of marriage. Hmmm …

He would need a knight of impeccable courage—and indomitable strength. A will of steel as well as muscles of rock. A man to whom he could entrust vast lands in both England and France.

He began to think as the king. Danielle was incredibly wealthy, what with her Gariston holdings and the fine castle of Aville. Both commanded powerful military positions, tremendous riches in manpower and agriculture. An army could be fed from the fields of Gariston alone; thousands of fighting men could be drawn from those who dwelt upon the lands of the little countess.

Though she was just ten, infants were often betrothed upon the very day of their birth. In a few short years, she would be marriageable. Her husband might well need all of a knight’s prowess and strength. Edward had to take great care, for she could not be wed as his own child, but as a royal ward. She would need someone powerful in himself, and deserving of reward …

Someone with a will of steel.

Someone who did not know the meaning of the word
surrender.

August 25, 1346 Crécy

“T
HE PRINCE IS DOWN!
Dear God, Edward, Prince of Wales, is down!”

Adrien had been fighting just feet from his friend and lord, Edward, eldest son of Edward III. He swung himself about and ran the distance that separated him from Edward upon the bloody field of battle.

The battle here had been long in the coming.

The English had landed eighteen miles southeast of Cherbourg at St. Vaast la Hogue after a fine, smooth crossing of the Channel. But there, it had taken them six days to regroup and begin their march toward Paris through the Cherbourg peninsula. When they came to the mainland, the king’s army split into groups of three. Edward, Prince of Wales—who had been knighted by his father upon their landing—was given command of the vanguard while his father led the central line and the rear guard was commanded by the experienced warrior, the Earl of Northampton.

The three groups marched through the countryside, laying waste, seizing prizes, booty, and noble prisoners to be held for ransom. Caen was taken. There the king plotted and planned, and on July 31, they spread out again in a broad column. Philip of France had taken the
Oriflamme
, the majestic battle flag of the country of France, from its place of honor at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, and he had ridden about himself, demanding his feudal service from knights and men-at-arms, letting out a cry that the French must defend their country from the pillaging English. Philip’s first defense was at well-defended Rouen, and the bridges over the Seine had been destroyed.

The French and the English troops kept pace with one another, the stretch of the river all that separated them. Philip slipped into Paris. The English rode north, for Edward was determined to meet up with his Flemish allies.

The march had been grueling; they had moved sixteen miles a day with all the wagons and accoutrements for battle, keeping up the pace despite the harrying attacks of French patriots. They neared their Flemish allies, but paused there, separated by the River Somme. The ever-growing army of the French began to press their ranks.

The English king searched high and low for a crossing, and at last discovered a tidal causeway across the mouth of the river where the waters were shallow. Across the river, they confronted the enemy and defeated the forces sent to attack them on their crossing. The French retreated with heavy losses.

Philip’s army moved off. The English spent tense hours awaiting another attack, but it didn’t come. Philip rallied his forces back toward Abbeville, and stayed there the night of August 25.

At dawn, the English army surveyed the countryside. Adrien, at Prince Edward’s side, listened to the initial plan. The forest of Crécy would secure the rear of their line. The three divisions of the English army would draw up along the hill that led to it. The village of Wadicourt would provide protection for the left flank of the army. The cavalry, the knights and the men-at-arms, would fight on foot.

They were drastically outnumbered by the French and the French allies, but they were exceptionally well led and disciplined. There were perhaps twelve thousand English fighting men that day, and some estimated that there might have been as many as sixty thousand men beneath Philip and his French commanders.

The English had brought with them some tactics learned through English defeats. Deep holes had been dug before the front line, trenches ready to entrap the unwary. The English had learned their usage when they were soundly defeated at Bannockburn by the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce. A tremendous dependence was being put upon the English archers—the plan being that the attacking troops could be riddled with the arrows, and would mire in the trenches in confusion before moving on to hand-to-hand combat, where the English numbers were so poor in comparison to the French.

The strategy, the discipline, had served them well. Philip’s contingent of highly respected Genoese crossbowmen were first into the fray, just as the sky let loose and it began to rain. They were experienced fighting men, but they broke ranks when the English longbowmen began to return their hail of deadly arrows. Other French troops rushed in even as the Genoese tried to retreat, or reload their heavy weapons.

French horses crunched upon the skulls of their own allies in the confusion and bedlam.

Some forces did get through, fighting their way up the rise. There Adrien fought hard and savagely, battling the enemy with all the skill and power learned and earned through years of constant war and training. His armor was heavy; he had learned to carry the burden to protect his flesh and blood. His suit, however, had been crafted in one of the finest German armories—the king had seen to it that he had been fitted for it, and refitted. Mail and leather for movement at the joints, attached plates of steel designed to ward blows away from the vital points. Steel points on his gauntlets gave him added weapons if his sword should be lost. His helm, or bascinet, protected his skull while his visor guarded his face—and somewhat obscured his vision. Today, his strength and training stood him well, even against men far older, thicker in the shoulders and chest.

The fighting was fierce, and he prayed his strength would not fail. Again and again he met new opponents, lifting his sword, slashing hard, seeking enemy weak points, just as the enemy sought his. He raised his sword high against a Frenchman with a visor formed like a boar’s head.

The man fell.

It was then that he heard the cry that Prince Edward was down. He moved with lightning speed to the side of his prince.

Enemy knights, seeing that the English prince was in danger, rushed forward, seeking to use the advantage against the young prince. Edward’s standard bearers were helping him to his feet in the casement of his heavy armor. Adrien quickly moved into the breach to stave off the French knights swarming in like flies.

He knew his own strength and power. He was perhaps half an inch taller than the Plantagenet prince, and though constant training had given him a heavily muscled torso and massive shoulders, he had been taught that he must learn to move with swift grace despite his size and the bulk and weight of his armor. He raised his sword again and again, watching all the while as more men came to join in the attack. He felt to a knee, bracing against a blow that came from a mounted knight, then rose as swiftly as lightning, swinging with such speed that he caught his opponent in the vulnerable crevice at his side. The man fell, his horse screamed and floundered in the mud and blood that had become the floor of the hilltop.

In the frenzy of combat that followed, Adrien found himself cut off from his fellows. He had meant to shift the fighting from where the prince had sought to regain his balance; he had succeeded all too well. Man after man came after him. His strength waned and he knew that he must use his wits, watching every opponent, weighing each man’s measure. He could afford to make no wasted strikes, for his strength could not last forever. He took one charging horseman with the dirk at his calf, ducked low to avoid the charge of another, and watched as the horse sent its rider crashing against a tree. Two more men he battled by hand, seeing the one from the corner of his eye, swinging his sword arm to fell the one before completing the movement which allowed him to catch the other straight in the groin.

Both men fell.

But there were more to replace those he had taken. When he looked before him then, he saw that a good dozen heavily armored Frenchmen stood before him, ready to rush in to attack. As he faced them, they began to call out.

“Surrender, man!”

“Throw down your sword!”

“Do so with honor now, and we’ll take you whole!”

“Keep fighting, and we’ll slice you gullet to groin!”

“Surrender, by God or by Satan!”

By God or Satan, it could not be so.

He remembered his father’s words.
Never surrender!

Death would be his surrender.

He smiled beneath the steel of his visor. Shook his head slowly. And faced the enemy. Madly, perhaps, yet he was certain that whether he did or didn’t fight, they meant to slice him—gullet to groin. He had taken down too many of their number to seek mercy.

“Milords, I do not surrender!” he returned, and with a wild Scot’s battle cry, he raced forward, startling them by attacking rather than seeking to make a defensive stand.

Death might well have brought about his surrender against so many, except that, even as another rush of men swept forward to meet his onslaught, he suddenly found himself with aid. Twenty good English knights rode into the fray, the king at their lead. The dozen Frenchmen fled, some of the English in pursuit.

The battle, for the day, was over. The French had launched at least fifteen attacks, and been repulsed with tremendous losses each time.

King Edward had come upon Adrien’s position with a retinue of knights just in time.

The king dismounted from the white horse he had ridden to lead his men that morning, striding quickly to Adrien. As he doffed his visor and bascinet, his gold hair glittered in the sun. He paused, surveying the carnage around Adrien.

“Scotsman, you’ve done well. Extraordinarily well.”

Adrien was startled when the king suddenly drew his sword. “Kneel!” commanded the king.

“Sire—” Adrien began.

But Prince Edward was with the king by then, and he called out with his deep, rich voice to his friend. “Adrien, good fellow, my father means to knight you here and now!”

Still startled, Adrien fell to his knees. He was dimly aware of the king’s words, of the sword falling upon his shoulders. He was duly knighted.

He stood, more stunned by this sudden turn of events than he had been by any action in the battle.

His father’s words had proven true. He had been knighted on the battlefield. An odd pain, long suppressed, seized him. He wished that Carlin, Laird MacLachlan, might have lived to see this day.

Father, let me not fail you, he prayed suddenly. He had never forgotten Carlin MacLachlan, nor all that he had learned from his proud, wise father.

Cheers went up; he found himself hoisted high by a number of men, and then the king warned that the battle had ended for the day, yet the French were not quit of it. More war would be waged on the morrow.

The French did attack again, come morning, but by the afternoon, Philip had found himself soundly in defeat at Crécy. More than four thousand French knights and nobles lay dead upon the battlefield.

Knights and nobles …

No one bothered to count the bodies of the lesser men, the peasants and freemen with their pikes and staffs.

There were tremendous celebrations. On the following day, a Requiem Mass was said, and then Edward prepared to move on, determined to take Calais.

But before the army moved again, Adrien found himself summoned to stand before the king.

Over the years, he had been summoned often enough.

There had been the time when David II had returned to rule in Scotland. The king, who had supported Baliol, told Adrien the news dispassionately. “You’ve proven yourself a tremendous asset, my young laird. You’re as tall as any Plantagenet, you’ve honed yourself sharper than steel. You’ve fought in God knows how many tournaments and taken God knows how many prizes.”

“Sire, as you know well, I need to win those tournaments. My armor and household are expensive.”

“Indeed, and your own holdings don’t provide quite enough. I understand. Tournaments are good for young men. You must keep winning them. My point here is that I’ve really no right to keep you from serving David. I’d prefer you stay in my service. You will soon see the rewards of your efforts.”

Adrien, who had become best friends with Edward, pretended to give the matter great thought. “I will stay with you if I am granted two promises.”

“You would demand promises from a king?” Edward roared.

“Aye, your grace.”

“And they would be?”

“First, sire, that you never ask me to fight against the Scots.”

“Aye, lad, I’d not ask that of you.”

“And secondly, that you promise not to decimate
my
holdings when you’re fighting in the border regions!”