James raised an eyebrow. “Our side?”
“If not identical, we have interests in common. Mine, to defeat the false Dauphin and the Scots who aid him, Scots who side with your enemy. Yours, to return to Scotland to be crowned and draw the fangs of Albany.” Henry took his place at the head of the polished oak table.
James shook his head. “How does one help the other?”
“I know that you have exchanged letters with the Douglas about supporting you against Albany. He might help with arranging hostages to exchange for you.” Henry waved a hand for James to sit. “Merely a parole for a year, as we proposed before, but I believe that he will do so if I aid you in that.”
James felt color flood his face. How had Henry learned the content of private letters to the Earl of Douglas? He bit his lip and leaned back in his chair. But it was true that Douglas did seem inclined to come over to his side. “You would aid me? Why? And how?”
“To cease Scottish support for the Armagnacs. Douglas is the most powerful man in Scotland, more so than the so-called regent. With his men, you can safely return to Scotland, and I can make it so that he does back you.”
James narrowed his eyes as he examined Henry’s face. There was more to this offer than he could see on the surface, as always. There was a scratch at the door, and when Henry called out permission, a herald opened it to say that Archibald Douglas, Earl of Douglas, Lord of Annandale and Galloway was without.
The Douglases of that ilk had long been called the ‘Black’ for good reason. The earl’s hair might once have been as black as night, though now it was threaded through with gray. His eyes were chips of obsidian, and his skin dark as old leather, tan and creased. He was still muscled beneath a softening of age. He bowed courteously to King Henry, but he looked James up and down. With a satisfied nod, he strode to him, grunting as he went heavily to one knee. He took James’s hand and bowed over it. “Your Grace.”
“My lord,” James said. “It pleases me to meet you—at last.”
The Earl of Douglas levered himself to his feet. “I have longed for this day, Your Grace.”
James thought that he could have achieved it, had he longed for it so much, but this wasn’t the time to mention that.
When Henry gave him permission to sit, the Douglas took a place as he inclined his head to James. “Hearing you were dubbed by the finest knight in a’ Christendom, sire, was braw news.”
“And acknowledging that I am the finest fighter should mean you know how fruitless it is to keep sending armies to fight me in France,” Henry snapped. “Nor, I think, can Scotland afford to have me as an enemy.”
Archibald Douglas gave the king a bland look. “Certes, I cannot, Your Grace. I have never desired to be at enmity with you. But you hold our king prisoner, so I cannot count you as friend.”
“And have treated him well. Fed and clothed him. Educated and armed him when the Duke of Albany seized his regalities. Protected him when those in his own kingdom would not.” Henry slapped his hand down on the table. “I say that makes me more his friend than his own people and should make me yours.”
“You could have also sent him home long since, had your demands not been beyond anything. Though they say the king your father made you swear to do so.”
King Henry’s eyes flared with temper.
James felt a bit like a bone being yanked between two growling dogs. “What His Grace says is true, at least in part. I was indeed fed and clothed and educated. And gently treated as a royal prisoner should be. But surely what concerns us is his proposal for my return home.” He tilted his head as he looked thoughtfully at Douglas. Had he been sending Henry every word that passed between them, or was it someone in his household? “Do you know the terms of what he proposes? I do not.”
“No. But I would like to hear.”
Henry pulled toward him a stack of parchments, shuffled through them and took one out before he spoke. “Lord Douglas, I offer you a generous annuity: two hundred pounds.” He glanced at James. “With the permission of your king. If you undertake to serve me against all men excepting him and bring me two hundred knights and squires and two hundred mounted bowmen to serve me in France. And I will pay their fees and for their equipage.”
Douglas wound his thick fingers together as he looked from Henry to James and back again. “I would be fighting Albany’s brother, my own good-son. And my own son, the Earl of Wigtoun, is there.”
Henry gave him a cold smile. “Do you care?”
Douglas gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Buchan. No. But I would nae do battle against my own heir.”
Henry nodded. “I would not expect it, but there are many fights to be had. I would use your force elsewhere. I agree that, if your son is there, your men should retire. That is agreed.”
“Reasonable. But two hundred pounds is nae much for so large a change in alliance. I am nae beggar at yon door. To be honest, Your Grace, it would take more than that.”
James considered his fingernails where his hands rested on the table. But the next words lifted his gaze.
“And your king to be released for a year when we return from France, if within three months of our return certain hostages are sent to me here.”
“What hostages?” James demanded.
Henry slid the parchment under his hand across the table. “These.”
James started reading and held back a snort. The first name on the list was Walter Stewart, Murdoch’s eldest son and heir. Even if Murdoch would agree to his heir being hostage, the ungovernable Walter Stewart certainly would not. Next on the list was the Earl of Atholl, no friend to James. He ran his finger further down the list. Five earls. Four bishops. Ten other nobles. James stood and dropped the paper. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
Henry clasped his hand into a fist, and his face tightened.
James knew that laughing at him was dangerous, foolhardy, but he truly couldn’t help it.
Douglas took the list and, after a moment, coughed.
“Enough!” Henry snarled.
James finally swallowed down his laughter, but he shook his head. He would force out an apology, however futile the list was. “Forgive me, Your Grace. But you think Murdoch would send his heir as a hostage—for me? I vow that you know he would not.”
“Wait, sire,” Douglas put in. “Let us consider. Things might change before you return from France. Who knows how long that would be or what might occur before then? Mayhap we should nae be hasty in refusing His Grace of England.”
James tapped a finger on the top edge of the chair. Archie Tyneman was known as a wily old fox, a description James had to admit did not apply to himself. “And if we cannot fulfill the terms?”
“Then according to the indenture, as I understand, you would not be freed, but would be no worse than now.”
Henry grunted in assent, and James was sure a smirk touched his mouth for a moment. So Henry thought he was putting one over on James and the Douglas? For a moment to consider, James reached for the list and pretended to look at the names as he thought through what the Douglas had said. Henry would tie up the Douglas and be sure that the earl didn’t join both Buchan, his good-son, and his son with the Dauphin’s forces in France.
James doubted Henry would trust Douglas enough to actually use his men in battle. He wouldn’t, were he in Henry’s place. And if the indenture didn’t release James, it would cost Henry nothing. James knew the indenture would never be fulfilled. But the Earl of Douglas was willing to agree, so it must be because he didn’t want to join Buchan and his son. Giving the Douglas what he wanted might well bring him firmly onto James’s side in the battle with Albany. And James needed him. James caught the man’s gaze, and a wry smile passed between them.
James nodded. “Aye. I will agree to it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
August 1421
For miles behind they had left a smoking ruin. Torches tossed into June ripe fields, farmhouses set aflame. The smell of war, James decid
ed, was not one he would learn to relish. When he and Humphrey of Gloucester, with their five hundred men in long columns and their wagons behind, reached the city walls, the June sun was high in the sky, and the gates were barred. A crossbow quarrel whispered into the ground before them.
James pulled up his horse, sweat dripping down his sides beneath his armor. Dreaux was a small city, but red tile roofs beyond the gate made it look a place he would enjoy a cup of wine and a lass in his lap. Or a certain lass he had not seen since they were at Middleham in the spring. A pity that, instead, James was here as an enemy.
Beside him, Humphrey scratched at his chin, cheek plates on his visor folded back, and sighed. “It was too much to hope that they would be sensible.”
“Unfurl the white flag,” James said to John. He shrugged at duke. “I’ll ride to the gate and see if they will surrender the city.”
“They’re fools if they don’t.”
“Men often are, it seems to me.”
Iain of Alway looked alarmed. “Your Grace, they’ve fired—”
“Only crossbow bolts. It might not pierce plate armor, and I’ll keep my visor down. And mayhap they won’t fire on my white flag.” He had to hope they wouldn’t fire on a herald as well, who was in lighter armor.
A herald wearing a surcoat marked with Humphrey of Gloucester’s lion device with its blue border, holding the white flag atop a tall staff, rode beside him. James drew up a few yards from the closed gate and craned his neck to look up into the barbican atop it. “I would speak to your governor,” he shouted in French.
A crossbowman poked his head out and ducked back in.
James shifted, and his saddle creaked. He chewed his lip as he waited. Perhaps Humphrey should have done this. He had more experience at war, though less than his brothers, but James wasn’t going to go back to Henry and tell him his brother took a quarrel through the throat.
At last, a face poked out, gray-haired and craggy. James couldn’t seem much of the man, but he didn’t look like any great knight. He took a breath. “In the name of Henry, King of England and Regent of France, I demand that you open the gates.”
“I’ve heard what he did to Sire de Barbazan and the others at Melun after they surrendered. What he did before at Rouen. I’ll not open my gates to treacherous English. If you want my city, you shall have to take it.”
“My word of honor. Open your gates, and I’ll grant you and your men your lives. The nobles will be held for ransom, yes. The rest can go where they will. They can stay under the governance of the English or flee south and find where the Dauphin has fled. My word as a knight.”
“Your word of honor? As a knight?” The man pursed his lips and spat. “That on English honor and your word. I know better than to trust it. I had a cousin at Melun who did no more than help friends escape and died for it.” He made a sound of disgust. “Honor.”
“Do you want to die, you and your men? The Dauphin has retreated, and the Scots. They’ll nae come to your aid. You see the size of our army. Open the gates and save your own lives.”
“In twenty breaths, my men will no longer hold their fire.” The man turned and was gone.
James jerked his horse’s head about, but he refused to set it to a gallop and hoped the man’s threat was a bluff. He felt a twitch in the middle of his back, but he was out of range when he heard the thud of a quarrel hitting the road behind him.
Humphrey met him standing in the road, and Iain held his bridle whilst he dismounted. “Do I need to ask how it went?”
“The crossbowman missed, so it could have been worse.” James grimaced. “So now we’ll have to take it by force.” He turned and, arms akimbo, examined the walls. “They’re nae so high. Ladders should do, don’t you think, my lord? A city this size cannot have many defenders.”
“We’ll make camp.”
“We had better put outriders on the roads as scouts,” James said. “If the Armagnacs decide to stop retreating and come to their aid, I want to know it before they’re on top of us.” Duke Thomas’s death was much on all of their minds.
“They’ll expect an attack tonight, but we’ll let them stew for a bit; we shall rest for a day or two and put the men to building ladders. They may decide we’re going to starve them out and relax their guard.”
James nodded slowly. The duke had taken part in more sieges than he, and it sounded like a good plan. But it would come down to bloody sword work in the end. So James pointed out a spot on a hill for his pavilion and Duke Humphrey’s, whilst the duke sent men to digging a latrine ditch and setting out a picket line for the horses. The oak woods nearby rang to axes for campfires. Sergeants sent out sentries, and well before nightfall they were encamped before the city they had been sent to take for the English king, whilst he was besieging the castle of Beaugency.
Sieges were boring, yet beneath the tedium was always a prickling at the back of the neck from being watched by enemies close at hand and twitching of fingers that waited to hold a blade. For two days, ladders were hammered together just out of sight of the walls. The camp was alive with the whish-whish of blades across whetstones and smelt of armor being polished. James paced to stare at the stubbornly closed gate. On the fourth day, the sky was lightening with streaks of pink and gold to the east, and faint stars spread across deep blue firmament to the west. James had checked and re-checked who would carry the ladders and who would be with him first over the wall. Half their force would hold back and charge when James opened the gate.
Iain of Alway was chewing his lip nervously, and James said, “Guard my back. That is your only task.”
“Aye.” Iain’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I will, Your Grace.”
Their men massed in front of the camp. “Up and over the walls, before they gather more men,” he shouted. “The city is ours!”
The ground was hard in high summer’s heat. The land had been cleared of trees near the walls long ago, and only a few stumps marred the way. James’s heart pounded in his chest, and his skin was cooled with sweat though the sun wasn’t yet up as he held his sword high over his head.
Duke Humphrey mounted his horse and nodded.
James yelled, “Attack!” as he brought his blade down to point at the wall.
He ran.
“For St. George,” a sergeant shouted.
“For King Henry and St. George,” another picked up the cry.
Their feet thudded on the hard ground. Beside James loped a man-at-arms, nameless and anonymous in the half-dark, over his shoulder, the top of a ladder. On the other side, an archer carried his longbow.
A crossbow twanged, and someone screamed, but it was still too dark for good for bow work. Now they all shouted war cries as they pounded forward. James saved his breath for the fighting. Another man screamed as he fell to a crossbowman.
A horn blew an alarm, thin and lonely up on the wall. The light from a brazier flickered in the tower.
Suddenly, they were at the wall, and the man-at-arms grunted, hoisting the ladder. There was a clatter as others of the twenty hit the stone embattlement. James pushed the man-at-arms aside and climbed, one-handed, cursing under his breath that it was clumsy, but at the top he threw himself over and rolled to his knees, somehow not losing the blade. A dozen silhouettes swarmed beside him as the others climbed onto the parapet. He bellowed a command to hurry. Next time, if there was a next time, James thought, he would use—
But then there was no more time for thinking. A guard threw down his crossbow and fumbled for his sword. James thrust from his knees. It was a bad position to thrust from, but it went through mail and muscle. The man gripped the blade with both hands as James jerked it free and wrenched himself to his feet. He started to finish the man and then realized he was already dead. James kicked the body out of the way, and it tumbled from the parapet walk onto the ground.
“Clear the parapet!” James shouted and ran for the barbican.
“Pour la ville ! Dreux!” a voice rang out.
/> Two guards came bursting from the door of the barbican, side by side, swords in their hands. James ducked a wild slash from one as he hacked across the others’ leg, laying it bare to the bone. Then the guard shrieked. As he went down, arms flailing, James spun to face the second man with his sword raised. Iain scythed his sword in a wide swing and raked the guard deep across the throat.
James slapped his shoulder and shouted, “Come wi’ me!” He raced down the narrow stairs with his squire at his back. A crossbowman poked his head out from behind a building and got a quarrel off before he ducked back again. James heard shouts and fighting behind on the parapet. When the crossbowman reappeared, he got another quarrel off before an arrow took him in the chest. He fell backwards and was still.
Then a dozen men-at-arms boiled out from a turn in the street. James heard the sergeant shout. Down the stairs, the English troops poured, blades in hand. A couple of arrows arched in the air.
James shouted, “Help me with this gate.” It was a simple one, iron studded, thick as a man’s arm is long, wide enough for a large wagon and fastened with two massive oak bars. They heaved together to lift the first. Another quarrel thudded above their heads as the bar crashed to the ground. James grunted as he hefted one end of the second while Iain hauled the first out of the way. James grabbed the hasp and began to pull the gate open. Shouts came from outside, and men-at-arms ran to push from the other side until the gates of Dreux were wide open.
Shouting, “For St. George and King Henry!” Humphrey of Gloucester thundered past him, his crimson, gold and blue banner rippling overhead as he raced toward the fight. A hundred knights and men-at-arms rode behind him, dawn’s light flashing off their armor. The guards and some knights and a few merchants were shouting, “Yield! Mercy!” as they threw down their swords and pikes.
A King Ensnared, A Historical Novel of Scotland (The Stewart Chronicles Book 1) Page 21