“One last bit of advice,” he added when I made to ride away, “don’t try and enlist under Sir Thomas’ banner. Unlike many lords, he takes no thieves or draw-latches into his service, and will hang any man he suspects of being one.”
I galloped on, and learned later that Sir Thomas Carew, knight of Pembrokeshire, had mustered a company of three hundred archers to serve the King in Normandy. Added to these were one hundred and fifty men-at-arms.
This was the first time I had seen an organised body of troops march to war, and despite my haste I took careful note of their array. Behind the archers strode two drummers and a pair of trumpeters, decked out in Carew’s livery and playing in time to the march. After them came a long line of sumpter-horses loaded down with the necessary gear and baggage: tent-poles, cooking pans, horse-shoes, wedges, spurs, spare weapons, and anything else that might be of use on campaign.
The men-at-arms marched and rode three abreast. In marked contrast to the archers, they advanced in disciplined silence, each face grim and set inside its steel hood, as though they already beheld the French. Many had the tough, weathered look of veterans, and all fairly dripped with weaponry. Every man carried lance, sword and mace, a shield emblazoned with the Carew arms, and was encased in plate and mail.
They were led by a knight on a grey destrier at the head of the column, followed by a squire carrying an enormous square standard. The standard rippled in the slight breeze, and the black lions of Carew seemed to dance and bare their fangs as I cantered past.
To me, a plain country esquire who had spent almost all his life in West Sussex, Southampton was overwhelming. The sheer size of the place, its crenellated walls and turrets, and the mighty stone keep on the knoll overlooking the packed streets filled me with awe. From a ridge on the highway I was able to see over the walls and rooftops to the harbour, where a cluster of ships bobbed at anchor. The bulk of the fleet had already gone to Normandy, but there were still a fair number of cogs, awaiting supplies and reinforcements.
I screwed up my courage to join the steady stream of traffic that flowed through the gatehouse in the northern wall. None paid much heed to me, just another face among the throng of soldiers. Even so, I half-expected my name to be called out at any moment, and a dozen hands to lay hold of me.
There is wonderful anonymity in a crowd. The press of bodies near the gatehouse was so great I was obliged to dismount and lead my exhausted horse on foot, under the iron teeth of the portcullis.
Once through the arch, I found myself on a wide, cobbled street that ran the length of the town, all the way to the gatehouse at the southern end. To my right was the stark grey pile of the castle, and beyond it, to the south-east, lay the docks and the open sea.
The captain of archers had advised me to get aboard the first boat willing to take me. His advice seemed sound, but first I wanted to equip myself as a soldier. Appearance counts for much, and I wanted to avoid being taken for a fugitive again.
I still had the purse Long Hugh stole from the steward at Steventon. After much thought, I had reluctantly left the sack of plate next to his corpse in the forest. There was no way I could have sold or pawned them in Southampton without arousing suspicion. Perhaps some woodcutter found the sack, and spent the rest of his days in wealth and comfort.
The money, along with the sale of my horse to a trader who most likely turned the poor beast into dog food, was enough to equip me in reasonable fashion. From the many armourers and shops in the high street I bought a sallet, padded jack, plackart, gauntlets and greaves, so I was fit to serve in a company of men-at-arms. I had weapons enough already, and was able to afford a rouncy, a tough little chestnut gelding I named Odo, after the old Germanic word for riches or fortune. With luck, and the grace of God, he would carry me to the glory I sought.
I kept a little money to pay for food and my passage across the Channel. It was still midday by the time I had bought all my gear, and there seemed little point in searching for an inn to spend the night. Every moment on English soil increased the risk of capture.
With my new horse in tow, I fought my way through the bustle and stench of the narrow streets near the castle, until I found my way to the docks. There I saw Sir Thomas Carew’s men boarding ferries to take them out to the troopships in the harbour, and wondered if I dared ask to join his company.
Natural caution warned me not to chance it. There was a gibbet set up in the middle of the high street, and the sight of the corpse - some pickpocket or other petty criminal, no doubt - slowly rotting inside the cage that hung from the cross-beam reminded me of my father’s fate. My fate also, if I failed to step carefully.
In the end I found the captain of a fishing vessel willing to take some extra cargo on board in exchange for the last of my silver. He was a Cornishman, his accent almost incomprehensible to my ears, and like as not smuggling goods back and forth across the Channel.
“Stay above deck, even in bad weather,” he warned me amiably, “and don’t go prodding any loose timbers. Otherwise we’ll heave you, horse and armour and all, into the deep. Got that, lad?”
By now I was used to the company of ruffians, and obediently stayed on deck, though my horse proved skittish and had to be put in a stall below. The boat had a wide stern, with enough room in the fat-bottomed hull to store more than a few barrels of fish.
I wasn’t the only soldier aboard. There were more troops in Southampton than the royal ships could bear, so other boats were pressed into service. My Cornish fisherman reluctantly agreed to take a troop of Lancashire archers. Their captain, Sir James Harrington, awaited them in Normandy. He in turn was under the command of the King’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester.
All this I learned from the archers themselves. They were young and raw, nothing like the veterans I saw on the road outside Southampton, and eager to get stuck into the French. Like me, they were infected with the stupidity of youth, and thought of war as a great game, in which any man with a bit of courage could earn fame and fortune.
“Our duke has already led one raid,” one of them told me excitedly, his beardless face flushed with enthusiasm and too much ale, “the French ran like rabbits before his banners. Soon the whole of Normandy will be in our grasp!”
“God knows,” he answered carelessly when I asked him about Gloucester’s objectives. “All I know is that we shall kill Frenchmen, and take their land for our own.”
“It is ours by right,” added another young bowman, “we once owned the whole of their country, not just Normandy. They are a race of thieves. God wants us to punish them.”
Thanks to my noble education, my history was rather better than theirs, yet I couldn’t quibble with the sentiment. The Normans under William the Bastard stole the whole of England from its rightful owners, centuries ago. It seemed only fair that Englishmen should return the favour. An eye for an eye, as it says in holy writ.
We enjoyed a smooth passage across the Channel, the sun bright in a cloudless sky. My spirits rose as the English coastline receded behind us, and one of the archers played a lilting North Country tune on his pipe.
There were plenty of other ships at sea, cogs and galleys and merchant vessels, all heading in the same direction. The royal arms of England flew from their masts, and good-natured shouts and snatches of song drifted towards us over the crystal waters.
All was set fair for Normandy.
11.
“John Page,” said the clerk, “esquire of Sussex. A man with no lord, no companions, no coat of arms...nothing, in fact, to prove or disprove his very existence.”
“I’m here,” I replied, “I stand before you. Isn’t that enough?”
He smiled thinly, looked me up and down, and tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip.
The clerk looked ill, his skin like yellowed parchment, cheeks fallen in, eyes sunken and listless. Some illness had ravaged him and left a hollow, used-up ghost of a man.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting the truth out of you,�
� he said with a sigh, “God knows you won’t be the first man to run away to war for more pressing reasons than a desire to serve his country. You can use that sword, I take it?”
He nodded at the sword at my hip. We stood outside a white tent among a vast, sprawling forest of tents and pavilions near Touques, a large supply port on the northern coast of Normandy.
The King had landed his army here, unopposed by the French, and immediately set about securing his position. A second army of diggers and engineers laboured like ants to surround our camp with defensive ditches, watchtowers and a wall of stakes. Henry had also sent out raiding parties to probe the defences of Normandy and seize minor towns and castles.
“I can use it well enough,” I said, patting the hilt, “I was raised as a knight’s son in Sussex, and trained in the knightly arts.”
The clerk raised an eyebrow at me. More was required.
“I’m bastard-born,” I added shortly. “Hence I carry no device.”
A light of understanding, even sympathy, dawned in the other man’s eyes. “We live in a sad world,” he remarked, “none of us can help how we came into it. To be judged on one’s birth is a great injustice, or so I have always thought. When Adam delved and Eve span, as John Ball had it, who was then the gentleman?”
It seemed this little clerk was something of a rebel, as well as a philosopher. That sort of language would get him into trouble, if any of the nobles heard it. The revolt of the English commons, under the leadership of Wat Tyler and the rogue preacher John Ball, was still within living memory.
“Our company suffered some losses,” he went on, “in the attack on Honfleur. Stubborn place. So far it’s the only town the French have managed to hold against us.”
He squinted at me. “Good men are scarce to find. I doubt you’re a particularly good man, John Page, but you have the look of a killer about you. That’s good enough.”
He scribbled down my name on the muster roll, a long stretch of parchment, already covered with a list of several hundred names. Mine was written near the bottom.
“There,” he said happily, and blew on the ink until it was dry, “a moment ago you were merely John Page, bastard-born son of Sussex. Now you are John Page, bastard-born son of Sussex, and a man-at-arms contracted to serve under the command of Sir James Harrington for the length of the war.”
As a man-at-arms in Harrington’s service, I was given a jupon bearing his arms. These were Argent, as a herald might say, on a bend Sable three lozenges of the first, each charged with a saltire Gules. In plain English, they displayed a diagonal black band against a white field. The band was decorated with three white squares, painted with the red cross of Saint George.
I hated wearing another man’s device, but the Daubeney arms were denied to me as a bastard, and I had not yet earned the right to wear my own. When the time came, I would wear the red wolf’s head on my jupon.
Harrington’s company was stationed near the King’s own pavilion in the middle of the encampment, a sign of the trust and favour Henry placed in him. Sir James was a knight of Lancashire, and the Harringtons had been loyal supporters of the House of Lancaster for generations. As the son of a usurper, Henry wisely favoured those with a long history of service to his family.
At first Sir James’ retainers treated me with suspicion. They were all Lancashire men, and wary of outsiders. I was careful to keep my mouth shut, speak only when spoken to, and try to cultivate an air of brooding mystery. The tattered scarf I insisted on wearing - a strange affectation for a common soldier, if not a knight - only added to their confusion.
Fortunately, they were also practical men, as northerners tend to be, and could see I was well-equipped for the campaign. As a rule, volunteers who turn up with their own horse and armour are always welcome, so long as they prove competent and don’t hog the rations.
I spent my first evening in Harrington’s company wrapped in silence, sat alone by the fire and listening to the others talk. Thanks to my time with the archers, I had grown reasonably used to their accents, and could understand much of what was said.
Most of the talk was on warlike matters, though a few maudlin souls insisted on whining of the homes and families they had left behind. I ignored the latter and listened carefully to the former.
“Easy pickings so far,” remarked one man, a cold-eyed brute with skin like cold porridge, “the King knew his business when he chose this bit of coast for a landing. The Normans have no stomach for a fight.”
One of his mates, who had a ginger beard pronged like a fork, nodded complacently. “Aye. None of our sorties have met with much resistance so far. That place - Doe veal, is it called? Curse these French names, I can’t roll my tongue around them - surrendered to Warwick yesterday.”
“Deauville,” another man corrected him, “I’ve got a mate in Warwick’s company. He was there at the taking of the castle, and told me all about it. The Normans abandoned the place before our soldiers arrived, leaving a pack of women and children behind.”
A few of the men leaned forward. One or two moistened their lips. “What happened when our lads stormed the castle?” asked cold-eyes, “did they get their hands on those French sluts, the lucky swines?”
The third speaker grinned. “No. Our captains remembered their orders. God bless King Harry, but he permits no rape or plunder. The women and their brats were allowed to go unmolested, with as much as they could carry.”
That was worth hearing. I knew the king was said to be more than conventionally pious, though not to the extent of restraining his soldiers. Later I learned that he hanged men on the Agincourt campaign for robbing French churches, and once personally cut off the hand of an archer who notched an arrow without waiting for the order. He could be the hardest of men, could Harry, though many choose to forget it these days.
The soldiers round the fire looked uneasy, and exchanged dark looks. None spoke a word of criticism against the king’s policy. Some, I think, because they worshipped him too much, while others were afraid to say anything that might be construed as treason.
I have served in many armies. This was the only one where a soldier’s right to pillage the countryside, and abuse the enemy as he pleased, was totally denied him. Our warrior-king’s discipline was iron, and I can remember very few instances of anyone being so foolish as to break his laws. Those who did got short shrift.
The next morning I saw the king himself for the first time. I was seated on the grass beside the remains of the fire, wolfing my breakfast porridge and bacon, when I saw a tall, striking figure emerge from the royal pavilion.
He was deep in conversation with a man I assumed to be my new captain, since he wore the Harrington arms on his jupon. Sir James Harrington was about forty, a veteran to his boots, burly and hard of face, seamed with lines and old scars.
Henry was a clear foot taller. Your Sacred Majesty may have seen the portraits of him: lean and somewhat ascetic, clean-shaven, with a long nose, full red lips, hooded brown eyes and a heavy jaw. His body was slim and athletic, of the sort that carries no fat. He moved with an almost feline grace, and radiated the presence of a king. Heads turned as soon as he strode out of the pavilion. Every man, from lord to esquire to the humblest archer, bowed before him.
In the silence, I overheard snatches of conversation between the King and Sir James.
“...not concerned with Honfleur, James,” said Henry, “it is a fly-speck, and can wait until Caen has fallen.”
“Agreed?” he added sharply when Sir James opened his mouth. The older man choked back his words, mustered a smile, and gave a brief nod of assent. The King was clearly in no mood for a debate.
Henry turned his face towards me. The breath caught in my throat when I saw the near-perfect symmetry of his features carried a blemish. There was a long white scar on his right cheek, an inch or so below the eyeball. This was the mark of the arrow that hit him in the face at Shrewsbury fight, where Hotspur died and Henry’s father, old Bolingbroke, had the vi
ctory.
The scar gave him an almost sinister aspect. For a second his hazel eyes bored into mine, until I remembered to bow my head and drop to one knee.
“We march on Caen,” Henry said as I grovelled in the dirt, “it must fall, and quickly, else the French think we dither.”
He stalked away, followed by Sir James, six bodyguards and a rabble of priests. Henry always liked to have clergymen about him, even in the midst of a war.
I was revolted by the priests. They were hateful to me now, these shaven hypocrites, mumbling their Latin nonsense and dripping poison into the King’s ear.
The House of Lancaster was enslaved to the church. Bolingbroke had agreed to allow the persecution and burning of Lollards, and Henry himself was fiercely pious. I recall one grim story of how, when he was Prince of Wales, he tried to persuade one John Badby, a tailor, to recant his so-called heresy, after the poor man had been condemned by the Archbishop of Canterbury to burn alive inside a barrel.
The prince was naturally inclined to be merciful. He even offered Badby a pension if he would recant, but the tailor, already singed from the flames, refused.
“Then you must burn,” said Henry, “for the good of your soul.”
Thus the dreadful sentence of execution was carried out. The prince is said to have watched until the end, and shown not a hint of emotion as Badby cooked inside his barrel.
Left to himself, Henry might have been the best man to have ever sat on Saint Edward’s chair and rule over the English. The pious teachings of holy mother church twisted him, I think, and corrupted the gentler side of his nature.
Even in the camp at Touques, mere days after I had joined the English army, seeds of doubt were planted in my mind. Could I, in all conscience, be content to serve under the banner of a man who roasted his subjects alive for daring to stand against the tyranny of the church?
The tailor in his barrel wasn’t Henry’s only victim. Some months after I arrived in Normandy, a rebel knight named Sir John Oldcastle was also hanged and burned in Smithfield, gallows and all. Oldcastle was admittedly a traitor who plotted the King’s death, but the manner of his execution proved how in thrall to the priests Henry was.
The Wolf Cub Page 8