Holland cursed loudly. His chagrin was compacted by the news that the evening watch brought in. “Campfires,” said Brocas loudly. “My men saw lights across the Loire last night. It looked like the campfires of a small host.”
“Sweet Jesus!” said Holland blasphemously. “It’s Lancaster at last, and we’ve no way of getting to him.”
“Or mayhap it’s King John,” said Audley gruffly, determined to be contrary to the Earl of Kent. “We’ve no way of knowing whether the fires are French or English.”
“Nay,” said Chandos more coolly. “It could not be King John’s army. They were at Chartres when we encountered Chambly—a week behind us or more.”
“We must begin rebuilding the bridges at once,” said Holland. He slapped his thick thigh with an open palm.
“And how shall we do that?” demanded Warwick. His clear eyes encountered the prince as he voiced his objection. “We cannot put a bridge across the narrows without coming within bowshot’s length of Tours. It is not safe to build!”
“It is not safe to dither here!” replied Holland.
“You are right,” said the prince simply, “Both of you. And that is why we must take Tours immediately.”
The prince sent Audley and Chandos to fire the town. I went out with the latter’s company, eager for some activity after the oppressive atmosphere within the camp. The wrangling of the commanders had disseminated to the men-at-arms. The nearer that the French army came, the more fractious grew the ranks.
“We should have turned south at Bourges,” I heard one squire say to his friend. They were polishing their master’s cuirasses, a chore I had frequently performed for my master Chandos—I had my own man to do such a task for me now. The squire coughed unhealthily; he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and continued his strictures. “To come west all this way only puts us farther into the hands of the French.”
“Aye,” replied his fellow. “But the prince is too green to know when to cry halt. If it were only his father who had us in hand, we would be safe in Gascony again.”
“Ha!” I said scornfully, and they looked up at me in some confusion. “Return south at Bourges?” I demanded. “Is that what you think the king would have done?”
“Aye,” said the first squire saucily. His chin jutted out like a coxcomb’s crest. “And so says my master.”
“Then, more fool him!” replied I. “Think you—how would we have provisioned the army? The countryside’s burned from Bourges to Bordeaux. You lit the fires that kindled the crops. You drove off the cattle and slaughtered the rest. Go south from Bourges? Go to! You are a fool.”
The squires murmured beneath their breath; I knew I had not convinced them. Their mistrust in the prince’s leadership was symptomatic of a sickness beginning to spread throughout the army. We were seven thousand men trapped at Tours! And who knew when King John—with his tens of thousands—would be upon us?
September had settled in with vengeful wetness. The roofs on the houses of the suburbs of Tours were thatch, and flammable in theory; but our attempts to set fire to the wet straw failed miserably. Without fire, we could do little harm to the place. We spent three days there, praying like pilgrims for the weather to clear. The castle of Tours, with its newly erected defenses, was as impregnable as Calais had been ten years ago. We did not have twelve months to siege her into submission. We did not even have that many days.
Lancaster, we learned from our scouts, was camped a mere sixty miles away. But the river still stood between he and us, and he could find no satisfactory crossing to unite with our army. The Valois king had no such trouble. After we had lain outside of Tours for three days, the scouts brought word that King John had left Orleans, crossed the Loire, and was rumbling toward us like a giant boulder.
“How many men?” the prince asked. It was the question on every man’s lips.
Audley grimaced. “It is hard to say, highness. Forty thousand—perhaps more.”
Salisbury let out a slow whistle. “Five to one,” said he.
“Six to one,” said Holland, “for his forces increase as he comes to us.”
“It is a large discrepancy,” said the prince. “We must not engage him if we can avoid it. We shall strike camp immediately and retreat to the south.”
I saw then that he had given up every hope of uniting with Lancaster. I stared in disbelief. Unwittingly and perhaps unwisely I had placed my confidence in that very thing: that despite all opposition, the prince would prove his mettle by locating Lancaster and forging our forces into one mighty brand of steel. That hope was dead, and with it died a part of my confidence in this Plantagenet prince. The raid was over. We were homeward bound, having accomplished even less this summer than in the chevauchée the previous autumn.
The disappointment in the army, and in the prince’s own inner circle, radiated out like heat from a bowl of stew. My face was warm with it. The prince, however, betrayed no dismay at this setback. He continued to give orders with inflexible resolve and indefatigable courtesy. In one instance only, did he acknowledge the gravity of our position. “Let prayers for our safety be offered to the Holy Trinity,” he ordered me tell his chaplain, “For without the aid of heaven, King John will assuredly find us before we reach Bordeaux.”
*****
Heaven, it seemed, had set itself against us. Two days after we left Tours, Chandos’ men brought word that John was at Loches, less than twenty miles to the east. Spurring on the men and their mounts, the prince brought us twenty-five miles in one day. We encamped at Châtellerault, and on the next morning the prince sent out Audley to reconnoiter. It was imperative to know whether the French had paralleled our southern progress or had continued west toward our old encampments.
Sir James Audley was gone the whole day. He returned with the setting sun and dismounted without a word. I escorted him to the prince’s tent. The old knight sat down, removed his helmet, and called for wine and food to be brought. His voice was none too gentle.
The prince watched him eat in silence, and even filled his flagon for him. Ever and anon one of the other commanders would enter, as skittish as a foal in their anxiety. The prince held up his hand and bade them hold their questions until Audley had supped. “Well?” he asked when the scout had finished. “What news?”
Audley put his hands on his gray head and rubbed the cropped hair furiously. “No news, highness.”
“What do you mean?” demanded the prince. The strain of the forced marches was telling on him. His jaw pulled back sharply, as if his will had bridled his tongue from using some harsher language.
“Precisely that,” said Audley roughly. “I have no news of King John. I have no news of his army.”
“Come, man, said Brocas exasperatedly. “How can you have no news of forty thousand men? Where are they camped?”
“In God’s name,” said Audley wildly. “I do not know! We’ve ridden sixty miles today—east, west, north, south—I do not know what’s become of them!”
“Have they retreated to Tours?” asked Chandos kindly. The worried frown on his face was as benevolent as the blue Virgin Mary upon his breast.
“Perchance,” said Audley. “But I know nothing for certain. No one has heard. There are no signs. There are no rumors. They’ve disappeared like phantoms into the mist!”
The lords pressed him further, but Audley could say no more. The prince walked to and fro in some agitation, then dropped into his chair and stroked his bearded chin in thought.
“Shall we continue south?” asked Warwick, anxious for the prince to make a hurried decision.
The prince cocked his head. “It is better for a blind man to sit still than to walk about near a precipice. We shall stay here till we have news of the French.”
“By your leave, highness,” said Audley, desperate to remedy his failure. “Grant me permission to lead out my company again tomorrow. I will put my nose to the ground and search them out. You shall have word by midday, my liege.”
T
he prince nodded his permission, and Audley took his hand to kiss. Then, rising from his knees, the barrel-chested old knight strode to his quarters to commission his company for the morning’s ride. They left before daybreak.
It was past vespers when Audley’s horses rode back into camp. The thunder of their hooves was quiet compared to the thunder on Sir Audley’s brow. He went straight to his own tents. His highness sent me to inquire how his mission had fared; I approached Audley’s pavilion with slight trepidation. One of Audley’s four squires bolted from the tent flap bearing his master’s helmet, his own cheek red from a recently received cuff.
“I come on the prince’s behalf,” I said with pursed lips.
“Enter at your peril,” said the breathless young man. “Sir James’ temper can rival the devil’s own fury.”
I grimaced and slipped inside the flap of the tent. Sir Audley had tapped a great cask of Burgundy wine and filled a flagon with it. “Ha, Potenhale!” he said loudly, and there was an ugly look in his eye.
“I’ve come to share a drink with you, Sir James,” said I. “They say that your wine is as good as the prince’s.”
“Aye, that it is,” he said with a harsh laugh, and beckoning to one of his bachelors, he soon provided me with a brimming goblet. He bade me sit and refresh myself, “though you must pardon me if I stand awhile,” he said with a sneer, “for I’ve been long in the saddle today.”
“And you’re like to be long in the saddle again tomorrow,” said I, “when the columns advance.” I took a large swallow of the Burgundy. “What news of the French?” I asked succinctly.
Audley grunted. “I found a goodly number of the infantry encamped east of us at La Haye.”
“How many?”
“Ten thousand, perhaps fifteen.”
“And King John?”
“With the remainder of his men, no doubt.”
“Where is the remainder?”
“Aye, there’s the rub,” said Audley. He cursed and tossed his empty flagon at one of his squires, ordering him to fill it again. “I found neither tooth nor claw of them. They’ve not retreated to the north, they’re not east of us in La Haye, and I rode five miles south without word of them. They’ve disappeared.”
I set down my flagon and rose to leave. “I shall alert his highness of the news.”
Audley snorted and looked the other way. It is a melancholy thing to fail in your duties to your sovereign, and Audley felt it more keenly than most.
When I arrived at the prince’s tent, I found him striding about briskly—barking orders at his servants and at Warwick and Chandos as well.
“Your highness,” I said, “Audley says he found the infantry east of us at La Haye, but the rest of the French….”
“…Are twenty miles south of us,” said the prince.
I looked about me bewildered. “It’s true, lad,” said Chandos. “Holland’s brought the news.”
“You sent Holland out as well as Audley?” I asked sharply, losing some of the respect due to a prince in my distaste at hearing Holland’s name.
“Aye,” said the prince crisply. “I bethought what I would do if I were Valois—I would contrive any way I could to get ahead of my enemy, to cut him off from his base. I would strike south with all the speed I could muster. And so, while Audley darted about like a wren, I sent the Earl of Kent on an eagle’s flight ahead of us, with orders to soar southward until he encountered the French forces.”
“But twenty miles ahead of us!” I exclaimed. “How is it possible that John could have come on so fast?”
“Did not you yourself just tell me that he has left the infantry behind at La Haye? He has brought forward only his knights, and his mounted men-at-arms. The loss of the infantry is no great matter to that army—their arms still triple ours in number.”
“What now?” I asked.
“We break camp in the morning,” said the prince, “and then we march south toward Poitiers and Bordeaux. If God be for us, we shall slip through John’s fingers like a handful of minnows. But if He wills otherwise, we shall engage the French in battle like men, and prove my father’s claim with our bodies and our lives.”
*****
Poitiers was a two-day march from our position at Châtellerault. For most of that march, we glimpsed no sign of the enemy, though the Earl of Kent vociferously insisted that King John and his army lay behind every bend of the road. On the afternoon of the second day, the forward company of our army—led by Chandos—came across the rearguard of the French battalions.
Outnumbered, Chandos ordered his men into the woods, falling back to the safety of the main army. The French followed eagerly, unaware that the lone wolf they had surprised was leading them back to the snapping jaws of his pack. The prince, seeing that our men vastly outnumbered the French rearguard, gave his commanders free rein. We ambushed the approaching cavalry, overthrew them, and took many knights—as well as two high-ranking counts—prisoner. The skirmish lasted until nightfall and prevented us from reaching Poitiers that night. We encamped in the forest, just a few miles outside the city, and waited until morning with the knowledge that King John’s army was close at hand.
The next day was a Sunday. The prince celebrated an early mass and left his confessor to take to horse. The scouts rode in just as the sun was rising. They brought word that King John had drawn up in battle order just outside the city of Poitiers. His army blocked our road to the south. We could not in all honor ignore the challenge.
The prince cast about immediately for suitable ground on which to entrench his army. At Crecy, King Edward had made sure that he held the advantage of the terrain. He had positioned us on a hill, protecting our flanks with a river on one side, the village on the other; Edward, however, had the luxury of arranging himself for battle prior to the arrival of his opponent. The prince found his enemy already established and must make do with the ground that was left to him.
King John had pitched his army on a plateau outside the city. Below him dipped a small valley, about a quarter mile in length. On the other side of the valley stood a cultivated hill with a fortified manor. This place, the prince determined to occupy.
“If only they give us time to entrench!” said Warwick hopefully.
“Unlikely,” snorted Audley. “Their rearguard was only too eager to give chase. Your highness had best prepare for battle to be joined immediately.”
The advice was good, but Audley had not reckoned with the officiousness and interference of the Holy Church. Before the sun had reached its zenith, the cardinal Talleyrand of Périgord crossed the valley between our forces. His scarlet cassock shone out like a juggler’s costume and proclaimed that he came on papal business. As the pope’s emissary it was his duty—and fervent desire—to forestall the bloodshed between our two armies and to promote sweet concord between the rival sovereigns of France and England. He was an old man, near sixty years of age. His hair was white as milk, and his face wrinkled like parchment left in the sun. The prince greeted the holy man with reverence but bade him be brief in his discourse. “Now is the time for swords, not sermons, father.”
“Ah, my son,” said the cardinal, and there were tears in his faded blue eyes. “I have come from the camp of the French king. If you had seen his army and formed a correct idea of its size, I am sure you would allow me to arrange terms between you. It is not too late for peace.” The old man’s hands shook a little as he laid them on the prince’s arm. “Young prince,” said he, “take pity on all these noble men who might lose their lives here today in this great conflict. Are you sure that you are not in the wrong? If you would make an agreement with the king of France, God and the Holy Trinity would reward you for it.”
The prince took the old man’s hand in his, and I saw that he was moved with pity at his tears. “Indeed, good father, we know that what you say is true, and it is in the Scriptures. But we maintain that our quarrel is just and true. You know that it is no idle story that my father, King Edward, was the neare
st heir. He should have held the throne of France, and all men here should have done allegiance to him; however, Philip of Valois conspired to seize what was not lawfully his, and thence comes the source of all this bloodshed.
“But, nevertheless,” continued the prince, and I saw that his mind was working quickly to turn this cardinal’s visit to our advantage. “I do not want it to be said that so many brave men died here because I was proud, nor do I ever mean to hinder peace between Christian brethren. It is not in my power to conclude terms of peace with the House of Valois—that is for my father alone to determine. But I can hold back my men if King John desires to enter into deliberations on the matter. Whatever terms we make must be ratified by my father before England accepts them. And yet,” said the prince, his eyes glittering like polished obsidian, “if the French pretender does not want to entertain negotiations, make it known to him that I also am ready to await God’s verdict. However much my heart may yearn for peace, our quarrel is so just that I am not afraid to fight.”
The cardinal took this caveat with good grace. “Bless you, my son,” he said. He wrapped his mantle around himself and prepared to mount his donkey. “I shall tell King John that you are eager to come to terms, and if the Holy Trinity will soften his heart as well, this may be a day of rejoicing instead of bloodshed.”
“Go with God, father,” said the prince, and he inclined his head to receive the pontiff’s blessing. In truth, his very presence had been a blessing from Christ, for this cardinal would buy us the necessary time to fortify our position on the hill.
*****
I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince Page 26