Son of the Morning (62 page)

The evenings shortened. August became September and his army was more restive. The war was such a grinding, miserable affair. Such a mess. Robert of Artois and his men of Ypres and Bruges had not received the ecstatic welcome he had anticipated and had fought a near-ridiculous battle at the town of St Omer. No one on either side had followed orders and a crazed charge from one side turned into retreat to be met with a crazed charge from the other. The upshot of it was that Artois had lost badly and had gone scuttling back to Cassel and Ypres. But it was not all bad news. Philip had advanced to the edge of Flemish territory and was now threatening to attack Edward at Tournai. Let him! The sooner the better!

Men were leaching from his army – useless men of Ghent and Flanders mainly, conscripts. Cowards, every one. It was their homes that Philip would soon be threatening. The archers remained, waiting for their pay, his men-at-arms and nobles still kept in good spirits, but the town showed no signs of falling. It had to fall, a demonstration to Philip of his power. Or Philip had to come to battle. Edward had an angel on his side, and it was rumoured that Philip’s angel was dead, with others sulking in their shrines, angry that Philip had not protected their brother – victory could be had. His archers were the masters of the French horse if only they got the chance to face them. Edward sat watching an attack on the city with Van Artevelde, the Flemish leader. Brushwood had been piled against the city gates and fired and a battering ram was banging away under a hail of stones. He couldn’t even bring himself to speak to Van Artevelde. He was a valuable ally but a jumped-up merchant, elected,
elected
by other merchants of the Flemish towns – an offence to God if ever Edward heard one. Christ’s dick, he wished Montagu was there with him. William was a proper fighting noble and would have found a way in, he was sure.

Edward’s good mood didn’t last long. A crude model of Tournai lay on the floor in front of the king, made from packed mud and sticks to indicate the walls, the water sources, likely routes of relief. He felt like smashing his foot into it in the hope that, like some spell by a village witch, it would cause a similar breach in the town itself.

A squat captain waddled past in his mail. A professional soldier, not a knight. Now that was the sort of function low men were intended for, not sitting at the ear of kings, crunching away in that horrible language.

‘How long for us to take it now, captain?’ called the king.

‘We have another month.’

‘Before they crumble?’

‘Before we do. There’s dysentery in the camp now, sir, and the men do want paying.’

‘We’ve given them the run of the land. They’ve looted a swathe of countryside from here to the Flanders coast.’

‘They’re of the opinion that represents a bonus on top of their pay, sire.’

‘God’s nuts, we have to contend with the opinions of common men. What is the world coming to? I ask you, captain, did my grandfather have to contend with the opinions of knaves?’

‘I didn’t know the great Edward, sire.’

‘No, but I tell you he’d have strung up every fifth one of them and told them to offer their opinions to the crows. We’re too soft today, captain, too soft by far. Everyone says so.’ But his grandfather had won battles with the prowess of his knights, not relying on commoners – the bowman and the pikeman. A golden age.

‘Can’t our engines make any impression at all on these walls?’ said Edward.

‘It would seem not, sir.’

Edward stood. Now he did drive his foot into the mud model. ‘Then the time for dallying is over. We’ll scale the walls and accept the casualties. I’ll lead the charge myself.’

‘The defences are very strong, sire.’

‘And they will be well attacked. Get those archers to lay down fire on the walls over our heads; that should keep the crossbowmen honest and discourage anyone trying to throw rocks down at us.’

‘It’s suicide, sire.’

‘I’ve heard that all my life,’ said Edward, ‘and I’m still here and in fine health thank you very much. Prepare the ladders! That angel had better decide if it wants to side with a king or these commoners.’

‘We’ve been thrown back three times.’

‘Well, let’s make it four. I’d rather die by a French bolt than by sitting here shitting myself to death. Get to it!’

At that moment a ragged man ran towards his tent, flanked by men-at-arms. ‘My lord! My lord!’ he cried.

‘A scout, sire.’

The man ran up to Edward and sank to his knees. He was breathless and could hardly get his words out. ‘The French, sir. Philip. In battle array. He’s got twenty thousand in the field at Bouvines, not ten miles from here.’

Edward leapt to his feet and shouted, as loud as he could. ‘And we’ve got an angel, which he hasn’t. Captains! Captains! Tell your men! The cowardly cockerel of France is come to battle at last! We have dragged him to do what he fears the most, to face the English leopard in the field. We’ll have our battle, lads, we’ll have our plunder and you will go home!’

A cheer went up around him, followed by more shouting and cheers throughout the camp as the message was relayed on.

‘God is with us!’ shouted Edward, ‘God is with us!’

Above him the angel wheeled and sparkled. Its voice was like the wind in the rushes. ‘Vicar no more.’ The light flared, like the sun breaking from behind a crowd but when it died again, the angel wasn’t there.

Edward crossed himself. Vicar no more! The Holy Roman Emperor had withdrawn his office! French double-dealing, no doubt about that!

Men screamed and shouted. Some fled at once while others, the worst kind of coward, calculating dogs, actually started stuffing things into sacks, collecting what booty they could to prepare for a retreat.

‘He has us, sire, Philip has us,’ said Sir Stephen Mortlake, a rather excitable young knight.

‘I’m aware of the realities of the situation, Sir Stephen! This may be temporary, the angel disappeared at Sluys, didn’t it? And then came back.’

‘What’s that?’ The scout was indicating a commotion in the camp. Trumpets sounded and men were shouting.

Ten riders – knights in the full livery of Philip VI – blue surcoats with gold fleurs-de-lys, trailing matching banners that blazed in the dusk.

‘The ambassador of the French king,’ said Sir Stephen. ‘The angel must have deferred to Philip’s royalty and withdrawn from the battle.’

Mortlake was about as good for morale as dysentery.

‘No!’ said Van Artvelde. ‘It’s Jeanne De Valois, Philip’s sister!’

And there she was, the old lady herself, trotting in on a white horse, beside her royal pennants. This meant one thing. Jeanne was well known to hate the idea that her family should make war on itself. She was known as ‘the peacemaker’.

‘My God, don’t tell me he’s going to sue for a truce,’ said Edward.

‘Then we’re saved!’ shouted Sir Stephen, who wasn’t really doing any more damage to his hopes of preferment with the king – those had ended entirely not moments before.

Saved – up to a point, thought Edward. He could see Philip’s plan. Without a battle, Philip kept his men alive and left Edward with a problem. If there was a battle and Edward escaped the field he might live to fight another day. Yes, there would be ransoms to pay for his top men, but those could take a while to be answered. Dead wood would be cut away, perhaps even some of his creditors killed. The lower sort would certainly die. Seven thousand bowmen, so many ordinary foot soldiers, however many sponging weakling Flemings. A battle would be a disaster, but a disaster that would save him a fortune.

Edward had to accept a truce – he could not be seen to be a losing king: it would shake the confidence of future allies. But how much would it cost him to walk away from this place with his starving, owed army intact? It would be ruinous.

‘Tell the heralds we shall be pleased to receive them,’ said Edward. ‘Arrange for me to go to Philip’s camp. It’s about time I sat down and talked to my brother king.’

A rush of wings above him – starlings? He hoped so, not a flight of those tiny devils looking down on him and ready to report who knows what to who knows who. He hadn’t seen any yet but the reports from London said they were becoming a common sight.

He kicked at the mud with his toe and looked at his son, the boy Edward, running to meet him in his child’s mail. He was well protected against demonic assault, as were the other children. But Free Hell had found a way to kill a child before. Without the gift of a state to call their own, the demons would strike at him again. He had one more summer to get them what they wanted.

26

‘You saw how he came crawling, father! Did you see him? Cowed, like a dog who’s stolen a pie!’ John was ecstatic, his sword drawn now the enemy had retreated.

Philip did not smile. ‘We were lucky. We’re responsible for the death of an angel and it’s a mark of the Lord’s infinite compassion that He removed that angel of Edward’s. If He had not, just think, John, what would have happened while our angels cower in their shrines! We lost the crown of thorns and the holy lance. Can God favour us now?’

The angel, the angel. Would God ever forgive him for exposing it to His enemies? Montagu in league with demons! Kidnapping the boy Navarre! My God, to nearly lose a prince in your care was bad enough. But an angel! An angel! Well, now God would see the English for what they were. Hot waves of guilt swept over him. When they’d first told him the news he’d fainted where he’d stood and had to take to bed for a week.

He crossed himself and a priest brought holy water for Philip to wash his hands. It had become the king’s habit to take mass three times a day and anoint himself as often as possible since the relics had gone.

‘They must emerge after this victory. England would be ours for the taking if they did,’ said John.

‘We have nine months of truce. We need to pour all our money into building. We need the best cathedrals in Christendom, I want a building sculpted in light! We have a long way to go to get back into God’s favour. We’re winning by the width of a pig’s bristle here, boy, I tell you that.’ Philip was wet at the neck. Sweat. He dabbed the holy water on his face. A dead angel. A dead angel! In his chapel.

‘The finances are not …’ The Count of Eu – Constable of France – spoke. He was a sallow man with little in the way of a nose, thanks to a tournament injury.

‘Let’s not think on that,’ said Philip. ‘This concerns our immortal soul.’
Hell gapes. Hell yawns, for you Philip, for you. A dead angel!

‘Be thankful for the victory. That alone shows God’s forgiveness. He saved little Charles and his mother from that English sorcerer,’ said John.

‘That Montagu is a powerful wizard,’ said Philip. ‘We have nothing to counter him, nothing!’

‘Take heart, my lord,’ said the Constable. ‘Let the men see you merry at least.’

The priest splashed holy water onto the king’s sites of corruption.

‘Reward the poor, show largesse. It’s a victory!’ said John.

‘And one that will cost me the trust of my nobles! Foix’s out there gnashing for blood! If I had angels I should come to battle.’

‘Show bravery and the angels will come,’ said John.

‘It’s not a matter of that!’ The king raised his hand in dismissal, knocking the priest’s bowl of holy water to the floor. Philip crossed himself. Upsetting the blessing! What was that, if not a sign!

‘The angels should be in the sky,’ he said. ‘They need to be here to see our courage.’

‘They’d need to look hard,’ said John. ‘We’ve not loosed an arrow yet!’

There was a disturbance outside the king’s tent.

‘What now?’ said the king.

The Constable looked out and spoke to the knight guarding the entrance. ‘A beggar, my lord.’

Philip shrugged. ‘Only one? What happened to the rest?’

‘We have the camp sealed, sire. Must have slipped through.’

‘Go out and show some cheer, father,’ said John.

The king stepped outside his tent. His army was immense and he felt great care for them. The standards and tents stretched out like a vast meadow of gaudy flowers. There was Alençon, there Foix, there the count of Nevers, his splendid black lion on his yellow surcoat unbloodied. All still alive. All intact of limb, bodies whole and youthful. All, in some way, unfulfilled. Alençon and Foix had marched north for plunder; Louis of Nevers was hoping to get his lands back from the weavers. Well, they’d have to wait. No more French bloodshed. They’d given enough at Sluys.

Sluys had wounded Philip. So many villages in Normandy stripped of their men, the people impoverished and brought low by grief. Well, he’d avoided that this time. It might have been an idea to chase the English when their angel vanished. But for what gain? Why give Edward the chance to turn a humiliating and expensive climbdown into a victory, no matter how unlikely. Even worse, why kill him? – he knew Edward wasn’t the sort to get captured – that would only write off all England’s debts, leaving his son to start the trouble all over again? No, much better to fight with the new weapons – money, resources, time. Forbear and he will collapse, his wife had told him. Well, he had forborne and now he was reaping the rewards.

There were no cheers, of course there were no cheers. His people, even the nobles – especially the nobles – didn’t understand how wars were fought. Words such as ‘revenge’ were bandied about. Well, what could be a better revenge than leaving Edward bankrupt, shamed and discredited? The English king would wish himself dead. The Count of Foix greeted him, a big, muscular man who handled his longsword as easily as most men an eating knife. He had brought Philip five hundred men.

‘A fine day, Robert,’ said the king.

‘For expense and no plunder to offset it,’ said Foix. ‘I’ve dragged my arse from one end of the country to another to fight for you, Philip, not to sit by a fireside and talk shit.’

‘You’re plain-spoken, sir,’ said the king.

‘I am that,’ said the knight and moved on.

The sun was still in the sky, Philip’s army still about him. Since the angel had died he had woken some days expecting the sun to be in the ground and the earth above him, so far had the world seemed turned upside down.