Alphonse had to fight a terrible desire to rake Dadais with his spurs and gallop south at top speed. He could not set so wild a pace because there were other travelers on the road, ordinary travelers—merchants with loaded packhorses and farmers with cattle and sheep or a wagon loaded with hay. They pulled aside, sometimes with curses but not with unusual fear, when they heard his horse thundering behind them or saw him coming. That had to mean they were not aware of any army or any preparation for battle nearby. He was comforted, and he found more comfort still when he saw that the same was true of two villages he passed, tiny places where men looked up gaping from their work and women clutched their children to them to be out of the horses’ way but had yet no reason to flee their unprotected homes.
More people crowded the road as he neared Bidford, and Alphonse had to moderate his pace further, but he was not so frantic now and his patience was not tried by going through the small town. Even from a distance he could see that the bridge over the Avon was carrying travelers in both directions. Then there was no fighting within miles of the town. Even foraging parties or foreriders would have sent frightened fugitives scurrying to the stronger place for safety. The traffic on the bridge would all have been going into the town.
South of Bidford the road turned west as much as south, but the next village was as peaceful as the others Alphonse had passed farther north. The first sign that there might be something to fear was that the gates of a religious house he passed were shut. That must be Cleeve, Alphonse thought. If Barbe was there, she was safe and would be safer still when Edward brought his army south to ford the river at Cleeve. Fleeing the temptation to seek her out, he dug spurs into Dadais and sent him down the road at a full gallop. The road beyond the closed priory gate was deserted as he expected. That did not trouble him or make him cautious. Because he desired it to be true, he assumed that the abbot of Evesham would have sent warning to another religious house.
He did find Mortimer without incident, and called his name in answer to a challenge.
“Are there new orders?” Mortimer asked.
“None new. To hold the bridge as you said you would,” Alphonse replied. He reported the proposed movement of Gloucester’s troops and told Mortimer that Edward would come south as far as Cleeve. If Leicester had not crossed to the east bank, the prince would ford the river to the west to join Gloucester’s army there. Finally he asked about Leicester’s action since the squire had come to the prince.
“I have already sent another messenger to Edward,” Mortimer said. “I sent some men creeping into the lands around Evesham Abbey and one came back to say that, having heard mass, Leicester has given order that the men…” He stopped and then went on as if he did not believe his own words. “Leicester’s party has stopped to eat and rest.”
“To eat and rest?” Alphonse echoed. “Without securing the bridges? At Evesham? But the river bends so they are trapped on three sides. Oh, doubtless they have settled on the ridge to the north.”
“No,” Mortimer interrupted, looking worried and puzzled. “If God has not smitten Leicester with utter madness, I do not understand what he is doing. His army is in the fields near the abbey. The king and the noblemen are in the abbey. I would judge Leicester does not yet know that we destroyed the army his son had gathered. But if he hopes to trap the prince between his army and Simon’s, should he not be driving northeast as fast as he can?”
“In such matters I am no judge,” Alphonse said. “But if you think Leicester is setting a trap, I should go to Cleeve and tell the prince not to cross back to the west side of the river.”
“What trap can Leicester be setting?” Mortimer asked. “I have sent men east and south and set lookouts on the hills. There is no sign of any army moving but Prince Edward’s. I suppose you must go back and report to the prince that Leicester is still sitting still, but—” He stopped suddenly and said, “Cleeve?” then laughed. “I had almost forgot. I met your wife.”
“Your squire mentioned her,” Alphonse said stiffly.
Mortimer shook his head. “Women are fools, but she meant well and has caused no harm. She is safe. I remembered her when you mentioned Cleeve because I sent her there and bade her strictly stay there so you would know where to find her. Well, then, you need not trouble your head about her.”
Alphonse vaguely heard Mortimer say something about not knowing the river was fordable at Cleeve and mention the bridge at Offensham, but his mind echoed “I bade her strictly…” He nodded when Mortimer stopped speaking and said a proper farewell, but he felt like choking the man instead. Imperious orders had the unfortunate effect of making Barbe contrary. But not at such a time, Alphonse told himself. Barbe might often be rebellious, but she was not a fool. She would not, just to spite Mortimer, go wandering around the countryside when she knew armies were marching. And he had not seen her on the road going north to Alcester, so she must be safe in the priory.
He started north, more annoyed with Mortimer than with Barbe. To Alphonse it was disgusting that one should wish to force obedience rather than induce another to obey and to enjoy obeying. By the time he rode past Offensham a while later, the irritation had faded. His way of using people differed from Mortimer’s because of their different duties and places in life. He was accustomed to persuading those more powerful than himself to do what he wanted and had come to enjoy subtly bending others to his will. Mortimer was accustomed to taking and giving direct orders, and very properly too. In war there was no time to convince or be convinced, only to act at once.
The thought of war made Alphonse uneasy all over again so that when he came to the gate of Cleeve Priory and saw that the prince’s foreriders were not yet in sight, he hesitated. He had time enough to make sure Barbe was at the priory before riding on to meet Edward, he decided. If he did not, he would be worrying about her all through the fighting. However, when the porter told him she was, indeed, within, he felt ashamed of his desire to see her. He would have turned away, but the porter begged him to enter, asking whether Lady Barbara’s news was true and gesturing to Chacier to lead the horses in so the gate could be shut. The man was so terrified when Alphonse told him that Prince Edward himself would soon be at Cleeve, that Alphonse began to soothe him lest he start a panic. While he was speaking, Lewin came out of the stable, saw Chacier, waved, and rushed off before Chacier could speak.
Alphonse, knowing Lewin had run to tell his lady that her husband had come, hesitated and had to ask what the porter had last said. The man wanted reassurance that the battle would not spill over onto the priory. Alphonse said he did not believe it would, since the prince intended to cross the river, but admitted that no man could foresee all that would happen. Just then Barbe herself came running across the courtyard and flung herself into his arms. He held her as he said, with clear and growing impatience, that prayer and keeping the gates shut was the best advice he had, and at last the porter turned away.
“I cannot stay,” he said to Barbe when the man was gone.
Her eyes were like slate, dark and dull. “Do not be angry with me, not now,” she begged and pulled at him.
“I am not angry,” he said, but he felt her hand tremble and he followed where she led. Just inside the garden wall he stopped. “Barbe, I swear I am not angry, but Edward will be here very soon, and I must go with him.”
She stopped and turned to face him. Her face was bone white, the only clearly visible part of her now, because the clouds were so heavy. In the brief silence while she looked at him, thunder growled in the distance. He bent and kissed her.
“I love you,” he said. “I will not be long away. By dark, I will be here again.”
“Or never come.”
He smiled. “Oh, no. You will not be rid of me so easily.”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his lips, his eyes, his cheeks, his lips again. “You fool! I would as soon be rid of the heart out of my breast as be rid of you.”
He flicked the tip of her elegant nose w
ith his finger to show he was teasing and asked, “Then why will you not tell me why you hid from me my own gift to you?”
He wanted to remind her of her success in beating him at his own game, in keeping secret information from an expert at extracting it. Most of all he wanted to make her smile. Instead she looked stricken.
“Forgive me, husband,” she whispered. “I am a sinful woman, so jealous that I have hurt you because I love you too much. I did not want you to know I was enslaved—but not for pride, at least not that. I only hoped you would more eagerly seek the doe that fled than the dull cow in your own byre.”
“Barbe!” he cried, but before he could express his joy a voice like a trumpet rang out. Alphonse looked over his shoulder toward the outer gate, shocked, realizing that the dull, distant roar he had mistaken for continual thunder had been the noise of the army passing down the bank of the river beyond the priory. “I must go.” He smiled. “Now, do not fear for me. We are so much the stronger that I may never even strike a blow.”
That was a lie, but hope eased the strain in her face and he felt such a lie could be no danger even before a battle. It could be no sin in the eyes of man or God to soothe the fear of a loving woman. Then he kissed her hard, took her arms from his neck, put her hands together and kissed them, pushed her away, and ran—more to escape her haunted eyes than to save time. He did not look back, afraid that he would return to comfort her if he saw her following him out of the garden, weeping, even though he felt her anxiety was foolish. As he mounted and rode out the gate, he shook his head. Barbe should trust his skill and strength. But with love came fear. He understood. Did he not fear for her when he knew she must be safe?
He could not bear her suffering, yet what could he do? He was a man, not a milksop, and he had to fight. And then he remembered that Barbe had been only enough concerned when he intended to fight in the tourney to urge him to do nothing foolish. It was war she feared, he thought. Poor girl. If Leicester had delayed a day in crossing the Severn, instead of sitting down to eat a meal at Evesham today, he and Barbe would have been on their way to a port. He had finished the arrangements for the ransoms and had decided to tell Edward he would leave when news of Leicester’s move had come. But if they lost this battle, he would not be able to abandon Edward—if he and the prince were not bound together literally by prisoners’ chains.
The thought made him start a brief prayer to preserve him from such a fate, but he never finished. His way was blocked by a river of footmen cutting him off from the water. God alone knew how long it would take him to cross, he thought, and then recalled Mortimer telling him of a bridge at Offensham. He turned Dadais away from the men and rode south again. After being stopped for identification several times, he crossed, turned north, and was challenged once more, this time by a troop wearing the colors of the Earl of Gloucester.
“I am Alphonse d’Aix,” he shouted, “in Prince Edward’s service. Can you tell me where I may find the prince or my lord of Gloucester?”
“Not far.” The horseman pointed. “In the river meadow just beyond the trees.”
Alphonse followed a rough trail to an open area where a group of horsemen sat together. To the left, in the direction from which Alphonse had come, brush and young saplings had been cleared away so that the road was visible. Footmen were filling the meadow. Beyond them a troop of horses clattered down the road. Alphonse rode across, bowed in the saddle to the prince, and lifted his hand to Gloucester.
“As always, Alphonse, you appear the moment you are needed,” Edward said. “How far to Evesham?”
“No more than one league from here, my lord. And Mortimer said to me that Leicester has not seized the high ground north of the town. We should make all haste.”
“That is where the horsemen are going,” Edward said, but he sounded pleased, not impatient.
Alphonse laughed. “I should not try to teach an expert to suck eggs,” he said. “I am no trained battle leader.”
“It takes no trained battle leader to know the advantage of holding that ridge,” Gloucester remarked.
There was a brief, uneasy silence. The Earl of Leicester was a great soldier, yet he had not sent his army up to hold the ridge. No one knew why. And no one knew why Leicester had stopped to eat and rest in Evesham, which was a natural trap.
“Mortimer’s second message was that we outnumbered them, and I have sent the banners we took from Simon with our forward troops of horse.” Edward smiled when he said that, his right eye like blue glass and the left glinting under its drooping lid. “Let Leicester think his son is coming. I would not want him to cut short his meal or leave before we serve the subtlety.”
Gloucester’s destrier snorted and pranced. Alphonse thought his hand had moved uneasily on the rein. Before the earl could speak, however, Edward had continued, “Will you hold the right center, Gilbert, and send a good man to the river on that side?”
“Yes, my lord. Sir John Giffard will hold the far right. Leicester will not pass him.”
Gilbert started to give further details about how he would arrange his battle, but Alphonse did not listen. He thought instead of how quick and clever the prince had been in distracting Gilbert from his trick with the banners of Leicester’s allies. He had made a little mistake, Alphonse thought, in believing Gilbert would enjoy the deception—no, he had not! Edward had known exactly what he was doing. If Gilbert had seen those banners without being told, he would have been far more distressed.
Dadais sidled and Alphonse curbed him automatically, while he swiftly looked for what had startled his horse. Roger Leybourne and his two squires were riding away, and Alphonse realized he had missed the rest of Edward’s battle plan while he was thinking about Gilbert. It did not matter. He had no troops to lead. He needed only to follow the prince wherever he went. Edward set off toward the road and Alphonse grinned. At least with Edward he would be in the heart of the battle, not sitting on the ridge and listening to his leader yell orders as he once had done when he went to war with Louis.
Chapter Thirty-Two
As events transpired, Alphonse did not follow Edward into battle. Because he was well known to all the leaders and was free of responsibility for any troops, Alphonse was the ideal messenger. It was he, when the army was in place and beginning to grow impatient as the wind rose and the thunder growled louder and louder, who rode off to tell each commander not to be tempted to rush down on Leicester’s men as soon as they appeared. He had started with Sir John Giffard, on the right, and had just given Edward’s order to Roger Leybourne on the left flank, when the shouting of a charge rose over the wind and rumbling in the sky.
“There was no trick,” Leybourne bellowed. “Look! Leicester is charging straight up the hill, hoping to force a way between Lord Edward and Gloucester.”
Alphonse turned Dadais, for his back had been toward the valley. He could see Edward beginning to move and knew he could not reach the prince before the armies met. He would have to fight his way through. His right hand went out, and Chacier put his lance into it as he settled his shield more firmly. Then Leicester’s men crashed into Edward’s. Leybourne shouted his battle cry and spurred his horse. Alphonse had never led a battle, but he knew Leybourne intended to hit Leicester’s force in the middle and take the pressure off Edward’s front lines. He raked Dadais lightly with his spurs and set off too.
The horse’s power was enhanced by the downward tilt of the land, and the first man he struck fell from his mount, not pierced by the lance but swept aside. Another was shouldered away by Dadais’s speeding bulk, his lance jolted harmlessly skyward. Alphonse steadied his own weapon just in time to slide it across the haft of a third man’s spear. A twist to avoid his blow failed. The man screamed as the steel head pierced his side. In instinctive response Alphonse thrust hard to drive the point in farther and then let go because there was no way to pull the lance out. From the corner of his eye he saw the wooden shaft rise up and knew his opponent had fallen. A waste, he thought. War wa
s all waste. In a tourney that lance would have a blunt head, and the man he had struck would be cursing the need to pay ransom, but he would be alive to fight again.
The thought did not distract Alphonse’s body. He tilted his shield to slat off a lance that came at him and drew his sword, struck at the man whose lance he had cast off. He felt the jar as his weapon landed but had no time to judge the harm his blow had done. Dadais was past too swiftly, but his pace was slowing.
Off to his left he heard Leybourne’s battle cry again, and urged Dadais to the right. Because of the angle at which they had come, they had struck Leicester’s column well below the place where his men had met the prince’s. Alphonse knew he would have to move uphill to find Edward. Once more he struck and passed. Then Dadais was barely moving and Alphonse caught a sword on his shield, hammered at the helm of the man in return, and saw him fall. He was exchanging blows with a man whose shield was quartered silver and red when someone thrust between them shouting curses. Alphonse drew away, guessing there was a private quarrel there.
As if the thought had summoned him, Guy de Montfort burst past the duelers. Alphonse shouted a challenge with the first pleasure he had felt in this battle and struck, warded off a blow, struck again, and parried the return thrust hard enough to drive Guy’s hand outward, which gave him a chance to bring his weapon down against Guy’s helmet. He heard a muffled cry, but knew his blow had not been strong enough to do more than dizzy Guy a little. Indeed, the young man slashed at him with commendable force. Alphonse caught the blow on his shield and forced Guy’s arm up and out, but the return cut he readied was never delivered.
A voice just behind him cried, “Do not strike me! I am Henry of Winchester, your king! I am too old to fight!”
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