A King Ensnared, A Historical Novel of Scotland (The Stewart Chronicles Book 1)

by Tomlin, J. R.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  August 1420

  James found a whetstone in the chest and sat upon his narrow camp bed. Iain held out his hand to do the chore as a squire should, but James shook his head. Keep your sword sharp, Gruffudd had often told him long ago whilst they trained together in the Tower. He would never forget all the Welshman had taught him.

  As the stone made a snick-snick-snick sound on the blade, James thought of sitting high on the tower of Rothesay Castle, the land green all around the wide moat that sparkled in the midday sun. A peregrine circling lazily in the distance against smoky-blue mountains… His brother whooping and shouting as he rode out of the gate. James shook off the thoughts. Better to concentrate on the morrow. He tested the edge of his blade and smiled. Sharp as death on a dark night.

  “Battle is not like a tourney, you know,” Dougal said.

  “I never thought that it was.” The air was warm, and the tent smelled of sweat and oil from the polishing of weapons and armor. There was something comforting in it that made James feel at home.

  Iain looked up from bending over James’s cuirass. “Where do you think he will place us?”

  James twitched a wry smile. “Where Sir John can keep close watch on me.” Henry would take no chances on James escaping, not that his guard was ever far enough to make that a possibility. “Duke Philip is leading the attack, and we are in his forces. He wants to be first over the wall.”

  “The walls are high and strong,” Iain said, rubbing hard to try to put a shine on James’s dull plate armor. He complained that it was plain with no gilding or embossment, as the English lords had on theirs, but tried hard to give it a shine. “And so many defenders. Can it really be easy?”

  “I suppose it may work, but I suspect King Henry is giving Philip his head to stop his complaining. I think he doesn’t expect it to work.” When Iain looked horrified, James laughed. “Henry is playing a game to keep Philip sweet until he has the rest of France well under his heel. It’s worth a failed attack on the wall. For the nonce, give over with the armor. You won’t polish it to be better than it is.”

  It was inferior but at least not the tourney harness that James had worn in England. Iain set the cuirass aside and put away the cloth. “Duke Philip must ken that an assault probably won’t work.”

  “It’s hard to tell. He has a face with the expression of a stone saint. Now the tunneling under the walls—that I think Henry has hopes for. But whatever the chances may be, tomorrow we’ll fecht the French.”

  “But not the Scots?”

  “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei! I pray not.”

  “Aye. As do we all,” Dougal said.

  James sheathed his sword and hung the belt on the tent pole. Yawning, he let Iain help him out of his soiled clothes and stretched out on his bed. He pulled his coverlet up to his chest and lazily scratched himself as he closed his eyes. I should feel more anxious, he thought, and went to sleep dreaming of steel singing on steel.

  He awoke sure that he should already be dressed for battle. Woozy, he pushed himself off his bed and ran his hand through his tangled hair. He looked around the tent in the dim light from a single brazier that burned in a corner, and there was no sign of Iain. Dougal was still snoring softy on his pallet.

  When he pushed open the flap of the tent, streaks of silver spread across the azure sky, and mist floated in streaks around the tents and over the trench around the city. The dirt was gritty beneath his bare feet. Men were blundering through dawn’s murk. Iain hurried up with a pitcher of water. By the time he had splashed his face, the squire stood holding out his padded doublet for James to wear under his plate cuirass. As he pulled it over his head, Sir John came trotting out of the haze, already armored, his bowl helm under his arm.

  “How long until we form for the attack?” James asked him.

  “Duke Philip is already calling for you,” Sir John said. “So you’d best be fast into that armor.”

  “See that your own men are ready.” James went back within the tent. Iain’s hands were shaking with excitement as he latched James into this cuirass and put his gorget around his neck. “Hurry,” James said. “You’ll have to ready yourself as soon as I leave. Why didn’t you rouse me sooner?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you needed to rest.”

  James snorted a soft laugh as he pulled the gauntlets on and Iain knelt to fasten the greaves. “Henry will have my hide if I delay the attack.” James shoved his feet into the pointed metal boots, and Iain handed him his close helm. James tucked it under his arm since it narrowed his world to a slit straight ahead. He fastened his sword belt, heavy with his longsword and dirk, around his waist and gave it a tug. “Don’t dawdle.”

  It was strange to think of fighting afoot, but horses would only be in the way as they clambered through the dry moat with its sharp slant down ten feet and up the other side to climb ladders that the footmen would carry. He ducked out of the tent. Sir John saluted him with his sword. James cuffed his shoulder and trotted toward the knot of men where Duke Philip gathered his forces. James’s stomach made a hard knot in his belly, and his heart pounded like a racing steed. Behind him, Sir John and his guards thudded in their armor to keep up. Pale gold spread across the sky as the edge of the sun peeped above the horizon. James wondered how much a wound would hurt. He wondered if any of them would die—if he would die this morning. In the warm summer air, a chill ran down his back. Was he a coward because his belly cramped at the thought?

  James gathered his wits as he saw the array of men gathered around Duke Philip’s banner. He shoved his way through, and when the duke saw him, he sharply motioned him over. The rising sun was burning off the wisps of mist as the duke nodded to him. “You are to guard my back in this fight,” he said, and James nodded.

  The duke’s chaplain mumbled a quick blessing, and then the duke cleared his throat and raised his voice to be heard by all the hundreds of men gathered. “You will all be rewarded. That goes without saying. But all the gold in France will not bring back my father’s life. I will have revenge for the treachery that he suffered.” He paused, but there was only a ripple of murmurs at his words. “We will go in and take this city. You know what you must do. Now we will deal out blood and death to our enemies. Anyone within the reach of your blade should die!”

  That won the duke a cheer as the he drew his sword and pointed it toward the wall. James lowered the helm and fastened it into place on the gorget. His stomach eased as they surged toward the dry moat. On each side, a dozen footmen carried long ladders. His feet slipped in the dirt as he went down the edge of the trench. Behind them were rank on rank of knights and men-at-arms with swords and war axes. James watched the longbowmen checking the arrow bags at their belts and their bow strings. They would be of little use until they were over the wall, though.

  The thud of their feet was a rumble, and there were soft curses as men slipped. Someone laughed. But there were no trumpets to allow the city time to muster their defense.

  Panting, Iain caught up to James and coughed out, “Here I am, Your Grace.” James gave him a cuff on the shoulder as the scrambled into the bottom of the deep trench. A wind tunneled by the shape carried the smell of sweat and metal.

  On the city wall, a horn cried out: Harooooo, harooooo…

  James dismissed every thought from his mind but the task ahead. Climb the ladder and take the wall. He slid his foot up the first part of the incline, careful of his balance in the treacherous dirt.

  The horn blew again: Harrroooooooo…

  Figures were silhouetted between the merlons of the battlement, one in each opening. James realized they were out of time and began to run up the slope. “Up!” he shouted. “Up with the ladders!”

  A deadly rain whistled down on them. The first footman carrying the ladder next to James died before he hit the ground, a bolt through his neck. Their longbowmen began to fire, but there was no way at that angle their arrows would arch over the wall. The crossbowmen dodg
ed, jumped back out, and a second volley fired down. Men collapsed with shrieks of pain, cursing as they clutched arms and legs ripped through by the razor-sharp bolts. James stepped over a man-at-arms writhing with a bolt through his belly.

  Two of the ladders were raised on the wall, and men began to scramble up.

  The duke spun and shouted, “Raise the rest of the ladders!”

  James looked up to see a cauldron tipping and jumped forward to grab the duke’s arm and sent him sprawling into the trench. The man shouted a curse as he tumbled to his knees. Oil splattered, sizzling, as James leapt to join him, and he fumbled his sword free from its scabbard.

  There was a voice bellowing, “Attack!” One of the ladders crashed to the ground; defenders shouted cries of triumph, drowning out the cries and screams all around.

  “Look!” James shouted a desperate warning, pointing with his blade at a postern door and the enemy that were boiling through it. They broke into a run. “Iain, back to the camp!” he yelled, though he couldn’t see the squire. He had no more time to speak or to think. They were upon him, their swords silver flashes in the morning sun.

  The duke had already jumped to his feet and was sweeping his sword at an attacker.

  “To me!” James shouted. An attacker let his sword drop as he came, and James ran him through. Another charged, his blade glinting as he swung. James barely dodged the blow, jumping to the side, and smashed a blow into the man’s face hard enough to cave in his visor. He dropped, screaming and clawing at the blood that welled through the slits. James finished him with a thrust through the eye and planted a foot on the corpse’s chest to jerk his sword free.

  The duke backed up as a second enemy went down to his blade. James dodged an attacked. Sir John stabbed the man in the back.

  James shouted, “Call retiral! This is lost!” As he did, they got a little luck as a longbowman managed to get two shots off and took out two knights to give the duke a breath.

  “Retire!” the duke screamed. “Back to the camp!”

  Another knight came at James as he backed up the side of the trench. James swept a cut at him. He recoiled, so James smashed the flat of his sword two-handed at his throat. He dodged again and James backed up another step. He rushed and James blocked hard enough to send the sword flying from his hand. But a knife in his off-hand punched into a gap above James’s gauntlet. Pain shuddered through his hand and arm, so desperately, James slammed his hilt into the knight’s face. The man staggered and went down, skidding to the bottom of the trench.

  James hurriedly backed the rest of the way up in a crouch, sword low and ready. Blood dripped from his injured off-hand. Sir John grabbed his shoulder and dragged him backwards. “Run for camp, you fool!” he shouted at James.

  James bellowed, “Retire!” at the men still straggling up from the trench. A deadly hail clattered down, and a few more dropped.

  James turned and ran for the camp. Dazed and panting, when he reached the first tent, he cradled his arm to his chest, pain hammering through it. He looked back. The fight was over. The city’s defenders shouted taunts, and one turned to drop his drawers and showed his arse.

  The sound of hoof beats coming from behind him made him turn. King Henry reined up and looked down at him.

  “They were waiting for us,” James said. “They couldn’t have gathered defenders so fast.”

  Henry nodded. “I spoke to the duke. He has praise for your skill in the fighting.”

  James managed on the second try to sheathe his sword. His whole arm was throbbing, but at last he had a hand free to strip off his gauntlet and let it drop to the ground. His arm was coated in drying blood, but he thought, though it pounded with pain, that it wasn’t too bad, a long gash across his arm to the bone. He wiggled his fingers to be sure they worked. “He is too kind.”

  The king bent to look at the injury. “Your first battle wound.” He smiled amiably. “Have it tended. Wound fever kills as many men as the injury itself.”

  “I will. First I must find my squire.”

  James trudged wearily toward his tent, hoping that Iain had headed there, but before he had gone more than two steps he saw Iain standing with a group of the men-at-arms, waving his arms as he talked anent the fight, and James breathed more easily. “Wha’ are you doing there?”

  Iain colored bright red. “Waiting for Your Grace. To tend you.”

  James snorted, but even that hurt. “Find me some wine, and let us shed this armor,” he said through clenched teeth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  September 1420

  King Henry was sitting, legs sprawled, on his camp chair, wine cup in his hand and more relaxed and smiling than James had ever seen him. Thunder rumbled like rocks down a cliff, and the canvas rattled overhead. After two days of dreary, late-summer rains, the ground outside was sodden, but that hadn’t prevented the miners from almost completing the tunnel under the walls. Henry said he and Philip would lead the way through on the morrow. But tonight he gave a feast for his seconds in command. Being included did not mean James had a command, but he had only shrugged when ordered to attend.

  Henry waved a careless hand at his minstrel on the last note of his song anent a knight pursuing a shy lady love. “Your song bores me. Give over.” He looked around and grinned at James. “Lord James would do better. Will you not, cousin?”

  Duke Philip, as tightly strung as a bowstring, stood to the side silently watching while the king’s brothers, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester sat crouched over a table throwing dice. The earls of Warwick, Salisbury, and Suffolk were talking in an undertone in a corner. Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Richmond, a tough and grizzled old man, had his mouth full of roasted swan, and a servant was refilling the wine cups, although the wine was well-watered. Henry tolerated no drunkenness before battle, but they would take their ease.

  “If it pleases you, I’ll play.” James held out his hand for the instrument and plucked a few notes to test the tuning. James frowned and bit his lip as he tried to think of the right song for the night. “Not one of my own, my lords. Something more martial, I think.”

  He played a few notes of a well-known song by Bertran de Born.

  “I do love the cheerful spring

  When the flowers are blooming;

  I also love the trilling peal

  Of birds in the woods echoing;

  I love to see tents and banners

  Spread out upon the meadow;

  And my spirit soars when I see

  Knights charging into battle.

  Maces, swords, and plumed helms,

  And shields split and broken,

  Amid the midst of bloody battle;

  Vassals struck down are there,

  And steeds of the dead do flee;

  When mingled strife is spread,

  The noblest warriors join in

  To cleave both limbs and head—

  Better than captive is an enemy dead.

  Nothing more my soul can cheer,

  Not banquet nor soundly sleeping,

  Than the shout of "Lay on!" rung

  From each side in battle closing

  And on both sides I hear the noise

  Of riderless horses neighing,

  Screams of “Help me! Help me!”

  When both small and great do fall

  All alike into the grassy trenches

  And yonder lie in a mangled pile

  Splintered lance bedecked with pennon.

  Passion must take a valiant lover

  Skilled both in arms and service;

  Who speaks well and greatly gives;

  Who knows what he should do and say

  As becomes a knight’s great power—

  One full courteous and lively.

  A lady who lies with such a knight

  May say she has chosen wisely.”

  King Henry slapped his hand on the table and exclaimed, “Well done, James. Just the song. De Born knew ba
ttle—a great troubadour.”

  James strummed a final chord before he handed the lute to the waiting minstrel. “I suppose he did, Your Grace.”

  “It is a shame our age has none such as he.” The king unwound from the chair like one of the Tower’s lions rousing from rest. “You’re learning war as well. It’s all that makes life worth living. De Born was right anent that.”

  James rose, as did the king’s brothers. John of Bedford, a pale imitation of his brother, gave James a look down his high-arched nose. “You’re sure Lord James is up to the fight? To have him at your back?”

  For the first time, Duke Philip spoke up. “He did well when we fought together. I am pleased to have him at our side. If his subjects learn to be sensible enough to join us as well, all the better.”

  King Henry laughed. “I may have to give him a knight’s buffet one day. He fights and takes his wounds like a man.” He gave James a speculative, considering look that sent a prickle up the back of his neck. “I brought him to teach him war, not wrestle in the mud with all my men. He can help me close the curst Armagnac’s counter-tunnel like any of my men might.”

  James bit his lip hard to keep a response behind his teeth.

  John of Lancaster shrugged and went on speaking to his brother. “This rain is miserable for fighting. Mayhap we should wait one more day to see if it is more fit for battle. Simply withdraw the miners until then. The tunnels are knee-deep in mud and water at best. They must be even worse with the rain.”

  The king gave his brother a scorching look. “We have fought before in the rain. It does not serve to let de Barbazan think he can drive us off. It gives them heart for holding out. I will have that barrier down and collapse their counter-tunnel. Too many of our miners are dying to their attacks.”

  “And I will have the murderers who escaped to reach Melun,” Duke Philip said in an acid tone. “This siege has already taken longer than I would have expected from the great English king.”