A King's Betrayal (32 page)

             
Should she leave the babe by the wayside?  Perhaps some good soul might find it and take it in?  Yet the child was more like to die, because it needed food and someone to care for it properly.  She might take it to the nuns. Sometimes they would take a motherless babe in but the nearest Abbey was too far for her to walk with a heavy child.  She must find food and somewhere to shelter for the night.  Her feet were sore for she had no shoes and she had run as fast as she could, fearing that the angry mob would come after her.  Had they done so she might have been attacked and the child would have been drowned for certain – but she could not care for the babe herself.  Had it been old enough to walk and feed itself she might have kept it or sold it – but who would want the babe of a witch?

             
Lilath looked down at the babe.  Even with its face red and screwed up with crying, it was lovely.  Surely someone would take her?  She tried to think where she might find food both for herself and the child close by, and then the answer came to her.  There was a fork in the road a little further ahead and if she turned right she would come to the school that the Sisters of Mercy ran for children they took into their care.

             
It was the very place for them.  Lilath’s toothless mouth opened in a grin as she poked at the child’s mouth with her finger.  The babe latched on to it and sucked, hoping for food, but at least it was quiet for a moment.  Soon it would cry again, because its belly was empty.  Lilath understood, for her own stomach was growling.  She had not eaten for two days, but the Sisters would give her food.  She had heard that the Sisters of Mercy would pay for children.  They would give her supper at least and perhaps more.

             
Some people said the Sisters used witchcraft in their healing, and some feared them.  Lilath herself would have feared to approach them to beg for food, though they nursed the sick and helped women in need.  She did not fear to give them the child.  She would tell them that the child’s mother had been taken and put to the test as a witch.  The Sisters had many motherless daughters in their care, for they admitted only girl children. 

             
She quickened her pace, hobbling as fast as her wasted leg would allow.  As she walked in the gathering dusk, she repeated her story to herself.  The child’s mother was dead and she had stolen the babe away to save her from being thrown into the river.  The Sisters would feed her well this night and mayhap they might give her a silver penny.  Supposing they did not believe her – or would not believe her?  Lilath thought hard, then smiled her toothless smile.

             
If the Sisters would not take the babe, Lilath would leave her by the side of the road where someone might find her.  It was all she could do.

             
At King Henry’s exhortation his whole army knelt as one; each man drew the sign of the cross on the ground, bent, kissed the sign they had made and took a tiny piece of soil into their mouths.  Like rippling corn in the breeze, they stood and began their march to where the enemy were grouped.  The French had taken a position of strength between Tramecourt and Agincourt, their tightly-packed formations blocking the route the English troops must take to reach Calais.

             
They were a formidable force of perhaps upwards of thirty or forty thousand men, but their front was spread over no more than three-quarters of a mile, hemmed in by the woods that bordered the villages. Between the two armies lay a stretch of waterlogged ground that they must cross to engage.  In the forefront of the French army were the flower of the nobility.  The battle plan was to have placed the archers to the front to wreak havoc on the advancing English, but the nobles were proud and refused to wait in the disciplined ranks, as they were bid. The sight that met the English was of  many brightly coloured banners, which were so tightly packed they blocked the knights’ passage.  Such was the strength of the enemy that many an English heart sank in fear, but as the cry, ‘St George!  St George! was taken up across the ranks they went bravely forward.  Outnumbered by overwhelming odds, weakened by hunger and sickness, many still suffering from the bloody flux, they trudged relentlessly across the muddy field.

             
‘Today we win a glorious battle or die in the attempt,’ Raoul said to his friend, his eyes glittering with intense excitement.  ‘For God, honour and friendship, Stefan.  If one of us should die and the other live, the survivor will bury the dead.’

             
‘You have my word, Raoul.’

             
The two comrades watched the march of the foot soldiers.  Drums were beating, trumpets sounded and the noise of armour and jingling harness mingled with the battle cries of the men.  It was a ragged band of men that marched steadily, slowly, surely towards the French lines, but there was something terrifying about them.  The sight had begun to sow discord and confusion in the enemy’s ranks for they had somehow lost their command of the situation.  Only a bold or a mad man would march against such overwhelming odds?  They had expected Henry to accept defeat and sue for terms.

             
Then the cry went up for the French to confess their sins and engage with the English.  The ragged but fearsome warriors of England had reached within two hundred yards of the opposing ranks when they halted and their archers hammered into the wet ground the heavy stakes they had carried for such a long weary way.  Taking shelter behind their screen and shields, they began to fire a barrage of deadly arrows into the French ranks.  Because of the narrow confines of the field they had chosen to halt the English advance, the French nobles were huddled together and the arrows rained death on an enemy that had not expected such defiance.  In sudden haste they made a charge at the English left flank with such fierceness that the front line recoiled, but the archers stood their ground, protected by the woods at their backs.  The stakes they had hammered into the earth made it impossible for the elite cavalry to ride down their line, as they had clearly planned and expected.  Horses and men thrust forward by the pressure of overwhelming numbers from behind were thrust against the pointed stakes and became impaled, the sound of their screaming mingling with the clash of metal against metal.

             
‘They are breaking!’ Raoul cried.  ‘The cavalry are repulsed.  Now we shall have them.’

             
‘They are attacking the baggage carts,’ Stefan said.  ‘I’ll take a few men to help protect them and then return.’

             
‘God be with you.’

             
Ralph did not turn his head to watch his friend ride away.  His eyes were firmly fixed on the chaos at the front line.  The French cavalry was broken and scattered but now the main body of the French army was moving forward.  Heads down, lances and swords at the ready, they came on despite the hail of arrows that decimated their ranks.

             
‘Where are their archers?’ Raoul wondered aloud.  ‘Why do they not use them as we do?’

             
He saw that the French were stumbling through the mud which clung to their feet and made it difficult to move, but despite their difficulty men were managing to reach the parts of the line where the English men-at arms waited.  This was his moment!  No battle could be won without a test of skill, knights against knights, fighting men against fighting men.  The archers and cannon had their place, but honour came from man against man.

             
The French had quickened their pace in order to smash into the English line and at one place they recoiled because the weight of numbers was so heavy, but there were too many of them.  In their eagerness to prove themselves the knights had not thought about strategy; they were so close together that they could scarcely wield their weapons without striking one of their own number.  Raoul saw that they were hampered by their own numbers and giving a blood curdling battle cry he rode into the fray, striking to the left and right, his sword slicing through armour to wound and kill.  Pushed on by the advancing ranks behind, the men in the front line could not retreat or manoeuvre.  If they were cut down or knocked over from behind they could not rise and were trodden into the waterlogged ground, some drowning rather than dying of their wounds.

             
‘Fight for God and glory,’ Raoul exhorted the men about him.  ‘Remember that it is more glorious to die for glory than live in shame.  Give no quarter until the day is won.’

             
The archers, many having exhausted their supply of arrows, were seized by the blood lust that gripped every man that day.  They took the discarded weapons of the dead or dying; long swords, maces, war hammers, clubs and axes were seized and men fell on the advancing enemy.  They had no heavy armour to restrict their movement and in the heat of battle sickness and hunger were forgotten.  Throwing themselves on the French knights, they bludgeoned them to the ground, hacking through their armour, using the vulnerable places where the suits of heavy metal were jointed to pierce their flesh. 

             
Raoul saw English yeomen astride the fallen French knights.  Some hammered sharp daggers through their visors, killing quickly, mercifully, with one sharp blow.  The knights that died this way were fortunate, for others slowly suffocated in the mud beneath the press of bodies, while others screamed in agony, dying in terrible pain while the killing went on around them. 

             
Raoul continued to swathe his way through the ranks of French.  As the day went on he saw piles of the dead strewn out across the line between the woods and the village.  Some of the archers had thrown themselves into the fray, but many kept their discipline and continued to send their deadly weapons into the ranks of the enemy.

             
The losses were on both sides.  Raoul saw the Duke of York hurled to the ground, lost beneath a mass of writhing bodies and flailing hooves. Once he saw the King brought to his knees but his knights and esquires surrounded him and he rose to his feet again, striking out strongly despite some damage to his helmet.

             
‘They are fleeing.’

             
Raoul heard the cry.  He looked beyond the melee of knights and soldiers to the rear of the French position where their second division had been situated and saw that it was true.  Their commanders were trying to rally the ranks, but seeing the carnage in the front line, the men were breaking away, running or riding off as if in fear of the English devils who fought like madmen and did not seem to understand the rules of warfare.

             
‘Over here!’  Raoul looked towards the Tramecourt Woods and saw that it was Stefan who had called to him.  It seemed that a part of the French army intended to attack them from the rear.

             
‘Kill the prisoners,’ Henry shouted at Raoul.

             
‘Sire, they should be ransomed as honour demands.’

             
‘If the French third division decides to attack us from the rear the prisoners may seize their weapons and break us in two.  Kill them now before it is too late.’

             
Raoul stared at him, feeling horror and disgust trickle through him.  Deliberately, he turned away and rode forward to attack a French knight, but from the rear he could hear the screams and cries for mercy as others obeyed their king.  They had taken hundreds of prisoners throughout the day, men who had laid down their weapons and asked for mercy and been granted it.  These men should have been ransomed to their families.

             
To his mind there was no honour in what King Henry had done this October day of the year 1415.  Fighting recklessly, Raoul ploughed on through the ranks, killing or wounding.  Better to die than live with the shame of what he had witnessed this day.  When it was done he would fight no more for this King.
 
If God were merciful he would die with honour before the day was done.

             
When he felt the heavy axe strike him from his horse, his last thought was that his prayers had been answered.  At least now he would not be haunted by the deaths of men who had been foully slain, nor would Angeline haunt his dreams.

             
As he fell to the ground, narrowly missing being pounded into the mud by flailing hooves for a moment he saw the face of the lady of the woods and he smiled.

Forty Three

             
Isolde looked at the man who was waiting for her in the guestroom of the Abbey.

Tall and lean, he was a man well into his middle years, dressed as a nobleman in a rich gown that reached his ankles, a jewelled leather belt slung slow on his waist.  He was a handsome man, his thick hair sprinkled liberally with grey at the temples, his expression stern, though there was gentleness about his mouth as he smiled.

             
‘Yes, sir.  You are Lord Tomas of Ryston Castle?’

             
He inclined his head.  ‘You sent word to me of a young woman living alone in some woods not far from here?’

             
‘Yes, sir, though that was some months ago.’

             
‘Your letter reached me only recently.  I understand you sent it with a pilgrim who pledged to bring it to me.  He was taken ill and delayed for some weeks I fear, though in the end he kept his word.’

             
‘It is a pity he was delayed for I cannot be certain Beth still lives in the woods.  She may have moved on for her child’s sake.’

             
‘Beth? Is that what she calls herself?’  Tomas frowned, a tiny pulse beating at his temple.  ‘She has a child but no husband to protect her?’

             
‘She was alone when I helped her give birth.  She told me that the woman with whom she had lived for as long as she could recall had recently been put to the test as a witch and hung for her crimes.  Beth took me to her hut in the woods and – she gave me a gold chain.  I would not have taken it but I remembered that I’d heard somewhere of a lord who looked for a stolen child – a child that might have been Beth’s age.  She told me she had a gold cross that had hung on the chain, which she wears on a ribbon beneath her tunic.  She also had a green silk dress, which was hers, when she was found.’

             
‘May I see the chain please?’

             
‘Yes, of course. I brought it with me when Mother Abbess told me that you were asking for me.’  She reached inside her habit and brought out a small purse of leather, which she handed to him.  ‘If it is proof that Beth is the child you seek, you may return it to her.  I never intended to keep it.’

             
Tomas took the purse, his hand shaking slightly as he pulled the strings and opened it, letting the small chain fall into the palm of his hand.  He looked at it, examining the clasp for a moment, and then a sigh issued from his lips.

             
‘I did not believe it could be true,’ he said.  ‘My wife had accepted that she was dead and then just over a year ago she had a dream.  She dreamed that Elspeth called to her and that she comforted her and held her.  In her dream our daughter was living in some woods.’  He raised his head to look at Isolde.  ‘This chain belonged to Elspeth.  It had a little cross hanging from it and she was wearing a green silk gown the day she was stolen from us.  It seems that you have found our daughter.  I am grateful, Sister Isolde.  I have two requests of you: one that you tell me where I may find Beth and the second is to tell me what I may do for you in return for this precious gift.’

             
‘Beth lives in the woods that border Sir William de Burgh’s lands,’ Isolde replied and smiled.  ‘There is nothing you can do for me, sir.  I have devoted my life to God and to the service of those in suffering and pain.  If you would repay me, give alms to the poor.  I have all I need here.’

             
‘You are a good woman, Sister Isolde.  I shall give alms to all the beggars I meet on the road as I journey to de Burgh’s land, which I know is no more than a few hours ride.’

             
‘May God go with you, sir.  I cannot promise that Beth will still be in the woods, but if you inquire for her someone may know where she is.’

‘I have proof that she lives,’ Tomas said and tucked the small purse containing the gold chain inside his surcoat.  ‘I shall find her no matter how long it takes.’