Insurrection (2 page)

As he rode his horse at a walk across the fields, Edward pulled off his gauntlets. The skin on the ridges of his palms was blistered, despite the leather padding. Behind him he could hear murmurs coming from some of his men. He guessed they were speaking of the death and his harsh reaction to it – this was, after all, just a game and their opponents mock enemies. But tournaments wouldn’t last for ever. Soon, the battleground and the foes upon it would be real enough. He needed them to be ready.

Flexing his aching hands, Edward glanced at Valence, riding beside him. The man was sitting at ease, his massive frame resting against the high back of the saddle, the interlinked rings of his hauberk clinking against the wood. Unlike the younger knights, he showed no regret for the accident at all, running a scrap of cloth down the length of his sword, which was notched with use. The blade appeared much keener than the dulled weapons Edward and the rest of the men had used.

Catching Edward’s look,  Valence gave a knowing smile. ‘Needs must when the devil drives, nephew. Needs must.’

Edward said nothing, but he nodded as he turned back to the road. He wasn’t going to argue about tournament rules, not when his half-uncle had helped him win most of the tourneys his company had entered this season. This had brought him enough horses, weapons and armour to equip an army, not to mention the scores of young bachelors who had been drawn by his growing reputation. At a victory feast, several months earlier, one of them had called him a new Arthur and the name had stuck, more and more flocking to join the company under the dragon banner.  Valence might be a truculent man, whose reputation for viciousness had travelled far beyond the borders of the French town of his birth, but his brutal skill on the tournament field, along with the fact that he was one of the few members of Edward’s family who hadn’t deserted him, made him invaluable, and so Edward gave his uncle free rein, ignoring his violent outbursts and many indiscretions.

As a couple of the older knights struck up a ribald victory song that the others soon joined in with, Edward looked behind him to see rows of grinning, sweat-streaked faces. Most were in their early twenties like him, many of them younger sons of French nobility, drawn by the promise of plunder and glory. After months on the tournament circuit, Edward knew them well. All of them would fight for him now, without question. Just a few more weeks of training and they would be ready. Then, he would return to England at the head of the company, to regain his honour and his lands.

It was nine months since his father, the king, had sent him into exile. Even his mother had been silent at the judgement: the revoking of his lands in Wales and England that he had been given, aged fifteen, as part of his marriage agreement. King Henry had been grim and silent as his son had ridden out from  Westminster Palace, bound for Portsmouth and the ship that would carry him to the only lands left to him in Gascony. Edward recalled looking back, just once, to see that his father had already turned away and was heading through the palace gates. His jaw tightening, he forced out the memory and concentrated on the sight of the elated knights following him on their weary mounts, all chanting the name of Arthur. His father would be forced to apologise when he saw the warrior his son had become, named by his men after the greatest king who ever lived.

The blush of evening was fading, the first stars pricking the sky as the company rode into the courtyard of the timber-beamed hunting lodge, surrounded by outbuildings and shrouded by trees. Edward dismounted. Handing his horse to a groom and telling William de Valence to hold the prisoners when they arrived, he headed for the main house, wanting to wash the dust from his face and quench his thirst before the other commanders appeared and the ransoms could be agreed. Forced to duck his long body under the lintel, he entered the lodge and made his way past servants to the upper rooms and his private chamber.

He stepped inside the room, his mail coat and spurs jingling as he moved across the wooden floor. Unfastening his belt, from which his broadsword hung, he tossed the weapon on the bed, feeling the pressure around his waist drop away. The room was in shadow, apart from the shimmer of a single candle on a table by the window. Behind was a looking-glass. As he came closer, entering the pool of candlelight, Edward saw himself appear in the depths. There was a jug of water, basin and cloth set out for him. Pushing away the stool in front of the table, he poured water into the basin and leaned over, cupping his hands. It was like ice against his hot face. He cupped more, felt it running freezing lines down his skin, washing away dirt and blood. When he was done, he reached for the cloth and wiped the water from his eyes. As he lowered it, Edward saw his wife standing before him. Her thick hair fell in waves, flowing over the contours of her shoulders to her waist. So often it was piled up and hidden beneath veils and headdresses. He loved to see it loose, the only man who was allowed.

Eleanor of Castile’s almond eyes narrowed as she smiled. ‘You won.’

‘How do you know?’ he asked, drawing her to him.

‘I heard your men singing a mile distant. But even if I hadn’t, I would see it in your face.’ She stroked his stubble-rough cheek.

Edward reached out, taking her face in his hands and bringing her to kiss him. He smelled honey and herbs from the soap she used, brought from the Holy Land.

Eleanor pulled back, laughing. ‘You’re wet!’

Edward grinned and kissed his young wife again, pulling her to him despite her protests, covering her spotless shift in filth from his surcoat and mail. Finally, he let her go, looking around for wine. On tiptoes to grasp his shoulders, Eleanor pushed him down to the stool by the table, bidding him to sit.

Sitting, rigid in his armour, but too weary to go about the business of removing it, Edward watched Eleanor in the looking-glass, pouring wine from a glazed jug, decorated with peacock feathers. As she set down the jug, running a finger quickly under the rim to catch a stray drop that she licked away, he felt a stab of affection. It was the kind of sharp love that comes with the realisation of the potential for loss. Other than his uncle, she was the only one who had followed him into exile. She could have stayed in London, in the comfort and safety of  Windsor or  Westminster, for the judgement didn’t extend to her. But not once had she suggested it.

When he had boarded the ship at Portsmouth, Edward had sat alone in the hold. There, his head in his hands, he had wept, the first time he’d done so since he was a boy, watching his father sail out from those same docks, bound for France without him. As he swiped at the tears of humiliation and, he admitted it, fear, for he had lost almost everything, Eleanor had come to him. Kneeling before him, taking his hands, she told him they didn’t need the king or the queen, didn’t need his conniving godfather, Simon de Montfort: the cause of his banishment. They needed no one. She had been fierce, her voice stronger, more determined than he’d heard before. Later, they made love in the sour-smelling hold below deck. Married for seven years, their unions until that moment had been mostly gentle, almost polite. Now they were hungry and tearing, pouring their rage and fear into one another until both were consumed, as the timbers creaked around them and the sea carried them from England’s shores.

Their child, the first to come to term, perhaps the product of that savage lovemaking, was swelling in her stomach, distended in the mirror, beneath the voluminous shift.

Eleanor moved in behind him, passing the cup into his hand. Edward took a draught, the wine stinging his dry throat. As he put down the cup, his eyes alighted on a book placed on the edge of the table, just outside the sphere of candlelight, where he had left it that morning.

‘I’ll have the servants bring you some food.’

At her murmur and the squeeze of her hand on his shoulder, Edward caught sight of his face in the mirror, all at once furrowed and pensive. He touched her fingers, grateful she knew him well enough to understand he wanted to be left alone. As she turned away, draping a mantle around her, Edward watched her recede in the mirror, her black hair fading into shadows. When the door closed, he looked at the book, drawing it to him across the pitted wood. It was old now, for he’d had it since boyhood, the boards coming apart, the pages stained. The words on the cover, scored into the leather, were mostly worn away, but he could still see their outline.

The Prophecies of Merlin

By Geoffrey of Monmouth

It was one of the few personal possessions he had brought with him from England. He had read it many times over the years, along with Monmouth’s other works:
The
Life of Merlin
and
The
History of the Kings of Britain
, of which it was rumoured there were now more copies than of the Bible. Edward knew by heart the deeds of Brutus, the warrior from Troy, who after the Trojan War had sailed north and founded Britain, knew the story of King Lear and the coming of Caesar. But it was the tales of King Arthur that had appealed to him most, from the first prophecy Merlin told to Utherpendragon that he would be king and that his son, in turn, would rule all of Britain, to Arthur’s terrible defeat at Camblam, whereupon he had passed his crown to his cousin, Constantine, before sailing to Avalon to be healed.  When Edward watched his first tournament at Smithfield in London, he had been in awe of the knights dressed as men from Arthur’s court, with one of them the legendary king himself.

As Edward picked up the book, its ancient pages flapped open at a page where a piece of parchment had been inserted. He stared at the scribe’s writing, hearing in his mind the words being dictated in the king’s pompous tones. He had read this letter many times since he received it, the first contact he’d had with his father since leaving London. The anger he had felt initially was gone. What remained was burning anticipation.

The letter spoke of castles razed and towns looted, crops and pastures laid waste, the earth left scorched, corpses littering streets and fields, the stink clouding the air. Men under the command of the warlord, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, had raided down from their mountain strongholds in the ancient Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd. On his marriage to Eleanor, Edward had been given a great deal of land by his father, including a swathe of territory along the north coast of  Wales, from the border at Chester to the shores of the River Conwy. It was these lands that were now burning, according to the letter. But it wasn’t the first time.

Six years ago, when Edward was seventeen, Llywelyn led the men of Gwynedd in an uprising against English occupation of this territory. The raid proved brutally effective and within days the region was in Llywelyn’s control, English castles left burning, garrisons forced to flee. Edward, short of funds, had gone to his father as soon as the first reports had filtered through. The king denied him aid, saying this was his chance to prove himself as a warrior and a commander of men. The reality, Edward knew, was that Henry was too preoccupied trying to get his youngest son, Edmund, crowned King of Sicily, to spare the funds or support. In the end, obtaining a loan from one of his uncles, he had gone alone with his men to save his lands in Wales. Llywelyn had annihilated him. Forced to retreat after just one battle, his army and his reputation in tatters, Edward still remembered the taunting songs he had heard sung of him, the jubilant Welshmen revelling in his defeat.

Henry, meanwhile, had made himself increasingly unpopular in court with the absurd Sicilian endeavour and by his favouritism towards his half-brothers, the notorious  Valences, who had recently arrived in England. The leader of the protests against the king was Edward’s godfather, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Montfort had drawn many supporters to his challenge of Henry, which culminated in a parliament at Oxford, at which the king lost most of his authority to the barons. Angered by Henry’s foolish actions and by his own defeat at the hands of Llywelyn, Edward had taken the side of his godfather, who persuaded him to enter into a pact against his father. The king, upon learning of the treachery, had revoked his inheritance and sent him into exile.

Edward read the letter once last time, lingering over the final passages.  What made this uprising different was that Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had done the unthinkable and united all of  Wales beneath him. Until now, north and south had been divided by more than just the mountain barrier of Snowdonia. For centuries the warlord rulers of the three ancient kingdoms of  Wales had vied for supremacy, constantly fighting with one another and with the English lords who bordered them to the south and east. It was ever a country in turmoil. Now, Llywelyn had drawn these dissident, warring people together and, turning their spears and bows from one another, had fixed them east towards England. Henry had written that Llywelyn had donned a golden crown and was styling himself Prince of  Wales. The crown wasn’t just any crown. It was the Crown of Arthur.

Edward stared at the parchment for a moment longer, then held it over the candle. The skin smouldered, the flame flickering madly around his father’s promise that if he returned and defeated Llywelyn all his lands would be restored to him. He was ready. Ready to go home with the men who had flocked to his banner, take his place in England again and accept his parents’ apology, ready to deal with Llywelyn. The Welsh might stand united for the first time, but therein lay their vulnerability, exposed to Edward in the lines of that letter. He had seen first-hand the power in taking on the mantle of a legend. Llywelyn clearly understood that himself, for he could not have chosen a more effective symbol with which to unify the people of  Wales. Arthur was more than just a champion to them, he was the last great British king, before the Saxons, before the Normans. But if something so potent could unite a people in common identity, did it not follow that it could also destroy them?