“Portsman Jack cursed the absence, my lady,” William said. “We can’t count on such luck today.”
I sighed, accepting the fickleness of the weather without too much resentment. The rainy summer had put water in the ditches at Dover, which had allowed me to dispense with Lee, so I could hardly complain that it wasn’t going to come through for me on all occasions. Besides, before I’d been crowned King of England, a storm had saved Wales from domination by a rogue alliance of Norman barons, led by William de Valence. It would be unfair to expect divine intervention twice.
“Where’s Edmund Mortimer?” I said.
“The riders who went in search of him have not yet returned, sire,” William said. “If he was in Herefordshire like my father, as last we heard, it will take days to reach him there, and more time for them to return.”
I nodded, accepting the truth of William’s words. It would do no good to curse the fact that an earthquake hadn’t brought Mortimer’s castle a hundred and fifty miles closer to Dover overnight.
Within another few minutes, William had armed me. Lili walked with me to the door, and I kissed her goodbye. “Be safe,” she said.
“Always,” I said.
We didn’t discuss the fact that we spoke the same words to each other every time I left, but no king could lead his men into battle and remain safe. That was the reality of war in the Middle Ages. I was facing death for the fourth time in four days.
Chapter Twenty-seven
A force of two thousand men, including my two hundred archers, marched towards Hythe. While my cavalry and I could reach it in two or three hours at worst, fewer than five hours was probably pushing it for those on foot. At least in this case, we had no baggage—it was a straight shot down the road as quickly as we could travel. We would worry about food and supplies once we knew what we were facing.
The Archdeacon of Canterbury, one Richard de Ferings, had a castle and church at Lympne, two miles to the northwest of Hythe. He might find himself descended upon tonight by me and more men than he thought he could feed. Given how things had gone back in Canterbury, however, I assumed he wouldn’t complain about it or feel he had anyone he could complain to, barring Pope Boniface himself.
Since the incident with Lee, I’d almost forgotten about my dispute with the pope. It was odd to think that two days ago I thought I could—and needed to—put my concerns about Lee on the back burner. At least, with the French spies locked in the basement, I had their testimony to fall back on when it came time for negotiations with Philip and the pope. I had every intention of putting both Archbishop Romeyn and Geoffrey de Geneville to good use as my ambassadors. For once, I’d have gravitas on my side.
The sun was well up by the time we rode from the cliffs at Dover, keeping to the high ground more than three hundred feet above sea level. The sick pit of tension in my stomach drove me forward, and all of us kept our eyes on the sea to the southeast, straining to see the sails of the French fleet and praying we would reach Hythe before the French did.
We didn’t.
And what’s more, it didn’t matter.
We approached the town, still on the high ground, and came to a complete halt. At the top of the ridge, with still a half-mile to go to the beach, we could see sails in the distance off shore, but they weren’t coming inland to join the handful of ships that had already landed. I pulled out my binoculars and stared through them until the men around me grew impatient with my sudden stillness and silence.
Finally, Clare said, “What is it? What’s happening?”
I scanned up and down the beach. All along it, men, women, and even children mingled, while others worked to lay out dead men in rows. There must have been at least a hundred dead on one section of the beach, while a smaller number—perhaps two dozen—had been laid together fifty yards closer to the town.
As I watched, one man stabbed a flagpole, with a French flag flying from it, into the sand and set it alight—to match the three others that were already burning farther down the beach. The people seemed completely unconcerned about the French ships that remained in the Channel.
At first I gaped, speechless, and couldn’t answer the men, and then I laughed. “See for yourself.” I handed the binoculars to Clare. “The army we brought appears surplus to requirements. Portsman Jack Butcher of Dover is going to be very, very happy that he was right.”
I spurred my horse. Clare was slow to respond, since he’d been looking through my binoculars. I would have thought he’d have acquired his own by now, but maybe they were in the bottom of his saddle bags. Regardless, he and my other companions caught up to me quickly.
I led the cavalry down the hill and through the town of Hythe. Not a single person came out to greet us, not surprising since the entire village was on the beach. Five minutes later, we spilled out onto the wide sand—flags flying, armor glinting in the sunlight—into a fight that had already been won.
Three French galleys—large, well-built, and empty—had been pulled up onto the sands. Englishmen swarmed over them, some passing items to other men and women who’d made a path through the shallow water from the ships to a stash of goods that was piling up a few yards above the high water mark.
At first nobody noticed us, and then a man in a hat with a flamboyant white feather raised his hand above his head and waved. “The king! The king is here!”
As one, the people on the beach stopped what they were doing, turned to look at us, and sent up an enormous cheer, complete with hats tossed into the air in jubilation. I shook my head in wonder. The dead men on the beach weren’t English fisher folk. Uniforms tended to be haphazardly worn in the Middle Ages, but I could tell the difference between the villagers’ attire and that of the dead French soldiers.
The man in the white-feathered hat was surrounded by a half-dozen sweaty but grinning men, all of whom stepped forward to greet me. “Sire, I am Portsman Tom Gurney, baron of Hythe Cinque Port.”
I leaned forward, crossing my forearms and resting them on my thigh. “What has happened here, Portsman?” I could figure out for myself that they’d defeated the French, of course, as unlikely as it seemed, but the man had a story to tell and deserved the right to tell it.
Tom’s eyes lit from within. “The French came, sire, and we slaughtered them.”
I gazed at him for a second and then lifted my head to look to where the French fleet was still visible offshore. The ships seemed farther away than they’d been when my army had been standing on the hills above Hythe. It could have been the result of the change in perspective, but it also could be that the French army had seen what had happened to the men they’d sent in first, noticed my army’s arrival, and thought better of the whole endeavor.
Then a horn call echoed across the water. I sat up straighter, my eyes searching to see who’d blown it and afraid I’d been wrong about the French. It wasn’t until I stood in the stirrups that I could see beyond the curve of the land into the eastern Channel: our ships—both Cinque Port and Royal Navy—were moving into position.
Then an answering call came from the west, and my heart lifted again. Portsman Tom whooped, finally tossing his hat into the air in his exuberance. Our fleet was sailing towards Hythe from both directions, hemming the French fleet in. Philip had two choices now: land and fight or retreat back to France.
Even as I watched, multiple flashes followed by the boom of cannon fire came from several of my ships that were closest to the French fleet. Cannons were new to medieval warfare (thanks to the technology I’d brought from Avalon), and I didn’t know how effective they were really going to be, but their very existence could put the finishing touches on the French defeat.
I found myself grinning. Dismounting, I moved towards Tom, who’d retrieved his hat and now swept it off his head again in a bow. I waved aside his obeisance and clasped his forearm man to man.
“I think you’d better tell your story from the beginning,” I said.
Tom relished the telling of the tale, first
on the beach to me, in the company of the men (and women) who’d fought beside him, and then again in the assembly building for the Cinque Port where they put on a feast, one like I hadn’t seen outside of Winchester Castle, to celebrate the victory.
“We had word, of course,” Tom began, “that the French were coming. Me and my boys got together right there and then in this hall last night to decide what to do about it. Some of the men put to sea immediately, and others went up on the bluff to watch and wait. The rain held off, with clear skies, which we took to be a sign of God’s blessing on our endeavor. Though there was no moon, the stars were bright.”
“We were there too, Tom!” A young woman spoke up from the left of the dais where Tom was telling his story. She looked to be in her early twenties, tall and slender, with her blonde hair wound into a knot at the back of her head. She wore breeches, as did half the women in the room. Lili and Bronwen would have been pleased to see it.
Tom pointed at her. “You were, Rosalind, and I was remiss not to mention it. Times have changed.”
“And for the better!” An older woman, who wore a dress and apron, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted up to the front.
“I can’t argue with that, can I?” Tom said. “Seeing as how my own wife skewered a Frenchie all on her own.” He turned to look at the woman in question, who’d been sitting on the dais beside him. She, along with many in the room, both men and women, nodded their heads. Now I really wished Lili and Bronwen were here.
Tom cleared his throat. “If I could continue without any more interruptions—”
“—they’re just setting you straight, Tom.” This time it was a middle-aged man who spoke. He had a paunch and a self-satisfied look on his bearded face.
Tom flapped a hand at him before launching into the rest of his story. “When John Goodbody came flying back to port with news that the French were headed across the Channel, we knew it was us they was coming to see, not Dover, Folkstone, or Dungeness. We were ready, glad it was us and not them.”
Again, there were nods all around, and I couldn’t blame them for being proud. They’d done a great deed and deserved all the accolades that would be heaped upon them in the coming days and weeks. The Hythe casualties—mostly men but a few women too—had been laid in state in the nave of the Hythe Church. Earlier, before the dinner, the entire town and all of my men had filed past the dead in a long, solemn column to pay our respects.
“We got ourselves set—men hidden in the sands—” Tom held up a hand to forestall the protests before they could start, “I’m callin’ ‘em men but there were women among them too. When you’re a soldier, you’re all my men.”
The various women in the audience subsided, evidently mollified.
“—more on the bluff above. We’ve archers too, some good boys and girls among them, and we watched and waited for them Frenchies to hit the beach. We were lucky they sent only a few boats to start, to scout out the situation—”
“Don’t call it luck, Tom.” The same middle-aged man spoke and then stood up. “It was good policy on the French’s part. They didn’t know what they were walking into, and they were smart enough not to commit their whole fleet without knowing what they were up against.” He looked at me. “Our king knows a thing or two about fighting. We could have lined that beach with munitions like’s been done along the Severn.”
I nodded my head gravely. “They were offered to you.”
“We didn’t want them going off accidently,” the man said. What he didn’t say was that maybe they hadn’t quite trusted their new upstart king as yet.
“I understood that even at the time, and as it turned out, your own defenses were more than adequate.”
The man nodded his head gravely at me. “Will Thompson, at your service, sire. I’m the chief watchman for Hythe.”
“I’m glad you know your business, Will,” I said.
Will bowed again before gesturing to Tom that he should continue.
“Well, the Frenchies landed,” Tom said somewhat huffily at having been interrupted yet again. “Only twenty men disembarked first. We let them set up a perimeter, knowing that our archers were going to take them out first. Then the rest decided they could follow. We hid in the sand until nearly all two hundred were on the beach. They lit two torches to let the rest of the fleet know they could come in. We let them, though we were worried about how big their army was.”
More nods all around. None interrupted now, however. They were reliving the scene, breaths held. I could tell how touch-and-go the victory had been. The people of Hythe had had only a short timeframe in which to attack the advance party before they would have had to deal with the whole fleet.
“The light ruined their night vision, o’ course. We could see them, and they couldn’t see us,” Tom said. “The archers on the bluff shot one volley to disable the outer sentries, and then we moved.”
Silence fell in the hall. It would have been the first time many—if not most—of them had seen battle or killed a man. It wasn’t something any of them would ever forget, and the story of the victory at Hythe would live on, perhaps for centuries.
I rose to my feet and said gently, “How many men did you have on the beach, Tom?”
“Everyone we could muster. We had two hundred on the bluff, and five hundred on the beach,” he said.
“Enough.” I lifted my cup of beer. “To the people of Hythe.”
“To us!” came the answering toast.
“To those who fell in sacrifice to our way of life.” I raised my cup again.
The answer this time was a silent lifting of cups, grave nods, and a draining of drink.
Then Tom raised his cup one more time and called out. “We taught them Frenchies a lesson!”
“Hear! Hear!”
I drank with my new friends, happy to celebrate tonight’s victory, even if I’d played no role in it.
Tomorrow I would return to Canterbury. There was one more thing I had to do.
Chapter Twenty-eight
As at our previous meeting, Archbishop Romeyn ushered me into the receiving room at Canterbury Palace. I’d wanted to come every day for the last week, but Cardinal Acquasparta had taken a turn for the worse and hadn’t been able to receive me. It was just as well. My time had been spent seeing to the aftermath of the battle at Hythe and the destruction of Canterbury—as well as conferring with my advisers.
They’d spent the whole of this week counseling me against one course of action or another in my dealings with the Church. I had leverage, now, to use against Acquasparta, Philip, and the pope. We had the testimony of the French spies, which gave us all the evidence we needed of a broad conspiracy stretching from Ireland to Italy. There was no need for a confrontation when all I had to do was suggest to Acquasparta that I knew of his involvement. At worst, I could send Romeyn to Italy and have him threaten to reveal to the world who was really behind the destruction of Canterbury Castle and the attack on Hythe. Lee may have destroyed Canterbury, and the French king had attacked my shores, but all these events could be laid at Acquasparta’s feet.
If I did that, the pope would back off. He’d have no choice.
I could simply let it happen. It was the medieval way of doing things.
After the incident with the heretic, I’d controlled my anger in front of my subjects because I hadn’t wanted to expend it on the innocent. I’d been busy this last week, so I hadn’t been cooling my heels, exactly, but it was probably for the best that I’d cooled my temper. After the castle had fallen, it was in Peckham’s own courtyard that I’d been reduced to a trembling wreck by the attack on my family, and it was better to have that memory less fresh in my mind now that it was time to talk to Acquasparta.
And though Acquasparta was far from innocent, he was ill with abdominal cancer. Rachel couldn’t diagnose the type more specifically without surgery, but his end would be far more painful and severe than any punishment I could devise for him.
“Sire!” Peckham
bent his head gracefully and rose to his feet, more steadily than when I’d last seen him.
Acquasparta, who’d been standing by the fire with a cup in his hand, turned to me too. I’d confirmed by back channels (i.e. Aaron) before I came that he was out of bed and had been assured that today was one of his better days. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d been too ill to see me. It would have been frustrating to be all fired up with nowhere to go, like at Hythe, for all that I was happy we’d won that battle with little loss of English life.
“King David.” Acquasparta inclined his head. “I trust you are well.”
“Yes, thank you. I am pleased to see you on your feet.”
“Today is a good day,” Acquasparta said. “We’ve had so few of them recently.”
“Hopefully the coming days and weeks will see only improvement,” I said.
Acquasparta smiled in that superior and self-satisfied way he had. “I understand that plans are already underway to rebuild Canterbury Castle.”
“Indeed.” I just managed not to gape at him. I couldn’t believe he could so calmly mention that which he’d had a hand in destroying.
“And I believe congratulations are in order as well,” Acquasparta said. “All applaud that you managed to defeat King Philip’s fleet with so little loss of life.”
“The people of Hythe are to be credited with that achievement,” I said, “but I accept your compliments on their behalf.”
Acquasparta moved to one of the ornate chairs and sat with a sigh. It was rude of him, actually, to sit before me. Peckham hastily gestured that I should take the chair opposite. I waved him off, moving instead to the side table to refill my cup of wine. It didn’t actually need a refill, since I’d taken only a few sips, but I was giving myself time to think. I couldn’t believe that Acquasparta could speak of Canterbury Castle and Hythe with such aplomb.
I looked over at the cardinal, studying his drawn face. Despite his illness, he still managed to look at me with superiority and a hint of disdain.
Warden of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book 8) Page 22