Apples and Prayers

by Andy Brown

  June had transformed herself into a tedious, sultry month of postponement and waiting. At home in Buckland we should have been clipping the sheep by Midsummer’s Day, shearing the old ewes to relieve them of their sweaty coats. The young lambs and hoggets, however, they kept theirs on, against the colder air of night. That way their fleeces grew bigger and better, left on their backs throughout the summer.

  But the birds of the field are a constant nuisance to the ewes, until their fleeces are shorn. Magpies perch on their backs and pluck wool from them to line their nests. This, itself, is not so damaging, but magpies and crows will peck at their eyes to blind them. Then they patiently follow, as the blind ewe stumbles over a ledge, or into a river, delivering the birds a carrion meal.

  The crows will also peck at pregnant bellies, in the chance of causing a miscarriage, again to make a bloody meal upon the discharged lamb.

  Such ugly thoughts appeared regularly in my mind, hounding me like a pack of wraiths. I had to try my hardest not to think of such unpleasantness, but rather to concentrate my mind upon the lighter side of life in our village at this time of year. Each night, I dreamed of Buckland and wished that I could still be part of it, rather than encamped in unpleasant fields, so many miles away from home and everything I knew so well.

  The Summer Solstice was upon us. It should have been a night for festivity and benevolent magic. In the village they’d be rolling cheeses down the hill, tumbling symbols of the setting sun, as it sank on that longest of days.

  If only I could have gathered herbs in my basket… mugwort, ivy, marigold and plantain… I could have brewed a philter that might make those walls of Exeter tumble in an eye’s twinkling.

  If only I could gather yarrow for dreaming, I could suffuse the whole city in a cloud of slumber that would gain us entrance and take the capital without bloodshed, or further injury.

  VIII

  On the second day of July, our Holy band circled the quiet town at Alphington by the river. We’d stopped to drink at village fountains all our way across the county, rows of thirsty men and women cupping water with their hands at the troughs, or filling leather bottles for the march ahead. At one, the tattooed Cornish keeper of wolves had pushed his animals in and the dogs had rinsed themselves, stirring up the water in the granite trench. But now that we had reached the river, our people freely doused themselves from crown to toe, rinsing off the dust and grime of marching, to soak their heads and relieve the summer’s heat.

  When we’d crossed the river, we marched on past the red stone church of St. Thomas and up towards the West Gate, to the walls of Exeter. The ruddy blocks of stone, built-up there by the Romans many lifetimes ago, blushed beneath the midday sun, buoyant and bright above our cavalcade.

  At the front, a line of pike men rattled on before us, their pikestaffs raised to the height of their chests, like a thicket of impassable thorns. Our banners flew above them, forked like the tails of fish, embroidered with gold and with red, or the black and white cross of the Cornish county. Our procession was a sea of swaying cloth, a shining ocean of swords and shields that caught the light and glistered like giant scales.

  Behind the pikes went our chasubled priests, hefting high the Banner of the Five Wounds. It pulsed fluently in the breeze above their tonsures as they chanted solemn prayers. Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam… With them went the Pyx, beneath its canopy of lavish cloth and clouds of incense from the swinging censer. A throng of acolytes and choirboys dressed in plushest cassocks walked beside them, singing Holy words. Ne perdas cum impiis, Deus animam meam. Despite the sun’s refulgent height, they held their burning tapers high, rich candles shedding Holy Light upon a world in days of sacred turmoil. Laudans invocabo Dominum, et ab inimicis meis salvus ero.

  Within the walls we could see the castle lodged far up in the north corner, the towering spires of the cathedral and the ramparts that we soon so hoped to breach. Sunbeams vaulted back at us from the cathedral’s tall façade. It put me in mind of arriving at the Holy City, embarked upon a great crusade for our collective freedoms.

  Up in a turret on the walls, the Mayor and his cohort had donned their robes and insignia. Below, our clerics formed an opening through which our own captains rode. My Lord was there on his charger, beside Arundell and Broad, wearing long, sky blue robes over his white under-sleeves, a garland chain of silver and jewels around his neck, a leather purse and scabbard at his belt. It made my heart proud to know that I had often helped to dress him so.

  They trotted to the footings of the walls and our priests ceased chanting. A hush fell on us all, citizens and marchers alike. We waited for the announcements. In the stillness, you could hear songbirds: a lark rising, a blackbird calling to his hen.

  Trumpets broke the stillness. Arundell made his proclamation.

  ‘Mayor Blackaller. Citizens of Exeter,’ he said, his voice resounding. ‘We gather here in force today to present you with our final demands. Yield to us peaceably and submit to our requests. Join your fellow countrymen in our dispute with these new religious orders…’

  A second fanfare interposed his words. Our eyes turned to the ramparts. The Mayor stepped forward, his voice quiet and wavering at first, though picking up soon enough. By the time his speech was closing, however, he was blustering shrilly.

  ‘As we’ve made reply some times before,’ he concluded, ‘our city remains true to the King. We are ready to suffer for the matter. Respect your duty to God, your obedience to the King, fidelity to your Country. We will not join or deal with sordid rebels.’

  ‘If you won’t yield,’ Arundell replied, ‘we shall advance and enter the city by force.

  ‘Do your worst, but we shall not yield!’ the mayor repeated.

  ‘So be it,’ said Arundell. ‘Make your peace with God. Prepare to engage. We’ll be within your walls before you reckon on it.’

  I looked up to hear the mayor’s reply, but no word came. Blackaller and his retinue had already retired into the hidden streets of the city. Our captains then turned their horses and rode back through our ranks. We cheered them as they returned and jeered at those gathered on the city walls above us.

  Within the hour, we had encircled the city from St. David’s Down to Sidwell’s Church, around the spreading plain of Southernhay, down beyond the Southern Gate and up across the river plains, rounding off to the West, where Snayle Tower flew its pennants high in July’s indifferent breezes.

  We then busied ourselves with setting up camp, our solid core of Cornish bowmen ready, lest those inside should start the fray before we were prepared.

  Swiftly, we captured the city’s outlying grounds and entrenched the highways. To protect our backs, our men destroyed the bridges on the river and barricaded routes and lanes with giant tree boles hewn from the forested lands that lay beyond the city. All around the walls, great woodlands and orchards rolled, dense and productive, stretching out of the county towards the Hams, where the people made wealth from its cider. It made me think of the Barton: how we should be nearing picking time by now; how we’d wait for Swithin’s Day to pick; how those summer-soaked codlins and gilliflowers would yield up their essence; how the cool dark cellar would smell when packed with apples, heady and aromatic; how we’d duck for them in games come All Souls Eve – firm apples named for a loved one, floating in a tub of water. Now, however, there was no time for games, nor even time for loved ones.

  Following our entrenchment of the land, a steady stream of burgesses came out of the gates in great numbers, wedded to our ways and faith, joining with us of their own accord. Who’d stay inside a city occupied by heretics? It was as if a long divided family was joined together once again after years of appalling detention.

  Among them came my Lord’s younger son, Sir Robert. He rode at the front of their number, set high on a grey dappled mare, regal almost in his sable satins, a breastplate of silver protecting his heart. Although he had last left the Barton in argument, almost in disgrace, my own heart rose to
witness his arrival. An equerry held high the family’s colours on the tip of his pike. His page walked behind him, with his master’s bullmastiff leashed, yet pulling the boy eagerly on.

  ‘It seems your other son, my Lord, that brother of mine so recently absconded, returns to the family roost.’ Sir Walter addressed his father with a droll twist in his voice. It was as if he was both delighted and vexed at the same time, yet didn’t know yet how to show his feelings.

  ‘Sir Robert is making the honourable choice,’ my Lord curtly replied, although I knew, in his heart, he must have also exulted at the vision of his wayward son returning now to join him. ‘I would expect nothing less of my sons.’

  ‘Of course, sire,’ Sir Walter deferred.

  When the dappled grey had crossed the field and stood before the father, Sir Robert addressed his master.

  ‘I pledge humble obedience to your cause, my Lord.’

  He dismounted and handed his reigns to the equerry, bowing low and doffing his plumed cap.

  ‘Your support is welcome, Robert,’ my Lord replied. His son raised himself and stood upright before them. I noticed that neither he nor his brother looked the other in the eye. ‘I do hope, however, that with your arrival, tempers shall be calm among us?’

  The father nodded sagely towards his younger son. Beside him, Sir Walter stirred in his saddle, keenly expecting his brother’s reply.

  ‘I can assure you, my intentions are well steeled to serve you, my father, my King and my country.’ His tongue was the humblest and most politic I’d ever heard it. ‘My argument lies only with the heretics inside these city walls. All other rifts are nothing now. Chaff to the wind. By your leave, I pray my Lord and brother now may also have forgotten and forgiven, in light of what we face here, today. Together.’

  Sir Walter eyed his brother warily, but his air soon turned to one of compromise. The younger brother humbly knelt before them. ‘I beg your pardon father, please, for any base ingratitude I may have so expressed.’

  ‘My pardon is granted,’ he said.

  ‘And you, my brother,’ Robert turned to his elder, ‘I trust we might bury our differences, for the mutual benefit of this campaign?’

  The move now lay with Walter and we waited on his reply as acutely as his brother must have done.

  ‘You’re generously welcomed here this morning, Robert, as indeed are all good Catholics. We stand together now for what we believe. As you’ve promised it yourself, so do I. Let bygones be bygones.’

  With these familial speeches, my Lord then presented his hand in his kid leather glove and the youngest son rose. For the first time I recall, the two divided brothers then embraced.

  This done, the city gates closed behind them, with the deadlock of timbers and clanking of chains.

  We set our Buckland camp up in the wooded fields beyond the north-east wall, in the shadow of the Castle. Lord Ponsford, my Lady and their sons, installed their family in private quarters, two large, striped tents within the safety of a grove of trees. Their pennant flew above their canopy and, always, two of our Buckland men stood guard, their hands locked fast and ready on halberds and pikes.

  Others of our company felled timbers for shelters and, within the hour, had cut enough to yield us uprights for windbreaks. When the timbers were hammered in, Alford and I wrapped cloth and sheeting round the frame, to build a temporary tent.

  She and I prepared our site with care. Ours would be the duty of cooking meals and caring for the wounded, with both tasks requiring careful cleanliness. Because of this, we made our beds from piles of heaped up cloth and rag, while fighting men contented themselves with roughened beds of straw. Should our men suffer injuries in fighting, our quarters would serve as a haven of rest and treatment.

  Woodbine built us a row of rough shelves, on which we stored our kegs and jars. He carried out his task with speed and skill, but silently, in sullen mood. Since losing his journeyman Coppin in the fire, his usual balanced humours had turned to melancholy.

  Outside our new threshold, Dufflin drove in iron hooks, for hanging kettles over the fire. We set a rough circle of logs around the fire pit, by way of benches. The field was almost home for us by nightfall.

  From that day on, our number grew daily, with many wives and serving men of those gentlemen who’d already marched with us, now also joining our ranks. Outside the city, large numbers of traveling artisans and labourers came to our cause. With them, however, came criminals; common thieves and fugitives who joined the fight for what they sought to gain, but whose attendance so demeaned our purpose. With them came beggars, the maimed and disfigured, hobbling on crutches, or wheeling here and there on makeshift carts and trolleys that served them for legs. What they had to offer us in our piety, I couldn’t say, but we took them in from charity, or simply to swell our forces and show the city dwellers inside our burgeoning strength. Whatever our company’s make-up, we numbered in the thousands and all of us dreamed of soon returning home in victory, dressed in finery and bearing riches.

  Around the camp were many tents for sleeping, but also many trades to keep us going. We were really now a town upon the move and needed all things that a settlement might provide. Swords, chain mail and teardrop shields stood arrayed on wooden shelves outside the armoury tents. Longbows and crossbows were laid across the racks. Behind them lances, billhooks, caltrops, halberds, stood pointing to the sky in dense thickets. There were racks of helmets in polished steel. Round ones like bonnets for the top of the head, with chain mail curtains hanging to the shoulders. Ones that looked like cooking kettles with slits for the eyes. Still others had breathing holes around the fringe, like some strange colander, with straps for the nose and drop-down metal flanges to cover the mouth and the throat. I picked up a pair of metal gloves – a hand like any other hand, with moving fingers and flexible joints, but so inhuman in its shining steel. On the way back to my kitchen tent, I passed a wooden block with three long-handled axes embedded in it. Their heads glittered, their handles cast long shadows. In an idle moment, I tried to lift one, but its keen edge was sunk so far in the grain, I couldn’t shift it. The thought of such a blow, the strength of the man who had hefted such a weapon, made me shudder.

  The fletcher was also always busy at the doorway to his tent, where his table stood. The children would bring him constant supplies of wands and feathers. He’d sit there, hour on hour, gluing feathers to the arrow shafts and tipping them with steel from the forges, where Dufflin found himself usefully employed. The cordier also seemed perpetually busy, twisting the yards of hempen rope that were needed for animals, haulage and building our engines of siege. Only with our industry would the city fall to us and we set ourselves to the mission with passion.

  Further to the long, drawn-out matter of laying siege, our captains aimed their cannons at the gates and set to breaking pipes and conduits to and from the city. The lead they took was used for making shot. We seldom saw Dufflin at that time. He was always employed at the Cornish forges, smelting metal and casting gunshots. Alford bothered herself at his absence and couldn’t settle.

  And yet, we didn’t have enough heavy armaments to do substantial damage. In scattered cliques the fighting men awaited their chance to engage with the defenders, in some skirmish or attack. Each day they prepared themselves in their armour and breast-plates, or gathered patiently for their mounted captains to give them orders, with broad swords drawn, with longbows drawn and lances ready. Yet often the order to arms resulted in no attack – for the practice of siege relies upon patience of mind and not upon mere muscle and brawn – and the men would return to their barrack tents, restless and disgruntled. It was, as such, a challenge to keep up morale in our ranks, let alone capture a castled city set upon a hill, surrounded by deep ditches and strong walls.

  Even in those early July days, the disciplines of camp life were too much for some men to abide. To relieve themselves, men played at dice and quoits, or entertained themselves at makeshift taverns of logs and trestles
around the many camp fires. Here stood huge barrels of ale and cider, served up by women to earn themselves their keep. Musicians played on fiddles, pipes, on bagpipes, mandolins and drums, while dancers turned circles late into the night. Often there were drawn-out spates of drunkenness, the cider relieving the tedium of siege, but causing brawls and broils and injury. Ben Red and Tan Harvey were among the worst, with their habits of drinking that turned them away from their faith, always soused and mixing with the whores. These shameless women tagged along and plagued our men, preying on their weaknesses and boredoms, infecting their minds and their bodies with longings and with sores that I prescribed they rub with healing heartsease.

  But ill-discipline was rifer than syphilis. Ben Red’s belligerent, offensive answers flew, whenever asked to serve in some small action, or to take his turn at the watch. ‘Leave me alone you shite-arse, can’t you?’ and for his insolence was locked in stocks, or beaten with horse whips and withies.

  ‘Useless wretch. I can’t imagine why you joined us,’ a captain said as they dragged him off to the lock-up one time.

  ‘To disappear within the crowd and earn myself some peace from digging graves!’ he hollered back, rattling his arms as they chained him to the stocks. ‘Or for women and glory. I forget which.’ How he had come to care so little for himself, or our endeavour, was a mystery to me.

  Other quarrels also simmered, sometimes bubbling into fights. Lucombes, Reynolds and John Toucher became thick in friendship, but when their talk turned to Billy Down, or Billy White, these three new friends would claim that good was bad, or day was night, they were so aggrieved against the shepherd and the miller. Tom Potter, Northcott, Rawlings and Andrews were also likewise ranged against the miller and shepherd. It became nigh-on impossible for my Lord to shape a fighting group who’d cooperate together. All of which was nothing in face of John’s ongoing rancour with Harvey. Such arguments served our cause no benefit at all, but added to the strains already besieging us. Those inside the walls we had surrounded, but those of us outside them were beleaguered from within our own ranks.