‘How does the army suit you, Master Owen?’
(He knows my name.) ‘Well, your Grace.’ (Save that I’m always hungry, dirty, wet and bored to death with this trundling march north. Where are the battles we were promised?)
‘What rank are you? Archer?’
‘Horse-archer now, Sire.’
‘A hobelar? Your horse is unarmoured?’
‘Yes. Six pence a day, Sire.’
‘You are rich, Owen.’ The half-smile grew to genuine humour. ‘I may ask for a loan.’
‘All I have is yours, my liege.’
Henry laughed at the smooth earnest face. The laugh died instantly under a fiery stab in his bowels. He said, in a voice terse with pain: ‘Play then, man.’ Owen’s mind raced like a rat. What song? Then a voice so clear that he almost jerked about to see who stood close, said to his mind: He is sick. Soothe him.
Glyn Dwr at his most troubled had sought solace in his own composition, dedicated to the one Englishman he had loved. Sweet Richard. The victim of this troubled man’s father. Politically a bad choice, perhaps, but a melody par excellence. So be it.
The minor cadences glided from his fingers and his lips carried with them the valley-breeze, the voice of the stream, a bright tune played on little flints, the ravine’s mournful echo, the song of the whitethroat watching midnight lovers; the cry of Wales, of kings, and lordlings, all powerful, all mortal, all equal. The last note fell like the eagle’s dying wings. Feathered with love and artistry, the song lay spread for judgement. Owen looked up to see the King’s head averted and moisture on his thin cheek.
After a time, Henry said: ‘It was well done. I have a mind to send you to the minstrels. Snaith Fidler needs a prentice.’
The plaintive elegy stayed with him. He could see again Richard’s face, knighting the young Harry on one of their Irish campaigns. Later Henry Bolingbroke had knighted his son a second time as if to eliminate the taint of the rival’s hand. Now, hearing the sweet requiem, some of the torn loyalties were healed, some of the guilt assuaged. Then he saw that Owen was downcast.
‘Sire … it is a great honour, but I would rather make war than merely trumpet for it.’
‘So be it. Now, more music.’
Owen chose a psalm, and the King joined voice, tuneful, monkishly intoned within the hollow of his face.
‘You are devout?’ he asked when it was done.
‘As the next man, Sire.’ He answered very low.
Holy, disposed to war, and filled with the sounds I love. Young and shining too, his physical beauty undimmed even by these rugged days … he is my own youth, he is all beloved young men. He is Henry Scrope before his fall. An urge stirred. It would be so easy to take Owen, harp and all, into his arms, to bury care against the tanned smooth throat. He drew a harsh breath, and it was over. It was only tenderness, he told himself, and that’s no sin; to want to bring Owen back to England whole and triumphant with all the others so eager to be chosen for these hazardous times. No sin in wishing to preserve beauty, health, or to abhor the image of beauty spoiled by the battle that must come before the winter. He decided he must find some position for Owen more defined than that of a mere horse-archer. If not in the minstrel troupe then in some capacity of value. It would need thought, and the time was not ripe. The climate among his own servants was for the most part known to him; they would consider Owen, not even an esquire, a rank upstart were he shown favour. The reverie went on. Through growing shadows Owen sat on, wondering. He had the uncomfortable feeling of watching at a corpse-side. His fingers trembled; the harp gave out a discordant twang.
‘Yes, play again,’ said the King distantly. Eyes, face, were dissolving in the gloom and all the last light seemed retained by Owen’s fairness.
‘I can scarcely see, Sire,’ he said.
‘Something more in Welsh; a saga, a story.’
‘They are mortally long, your Grace. Hours they take. I can’t do them honour, risking interruption.’ He felt his face flush. Disobedience. Made bold by new nervousness, he said: ‘And there is a lovely one that your Grace would enjoy when there is time. I can sing of Arthur’s cousin who was without sin, chaste as flowers and noble as a singing mountain …’
The King moved slightly, his gown rasped in the near-darkness. He said: ‘And what did this chaste knight?’
‘He found the Great Boar. He confounded the fiercest giant in the world. He withstood all taunts …’
‘He was taunted?’ The voice was suddenly strong. ‘His lineage and right were questioned?’
‘Indeed, Sire!’ There was nothing of the sort in the legend, but these things could and should be tailored for the listener, depending on the interpretative genius of the bard. Had the creators of many such stories been living, they would not have recognized their work.
‘They were mad, who taunted him,’ said Henry softly.
‘Indeed, Sire.’
‘And this Knight—had he not always been chaste? He had revelled, and repented?
Owen thought quickly. Rhetoric was familiar to him; he had often played instinctively on Glyn Dwr’s whims.
‘He had been rash in youth. Thus he shone more brightly against the darkness of his past.’ And he bit his lip, and held his breath.
‘It is well,’ said the King deeply.
‘And he conquered all,’ Owen gabbled on, feeling suddenly weary. ‘The princess, whose favour none other could attain; the giant—who was turned by the knights prowess into a little child …’
‘And the domain? The lands, the dower, the splendour? All were his by right, by force, by destiny?’ The King was now sitting vibrant and straight.
‘All, Sire,’ said Owen. He let the harp slide down, where it rested against his knees.
Henry was silent again, while his spirit surged immoderately. His emotional reflexes had been heightened by fasting to a degree of hallucination. He drowned in optimism. Tomorrow they would be pressing on to the ford at Blanche-Tâque and soon would be in Calais with provisions to spare and the French outwitted. Believing what he wished to believe, he saw Owen as sent to him by fate this night, and through the now almost total darkness projected to him a wave of marvelling, unstable love.
‘You’ve spoken well, bach,’ he said in Welsh. ‘Let us have light. Pour some wine.’
Owen lit a candle. From a side table he filled a goblet and, kneeling, served the King.
‘For you also.’
He blushed. ‘Wine is for knights, your Grace.’
‘Also for poets and comforters. Iechyd da!’
Soberly they drank and Owen felt the flush of the good wine down to the soles of his feet. What in mercy’s name have I done, other than say yes, and yes again? Behind him someone stood outside the tent, and coughed.
‘My chaplain,’ Henry said. ‘I shall pray now, and sleep.’ Then he added: ‘Tomorrow you shall ride in the main body, near to us. And later we will find work for you in our Household.’
Greatness. The beginning? Owen picked up his harp and backed from the pavilion. He made his way very slowly past canvas and campfires, and in his own quarters found John Page drowsing over pen and parchment.
‘You pleased him, then,’ he said, without looking up. ‘I believe that tomorrow he will break his fast.’
Owen, arranging his bedstraw more comfortably, raised an eyebrow.
‘News travels fast in camp,’ said Page, rolling up his poetry and settling himself for sleep.
The captured man looked like a small black-polled bird, his plumage mired where he had fallen in a bog trying to outrun his pursuers. Shrill and petulant, he spoke in an incomprehensible dialect as he was pushed forward to where the King and his advisers sat beneath a leafless tree.
‘What tongue is that?’ said Humphrey of Gloucester, frowning.
‘He speaks the langue d’oc,’ Henry said. ‘Yet I wager it’s an affectation.’ To the sergeant in charge he said: ‘Where was he found?’
‘About six miles from the river, Sir
e, by our advance guard looking for the decoy contingent from Calais. He was quite alone.’
There was a further spate of wildly fluting syllables. ‘He chatters like a jay,’ said Gloucester in disgust.
The sergeant whipped out his misericord, a short killing knife, and held it to the prisoner’s throat.
‘Speak French!’ The chattering stopped. The dark eyes showed fear.
‘Who are you, where have you come from and who is your commander?’
‘I am of Bayonne, a servant of Marshal Boucicaut. I am to report back to him at Rouen when …’ His lips closed up tight.
‘When?’ The blade moved; blood sprang, a small thick thread.
A terrible gabble: ‘When your army is slaughtered at Blanche-Tâque … the river is full of sharp stakes and Marshal Boucicaut has six thousand men there.’
Henry leaned forward.
‘You false-tongued, bragging Gascon! Boucicaut is a hundred miles south of here, at Honfleur.’ He gestured violently. ‘Take him. Behead him for his lies.’
The man’s voice became a bird’s screech of alarm.
‘No, grand seigneur! It’s the truth. Your army is doomed.’
There was silence. The sergeant put his knife away. Henry studied the Gascon for a moment. He said: ‘Let us hear all of it, then. Take him away and feed him. Bring him to me in one hour.’
Later, information poured from the badly frightened man. To the hastily summoned war council it was apparent that swiftly though the chevauchée had moved, the French had moved faster. The legend of prowess at Harfleur which had eased their passage across two rivers, through Arques and Eu, had determined the French that such success should not be repeated. Most of the noble feuds in which Henry had rejoiced were suddenly, alarmingly mended.
‘The Duke of Orléans has joined with a mighty force,’ the Gascon said rapidly. ‘Likewise the Dukes of Alençon and Bar, and the Dukes of Bourbon and Berry. They have discovered a great love and protectiveness for the realm of France.’
‘And Burgundy?’ Sir Gilbert Umfraville asked sharply.
‘Of the Duke I cannot say. But many of his knights have joined of their own volition. The Duke of Brittany, who previously would have no dealings with the campaign, has brought twelve thousand men to the service of the crown. And the Comte de Richemont. And the Comte de Nevers. And the Duke of Brabant. All well equipped. Paris has offered six thousand men in arms. Grand seigneur,’ he told Henry, ‘you now ride against an army of thirty thousand men.’
‘Bandits!’ said Humphrey of Gloucester, vicious with shock. ‘Pillagers, like birds of prey. Men who don’t know a weapon’s head from its nether end …’
‘Thirty thousand men,’ said the Gascon softly, ‘who will drown your army in the Somme and in its own blood.’
Henry said: ‘We are being watched from the northern bank?’
The black poll nodded. ‘Marshal Boucicaut joined force with Constable d’Albret when he marched east from Honfleur. All the crossings around Abbeville are destroyed. You will be driven upstream, where they will kill you.’
‘This is the truth?’ Henry’s voice was steady.
The Gascon wanted to say: as truly as all English are born with tails! but thought this too frivolous after his exposition of the English army’s doom. He had taken the heart out of them, he thought. It was enough.
‘By the sacred severed head of St Denis, it is the truth. When fate is fixed, there is no need for even a Gascon to lie. Will you now put me to the sword?’
Henry bowed slightly. ‘Go unmolested. God does not march on the side of barbarism.’ He turned to his councillors, who pressed about him, uneasy beside his strange calm.
The scouts who he sent out verified that a large force was moving towards Péronne. Parties of d’Albret’s and Boucicaut’s men were glimpsed on the north bank well in advance of the English army. Meanwhile the tide swept into the Somme, filling the Blanche-Tâque ford, covering the deathly stakes and chains with which the river had been sown. The bridge at Abbeville was no more. And still the tight detachments of men with flanking runners and outriders moved on through October’s crackling gold, with a shiver of frost and winter that struck deep within belly and bone. Sir Gilbert Umfraville again commanded the van, although temporarily out of favour.
‘We could, your Grace, return to Harfleur …’
He had been shocked at the anger in Henry’s eyes.
‘My lord, it is my intent to ride on Calais and reconnoitre there in safety. If you lack stomach for this chevauchée, there is a ship returning to England. The infirm will be on it. Join them as you please.’
Sir Gilbert had said no more.
Yet Calais fell further away as they veered south-east towards Pont Rémy and Hangest-sur-Somme in the search for a river crossing. As they passed north-west of Amiens, Calais became almost nebulous, a word, unattainable. And there was always the knowledge that their progress was watched and reported upon wherever the unseen army lay. The Picardy landscape was as deserted as the moon. Small farms from which all occupants had fled stood among stripped orchards and vineyards and empty granaries; slaughtering blocks were bloody from recently killed livestock, but the farmers had left nothing behind.
Owen rode as bidden in the King’s detachment, among unfriendly strangers, and missing the company of John Page. He had had no more contact with Henry, but Davy Gam, galloping by with news of another broken bridge, halted, his one bright eye full of mocking approval, greeting him: ‘Shwd mae!’ and: ‘Favoured then, bach. Guard the King’s Grace well.’
Owen dismounted to ease his little horse whose neck was now so thin it looked like a serpent’s. Nearby a man was eating a fistful of hazelnuts. He caught Owen’s eye and grimaced.
‘The meat is finished,’ he said bitterly, ‘and so are we.’
Owen said: ‘When we reach Calais …’
‘Calais!’ The man uttered a series of blasphemies and spat, then said, knowing and plaintive: ‘You wouldn’t have any wine, by chance? They have wine …’ nodding enviously towards the Household knights.
Owen felt lonely and confused.
When they passed through the next deserted village the command came back to burn it, first warning any inhabitants who might have remained. In the thin frosty sunshine the army left this village and the next crumbling in a sea of flame. Dried dead leaves on the vines blazed under a black pall. Thus hoping to cover its passage, the army moved dispiritedly on. At night Owen went, against orders, down the drowsy lines of men to find John Page. He found him weeping, and sorry, gave him a blessing—‘Duw bo gyda chi’, and said, ‘Don’t lose hope, John.’
‘I was thinking—’ Page wiped his nose on his sleeve—‘of the woman from Harfleur, the one I gave my meat to.’
‘You can’t have it back,’ said Owen.
‘I didn’t mean that. I hadn’t realized what a mean foe hunger really is. I pray,’ he said, his voice trembling, ‘that the Almighty will take pity on his unfortunates. All of them. That the glorious Virgin will mediate for us …’
Owen, sicker and sadder than ever, went back to his place.
Onward north-west of Amiens, through Crouy and Picquigny the army struggled, bellies groaning from the diet of nuts and berries, the horses faltering and lean on snatched sour grass. A constant flow of quiet swearing accompanied the march; a litany of despair. The men drank brackish water from the streams. Weariness, the overpowering lust to lie down and sleep for longer than the few hours allowed, assailed them. Yet none of their curses were aimed at the King, for they felt that he too was a victim of these fates, this eternal ambushed hopeless march. And at Boves, he silenced even their oaths for a while with a demonstration of his rage.
He came upon them drinking. A hoard of luxury had been discovered, red wine in open casks left by fleeing villagers. Henry rode among the soldiers, striking out with a staff, his face pale with fury. Men lay droning happily on the ground, oblivious even of their sovereign. Others were filling their water-flask
s from the barrels, trying to drink and hoard at the same time Henry lashed a bending man across the shoulders and he rolled grinning on his back.
‘All free! French wine!’ he gurgled, and ‘Henry would have struck him again, but Humphrey of Gloucester interposed.
‘Harry … it would do no harm to let them fill their bottles for the march.’ (He himself had already done so.)
‘Bottles!’ cried the King. The brown eyes in the thin face gleamed red. ‘They’ve made bottles of their bellies! How can I take France with a bevy of sots!’
Humphrey recalled Harry singing in Coldharbour, more cupshotten than any of them. There’s none, he thought, so virtuous as a reformed whore … but this is something deeper; as if he sought to take on him the sins of the world. So thinking, he gave orders to the sergeants, who smashed the casks; men wept like children.
Eight miles north-east of this minor tragedy they came to Corbie, and met sudden terror. A magnificent body of mounted French knights from Marshal Boucicaut’s force attacked them at the bridge. There was a short hot skirmish, a flail of arrows from the English archers who, hastily assembled in battle order, saw for the first time the colour of their adversary. A force that glittered, the horses’ powerful pounding legs a dappled gleam, their housings a flying rainbow. Over their armour, the knights’ tabards were starred with the blue and gilt of the French lily. The cavalry poured forward, knocking half the archers flat. They bore the scarlet-tongued oriflamme of St Denis. Owen was one of those felled to the ground.
He lay while the wave swept over him, his face in the earth, his bow lying hard beneath him. Under the chaos, his thoughts moved like mice in a skein as pretty and mad as the French colours. I shall not die. I shall know greatness. Lie still, bach. A hoof hit his head glancingly. His mind was drenched in the blood of the oriflamme and darkened to peace.
Page said: ‘Are you wakeful?’
Crown in Candlelight Page 19