Caprice and Rondo (102 page)

Finally, a statement emerged. The Duke, to his regret, had been unable to agree to an immediate peace, but had invited his cousin to shorten the war by leading a body of men to defend a pass for him. The King had excused himself, and was leaving immediately for Paris. It was the last day of the year, and the snow had begun falling again.

Diniz reappeared, looking worn, and tramped in his soaked boots and caked cloak straight up to Nicholas. ‘He didn’t come. Not de Ribérac himself, nor my uncle. The vicomte isn’t in Madeira or Portugal. He’s got leave to go back to Kilmirren.’

Nicholas looked at him. He said, ‘What did you think you were going to do? He is your grandfather.’

‘I hate him,’ said Diniz. He flung off his cloak.

‘I rather wanted to see him myself,’ Nicholas said. ‘But now it doesn’t really matter. You heard the bells ringing from Nancy? It seems some acrobatic friend has managed to climb in and tell them that the Duke of Lorraine is on his way with an army big enough to reduce us to sherbet. It’s a pity. Now they will never surrender. But at least Astorre will be able to say he’s fought with the Swiss.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ Tobie said. ‘We’ve no army. Out there, you could hardly count two thousand fit men.’

‘It’s ironic, really,’ Nicholas said. ‘I came to find de Salmeton and de Ribérac, and they’re both lolling somewhere in luxury while I’m stuck here with you. Well, come on. We might as well make the best of it. Who’ll take a wager on what Campobasso is going to do next?’

Chapter 43

F
OR
ALL
THE
MEN
of the company founded by Marian de Charetty, the acute and mischievous spirit that drew them through the few days that followed was that of Claes, Marian’s husband. Claes, the gifted fool in adversity; Nicholas the man, who knew what now depended on him, and dedicated himself to salvaging what he could.

He could not alter the heavy folly of the Duke their commander, deaf to the appeals of his council to recoil and methodically rebuild his army, allowing the advancing forces to enter and reinforce Nancy, in the hope that they would then turn back themselves. René’s troops were twice his in number, but these were undisciplined louts, not the drilled Swiss of Grandson and Morat, inspired to protect their homeland at all costs. Once the pay began to fail, they would go.

None could influence the Duke, who derided such counsel and castigated his advisers as cowardly Frenchmen at heart. Nicholas could, however, expect to share the plans and the intelligence of those senior commanders who, weary but loyal, were thus being exposed to useless death. He could take part, with Astorre, in the devising of contingency plans, and he could return, with reservations perhaps of his own, and work over those plans with Astorre and the company. And because, in that lethal cold, the Charetty company was better drilled and cared for and nourished than most, the men responded. They responded to Astorre, whom they reviled and worshipped and trusted. They responded to the knowledgeable orders, the cracking speed, the bawdy jokes of young Claes, who had travelled the world and knew a thing or two. They knew they could depend on their chiefs.

He was forced to sacrifice John, as was inevitable, to the central artillery. They parted with no more than a feinted blow and, this time, a genuine smile.

He forfeited Diniz, unexpectedly, to the Duke, who had become disillusioned
with Italians and Flemings and wanted a few soft-spoken, black-haired, reliable Portuguese, or even half-Portuguese, at his elbow. Diniz had looked distraught. ‘It’s all right,’ Nicholas had said. ‘You’re our strongest weapon. Just keep him from doing anything.’

But while he was speaking, the gleaming blocks of armed foot and the jogging columns of cavalry with their plumes and their banners were already pricking their way across the white hills and through the snow-laden forests, their drums ticking, their commanders’ cries frail as claw-marks in the snow. The Lorrainers, the Alsatians, the Swiss, marching to do battle with Burgundy.

O
N
THE
FIRST
S
ATURDAY
of the New Year, Charles of Burgundy broke his camp before Nancy and, leaving a holding force to maintain the siege, personally led the residue of his troops to a position just south of Nancy. Before and behind the chosen site were small streams. To the left was a river, the Meurthe. To the right was the forest of Saurupt. The army was then split into three, with the Duke’s corps of three thousand in the centre, and those of Galeotto and Lalaing on his left and right. The artillery stood before them all, on the edge of the deep little brook of the Jarville, and facing the way to the pilgrimage town of St Nicholas-de-Port, René’s base.

The mercenary company of the Count of Campobasso was not there. That same fourth of January, having been turned down by France, Campobasso cast off his cross of St Andrew and deposited his two sons and three hundred cavalry into the opposite camp of Duke René, where he assumed the double white cross of Lorraine.

Above René’s encampment that night, a beacon of assembly glimmered pink in the flake-spattered darkness, and candied his white-humped pavilions. In the Burgundian camp, edged by snow-burdened forest and treacherous swamps, the Duke of Burgundy repeated what he had already said of the Count. He had heard the news. In the right time and place, he would deal with it.

‘Well?’ said Astorre. The ill-chosen site, the inflexible disposition of the artillery, the lack of good scouts had been a subject of recrimination since dawn, and no one had been able to prevail upon the Duke to amend any of it. Those in the central block, such as themselves, were understandably jumpy.

‘Well?’ Nicholas said. ‘He probably will deal with it, once he’s sent for an astrologer. Meanwhile, we know what the chances are. We do what we can. There isn’t much option: the bastard has left us nowhere to run to.’

‘We’ve got Metz to run to,’ said Thomas. ‘Except that we can’t cross them damned little tributaries. And Nancy’s in the way.’

‘We noticed that,’ Julius said. With danger, he had come to life for the first time since Ghent. ‘Of course, they’d do it better in Poland …’

Groans.

‘Or Russia,’ Nicholas offered. ‘Remember, Julius? You trap and saddle a bear, and it carries you right through the swamps, and catches and cooks your fish for you in the evenings.’

‘Those were the white bears,’ Julius said. ‘The black ones did your washing as well.’

‘And as for the pink ones …’ began Robin, carried away. But Nicholas, keeping the grin on his face, had ceased to listen. Bears. Besse, in Iceland. To do something without leave was to do something
with permission of Besse
. In Russia, the Besy were evil spirits. Until he went to Russia, he had not known how close to Iceland it was.

Anyway, it was time to break up the talk and get everyone working. Tomorrow, he knew — they all knew — the confrontation with René must come. It was a Sunday: Mass would be said before dawn by the Duke’s chaplain. That was all right, but Nicholas wished it had been someone else. Godscalc, for example. What would he have made of all this? What would he have made of all Nicholas had done, all he had become, perhaps, over these years? There was not very much, he supposed, to approve of, except that he had begun to stop and confront certain things, instead of escaping from them. He had begun to listen in order to learn, instead of to turn the knowledge back for his own advantage.

Going about his business that evening; lying through the short, wakeful hours of the night, Nicholas continued to follow the thread of that thought. It led him to dwell on his tutors: all those men and women who had believed him worth moulding and guiding. Godscalc, of course. But before that — before everyone — Marian, whose company was with him tonight, and to whom he owed everything. And who else from the past? Bessarion; and in his odd way Ludovico da Bologna, whom he now understood. The lecturers, the orators he had listened to, travelling through Germany, in Trebizond, at Louvain. The great men of Africa: Katib Musa, and latterly, the imam Ibrahiim, who had taught him to think about death. Umar, the gentle jurist whose loss he was learning to bear. Brother Lorenzo. Callimaco in Poland, and Gregory. The essential wisdom of Josaphat Barbaro, and of women like Clémence, and Bel, and Eleanor of the Tyrol. The perception of Willie Roger, who had introduced him to music. The strange dominion of Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli, who had presented him with the gift of his life. The men around him.

The woman he had just taken again, to where she had always belonged. And the other extraordinary spirit, whom he must not think of, but whose husband was his to keep safe, if he could.

He felt Tobie’s gaze, from his pallet, but the doctor did not speak. Instead, Nicholas turned his head in the dark, with a half-smile. ‘Thank you. Everything is all right.’

Then it was morning.

J
OAN
OF
A
RC
had once prayed in the basilica where Duke René heard Grand Mass that Sunday. By eight, the trumpets had blown, and the young Duke, in cloth of gold over his armour, rode his grey mare La Dame through the soiled snow towards Nancy at the head of twenty thousand armed men: foot and cavalry; lances, halberdiers and hackbutters; gunners with their artillery pieces. His banner, representing the Annunciation, was painted with the figure of Gabriel. The snow had stopped, and the cold had lifted a trifle with the coming of day.

There were only eleven miles to cover to Nancy. As they marched, René’s men picked off the enemy scouts and dispatched their own to view the Burgundian dispositions. Two hours before noon, the army drew to a halt while the commanders conferred, deferring naturally to René, who was the grandson of that other René, and no fool. The strategy for the day was drawn up.

Just after noon, in the course of a light shower of snow, the Duke of Burgundy’s artillery perceived a strong detachment of the enemy advancing towards the double hedges of the Jarville gulley before them. The Burgundian artillery fired, but were unable to align their guns to the greatest effect, and most of the balls flew too high. They began to reload, while the centre and wings of the Burgundian army swung to the right, preparing for orders to wheel.

If any were given, they were not heard. The wood of Saurupt, on the right, emitted two long, mournful bellows and, stretching, flung off its snow. The cries, three times repeated, were from the brazen throats of the bull and cow of Uri and Unterwalden, the two gross Swiss horns which had already shaken the air at the battles of Grandson and Morat. And from the trees which had screened them plunged a yelling horde of enemy horsemen, borne on a cloud of smoke sparkling with hackbut fire. Their own momentum took them shearing into the right flank of the Burgundians, killing Josse de Lalaing; and although his men stood the shock and even fought back, it was not for long, and the Burgundian flank gave way to flight, opening the way to the centre.

There, Astorre’s company had already seen the frontal attack under Duke René himself surging over the guns, destroying them, and taking the gunners, John le Grant among them. Another Jarville detachment hurtled into the left Burgundian wing under Galeotto, which held, fighting furiously, until thrown back by superior numbers. Led by Galeotto,
now wounded, his company ranged the half-frozen Meurthe until they could cross at Tomblaine and fly north.

Astorre, beset from the front and the side and whacking furiously with his sword, could be heard to shriek that he didn’t blame him. The cry
Sauve qui peut!
had gone up, and three-quarters of Charles of Burgundy’s force was in flight. The only section still furiously engaged was that which surrounded Duke Charles himself, a frenzied figure on a frenzied black horse. The Duke had taken L’Enfant’s attack as a personal affront, to be requited immediately, regardless of injury, death, or what it would cost the duchy in ransom if he got himself captured. The noise was now a continuous thunder, cleft by the dashing of metal. Twenty horns could not have penetrated it.

Nicholas bellowed, ‘Astorre?’ and saw the ludicrous helm, in a cloud of sparks, turn to acknowledge him. It was time. This was one of the contingencies that had not been hard to envisage. Sick and under-nourished and cold, the disillusioned survivors of the Duke’s once-great armies were not going to stand and fight against a fresh force twice their size, which would take none but valuable prisoners. Yet, while the two wings of the main army had fled and the centre was crumbling, his own company was virtually intact, and fighting still as a disciplined unit. He had watched John overwhelmed, but he could still see the serviceable helms and borrowed livery of Diniz and Julius, the battered armour of Tobie, who ought not to be there, and the prodigious plumes of Captain Astorre and Thomas. He knew Robin in his fine-cut bright steel was untouched, because he had never let him out of his sight.

Nevertheless, if they lingered, they would die or be captured. It was time to deploy them, and save them. Nicholas saw Astorre cast one wistful look ahead to where the banner of Gabriel flounced over the massed grey, white and red of Duke René’s colours. Given a chance, there might have been real Swiss to fight; and Campobasso’s renegade troops to tackle and thrash. But not today.

Through all the madness, the great nobles and the men of his own house had fought to protect Charles of Burgundy, adhering to him, matching his impetuous dashes as he flung his horse from one side to the other. Now the foot and horse of Astorre’s company swept up to join them, so that, briefly, a barrier was formed between the Burgundian centre and the host of rearing horses and driving spears that surrounded them. Then they set to engineering a fierce, fighting withdrawal alongside the Burgundian leaders, the Duke in their midst. Shortly, their rearguard covered, they were able to wrench free from the thick of the battle, dividing according to plan, so that it was not immediately clear where the Duke himself was. They carried no colours.

Escape, in that trampled ground full of half-frozen morasses, was
never going to be easy. The broken army fleeing before them had only three chances: to strike north and west to the forest of Haye; or north across the tributaries of the Meurthe; or across the Meurthe itself, by the route which led to the Duke’s towns of Metz, and then Luxembourg.