Uneasy Lies the Crown (26 page)

Hopkyn’s chin rose slowly. “But I have been waiting so long.”

Nesta was right. He was already speaking in riddles. Too anxious to sit still, Owain paced before the cooking hearth. A pot of beans boiled slowly on a hook above the flames. “Tell me, if you will, how the future will fall out for Wales.”

“For Wales?Or for you?”

His hands clasped tightly behind his back, Owain turned to him. “Tell me what you will. Tell me what course I should follow tomorrow and in the days to come.”

Straightening his spine, Hopkyn stood. “The prophecies are not always so clear.”

“Then what good are they, if not to guide us?”

“You misunderstand.” Hopkyn fumbled for the stool, righted it, and sat again. He wove his fingers together. “Many were foretold centuries ago by those who knew not the names or places of which they spoke. And time is a relative matter. The time for the prophecies to unfold comes not when we beckon it, but when it is right.”

With a sweep of his arm, Owain sent every bowl, knife and spoon clattering to the floor. One of the cooks peeked worriedly through a crack in the door, and then disappeared quickly. Owain slammed his fists on the table. “I have no time for guessing games, Master Hopkyn. There is too much at stake. Hotspur is headed for Chester, where we will join together to march on London. I must know—and save your riddles—how it will fall out, if this is the right course to follow. Tell me... or be gone from here.”

Hopkyn closed his eyes and breathed deeply, drawing from within. “You will be captured under a black banner between Gower and Carmarthen,”—he raised his eyes to meet Owain’s—“if you go.”

“That leaves only one route, to the west. A narrow strip between Carmarthen and the sea via Laugharne.” It would delay them greatly. He could only pray that any diversion Hotspur had created for Henry would buy enough time for that not to matter. “Are you certain? Is there no other way?”

“None,” Hopkyn replied.

“And what of the future? Some have said that Arthur would return one day to free his people. Do the prophecies foretell this? And is it possible that I... that I am
him
?”

Hopkyn drew a finger through a puddle of spilled stew and shrugged. “Do
you
believe you are?”

“No.”

“If that’s true, if you don’t believe you are him, why ask me? Would it matter what I said?” He fell silent then, pulling his folded hands in close to him and letting his chin sink as if he had nothing more to say... or nothing more he cared to say.

Owain dug beneath his shirt for the pouch he carried, opened it and pushed a few coins across the table. “For your troubles.”

Hopkyn slid the glittering coins back at Owain. “I did not come for that. I came to fight the English.”

“Very well.” Owain nodded. The soothsayer was an old man, but he would keep him safe behind the lines with other duties. “I may have need of you... from time to time.”

Hopkyn was shown to a pallet in a back room by a servant. Owain returned to his own room, where Nesta lay waiting. He did not need her in the sense that a man needs to prove that his appetite for women had not waned with the years, but he needed her in subtler ways. Although Owain would not readily confess to it to her, he believed that this Hopkyn had a gift beyond the scope of ordinary man. He would do as he said.

Owain was up well before dawn, the skin beneath his eyes drooping heavily. He sent a detachment into the hills beyond Carmarthen to see if the routes north toward Gower were safe. Two days later he received the news: his party had been slaughtered by a column under the English Lord Carew. Had he gone that way himself, he would not have lived. Owain’s deference to Hopkyn’s premonitions became even firmer.

Chester, England — Summer, 1403

Harry Hotspur galloped through Chester’s gates in all his flamboyance. His horse was caparisoned in a festival of color. The feathery crest of his helmet flowed behind him as he shouted, “Long live King Richard!”

Townspeople poured out of their shops and homes. They raised their fists in the air and echoed him: “Long live King Richard!”

Chester had been the very breeding ground for Richard’s famed Cheshire archers, who sported their white hart badges and brandished their bows like lightning rods before all who defied them. Those archers had not come from noble houses, but from the fields and towns.

In his innately contagious and charismatic manner, Hotspur rallied the people to him. The ten thousand seasoned fighters he had brought from Northumberland were augmented by the thousands there who pledged themselves in Richard’s name, waving rusty billhooks and broadaxes above their heads. Hotspur truly doubted that Richard still lived; he knew Henry too well to think for a moment that the man would have allowed his cousin to survive and complicate his reign, but it was in Hotspur’s interest at the moment not to crush the hopes of those who now clamored before him.

A message from Owain Glyndwr stated that he had been delayed in the south and if Hotspur could secure Chester, then he and Mortimer would join him shortly for the march on London. His father had not yet sent word and while that was a matter of some concern to Hotspur, it was also to be expected, given the complications of their plan. In his possession, Hotspur had letters from various nobles throughout the land swearing to bring Henry to his knees and make him relinquish what he had so wrongly and vilely stolen.

In Shrewsbury, Prince Harry was biding his time. It was a temptation too fantastic to resist. If Hotspur waited for the others, it would be too late. He had enough numbers to take the city now.

King Henry’s days were numbered. England would be restored to its proper order in due course. Shrewsbury—and if fortune smiled on him, Prince Harry—would be Hotspur’s, as well.

35

Shrewsbury, England — July, 1403

Harry Hotspur had no words for what he heard. His heart clogged his throat. They had halted just five miles northwest of Shrewsbury when a scout arrived with the fires of hell burning at his heels and the terrible news on his tongue: the leopard banner of King Henry IV of England was fluttering above the town walls of Shrewsbury, its statement bold and clear.

Hotspur had lost the race. Worse than that, his betrayal had been discovered. There was no turning back now.

His uncle, the Earl of Worcester, grabbed Hotspur’s shoulder and inclined his head toward the hand-wringing, slight-framed man behind him in cleric’s robes. “The abbot brings terms from King Henry.”

Clutching his helmet tightly under his arm, Hotspur stared at the horizon. The sharp scent of spearmint and thyme filled the air in William Bretton’s garden, where they had been directed to receive Henry’s envoy. “Send him back.”

“But you must at least hear what the king has to say.”

“No,” Hotspur said, “I will hear nothing from that liar. He swore to my father and me at Doncaster, as he kissed the Holy Gospel, that he had come to claim only what had been taken from him. And what did he do? Stole the crown from his own cousin—who, most conveniently, died soon afterward. What measure of a man is that, to knowingly perjure himself in the name of Almighty God? He means
nothing
of what he says.”

Worcester reeled his nephew closer, pinching Hotspur’s neck with the force of his grip. “We’ve heard nothing from your father. I fear he is not coming.”

Hotspur jerked away. “He gave his word! He
will
come. He said he would. I’ll not renounce him, nor should you.”

“He swore allegiance to Henry, yet he is swayed by you. The man is riven in two. The fact is that we are without him. The others who swore they would come... I see none of them. And where—where is Glyndwr?”

“Where is your spine, Thomas?” Hotspur snarled.

“Attached to my head.” Worcester glanced over his shoulder at the abbot, who was straining to hear their words. A green sea of herbs stood between them. “Listen to me, Harry. I am with you in this until the brutal end—whatever that may be. I know what will happen to us if we fail. But I believe in what has brought us here, just as you do. The cowards who did not come—they will get their due. And you are right—Henry is a liar and a thief of the lowest sort.”

“Then go to him... Go back with the abbot and tell him so.” Hotspur flexed his gauntleted hand before him. “Tell him that we will prove by our own hands that he, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, named himself king without right to that title. By his own mouth he came to this land for naught but his inheritance. Tell him he may have it, but let the throne pass to the heir of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The Earl of March is the true king. Go. Tell him God is on our side.”

“Pray I return,”—Worcester pulled a kerchief from beneath his armor and mopped away the perspiration gathering on his forehead—“given that we already know his answer. At this point, I don’t think he would listen to God, either.”

“I suppose this means a battle, then.”

Worcester grinned wryly. “Did you come here not expecting one?”

Motioning to the abbot to follow him, he turned and left through the garden gate. Hotspur settled on a bench, mindful of splinters, for its planks were weathered from sun and rain. Nearby, a pair of doves nestled wing to wing on the top rail of the wicket fence surrounding the garden, cooing softly to one another.

Today, he would write to Elizabeth, tell her he would return home as soon as he could, but that she should go ahead with the plans to arrange the marriage of their daughter to the Clifford boy. He would also tell her that—and God forbid it should come to pass—if he were taken prisoner or died in battle, the Earl of Douglas would see to it their son was given safe haven in Scotland.

A man should always hope for victory, but it was not a bad thing to prepare for defeat. There were others to consider besides just himself.

Douglas and Hotspur were slouched over the kitchen table in Bretton’s house, nursing their tankards, when Worcester returned. The candles were burnt down to stubs and the cooking hearth was stone cold.

Hotspur took a long pull of ale and dragged a sleeve across his mouth before letting out a low belch. “Henry was overjoyed to see you, I assume. Showered you with gifts and promises, did he? Pray tell, what did he have to say?”

“Very little.” Worcester shook his head when his nephew offered him a drink. “As to your statements regarding whose right it is to sit upon the throne, he says England has already spoken on his behalf.”

“What of it, Archibald?” Hotspur cuffed Douglas on the arm. “Are you up for a fight?”

Douglas gave his friend a drunken smile and raised his tankard with a wink of his one good eye. “English fighting English? I would no’ miss it for all the whores in Babylon.”

On the morning of the 21st of July, 1403, Hotspur was awakened with the news that the king’s forces were already advancing from Shrewsbury. He sped to the nearby village to join his troops as they prepared to march, Douglas and Worcester riding abreast of him. The dew was heavy on the fields and birds sang gleefully without regard to the serious nature of the men who had risen that day at their heralding.

“You’re unusually silent on this fine morning, Hotspur,” Douglas said.

“I have but one thought on my mind today,” Hotspur said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “To beat my way through Henry’s army, cut out his false tongue and ram my sword through his ungrateful heart.”

Douglas snorted. “You’ll have a rough time of it with only your dagger. Where is your long sword? Does your squire have it?”

Hotspur’s hand flew to his side. Empty! At once he remembered walking past his sword on a table beside his bed as his squires and page flew around him in a frantic swirl. A cold dread flooded his chest. “What village is this beyond the camp?”

“Berwick,” Worcester said. “Why do you ask?”

Hotspur hauled back on his reins and stopped dead in the middle of the road.

Worcester waved their accompaniment on by. His wizened face was gray with concern. “What is it, Nephew? You look as though the sheet of death has just been drawn over your face. You’ve no cause for concern. There are extra weapons about. I’ll have my man fetch you one.”

But as Worcester raised his arm to call upon his squire, Hotspur shook his head. “I was once told by a wizard, when I was a roistering brat in Northumberland, that I would die in Berwick. All my life, I have avoided Berwick-upon-Tweed in the north. What a fool I was. How vain to believe I could trick fate.”

Worcester studied him a moment and then motioned to a squire. “Find him a worthy sword. He has a high purpose for it.”

As the squire rode off to locate a weapon, Worcester readjusted his position in his saddle and arched his back, stretching. “Prophecies are for fools who have no faith, Harry. If our fates were already written, what reason to even rise from bed in the morning? We’re here. And we’re damn well going to fight. God willing, we’ll win.”

At that moment, however, the only unwavering faith Hotspur had was that his uncle would not abandon him. Not like his father had.

They took to the road with dire haste. Hotspur’s men were hard pressed to move quickly—the previous two days’ march from Chester had left them with badly blistered feet and rapidly decaying loyalties. Given the inexperience of some of those who had recently joined the ranks, Hotspur knew he had to keep the pace controlled—fast enough to find good ground to stand on before Henry claimed it, yet measured enough to keep from losing anyone, for he needed every man.

The terrain was level. His choices were few. Finally, he chose to array them on the crest of a low ridge that crossed the road. There they would have an advantage, however small.

Iolo Goch:

That same day, between St. Clears and Laugharne far to the southwest, the Welsh army was already fighting its own battle with their backs to the Bay of Carmarthen. An army of Flemings, still bitter over the humiliation that my lord Owain had dealt them at Hyddgen, had their enemies in a very compromising position.