‘I can never tell what you’re thinking,’ said the King, and studied the heavily handsome face.
‘I was thinking, truth to tell, of the old days. Do you remember when we robbed those merchants in Chepe? And the woman …’
Harry said quietly: ‘Those days only existed in another, bad life. We can only go through this new life with pure hearts. Have you made confession?’
‘His Grace the Bishop of Winchester himself gave me absolution.’ (And it took the best part of a day, Humphrey thought, remembering Beaufort’s severe, ambitious face.)
‘That’s good. I am glad you saw my holy tutor. Would to God you two could love one another.’
‘He’s proud,’ said Humphrey, flushing. ‘Lord Bishop he may be, but he’s Beaufort, bastard stock. Of course—’ hastily, seeing his brother’s expression—‘Lady Swynford was so beautiful, none could blame my grandsire Gaunt. Would I had known such a lady.’ He spoke sincerely, fascinated by the legend of Swynford’s body and wiles.
‘The Beauforts are our cousins by blood,’ said Harry. ‘They deserve honour.’
And, thought Humphrey, how dearly they would love their ramps on England’s throne! Had not King Richard, when he legitimized them, made the proviso that no Beaufort should ever lay claim on the crown we should have had risings from that family. He stared out to sea again.
‘The tide is almost right.’
The last contingent of lords and principal commanders was climbing aboard: Sir Gilbert Umfraville, Sir John Cornwall; the King’s cousin, the Duke of York, the Earl of Oxford, the veteran knight Sir John Greyndon, Sir Thomas Erpingham, a dozen others. Behind them came the armourer with a heavy pile of breastplates, helped by another man.
‘Who’s that, behind Allbright Mailmaker?’ Harry squinted through sunlight. ‘With the black eye-patch?’
‘Davy Gam,’ said Humphrey. ‘Davydd ap Llewellyn ap Hywel. Glyn Dwr’s kinsman.’
‘So it is. Glyn Dwr died last year, didn’t he?’
‘So men say.’ Humphrey laughed. ‘They say he flew in the shape of a golden kestrel into the mountains. That the Devil came for him and was outsmarted. That his body lies incorruptible in his meadhall, with a sorceress crooning over it. They say …’
‘I only asked if he were dead.’ Harry touched the scar on his cheek. ‘May he rest easy, wherever he is, the brave old fox!’
He did not wish to think of death. For a moment his eyes relinquished the bright harbour. His nostrils recalled his father’s rotting body. He heard the spectral voice: ‘Go with God, my son. Conquer. Then build the walls of Jerusalem against the Infidel.’ It was then that he had felt the shame of his wasted youth and promise. He had eaten his father’s sins that day; had felt buried under the weight of future atonement.
Another silent wave of prayer swept him. God, I am thy servant, not my father’s. All that I accomplish shall be to thy glory. A cynical inner voice cut through: And to yours, Harry? When you bring France to England, when you harvest the rewards? You, with your crown in pawn for this foray? This is bad luck, to forecast victory. God! I have upheld thy Church, I have hounded the Lollards. Even my loved old friend, Sir John Oldcastle, I imprisoned for heresy and sentenced to the burning death. Some hated me for it; they called me the Priests’ Prince. They did not know my gladness in secret when Oldcastle escaped the Tower and fled to Wales. They did not know my heart when Badby the Evesham tailor was burned in chains. They do not know how I am torn.
He had stood so close to the blazing tun that the heat had scorched his own face, pleading with Badby to recant. The tailor’s feet and ankles were already burned. ‘Badby,’ he had cried: ‘I will pardon you!’ At this the executioners had loosened the victim’s chains and dragged him from the fire where he lay at Harry’s feet.
‘Say after me the Bread is Christ’s Body! Christ is incarnate in my confessor!’
And Badby, still conscious despite his roasted flesh, said clearly: ‘The bread is bread. The priest is only a man.’
‘I will give you threepence a day for life,’ said Harry wildly, ‘if you recant!’
Badby had managed a tortured smile.
‘I cannot deny Wyclif’s logic,’ he whispered. ‘In God’s Name, how could Christ have eaten His own flesh at the Last Supper?’
In conscience it could not be let to pass. The flames had been doused, so there was the grotesquely painful business of kindling fresh faggots, of retrieving the hot chains to bind poor Badby anew. Grimly Harry had watched to the end, and later, sick at heart, had paid his own chaplains to sing Badby to redemption.
This I did for you, God, and will do again to my best and dearest, should they offend thy Church. So let me be favoured with a safe passage, a holy victory, peace. Let me build the walls of Jerusalem and heal the Schism. One Pope at Avignon and one at Rome is heresy in itself. There must be only one Vicar of Christ after I have conquered France.
Humphrey does not understand the cause. John of Bedford is content to rule in London in my stead. Thomas of Clarence is out primarily for spoil. He invaded Maine, found Burgundy and Armagnac alike ready to parler, yet stripped the chapel of Bruges and took the golden Cross containing the Nail … Sacrilege.
Harry, said the inner voice wearily. That was warrior’s bounty! Are you so saintly and greedless? He almost said aloud: I am the weakest and most sinful of all. But I will brook no sacrilege. And I can atone. The four-and-twenty bedesmen singing continually at Windsor will protect my soul, doubly soiled. Through my own excesses and through my father’s usurpation and his murder of Richard. Richard lies in magnificence at Westminster, and weighs on me like iron. Only, God, give me victory, to be shared by dear friends.
A stab at his heart in the radiant afternoon among the lovely painted ships. Dear friends are not here to share my moment. Already I am betrayed.
In his Council chamber at Porchester, not long before this embarkation, had knelt before him Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, whom King Richard had named as heir to the throne. He was a weak cowardly man with neither wish nor chance to claim his inheritance. His fear of Henry had proved less than his fear of conspiracy discovered. He had come to reveal an assassination plot and uprising. Stuttering with fright, he had implicated Richard of Conisburgh of the House of York, Earl of Cambridge, and Thomas Grey, and Henry, Lord Scrope, three prominent members of the Council.
‘Even the Lollards are involved,’ March had said in a glassy whisper. ‘And the false mummet in Scotland, who so resembles King Richard … they used me, Sire. They threatened me …’ He had gibbered, crawling on the floor.
He could not answer. His heart had pounded as if he had been running in Windsor forest, outstripping a deer as he had often done, then bringing it down bare-handed. And so he had been running, through a forest of illusion and deceit, for months, years. Scrope. Henry Scrope. How many nights had he fallen asleep in the great bed at Coldharbour, in the warmth of Scrape’s arms?
March had gabbled on.
‘The false mummet is Maudelyn, a chaplain. The rebels call themselves King Richard’s Nurslings, and openly flaunt the White Hart.’
‘Is Scrope the ringleader?’ He was staring at some horses and saints on a wall-hanging. They were one vast shine of grief.
‘He initiated everything. He’s sworn to have you dead.’
He loved me. He remembered standing beside his mother’s bier. She loved me, and left me. I was lonely; until Henry Scrope came to court, and held me close of nights, warm and laughing and loving. Many the time he comforted me, swam with me along the evil current of my dreams until their power was done and I slept in tranquillity. He could have killed me then. Better if he had.
‘If you are lying, I’ll hang you and burn your heart,’ he had said quietly to the Earl of March.
‘Would I lie?’ March wept. ‘Act now, for they are already well arrayed.’
He bade March rise, pardoned him, and summoned an armed party. The rebels were hunted down, though Maudelyn continued to hide b
ehind the Scottish border. A bitter irony made Harry appoint March one of the principal peers to preside at the rebels’ trial. Richard of Conisburgh and Grey were beheaded, but Scrope was hanged and his bowels burned before his eyes. This, too, Harry had watched to the end. Afterwards he had kept to his chamber alone for three days, emerging gaunt and distant and changed.
‘The tide is right, Master Thomas is waiting.’
The small voice now gave him ghostly comfort. You were right, Harry. Perish your enemies; you acted like a king. And yet … would to God that Scrope stood beside me now, smiling, loving the look of the gilded vessels, his arm about my neck. Even Elmham, my chaplain, seems now to be part of the past, admiring me not for my piety but for my roguish lusts … I have only my brothers. My friends are gone.
He said, without thinking: ‘Was it all lies? Henry Scrope hated the Lollards. He was most devout.’ And Humphrey, overhearing, said uneasily: ‘Harry, don’t … Carpe diem.’
Yes. To live for the day … and then he saw, approaching, a young ascetic face, a good face, wise, attached to a long form in episcopal robes, and knew that there were friends left after all.
‘His Grace my Lord Richard Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich,’ announced an attendant clerk. The last of the ships arrived, falling to astern of the King’s Chamber and striking her flag in honour of the sovereign.
‘Your Grace is truly welcome aboard,’ said Henry. The Bishop’s pale young face smiled.
‘Sire, I’ve brought the copies of your will.’ Courtenay was one of the executors. Harry had forgotten none, not even his old nursemaid, Joan Waring, frail and senile. The Bishop’s benign eyes studied and comforted him.
‘You have fair omens, Sire,’ he said. He pointed upwards. A flock of swans was circling the swaying masts. Moving closer, he said softly: ‘It will be a good enterprise, Harry my son.’ And as if he read his recent doubts: ‘See. All your friends are here.’
He looked then, at a contingent of the men, not all of them familiar to him, but all sharing his cause and intent, from John Greyndon, knight, to Allbright Mailmaker. John Corbyn, Sergeant of the King’s Tents and Pavilions. Thomas Morestede and William Bradwardyn, surgeons. John Waterton, esquire, Master of the King’s Horse, and Robert Waterton, King’s valet. Nicol Harewode, Clerk of the Stable, William Heryot, page and messenger of the King’s Chamber. John Feriby, Clerk of the Wardrobe. Master Esmon Lacy, Dean of the King’s Chapel. John Burnell and John Mildenhale, chaplains. Friars Alain Hert and John Brotherton; and the minstrels: John Cliff, Thomas Norys Tromper, Richard Pyper, Snaith Fidler and William Halliday. Many, many more. Davydd Gam’s one bright eye caught his own in fearless, half-challenging amusement. The Welsh had come to him, and he was glad. Behind Gam he noticed an outstandingly handsome youth. Bright hair, strong shoulders, very straight back. Useful in a bowman.
Again he surveyed the fleet, knew of the hundreds of war horses and ponies tethered uneasily below, and to the last detail, the vast armaments carried: three iron guns twelve feet in length: the London, the Messenger, and, in tribute to the yet unseen princess, the King’s Daughter, each capable of hurling five hundred pounds of shot. For two years, smiths at Bristol had been at work on these siege guns. There were also mangonels, arblasts and battering-rams, the most sophisticated devices of war that money could buy.
According to the Assize of Arms, each knight was allocated his full armour, helm, sword, knife and horse, and contracted to provide a force and muster it before the Exchequer, according to his wealth and ingenuity. Yet it was the bowmen who were beyond price, with their weapons of yew, hazel, ash or elm; the longbow and shortbow and crossbow, barbed, bodkin-tipped or forked, each discharge capable of covering three hundred yards and weakening the most heavily armoured cavalryman. Some arrows could pierce a four-inch wooden door.
There were pages, grooms, guides, mounted hobelars who could be used as scurriers and spies; smiths, armourers, painters and tent-makers, fletchers, carpenters, bowyers and masons. Wheelwrights, cordwainers, saddlers, quartermasters and farriers. Trumpeters, surgeons, chaplains. Hundreds of them above and below decks on the coloured ships. Officials of wardrobe and buttery, pantry, napery and spicery. Royal heralds: Leicester, Guienne, and Ireland King at Arms. Antelope Pursuivant and Chester Herald. Four master gunners, all experienced Dutchmen. These men and these armaments, together with the personal reputation he took aboard, blew away the King’s doubt. This was his army, his friends. The swans flew rings above the craft, and Bishop Courtenay’s eyes blessed him in silence. My reign began in snow, he thought, the worst blizzard for many years. It comes to the full in gold … he swayed a little on his feet, and Courtenay steadied him.
‘Have you eaten lately?’
‘Yes, I’ve eaten.’
‘It is possible,’ said the Bishop seriously, ‘to mortify the flesh when there is no cause.’
Humphrey of Gloucester laughed.
‘Your Grace, sometimes the King forgets to eat.’
This was not strictly true, but in the light of his new asceticism he had discovered that he could go sometimes for days without food or wine and often without sleep. He had thrown himself into the past months of preparation with a fanatical energy; few could match his pace.
‘We must take wine before we sail,’ Henry said to the Bishop. Humphrey called over his shoulder at the massed henchmen: ‘Wine here!’ It was ready in its flagon, on a silver salver with goblets, but there were so many waiting to do the King’s will that their very number resulted in confusion and for an instant no one moved.
‘Will none serve the King?’ demanded Gloucester, and laughed, somewhat irritably.
Davy Gam was standing near to the salver. He whispered in Owen’s ear: ‘Chance, boy! Take it! It’ll never come again!’ and instantly Owen took the heavy silver into his hands, poured without fault three goblets of rich redness and bore steadily forward tray and flagons and wine without a drop spilled, and knelt at the King’s feet. Harry looked down to see the sun ripen on the bent head. Somehow the clean light look of Owen cheered him even more than the sight of the ships or the swans.
‘To victory,’ he said.
Courtenay said, ‘Amen,’ and they drank.
For the first time in months Owen thought of Hywelis, and his future on her moonlit dreaming lips. Greatness, some day … vague. He would not wear out his welcome in this precious moment. Quietly he rose and backed away. Greatness? … the rest of her words had been forgotten. What he remembered best was his experience of her body, and even that was dimming, overlaid by similar escapades during the past months in England and dwarfed by the intoxication of the real adventure to come. He hoped no harm had befallen her, he wished her well, and presently forgot her.
‘I see your stepmother comes to bid you bon voyage,’ said the Bishop to Henry.
In the quay they could see the pinched white face of Queen Joanna of Navarre. She sat very still on a black horse; she was surrounded by priests, come to pray for the fleet. Harry was surprised. There was no love lost between them and since his father’s death she had been even more distant. She had always disapproved of him. He thought: to her, as well as to God, I will prove how I can amend. I will mantle England in glory …
‘We will sail,’ he said. Humphrey of Gloucester signalled to the master. A bright thrill of clarions sounded. The flagship’s mainsail was hoisted to half-mast, its ascent noted aboard each of the fifteen hundred ships, to the harbour mouth where the Earl of Dorset, as Admiral, prepared to lead out the convoy. The wind was right. The sails began to fill, and quickly the gap between the leading craft and her followers lengthened. A cheer arose from the people on the quay, drowning the chant of prayer from Queen Joanna’s priests.
Suddenly aboard one of the ships, a Dutch vessel procured at great cost, an unguarded brazier tipped with the lurch of the deck. Fire poured on to the wooden boards. With incredible speed, pitch and paint and timber ignited. A sheet of flame whipped up the sails and, fanned by the wind, devoured
tarry ropes, canvas and wood in seconds. Blazing, the topmast crashed across the deck of the vessel alongside. Men were running with their clothes on fire, jumping overboard; from below decks came the screams of terrified horses. The men aboard the King’s Chamber watched in horror. Overhead the swans, distressed by the pitchy smoke, wheeled and flew out to sea.
Dry-tongued, Henry whispered: ‘Jesu, sweet Jesu. It will spread.’
The Bishop’s voice calmed him. ‘No, my son. Look, they have it mastered already.’
Brave men stayed on the burning ships, throwing smouldering timbers overboard, dousing the blaze with a constant stream of water passed in buckets from hand to hand. Harry watched, silent, his eyes large with anxiety. In the flame he saw Badby’s tormented face. The little voice within him said, Harry, you have roasted a man for his beliefs. And his mind answered unequivocally: Yes. And men could gladly burn me for my belief that this expedition will succeed. This knowledge is my rock. Badby, you were my sacrifice to God; whose cause this is.
The fire was quenched, almost as swiftly as it had begun. The swans returned, flying above the fleet as it set forth, on a bright wind, to France.
Owen stared at the town of Harfleur and thought it lovely and impregnable as a comely nun, with its two and a half miles of crenellated wall reflected in a deep moat. There were twenty-six towers along the wall, embellished with figures painted blue and gold; lions, dragons, sails, birds. Behind these, more towers crowned with tiny high turrets and golden spires curved like a nun’s wimple falling softly into her neck. Harfleur specialized in weaving, dyeing and ship-building, and despite her fairy-tale appearance, was heavily fortified.
The fleet had anchored in the mouth of the Seine estuary off the Chef de Caux. ‘Kidcocks’, the army called it. Harfleur was the King’s choice for the invasion. The French expected him to strike at Boulogne. Flemish troops kept guard from Nieuport to Sluys. And although Bordeaux was an English possession, it would have been folly to strike at the Seine valley or south-western France without a firm foothold in Normandy itself. From Harfleur he planned to force deep into the country’s heart, to Paris herself. He had that day celebrated the Feast of the Assumption. The pavilions had been set up, latched with gleaming embroideries, and the priests had prayed for all the troops to hear; for England’s victory, and for the prosperity of all Henry’s subjects, English and French, for to him France and all within her territory were already his.
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