“I did not think that you were ever envious,” said the prince. “Is there a man anywhere who has not envied someone, high or low, rich or poor? There is no happy life on earth for any man: and happiest are those who, like this churl, had dreams he might attain, plenty of ale and a piece of meat when he wanted it … Such men are not dangerous. It is the others who are dangerous, the great men uncontent with a treasure in their chests, the merchant ever plotting how best to cheat his fellows, the lords stealing land and killing those they fear. Even the priests and the monks and friars are often envious. Have you ever lived in a monastery, my lord? I did once, not as a monk but assisting in the scriptorium. I think I found more jealousies there, more rancour over petty things, than’ ever I found in the world where vanities are cheap and not hidden. Once I thought, poor fool, that I might find peace in such a life. Now I know that in the convent there is less peace even than there is in palaces, men herded together and not always able to avoid the others’ sweat and hateful presence and plotting to put nettles in their bed or vinegar in their wine. A nest of itching plotters; and doubtless nunneries are yet worse, women being less fond of their own sex than men are of theirs.”
“I’ll not listen to your damned philosophy,” cried the prince. “This is old man’s prating when the sap has dried and the heart shrivelled. You have grown too old to know the delights of comradeship and the satisfactions in true love.”
“Yea, sire,” sighed Ashley, “you are right.” He shifted in the saddle and looked, frowning, at the grass. “I am growing old,” he murmured, “and I suppose I am envious of youth and sad because women’s eyes no longer warm at sight of me. Age has its pleasures, we are told, with the consolations of wisdom. Would to God that I could find them.” A spasm twisted his cheek, and he spat. “Once,” he said, “I knew the shadow of happiness, and like most men, a fool, I thought it substance. I loved a woman once. Many women, but one above all … A common tale, my lord, you’ve heard it in a hundred songs. Alas, she loved not me.”
“I did not know,” faltered the prince. “My heart weeps for you, sir. I, too, am a lover, and should ever I lose my lady, or should she turn from me, betray me or dismiss me … Nay, nay I … See, the gate is down … It falls!”
The gate was down, at last. They heard the thunder of its fall and the roar of gunpowder and saw the leap of flames with dark men springing back from the heat. Sparks like jewels shot upwards, swirling to die in the rolls of black smoke; and the great timbers groaned, cracked, snapped like cannon-fire. The shouting of the Cornishmen was a shout of triumph, as though already the city with all its wealth was theirs.
“Come, my lord,” said Ashley. “We must charge at their head.”
Yet the prince held back. In the shadow of his helmet his face was greenish-white and sweat was on his lip and brow, as he looked down at the twisted shape on the grass with an arrow in its back.
“Your grace,” said Ashley, raising his voice, “before the enemy can throw up barricades, we must charge. See, they are waiting for you. Your men are waiting for you, sire.”
“Mother of God,” sobbed the prince. “A few minutes gone and I was bold as Lancelot; now am I mortal again. Who knows but that an arrow notched with my name is waiting there for me? Why did they have to kill that poor pock-marked fellow? He could do them no more harm, sore wounded as he was. Like a whipped dog, he was trying to crawl off to hide; yet some damned devil watched and in an idle moment strung his bow at prey that could neither escape nor answer him. Why?”
“This is war, my lord, not something writ in chronicles about gallants playing for kisses in the lists. Here, death is our weapon, honour our aim. Come, my lord, come!”
With his steel fist he struck the flank of the prince’s destrer and the startled beast reared so suddenly that almost it threw its rider. Again, Ashley struck it, more savagely this time, and the horse leaped forward, almost tumbling on to its face under its weight of metal. Now, no matter the dread in his heart, the prince could not hold back.
Ashley trotted behind him towards the walls and where the flames were flickering low before the gate.
“My lord,” he cried, “this is the road to honour or the grave. May God ride with you.”
White-faced, the prince looked back at him and inclined his head; then he drew down the vizor and lifted his sword. Confident he seemed, the terror in his eyes concealed within the helm; and Ashley prayed that God might bless him in the coming slaughter. For once Exeter was theirs, the road to London would lie open, all the great men of England tearing off Tydder’s badges that they might wear the white rose in their caps again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BATTLE
WHEN, amongst his mounted men-at-arms, the prince charged down on Exeter, he saw before him the furniture, the old beams, the broken stones, and the mounds of muck and rubbish piled in the streets and blocking lanes and alleyways. Faced with action, again as before the North Gate, he found himself elated and no longer afraid. Arrows stung, knocking on his steel and even denting it, but no shaft found an opening between the plates. Yet this metal, while protecting him, also hampered him, and his head rang “with fierce buzzings and almost he lost his seat in the saddle when a large lump of lead was hurled down from a rooftop. Catching him on the side of the helm, it split the dimness within with a shaft of pain to stab his eyes. The pain, however, merely sharpened his rage and made him wish to kill. No longer were these men before him: they were as detestable as pagans or those recreant knights of the ballads whom God had deserted in their rottenness. They were rebels, followers of Tydder, for was he not Plantagenet and their rightful king? they, the dogs, had accepted the treacherous Red Rose and had trampled on the sacred White. Yea, yea, he was his father, Edward, the sun in splendour, seeking vengeance on his children s murderers; he was Richard returned from the blood-caked field of Bosworth to send those traitors who had killed him into hell. These were not Englishmen, nay: devils of the usurping Red Rose, the bloody rose, they would not be able to stand before his sword or the hoofs of his destrer.
Back and over went the barricades; and over what remained leaped or scrambled the Cornishmen with the men of Devon and followers from Scotland and Ireland; over, shouting, they charged with swords and shortened spears, with knives, axes, maces, clubs, pikes, flails, hammers, with any weapon they could find. The prince could not follow his men. His weighted horse was unable to jump and could only push and paw and kick its way slowly forward. Impatiently he had to wait, muttering and grumbling, until the wreckage was pushed aside and he with his chivalry could follow the footmen.
So thick was the dust that it choked him and he could see only formless figures moving as through fog; while the ceaseless noise was painful inside the helm, making him toss his head as though to toss the sound out of his ears. Howling and bellowing and calling on the names of Richard, Mother Mary and the saints, and in the same breath, blaspheming and cursing, the men of both sides fought through the streets of Exeter, fighting for each step they took while down from the roofs came tiles and stones and buckets of boiling water. Impossible was it to move fast, so packed were they from wall to wall, those in front swaying suddenly back and those behind pushing forward. Men fell and were unable to rise again, being trodden underfoot. They screamed to escape their comrades’ trampling; and the arrows fell like steel rain on to them.
All the while, within the prince’s helmet there was a roaring like the sea, and it was a moment or two before he realized that the noise was his own voice shouting. Armour, rather than God, had made him god-like. Others fell about him, but blows glanced from his well-hammered steel. Only there was the one terrible danger which he could not. quite forget, the danger of falling and being trampled or of being stifled inside his helm. Unless his horse chanced to stumble, he should be safe enough. To unhorse him, men on either side would have had to grip a leg and lift to toss him out of the saddle into which he fitted tightly between the arçon in front and
the curved cantel at his back — a trick difficult and hazardous to perform, not only because of the heaviness of a steel-clothed man but by the need of two men having to act quickly and together. Also, he’d not have stayed with down-dropped weapons waiting for them to toss him out. His sword kept enemies back; and they ran from the great feathered hoofs of his steed and from the yellowing foam-flecked teeth with which it snapped, the crinet crinkling along its neck.
Slowly, back and forth, up and down the streets, the battle went, like water flowing, ebbing, flowing again; and as yet neither party had the advantage. Through the vizor-slits, the scene to the prince grew more comprehensible, more concentrated, than it might have showed had he been unhelmed. Before him, he saw steel caps and dark angry faces, the splash of steel, blood-flecked, in sunlight and blue in the shadows; and the blood burst against a yellow plaster wall when he cleft some fellow’s skull, blade sinking easily through the cuirbouilli helmet. In the windows, old men and women and children stared down, whey-faced, while they threw what they could find, furniture and pots and pans and pieces of old iron and wood. One woman, mad though she looked for the moment with mouth wide open on blackness rimmed with teeth, with eyes round as an owl’s, was beautiful in her hatred. Yea, even in her rage and hatred she was beautiful, the blue-black hair without covering disordered and tossing about her shoulders, lovely she was as Jael or Jezebel must have been lovely, however rotten they may have been within. He gaped up at her from the shadows, then on to his helmet she emptied the pot, the liquid splashing through the bars to sting his eyes; and in his astonishment he would have fallen had he not instinctively gripped the arçon of his saddle. He saw the triumph lighten her blue eyes and he knew that she was laughing when she tossed back her witch’s hair and clutched the old man chuckling at her side. Had her damned window been a little lower, near enough for his sword to reach, he would have killed her in her ferocious merriment.
Raging, he struck forward, lunging over his horse’s neck to reach the enemy; but armour, while protecting him, deprived his blows of force. His horse did greater harm than he. Before those shaggy hoofs, the foe slithered back and tried to slash the hocks or to hamstring the savage beast. But none were able to get close enough and their blows whistled through the air or glanced harmlessly from his metal plates or the metal rein-guard.
For all the noise, the shouting and the howling, little damage was done to either side, the prince noticed with surprise, although his losses with unarmoured men were inevitably greater than the enemies’. Like dogs that bristle and snarl, threatening and taunting and afraid to fight, men on either side made more noise than havoc, clattering their weapons against the walls and stamping their feet while hooting defiance and derision.
Yet, he exulted to notice, his army did advance a little. Progress might be slight; nevertheless, progress it was. Over the cobbles slippery with blood, trampling dead and wounded, pushing down barricade after barricade, he and his men drove deeper into the city, almost reaching to Castle Street, while out of lanes and narrow alleys, the citizens shot their arrows and bolts until chased back into their houses. If by nightfall, this city had surrendered, the tidings would race through England and men would make ready, not with swords but with banquetings, for his approach. Exeter therefore must be his, it must, cried the prince. By the Yorkist’s sun in splendour, by God, it would be his.
Beside him, suddenly he saw Ashley again. Not boastful Heron or talkative Skelton, but studious Ashley, the mocker of his council, fought with him, the last of the three he would have expected to show such loyalty and courage. Calmly, he fought, unprotected save for gauntlets and steel plates on back and front, with a salade on his head with its long tail and open face below the eyes, and never a sign of fear did he display. He did not shout, he did not smile, no matter how many were those he killed or wounded. Grimly, showing neither pleasure nor distaste, he fought beside his prince, his sword swift to snake forward or to swing with the edge.
“Hot work,” gasped the prince, lifting his vizor to smile at his friend; and Ashley reined back his horse, letting the men-at-arms sweep ahead.
Both men were tired and thirsty and needed rest, Ashley being no longer young and the prince’s muscles aching under the unaccustomed pinch of metal. In their saddles they slumped, breathing heavily.
“I never thought that war could be so merry,” said the prince, wishing to cheer his friend.
“Merry?” repeated Ashley, pushing back the salade that he might see more clearly. “I find no merriment in it, sire, this sending of souls unhouselled into hell. But then, of course, I am no gentleman, merely a citizen; a poor scrivener, a man of peace, who has not been trained for the cruel pleasures of great men. I am merely one of those who are trampled under some lord’s indifference; and nobody could call that merry.”
The prince flushed, sensing reproach under the words with the implication that he also was no true gentleman but a counterfeit and therefore unused to the pleasures of war. Never until then had Ashley hinted that he did not believe him to be Richard; and for the nonce, being temporarily master of the field and dealer of death, he had no doubts of his royal birth. But at Ashley’s words, respectfully spoken though they were, he felt a stab of shame and anger.
“War in itself, sir,” he cried haughtily, “can never be a merry pastime, as you say; but surely it is merry and pleasing to God when right begins to conquer wrong? Is it not merry to think that soon the White Rose of England will strangle the Red Rose forever in its thorns and justice will return?”
“This battle is not over yet, your grace.”
“But the tide runs with us. They are falling back.”
“While we drive deeper into the heart of Exeter. We are at Castle Street in a maze of streets and alleys, an island of steel, your grace, surrounded by a sea of steel.”
“I do not understand …”
“Behind us are only half-naked Cornishmen with few arms. Here around us stand your fighting-men, in this narrow space, and we cannot rely on Heron or Skelton to bring reinforcements. And we are against wily men long trained in warfare.”
“Yet, I do not understand …”
“My lord my lord, our rear lies open, guarded by useless men. Before us stand-our foes, and also we have foes on every side shooting their arrows and bolts from every lane and alley. These men know each cobble in the dark while we are strangers here, lost in a web of streets. Soon, perhaps they are at it now, we shall find ourselves cut off. They will sweep behind us, and we … we will be trapped.”
“Nay!” cried the prince and tried to swing round in the saddle, but could not because of the plates. Ashley was right. They were trapped; and he had been so proud a moment since, a silly boy thinking himself a man! “Why did you not warn me sooner?” he cried.
“When your helmet was over your ears'“ said Ashley, “would you have heard me in that din?”
“Then we must draw back, Make haste. Where are the bloody trumpets, by God? where are the trumpets? I’ll have em whipped.”
“If you retreat,” said Ashley, “you will begin a rout. My lord, you must push forward and put your trust in God. You cannot, you must not turn, you dare not turn. At once, your men would panic and our adventure would be lost.”
“Merciful God,” moaned the prince, feeling the blood leave his cheeks, “what am I to do?”
“You can do only one thing,” said Ashley. “Forward, my lord.”
To go forward was to go deeper into the trap. To turn and flee •Would, as Ashley warned him, spell disaster to their cause. And to remain and fight might mean defeat or capture. He had been so proud, in singing-mood, thinking himself a second Lancelot. The great Edward — his father, yea, his cunning father — would never have been snared so easily as this. He should have remembered the tales he had heard from old soldiers and of how, above all, they dreaded having to fight within a hostile city. In the open, one could watch fortune flow and see which side was wi
nning; but here, he was hooded and knew only what happened within a yard or so. His men a street away might be slaughtered, and he never know of it. His camp might have been attacked and his baggage stolen, his armies in the open sent racing helter-skelter home. Of what was going on around him, he knew nothing. Having left all to chance, attacking without plan, he had ridden into the city, forgetting that he was fighting against men long trained in warfare.
Trembling, at that moment he would have fled had he been able to turn his horse in the narrow street amongst the press of men; then reason came to calm his panic. Ashley, damn him, was right. To run would mean to toss away all hopes of the crown. He might reach Michael's Mount and Katherine; but there again might he find himself trapped unless a ship by some lucky chance were ready. And would he be able to reach the Mount when all the country would have been raised against him and a hue and cry would be at his heels with Tydder’s men like hounds baying after him? The blunder had been made by his young recklessness and inexperience and lack of martial advisers, and he must suffer for it. Besides, all hope was very far from gone. Ashley was ever the sour one to look on the dark face of Janus, to consider others to be as cunning and as far-sighted as himself. The besieged could not have expected him to have entered by that particular gate and therefore they could not have plotted how to snare him. Their troops were falling back, and that, after all, was what really mattered. They were falling back and soon his men must be masters of the city.
He lifted his chin and glared defiance at Ashley; then he raised his sword and cried: “Ay, you are right: forward, my friend!” And at that moment from the rear he heard a sudden startled shouting with the clash of steel.
A Princely Knave Page 9