James held up his cup for more of the golden wine of Champagne. As the server poured it, the next course was being placed before them: a golden plate of goose in a sauce of grapes and garlic. A herald announced the first of the minstrels waiting to perform, and a lutist and harpist began to play. They filled the room with sweet notes. Queen Isabeau picked at the dish, looking bored, and asked him about his stay in England, which was nothing James wanted to talk about, but when he told her he was well acquainted with Charles of Orleans, he managed to turn the topic.
Soon darkness had fallen. Another minstrel entered and began playing I want to stay faithful, and James was sure King Henry hid a yawn behind his wine cup. This one bowed his way out of the hall as James toyed with a serving of fruited custard in a crust.
Abruptly, Henry stood and held up his hand for silence. Everyone jumped to their feet, though James rose more slowly.
“I command all my servants that, on the morrow, we all be ready to go besiege Sens. There we may prove our daring and courage, for there is no finer way to do so than at war. So I bid you retire and prepare to depart.”
James gaped as the English king held out his arm for his bride, who stood, blinking up at him in obvious astonishment. Henry turned his gaze on James and said, “That includes you, my lord. You are to be ready to ride with my army at sunrise—without fail.”
“But—” Queen Isabeau protested. However, the king was already striding from the hall with the young, wide-eyed soon-to-be-queen on his arm. Isabeau looked at James in consternation. “On the morrow? How can he leave so soon after the wedding?”
James raised his eyebrows. “He always has his reasons, madame, and I suspect his reason is that he wants the rest of France under his power.”
“But could that not wait even one day?”
Philip, Duke of Bourgogne, offered the queen his arm, although his thin face was so tight his expression was almost a snarl. “King Henry’s side was chosen for us by your murderous son, and there is fighting to be done. It must be so.”
The queen paled, but she nodded. She gave James a faint smile. “We so rarely have true choices in this life. Is that not true, Your Grace?”
James had to agree, but he merely kissed her fingers and bowed to the duke as they took their farewell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The people of Troyes had gathered in crowds to see the English army march away. There were no cheers, though a few whores had called out for them to hurry back. Behind, the morning Angelus had tolled from the church bells as the army spread out of sight, the knights and mounted men-at-arms in the fan, followed by their thousands of archers, and the baggage train trailed for miles behind it all. The king had not called James to attend him at the head of the army, where he rode under his huge banner, and James was glad to avoid him. With his little party guarded by Sir John, two other knights, and ten squires, James rode in the middle of the host, choking on dust and seemingly ignored in the crush.
Unhelmed, he threw his head back to let the hot summer sun bathe his face. The wind ruffled his hair and dried the sweat on his forehead. Steel armor was hellishly hot in the summer sun. He felt as though he were baking, but he stroked the hilt of his sword. Though many had grander, never before had he been allowed to go armed.
King Henry gave stern commands that no one was to leave the columns of the march without permission. Still the squires sneaked away to hunt. When Iain came galloping up with his helm filled with wild strawberries he had found, James took a handful. It was like eating a velvet cloud made of honey. He licked the juice from his lips and told Iain to share them with Dougal and Lyon.
Now that they were at last on the move, Sir John was cheerful as a jester, grinning and telling James that he was like a maiden before her wedding night, but his first battle would cure that. James just laughed and said at least he was not too old to wield his sword like some he could name. The other knights roared with laughter at the thrust.
That night they made camp in the open fields beneath stars scattered like diamonds across black velvet. Another sunny day followed and then another, when they made camp outside the town of Sens. A thousand tents sprang up, and squires scurried about building campfires. Five heralds rode to the town gate to proclaim that it must surrender or its defenders would be hanged.
James didn’t expect a fight, but he still paced nervously in front of his tent.
Sir John chuckled at him. “They don’t have the men or the steel in their backbones to stand against King Henry.”
He was right, and a short time later a messenger came to tell them the town surrendered. King Henry, the Duke of Bourgogne, the king’s brothers and a score of guards rode to the castle to accept the surrender. James chewed his lip as he watched them ride out, asking himself once more why he was here. Something Henry was keeping back, some scheme. The longer it was secret, the more James was convinced it was dire.
The world grew hotter and brighter as they rode toward Montereau. There, Philip, Duke of Bourgogne’s father had been murdered by followers of Dauphin Charles, and everyone said that the duke would have his revenge. They rode along the bank of the River Seine that flowed in gray-green ripples. James’s saddle creaked softly in time with hoof beats in the dirt, the sound almost hypnotic. The world was empty, save for the moving army. It felt as though all of France had fled before them.
Across the waters of the wide moat, the towers of Montereau Castle appeared at last, its square gray towers squat and solid. Horns blew at the head of the march, and a squire came at a trot, having to wend his way through the press of mounted men, shouting, “Lord James, you are to join the king!”
Anxious to see what was happening, and if the castle would surrender, James spurred his horse and let the others follow as they would. By the time he rode through the half mile of close packed men, the king’s pavilion had been pitched on a small rise within sight of the walls. At the base of the rise, there was a clamor of hammering and sawing as a gibbet quickly went up, and a cluster of prisoners were tied together like animals at its base. Some were kneeling, others standing and motioning toward the castle. James had no doubt the English had much practice at buildings such structures.
A table covered in red velvet had been set up under a spreading oak, where King Henry sat. Behind him were ranged the dukes and earls of the army in their polished steel as the king looked down on a man in simple mail kneeling beside the table.
“Please, Your Grace,” the man begged, his hands tied together before him. “I did not intend to kill him. It was an accident. Truly. Mercy, I beg you.”
Henry looked up at James as he swung from the saddle and tossed his reins to one of the footmen. The king’s face was taut. He looked back down at the prisoner. “You raised you hand to a knight in a quarrel. Is that not so?”
The man’s whole body was shaking. “I—I have served you well.”
Henry nodded, and there was a flinch in his face. “You have. But I have learned to my sorrow that mercy has no place in justice. You will hang with the others.”
A guard grabbed the prisoner by the arm and dragged him, gabbling and crying, down the slope. James gave the king a courteous bow. Now we shall see what he truly wants of me.
“Come, stand by me, Lord James,” Henry said. He folded his hands on the table before him like a steeple. “I was fond of him. He often led my horse, but I cannot temper justice. Not for anyone.”
James walked slowly to stand beside his nemesis, chewing the inside of his cheek. He looked toward the grim spectacle he had been brought to watch. “I understand, Your Grace. But the others. There are…” He counted. None seemed to be wounded or even in armor. “…eleven men. Why are they to be hanged as well? Did they each kill a knight?”
Henry tilted his head toward the roofs of the city barely visible in the distance. “I had them taken as hostages in Montereau. My van has captured the city. The governor and a handful of knights fled to the castle. If the castle surrenders, these will not hang.
But the governor has refused.”
“Mayhap he will change his mind when he sees that it is no mere threat,” John of Bedford, a vacillating stork of a man, put in. “They cannot hold out against us. Refusing is madness.”
“What do you think, James?” the English king asked.
James thought it was cruel and bloody business to kill men for revenge because someone else did not surrender, but it was useless to voice his true opinion. “Lord John has a point that they should surrender.” He fought to keep his face blank.
The workmen were throwing ropes over the top rail of the skeletal gibbet. James gripped the hilt of his sword until it bruised his palm, his jaws tightening, as he forced himself to watch as the first of the men, thrashing, and his screams drifting up to the onlookers, was forced beneath a dangling rope and the loop slipped over his head. Three men pulled on the end, and the hostage kicked and twisted as he was hauled into the air.
Cold washed through him. James desperately swallowed down a gush of sour bile filling his mouth. He had killed a man himself. Thousands and thousands had already died in this war. What difference did eleven more make? Carefully, he took a deep breath, knowing Henry’s eyes were upon him. He would know if James looked away, would judge it weakness. Another was hauled to the waiting rope, and James shook his head, scanning the walls of the castle. He could make out shapes of men upon the parapets. Why don’t they surrender?
But they didn’t, and a few minutes later twelve bodies dangled, casting long, writhing shadows in the bright June sun. James wondered if he was as pale as he felt.
“We will camp here,” Henry said. “They don’t have enough food to last a week, so I won’t waste my men in an assault.”
Duke Philip’s pinched face was coldly fixed. “And when they surrender, any within who helped in the murder of my father must join those on the gibbet!”
James turned his head and examined Henry. He had known the man was hard, but he had never quite appreciated the depth of that hardness, not even after hearing of the executions of prisoners at Agincourt. Perhaps that was the lesson Henry brought him here to learn. He had a dire feeling it wasn’t the last lesson Henry had for him.
“Was there aught you wished of me, Your Grace?” he asked in a carefully even tone. When Henry waved him away in casual dismissal, James climbed into the saddle and turned his horse’s head with much to consider.
Within an hour, a blast of a trumpet sounded from the walls. A herald from the king rode to accept their surrender, and James heard the groan of iron chains. The portcullis slowly rose, and the bridge thudded down with a crash. A shout went up across the English camp.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
July 1420
The last day of their journey to Melun was hot and dusty. The scent of thyme trampled under the horses’ hooves mixed with the acrid dust of the road and the sharp smell of horse sweat. They rode through a stand of chestnut trees with leaves that drooped sadly in the heat, and James drained the flask of water that hung from his saddlebow. Sweat dripped down his face and ran into his beard, itching like fleas. It was late morning when they sighted the high, white walls of the city rising above the Seine, drenched in golden light and seemed higher than any James had ever seen. The towers with their cone shaped roofs seemed impenetrable to attack. This will not be an easy fight, he pondered, wondering how King Henry planned to hammer the place open. It would not be starved into submission in a week. It was rumored the Sire Arnault de Barbazan had sworn it would not fall.
By midafternoon, before the walls, tents and cook fires spread out in their own city in orderly array. Squires ran to tie the horses at the picket lines on the east side of the camp. Workmen were digging latrines well downwind of the king’s pavilion, and the other lords’ were being raised around his. James shrugged and pointed to a spot on the edge of the camp well away from the king. “Raise our tents and plant my banner,” he told Iain.
James could see crossbowmen moving on the parapet behind the crenellations. Above them fluttered the banner of the Sire de Barbazan, the sheaths of wheat quartered with rampant silver lions. But the highest tower flew a different banner, one that James was sure would drive King Henry to a fury: the blue royal banner of France.
“I think this will be my first real siege,” James told Sir John.
The man barked a laugh. “If it isn’t your first real battle, I’ll buy you a flagon the best wine in the city. Once we take it. They are going to put up a fight.”
“You think so?” James grinned with a rush of excitement. “You think it will come to a hand-to-hand fight?”
“King Henry is not content to sit on his arse and wait for a city to fall. Nor will Sire de Barbazan wait for us to take it from him, if what I hear is true.”
Soon the camp rang with hammers as three trebuchets were being erected. Between them, workmen were building the frame of a turtle to protect sappers, who would try to undermine the walls, and a wagon piled with rawhide for a cover was being unloaded. Sergeants were assigning guardsmen around the perimeter. King Henry said he didn’t expect an attack, but he also did not take chances.
A footman trotted up to James. “The king has summoned a war council for in the morning, my lord. You are to join it at first light.”
They gathered as dawn stretched pewter fingers above the eastern horizon. A squire was fastening the clasps on King Henry’s greaves. Standing around a table spread with papers, maps, ink, and quills were the king’s brothers, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, Humphrey, Duke of Suffolk, and John, Duke of Bedford. Behind James as he entered the pavilion came the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Salisbury, and the young Earl of Suffolk, and the Earl of Richmond.
Philip, Duc de Bourgogne, a pallid, thin man with a high arched nose stood, arms crossed representing the French allies. The duke wore armor with gilding in elaborate scrolls worked into the steel, but his visage was grim. “I shall have the men who murdered my father,” he announced.
“That is agreed upon, my lord,” Henry said as he impatiently dismissed the squire. “The men responsible for the murder are yours.”
John of Bedford gave a snort. “First we have to take the place, and the walls of Melun aren’t going to fall at your whim.”
Philip of Bourgogne’s thin lips drew into a hard line. “Justice for my father is no whim. I will lead an assault and give the miscreants a taste of my blade.”
“The walls of Melun will not be easily breached. Sire de Barbazan might be willing to give you a taste of his own blade in return,” said Earl John, and Thomas of Clarence laughed.
“Enough,” King Henry said. “This is a war council, not a gathering of fishwives. The sooner we are done with Melun, the sooner I can return to my bride.” He glared at James. “And many of those men defending the city are your Scots.”
James nodded, his mind grappling with the sudden attack as every man in the tent turned to stare at him. “Aye. There are many Scots brought over by the Earl of Douglas,” he said in a careful, neutral tone.
“Douglas—with whom you are in contact, my lord—has his men defending the Dauphin. Did you think I did not know?”
“On the contrary, Your Grace. I assumed that you did.”
“They fight wrongfully for the man who was once the Dauphin. Wrongfully! For I am the regent of France and heir to the throne. Douglas has no right to take up arms against me. Nor against his own king.”
“King? When you have time after time denied me my rightful title. To this very day! You would nae have me king. You command me as a captive.”
“So, you do not claim the title of King of Scots?”
James felt the color rising from his collar and stubbornly stared into Henry’s eyes, keeping silent. Someone shuffled his feet. John of Bedford cleared his throat, the only sound in the profound silence.
“Do you?”
“I do.”
King Henry’s look was glacial. “Then they are your subjects. You will issue a proclamation commanding they lay down th
eir arms on pain of treason against your royal self. You will sign and put your seal to it today.”
Henry’s blazing gaze bored into James’s eyes.
“You are, Lord James, my prisoner and here under my command. And you will do as I bid. You saw at Montereau that I mean what I say.”
He relishes this, James realized. It pleases him to demean me. “Any proclamation I sign has no authority. It is extracted by force and a’ ken that is so. No Scot will obey it—nor should they.”
“Obey it they will.” King Henry snatched up a parchment and threw it against James’s chest. “Now sign.”
James automatically grabbed the document, and after a moment he held the thing out to scan what it said. The pounding in his ears was like the surf at Bass Rock, and it deafened him. Whether anyone spoke as he read, he couldn’t say. The entire world narrowed down to the lying document King Henry would force him to sign and the thundering in his head.
He dropped the parchment onto the table and grabbed up a quill to scrawl his signature. “You may observe, sire, if any of my subjects obey a command that was forced from me.” He pressed his seal into the wax so hard it went through to the parchment, turned on his heel, and marched out, flinging over his shoulder, “I tell you they will not.”
As he left the king’s pavilion, a summer storm was blowing in, and the wind was gusting through a stand of chestnut trees, making the branches whip and sigh. He marched toward his campfire across a field of raw earth torn up by hoof and by boot.
At the cook fire, one of the squires offered James a slice off a rabbit he had caught. Sir John told him the best way to defend against a pike in an assault. Two of the squires practiced their sword work with blunted blades, and Dougal laughed at them. But James squatted by the fire, staring up at the walls. No Scot would obey a command torn from him by force. And what would Henry do when he realized it—if he didn’t already?
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