Harlequin. Part 24

The King laughed and rode on. 'Looks like rain.'

'It should hold off a while,' the Earl of Warwick answered. 'And the French may hold off too, sire.'

'You think they won't come, William?'

The Earl shook his head. 'They'll come, sire, but it'll take them time. A lot of time. We might see their vanguard by noon, but their rearguard will still be crossing the bridge in Abbeville. I'll wager they'll wait till tomorrow morning to make a fight.'

'Today or tomorrow,' the King said carelessly, 'it's all the same.'

'We could march on,' the Earl of Warwick suggested.

'And find a better hill?' The King smiled. He was younger and less experienced than many of the earls, but he was also the King and so the decision must rest with him. He was, in truth, filled with doubts, but knew that he must look confident. He would fight here. He said as much and said it firmly.

'We fight here,' the King said again, staring up the slope. He was imagining his army there, seeing it as the French would see it, and he knew his suspicion was right that the lowest part of the ridge, close to Crecy, would be the dangerous ground. That would be his right flank, close under the mill. 'My son will command on the right,' he said, pointing, 'and you, William, will be with him.'

'I will, sire,' the Earl of Northampton agreed.

'And you, my lord, on the left,' the King said to the Earl of Warwick. 'We shall make our line two-thirds of the way up the hill with archers in front and on the flanks.'

'And you, sire?' the Earl of Warwick asked.

'I shall be at the mill,' the King said, then urged his horse up the hill. He dismounted two-thirds of the way up the slope and waited for a squire to take the mare's reins, then he began the morning's real work. He paced along the hill, marking places by prodding the turf with his white staff and instructing the lords who accompanied him that their men would be here, or there, and those lords sent men to summon their commanders so that when the army marched to the long green slope they would know where to go.

'Bring the banners here,' the King ordered, 'and place them where the men are to a.s.semble.'

He kept his army in the three battles that had marched all the way from Normandy. Two, the largest, would make a long, thick line of men-at-arms stretching across the upper reaches of the slope. 'They'll fight on foot,' the King ordered, confirming what every man had expected though one or two of the younger lords still groaned for there was more honour to be gained by fighting from horseback. But Edward cared more about victory than honour. He knew only too well that if his men-at-arms were mounted then the fools would make a charge as soon as the French attacked and his battle would degenerate into a brawl at the hill's foot that the French must win because they had the advantage of numbers. But if his men were on foot then they could not make a crazed charge against hors.e.m.e.n, but must wait behind their s.h.i.+elds to be attacked. 'The horses are to be kept at the rear, beyond the ridge,' he commanded. He himself would command the third and smallest battle on the ridge's summit where it would be a reserve.

'You will stay with me, my lord bishop,' the King told the Bishop of Durham.

The bishop, armoured from nape to toes and carrying a ma.s.sive spiked mace, bridled. 'You'll deny me a chance to break French heads, sire?'

'I shall let you weary G.o.d with your prayers instead,' the King said, and his lords laughed. 'And our archers,' the King went on, 'will be here, and here, and here.' He was pacing the turf and ramming the white staff into the gra.s.s every few paces. He would cover his line with archers, and ma.s.s more at the two flanks. The archers, Edward knew, were his one advantage. Their long, white-fledged arrows would do murder in this place that invited the enemy hors.e.m.e.n into the glorious charge. 'Here,' he stepped on and gouged the turf again, 'and here.'

'You want pits, sire?' the Earl of Northampton asked.

'As many as you like, William,' the King said. The archers, once they were gathered in their groups all along the face of the line, would be told to dig pits in the turf some yards down the slope. The pits did not have to be large, just big enough to break a horse's leg if it did not see the hole. Make enough pits and the charge must be slowed and thrown into disarray. 'And here,' the King had reached the southern end of the ridge, 'we'll park some empty wagons. Put half the guns here, and the other half at the other end. And I want more archers here.'

'If we've any left,' the Earl of Warwick grumbled.

'Wagons?' the Earl of Northampton asked.

'Can't charge a horse across a line of wagons, William,' the King said cheerfully, then beckoned his horse forward and, because his plate armour was so heavy, two pages had to half lift and half push him into the saddle. It meant an undignified scramble, but once he was settled in the saddle he looked back along the ridge that was no longer empty, but was dotted with the first banners showing where men would a.s.semble. In an hour or two, he thought, his whole army would be here to lure the French into the archers' arrows. He wiped the earth from the b.u.t.t of the staff, then spurred his horse towards Crecy. 'Let's see if there's any food,' he said.

The first flags fluttered on the empty ridge. The sky pressed grey across distant fields and woods. Rain fell to the north and the wind felt cold. The eastern road, along which the French must come, was deserted still. The priests prayed.

Take pity on us, O Lord, in Thy great mercy, take pity on us.

The man who called himself the Harlequin was in the woods on the hill that lay to the east of the ridge that ran between Crecy and Wadicourt. He had left Abbeville in the middle of the night, forcing the sentries to open the northern gate, and he had led his men through the dark with the help of an Abbeville priest who knew the local roads. Then, hidden by beeches, he had watched the King of England ride and walk the far ridge. Now the King was gone, but the green turf was speckled with banners and the first English troops were straggling up from the village. 'They expect us to fight here,' he remarked.

'It's as good a place as any,' Sir Simon Jekyll observed grumpily. He did not like being roused in the middle of the night. He knew that the strange black-clad man who called himself the Harlequin had offered to be a scout for the French army, but he had not thought that all the Harlequin's followers would be expected to miss their breakfast and grope through a black and empty countryside for six cold hours.

'It is a ridiculous place to fight,' the Harlequin responded. 'They will line that hill with archers and we will have to ride straight into their points. What we should do is go round their flank.' He pointed to the north.

'Tell His Majesty that,' Sir Simon said spitefully.

'I doubt he will listen to me.' The Harlequin heard the scorn, but did not rise to it. 'Not yet. When we have made our name, then he will listen.' He patted his horse's neck. 'I have only faced English arrows once, and then it was merely a single archer, but I saw an arrow go clean through a mail coat.'

'I've seen an arrow go through two inches of oak,' Sir Simon said.

'Three inches,' Henry Colley added. He, like Sir Simon, might have to face those arrows today, but he was still proud of what English weapons could do.

'A dangerous weapon,' the Harlequin acknowledged, though in an unworried voice. He was ever unworried, always confident, perpetually calm, and that self-control irritated Sir Simon, though he was even more annoyed by the Harlequin's faintly hooded eyes which, he realized, reminded him of Thomas of Hookton. He had the same good looks, but at least Thomas of Hookton was dead, and that was one less archer to face this day. 'But archers can be beaten,' the Harlequin added.

Sir Simon reflected that the Frenchman had faced one archer in his whole life, yet had already worked out how to beat them. 'How?'

'You told me how,' the Harlequin reminded Sir Simon. 'You exhaust their arrows, of course. You send them lesser targets, let them kill peasants, fools and mercenaries for an hour or two, then release your main force. What we shall do,' he turned his horse away, 'is charge with the second line. It does not matter what orders we receive, we shall wait till the arrows are running out. Who wants to be killed by some dirty peasant? No glory there, Sir Simon.'

That, Sir Simon acknowledged, was true enough. He followed the Harlequin to the further side of the beech wood where the squires and servants waited with the packhorses. Two messengers were sent back with news of the English dispositions while the rest dismounted and unsaddled their horses. There was time for men and beasts to rest and feed, time to don the battle armour and time for prayer.

The Harlequin prayed frequently, embarra.s.sing Sir Simon, who considered himself a good Christian but one who did not dangle his soul from G.o.d's ap.r.o.n strings. He said confession once or twice a year, went to Ma.s.s and bared his head when the Sacraments pa.s.sed by, but otherwise he spared little thought for the pieties. The Harlequin, on the other hand, confided every day to G.o.d, though he rarely stepped into a church and had little time for priests. It was as though he had a private relations.h.i.+p with heaven, and that was both annoying and comforting to Sir Simon. It annoyed him because it seemed unmanly, and it comforted him because if G.o.d was of any use to a fighting man then it was on a day of battle.

This day, though, seemed special for the Harlequin, for after going down on one knee and praying silently for a while, he stood and ordered his squire to bring him the lance. Sir Simon, wis.h.i.+ng they could stop the pious foolery and eat instead, presumed that they were expected to arm themselves and sent Colley to fetch his own lance, but the Harlequin stopped him. 'Wait,' he ordered.

The lances, wrapped in leather, were carried on a packhorse, but the Harlequin's squire fetched a separate lance, one that had travelled on its own horse and was wrapped in linen as well as leather. Sir Simon had a.s.sumed it was the Harlequin's personal weapon, but instead, when the linen was pulled from the shaft, he saw it was an ancient and warped spear made from a timber so old and dark that it would surely splinter if it was subjected to the smallest strain. The blade looked to be made of silver, which was foolish, for the metal was too weak to make a killing blade.

Sir Simon grinned. 'You're not fighting with that!'

'We are all fighting with that,' the Harlequin said and, to Sir Simon's surprise, the black-dressed man fell to his knees again. 'Down,' he instructed Sir Simon.

Sir Simon knelt, feeling like a fool.

'You are a good soldier, Sir Simon,' the Harlequin said. 'I have met few men who can handle weapons as you do and I can think of no man I would rather have fighting at my side, but there is more to fighting than swords and lances and arrows. You must think before you fight, and you must always pray, for if G.o.d is on your side then no man can beat you.'

Sir Simon, obscurely aware that he was being criticized, made the sign of the cross. 'I pray,' he said defensively.

'Then give thanks to G.o.d that we will carry that lance into battle.'

'Why?'

'Because it is the lance of St George, and the man who fights under the protection of that lance will be cradled in G.o.d's arms.'

Sir Simon stared at the lance, which had been laid reverently on the gra.s.s. There had been a few times in his life, usually when he was half drunk, when he would glimpse something of the mysteries of G.o.d. He had once been reduced to tears by a fierce Dominican, though the effect had not lasted beyond his next visit to a tavern, and he had felt shrunken the first time he had stepped into a cathedral and seen the whole vault dimly lit by candles, but such moments were few, infrequent and unwelcome. Yet now, suddenly, the mystery of Christ reached down to touch his heart. He stared at the lance and did not see a tawdry old weapon tricked with an impractical silver blade, but a thing of G.o.d-given power. It had been given by Heaven to make men on earth invincible, and Sir Simon was astonished to feel tears p.r.i.c.k at his eyes.

'My family brought it from the Holy Land,' the Harlequin said, 'and they claimed that men who fought under the lance's protection could not be defeated, but that was not true. They were beaten, but when all their allies died, when the very fires of h.e.l.l were lit to burn their followers to death, they lived. They left France and took the lance with them, but my uncle stole it and concealed it from us. Then I found it, and now it will give its blessings to our battle.'

Sir Simon said nothing. He just gazed at the weapon with a look close to awe.

Henry Colley, untouched by the moment's fervour, picked his nose.

'The world,' the Harlequin said, 'is rotting. The Church is corrupt and kings are weak. We have it in our power, Sir Simon, to make a new world, loved by G.o.d, but to do it we must destroy the old. We must take power ourselves, then give the power to G.o.d. That is why we fight.'

Henry Colley thought the Frenchman was plain crazy, but Sir Simon had an enraptured expression.

Tell me,' the Harlequin looked at Sir Simon, 'what is the battle flag of the English King?'

The dragon banner,' Sir Simon said.

The Harlequin offered one his rare smiles. 'Is that not an omen?' he asked, then paused. 'I shall tell you what will happen this day,' he went on. The King of France will come and he will be impatient and he will attack. The day will go badly for us. The English will jeer us because we cannot break them, but then we shall carry the lance into battle and you will see G.o.d turn the fight. We shall s.n.a.t.c.h victory from failure. You will take the English King's son as a prisoner and maybe we will even capture Edward himself, and our reward will be Philip of Valois's favour. That is why we fight, Sir Simon - for the King's favour, because that favour means power, riches and land. You will share that wealth, but only so long as you understand that we shall use our power to purge the rot from Christendom. We shall be a scourge against the wicked.'

Mad as a brush, Henry Colley thought. Daft as lights. He watched as the Harlequin stood and went to a pack-horse's pannier from which he took a square of cloth which, unfolded, proved to be a red banner on which a strange beast with horns, tusks and claws reared on its hind legs while clasping a cup in its forepaws.

'This is my family's banner,' the Harlequin said, tying the flag to the lance's long silver head with black ribbons, 'and for many years, Sir Simon, this banner was forbidden in France because its owners had fought against the King and against the Church. Our lands were wasted and our castle is still slighted, but today we shall be heroes and this banner will be back in favour.' He rolled the flag about the lance-head so that the yale was hidden. Today,' he said fervently, 'my family is resurrected.'

'What is your family?' Sir Simon asked.

'My name is Guy Vexille,' the Harlequin admitted, 'and I am the Count of Astarac'

Sir Simon had never heard of Astarac, but he was pleased to learn that his master was a proper n.o.bleman and, to signify his obedience, he held his praying hands towards Guy Vexille in homage. 'I will not disappoint you, my lord,' Sir Simon said with an unaccustomed humility.

'G.o.d will not disappoint us today,' Guy Vexille said. He took Sir Simon's hands in his own. Today,' he raised his voice to speak to all his knights, 'we shall destroy England.'

For he had the lance.

And the royal army of France was coming.

And the English had offered themselves for slaughter.

'Arrows,' Will Skeat said. He was standing at the wood's edge beside a pile of sheaves unloaded from a wagon, but suddenly paused. 'Good G.o.d.' He was staring at Thomas. 'Looks like a rat got your hair.' He frowned. 'Suits you, though. You look grown up at long last. Arrows!' he said again. 'Don't waste them.' He tossed the sheaves one by one to the archers. 'It looks like a lot, but most of you G.o.dforsaken lepers have never been in a proper battle and battles swallow arrows like wh.o.r.es swallowing - Good morning, Father Hobbe!'

'You'll spare me a sheaf, Will?'

'Don't waste it on sinners, father,' Will said, throwing a bundle to the priest. 'Kill some G.o.d-fearing Frenchmen.'

'There's no such thing, Will. They're all sp.a.w.n of Satan.'

Thomas emptied a sheaf into his arrow bag and tucked another into his belt. He had a pair of bowcords in his helmet, safe from the rain that threatened. A smith had come to the archers' encampment and had hammered the nicks from their swords, axes, knives and billhooks, then sharpened the blades with his stones. The smith, who had been wandering the army, said the King had ridden north to look for a battlefield, but he himself reckoned the French would not come that day. 'It's a lot of sweat for nothing,' he had grumbled as he smoothed a stone down Thomas's sword. 'This is French work,' he said, peering at the long blade.

'From Caen.'

'You could sell this for a penny or two,' the praise was grudging, 'good steel. Old, of course, but good.'

Now, with their arrows replenished, the archers placed their belongings into a wagon that would join the rest of the army's baggage and one man, who was sick in his belly, would guard it through the day while a second invalid would stand sentry on the archers' horses. Will Skeat ordered the wagon away, then cast an eye over his a.s.sembled archers. 'The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are coming,' he growled, 'if not today, then tomorrow, and there are more of them than there are of us, and they ain't hungry and they've all got boots and they think their s.h.i.+t smells of roses because they're b.l.o.o.d.y Frenchmen, but they die just like anyone else. Shoot their horses and you'll live to see sundown. And remember, they ain't got proper archers so they're going to lose. It ain't difficult to understand. Keep your heads, aim at the horses, don't waste shafts and listen for orders. Let's go, boys.'

They waded the shallow river, one of the many bands of archers who emerged from the trees to file into the village of Crecy where knights were pacing up and down, then stamping their feet and calling on squires or pages to tighten a strap or loosen a buckle to make their armour comfortable. Bunches of horses, tied bridle to bridle, were being led to the back of the hill where, with the army's women, children and baggage, they would stay inside a ring of wagons. The Prince of Wales, armoured from the waist down, was eating a green apple beside the church and he nodded distractedly when Skeat's men respectfully pulled off their helmets. There was no sign of Jeanette, and Thomas wondered if she had fled on her own, then decided he did not care.

Eleanor walked beside him. She touched his arrow bag. 'Do you have enough arrows?'

'Depends how many Frenchmen come,' Thomas said.

'How many Englishmen are there?' Rumour said the army had eight thousand men now, half of them archers, and Thomas reckoned that was probably about right. He gave that figure to Eleanor, who frowned. 'And how many Frenchmen?' she asked.

'The good Lord knows,' Thomas said, but he reckoned it had to be far more than eight thousand, a lot more, but he could do nothing about that now and so he tried to forget the disparity in numbers as the archers climbed towards the windmill.

They crossed the crest to see the long forward slope, and for an instant Thomas had the impression that a great fair was just beginning. Gaudy flags dotted the hill and bands of men wandered between them, and all it needed was some dancing bears and a few jugglers and it would have looked just like the Dorchester fair.

Will Skeat had stopped to search for the Earl of Northampton's banner, then spotted it on the right of the slope, straight down from the mill. He led the men down and a man-at-arms showed them the sticks marking the spot where the archers would fight. 'And the Earl wants horse-pits dug,' the man-at-arms said.

'You heard him!' Will Skeat shouted. 'Get digging!'

Eleanor helped Thomas make the pits. The soil was thick and they used knives to loosen the earth that they scooped out with their hands.

'Why do you dig pits?' Eleanor asked.

'To trip the horses,' Thomas said, kicking the excavated earth away before starting another hole. All along the face of the hill archers were making similar small pits a score of paces in front of their positions. The enemy hors.e.m.e.n might charge at the full gallop, but the pits would check them. They could get through, but only slowly, and the impetus of their charge would be broken and while they tried to thread the treacherous holes they would be under attack from archers.

'There,' Eleanor said, pointing, and Thomas looked up to see a group of hors.e.m.e.n on the far hill crest. The first Frenchmen had arrived and were staring across the valley to where the English army slowly a.s.sembled under the banners.

'Be hours yet,' Thomas said. Those Frenchmen, he guessed, were the vanguard who had been sent ahead to find the enemy, while the main French army would still be marching from Abbeville. The crossbowmen, who would surely lead the attack, would all be on foot.

Off to Thomas's right, where the slope fell away to the river and the village, a makes.h.i.+ft fortress of empty wagons was being made. The carts were parked close together to form a barrier against hors.e.m.e.n and between them were guns. These were not the guns that had failed to break CaenCastle, but were much smaller.

'Ribalds,' Will Skeat said to Thomas.

'Ribalds?'

'That's what they're called, ribalds.' He led Thomas and Eleanor along the slope to look at the guns, which were strange bundles of iron tubes. Gunners were stirring the powder, while others were undoing bundles of garros, the long arrow-like iron missiles that were rammed into the tubes. Some of the ribalds had eight barrels, some seven and a few only four. 'Useless b.l.o.o.d.y things,' Skeat spat, 'but they might frighten the horses.' He nodded a greeting to the archers who were digging pits ahead of the ribalds. The guns were thick here -Thomas counted thirty-four and others were being dragged into place - but they still needed the protection of bowmen.

Skeat leaned on a wagon and stared at the far hill. It was not warm, but he was sweating. 'Are you ill?' Thomas asked.

'Guts are churning a bit,' Skeat admitted, 'but nothing to make a song and dance about.' There were about four hundred French hors.e.m.e.n on the far hill now, and others were appearing from the trees. 'It might not happen,' Skeat said quietly.

'The battle?'

'Philip of France is jumpy,' Skeat said. 'He's got a knack of marching up to battle, then deciding he'd rather be frolicking at home. That's what I hear. Nervous b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' He shrugged. 'But if he thinks he's got a chance today, Tom, it's going to be nasty.'

Thomas smiled. 'The pits? The archers?'

'Don't be a b.l.o.o.d.y fool, boy,' Skeat retorted. 'Not every pit breaks a leg and not every arrow strikes true. We might stop the first charge and maybe the second, but they'll still keep coming and in the end they'll get through. There's just too many of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. They'll be on top of us, Tom, and it'll be up to the men-at-arms to give them a hammering. Just keep your head, boy, and remember it's the men-at-arms who do the close-quarter work. If the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds get past the pits then take your bow back, wait for a target and stay alive. And if we lose?' He shrugged. 'Leg it for the forest and hide there.'

'What is he saying?' Eleanor asked.

'That it should be easy work today.'

'You are a bad liar, Thomas.'