The Lord of Greenwich (The Plantagenets Book 5)

by Juliet Dymoke

  Even on campaign, however rough the circumstances, Harry omitted no religious observance and insisted on the Mass being properly sung and furnished. Four tousle-headed choristers had accompanied him all the way from England and with sleep still in their eyes their treble voices rose in the first hymn of the day. Humfrey stood at the foot of the stair. He liked Master Patrington who was an Oxford man, a doctor of theology and once chaplain to Grandsire, and he was moved by the priest's devotion, as deep here in this meagre place as in the ornate chapel at Westminster. He knelt as the Host was raised, glanced at Harry's absorbed face and folded hands, and prayed that disaster might not wreck the day's endeavours.

  In the event it proved their salvation. They found two fords virtually undefended and by knocking down nearby dwellings, the men dragging doors and boards and beams to the river, a causeway was built into a passable bridge.

  Harry himself directed operations as the men worked, calling out his orders in a staccato voice. 'Get those horses together. My lord of Huntingdon, see that the archers cover their bows – what use are wet bow strings? Humfrey, take the vanguard. For God's sake watch that wagon, it will overturn.' His own household crossed last with the baggage train, his chapel and choristers, pages, cooks and scullions, and all the tradesmen needed to maintain the army. Eventually, satisfied, the King himself forded the swirling waters. Humfrey crossed with the horses and supervised the drawing up of formations on the other side. Elys was beside him, doubled up in the saddle and miserable with the pain in his guts, but he told himself firmly that it was easier today and spoke of it to no one. Only when Richard Neville came to him with a pitcher of ale from one of the wagons did he admit gruffly that he had a thirst on him enough to drink the cursed river.

  By nightfall the crossing was complete. 'By God,' the King said and allowed himself a rare indulgence in blatant triumph, 'we've hoodwinked the French. I'll warrant their Marshal has no notion we've stolen ahead of him.'

  But the triumph was a dangerous one, for the army was still desperately short of food, dysentery still weakened them and the French were guessed to be far superior in numbers, fresh and well fed on their own territory.

  Four days later, during which time the rain had scarcely ceased, the vanguard sent a herald back to the King to say the whole French army had come into view, camped across the road to Calais where the ground was flat. 'Like a horde of locusts,' the herald said, 'trampling the winter corn.'

  The King, with Humfrey, the Dukes of York, Exeter, and the other captains rode forward to view the prospect.

  'Jesu!' York crossed himself. 'What a host! There are more than we dreamed of.

  Harry's eyes were narrowed. 'Three to one, perhaps. Good odds for an English victory. I swear the French have learned nothing since Crecy. Where are their archers? I see only chivalry and foot soldiers.'

  One of his spies, standing at his elbow, said, 'They give small thought to them, sire. Indeed they are confident of victory. I slipped in among their common soldiers and saw their noble captains dicing for the honour of taking your royal person.'

  Harry showed his teeth in a smile, 'Well, I shall not do what my father did at Shrewsbury fight; do you remember, brother?'

  'Aye,' Humfrey said. He had been a mere twelve­year-old at the time but he had watched the fight from a distance and seen how his father had sent six knights into battle all wearing the royal tabard to confuse the enemy. 'No one will mistake you, eh?'

  'Nevertheless it's not wise to be foolhardy,' York said anxiously. 'Cousin, you are the King –'

  'And must be seen to be at the head of my men.' Harry finished the sentence. 'As form demands I shall send once more to offer my terms for peace, but they won't be accepted. We'll fight tomorrow, my lords, on the feast of Saint Crispin.'

  What sleep Humfrey had that night was snatched in Harry's gorgeous but dirty and bedraggled tent. The priests had been busy through the hours of darkness for there was not a man who, looking on the French host, did not expect to die on the morrow. Until after midnight Harry walked among them, encouraging them, exercising all his personal charm, his intense powers of leadership, until the very lowest soldier felt his King not only needed him but appreciated him.

  'When you go home you'll have a tale to tell your children and their children too,' he told them.

  He put courage into weary men, made the faint­hearted ashamed, and at last enjoining silence on them, telling them to pray and then to sleep, he sought briefly his own bed.

  Humfrey had also been among his followers talking with his knights. Elys Foxton and John de Fortescue, both tense with excitement yet apprehensive of the morrow, were listening to the sound of revelry from the French camp less than a mile away. 'Don't heed them,' he said, smiling, 'it is we who will rejoice tomorrow night and the French who will be silent.' He walked on from campfire to campfire, between the stacks of weapons, pausing now and then to talk to the tired wet soldiers. 'Maybe God will send us a fine day tomorrow,' he said cheerfully.

  Tom Beckington was with him and at the entrance of the tent set up for the King's chapel, he paused, glancing upwards. The rain clouds were scudding away, a few stars appearing.

  'Does every man here feel as I feel, Tom?' he asked, 'life in every inch of my body? I've not lived twenty-five years yet and there is much to do, much to learn, and many pleasures,' he gave Tom a sideways smile, 'still there for the taking.'

  'Death is the path to heaven,' Beckington said.

  'And heaven is eternal bliss – I know! But I cannot feel that. I don't cry out for it as the Saints have done, not yet. There is too much here.'

  Beckington looked troubled. 'Earth has its snares, my lord. The ploys of the devil –'

  'Can appear most tempting!' Humfrey finished the sentence. 'But all things merge into one another, they overlap like the steel plates on my jack and I want a taste of much more before I seek a place in Heaven. Have you ever thought, Tom, what a wealth of learning we ignore? We sit in our narrow little world and study the Church's writings, unknowing of so much else. There were men that understood the meaning of life long before St Gregory, or Jerome, or Anselm took up their pens?'

  'I had not thought of it. Isn't the Church's teaching enough?'

  'It is too narrow a way.' Humfrey paused and then added, 'I mean to widen the way, fill my house with scholars, with men who see more than the end of their own noses, and for that I must live.'

  Tom was silent, also looking at the stars. 'Submit yourself to God's grace, my lord Duke. If it is His will –'

  Humfrey gave a resigned sigh. 'I thought you would say that. I will get me shriven in readiness for death – and pray for life!'

  He slept well and when dawn came went armed and ready to Harry's tent. He had thrust aside his talk with Beckington. All that mattered now was not to fail Harry, but the seriousness of the moment was broken for him by the sight of the Duke of York struggling into half armour, assisted by two squires.

  'That helm is too tight, Edward,' he said and could not keep back his laughter. 'Have you no other?'

  'No, curse it,' York complained, his puffy cheeks scarlet, and the last sight of him that Humfrey had was of his blue eyes peering from below the lifted visor, his muffled voice still truculent.

  Elys, still pale from his sickness, came to fasten his master's great sword, a long dagger hanging from his belt on the other side. Humfrey set his hand on his squire's shoulder. 'It will be a greater battle today than we have seen yet Elys. Stay close and maybe you'll earn your gilded spurs today.' He saw his squire's eyes burn with eagerness and gave him a swift encouraging smile. He wondered if the lad was afraid.

  The army advanced to within bowshot of the French but there Harry halted his bedraggled and still hungry soldiers, the main battle in the centre, the archers on the flanks in wedge-shaped formation by the woods on either side that hid the villages of Agincourt and Tramecourt. The bowmen, men who had learned their skill on their own village greens, drove long sharp stakes into the groun
d, pointing them towards the enemy and taking their places behind this bristling barricade.

  Harry's soldier's instinct told him he had chosen unmistakably the better place than the more open ground where the French were drawing up their formation, and he rode up and down the lines, encouraging the men. 'God will give us victory,' he promised and Humfrey thought he had never seen Harry more regal than in his armour, polished so lovingly by his squires, a glittering crown about his helm. Men should see where the King of England fought this day.

  Then Harry dismounted and prostrated himself on the ground, every soldier following his example with the exception of the Duke of York who got as far as one knee and could go no further. Humfrey found himself wishing that Clarence with his greater experience was with them. A great pitched battle was something he had not faced before and he felt as green as Elys.

  As the sun rose, still warm on this twenty-fifth day of October, the men stood in their ranks and waited. Half an hour slid by and Humfrey shifted from one foot to the other. All along the line there was shuffling, weapons rested on the ground and then lifted again, shields settled more comfortably.

  'Cock's bones!' Humfrey called to his brother. 'Will no one start this fight?'

  The King shook his head. 'I will not make the first move.'

  It was nearly two hours later when finally the drums began and the French started to move forward. The walk became a canter, the enemy advancing confidently on an army a third its size, banners waving, a vivid, colourful and terrifying sight, thousands of lances raised. To the English it seemed that the entire nobility of France was on the field.

  'Except Burgundy,' Harry said, his keen glance on the fluttering standards. 'I don't see Burgundy's colours. He means to sit on the fence.' Cool and careful, he raised his arm in a signal to the archers and as the enemy canter became a headlong gallop toward the flanks, the archers loosed their first volley of arrows. Many found their mark; horses fell, pierced in neck or belly, riders tumbling with them or struggling with shafts in shoulders or thighs no longer able to control their mounts. There was a hasty wheel, the line reforming, and then another charge, but the French were unable to pass the sharp stakes as further volleys of the deadly steel-tipped shafts found their mark.

  Few arrows came from the French side and those that were loosed fell short. The field was inches deep in mud after the rain, hooves churning it to a morass so that those who fell were struggling in their heavy armour to get clear of the maddened horses. In the centre there was wild confusion as those now on foot tried to make their way back to their own lines.

  'Well done, well done!' Humfrey shouted. 'Jesu, but do you see, Harry?'

  'Aye,' Harry's voice came across the whirr of the arrows, the noise of the charge, of steel striking against steel. 'Be ready now, my friends. They come at us. Cry God for England! St George!'

  The enemy wheeled and rode at the centre, their own foot soldiers following to strengthen the attack, the sun in their faces, the arrows still falling.

  As the onslaught came Humfrey held his drawn sword in a hand grown suddenly damp with sweat. He leapt aside to avoid a lance thrust from a mounted man, swinging his sword to catch his assailant such a blow that the man fell. His horse reared, neighing wildly until a spear brought him down. Humfrey clambered over the still breathing body and turned to ward off another blow. The weight of French numbers was overwhelming and he felt the whole line sag and give way. He was hardly conscious of his own troops, of Elys and Reginald Cobham close beside him, only of the need to keep on his feet. Men fell, blood mingling with the sodden earth, a crop of dismembered hands and arms and spilled brains as step by step in the mud the English fell back. However, it was by no more than a spear's length before Harry's voice bellowed above the din, 'Hold! Hold!'

  The line rallied. The thickest of the fighting was about the King himself, every Frenchman desperate to take him, but he fought with great strength and skill and the knights about him took courage from his determination not to yield one more step. The archers, their work done, discarded their bows and seizing swords and axes, flung themselves into the fight.

  Humfrey felt the line hold, saw a fresh knot of French foot soldiers pushing through the mud, and yelling at the top of his voice, 'Gloucester! Gloucester and St George!' charged forward. His men followed, Hungerford shouting his colourful diatribe, the rest repeating Humfrey's battle cry and in an impetuous rush they held the French and then drove them back, slaughtering as they went. Humfrey clambered over bodies, slipped in mud and blood, spattered from head to foot. To his right he sensed Harry's own contingent pressing forward with him and in wild triumph thrust and sliced, warded off blows with his shield and knew a moment of heady exultation such as he had never experienced before. The French, their rearguard coming up to join the battle, were packed so tightly now that they could scarcely move and to Humfrey it seemed like scything corn, the centre of the field covered by mounds of bodies, men who fell with slight wounds or stumbled in the bloody slime unable to rise again and trampled underfoot.

  Dear God! Humfrey thought, we have them! We've won! Momentarily carried away he turned to look towards his brother, saw Harry swinging his great sword in rhythmic strokes and in that instant a French knight came leaping over a horse's carcass. He was shouting 'Alencon! Alencon!' and Humfrey had a swift vision of burnished armour, of dark eyes through the slits in a visor, then the Frenchman struck sideways with his sword and caught Humfrey a blow across the back of his hams, cutting both legs open. His feet went from under him and he fell backwards into the soft mud with a yell of pain. Holy Mother, was he to die in the very instant of triumph? Sick with pain, his head swimming from the shock as his helm struck the ground, he became aware that two legs were planted across his prostrate body. He had a glimpse of a glittering crown and as two more Frenchmen were driven off and slain, one falling almost on top of him, he heard Harry yelling, 'Get him away! Get him away!'

  Hands seized him, he thought he saw Elys Foxton, his face streaked with dirt, bending over him and then he was dragged back, clear of the fighting. Someone removed his helm and as the sun touched his face he lost consciousness.

  When he came to himself he was lying face down and someone was dealing with his wounds. He gave a yelp of pain and tried to raise himself but was admonished to lie still. His armour had been removed and his hose, and Richard Neville was holding a bowl of reddened water.

  'There,' Master Nicholas Colnet, the King's surgeon, said in satisfied tones, 'there's more blood than hurt. You will do very well now, Duke Humfrey.'

  Humfrey lay on his face and groaned. 'Well! My legs are on fire and my head throbs and I'm near dying of thirst.'

  Colnet smiled and turned his head while Elys leaned over to hold a cup to his lips, and raising himself a little Humfrey saw that he was in the King's tent, Beckington busy writing in one corner. 'An account of the battle, my lord, as you bade me,' he said. 'I saw it all and must put it down at once so that our people in England may know the valour of their King and yourself and all our knights.'

  'Is it over?' Humfrey asked. 'How long have I been here?'

  'Some hours, my lord. You were conscious for a little while but the dressing of your wounds pained you so much that you fainted.'

  'I don't remember,' Humfrey said, frowning. 'The battle? Did we beat the French?'

  'We did indeed, sir,' Elys said. He knelt by the bed, the excitement returning to his face now that he knew his master safe. 'The King saved you, he fought like a dozen men to keep the French off you. The Duke of Alencon yielded but before the King could take his hand in token two English soldiers struck him down. They thought to protect our lord but he was mighty angry.'

  'A breach of honour,' Humfrey said, 'as well as the loss of a fine ransom. And then?'

  'It was all but done, sir, and in less than an hour though it seemed like half a day to me. The last of the French are fled, but we've taken hundreds and God knows how many are dead.'

  Presently Harry
himself came in to see how his brother fared. He was mud from head to foot and bareheaded.

  'l'll live,' Humfrey said with a grimace. 'Master Colnet assures me my legs will heal with no damage done.'

  To his surprise Harry bent and kissed his forehead and then crossed himself. 'I thank God. There have been so few losses on our side, but our cousin of York is dead.'

  'Edward?' Humfrey raised himself painfully on one elbow. 'Jesu, how did it come about?'

  'It seems he fell and no one could get to him. French corpses lay on top of him and he must have suffocated in his armour.'

  'Poor Edward – may God assoil him – he said his helm was too tight. Any others?'

  'Young Suffolk. He was earl in his father's place for no more than a few weeks. But no one else of any note, a few common soldiers. Your herald says none of your household. Of the French, thousands.'

  'Jesu!' Humfrey said again, this time in awe. 'Who do you hold of the French?'

  'More than we can count – Burgundy's two brothers, the Dukes of Brabant and Bar, the Duke of Orléans, the Counts of Eu and Vendome. The list is not finished yet.'

  'God's Mercy! They'll fill your treasury for you.'

  'And much needed that is.' The King finished his hasty meal. 'We have a great victory indeed and I will have the honour given only to God. A Te Deum shall be sung on this field, which I will have called Agincourt from where our archers stood. As for you, brother,' he smiled down at Humfrey, 'you fought like one of the leopards we bear on our shield. Your charge opened the way for us to hold the line and press forward again. We owe you much.'

  'I owe you my life. It was you who stood over me, wasn't it?'

  'As you would have done for me. Is there anything I can order for your comfort?'

  Humfrey relaxed against the hard truckle bed. 'I suppose some female company would be asking too much. They say a wench's touch can heal a wound the quicker.'

  The King looked down at his brother's prostrate body and allowed himself a brief smile. 'You are in no position for that to be of any comfort to you. Keep still and contemplate your escape from death instead.'