The Hooded Men

by David Pilling

  He sighed. It wouldn’t do. He was a king, and his royal dignity barred him from crossing swords with a mere vassal. Francesco was right. King Philip, Edward’s cousin, would never allow it. Gaston had committed a terrible blunder. With luck it would prove his downfall.

  “These Gascons are a strange breed,” remarked Clifford. “They fight like mad dogs, with no thought to the consequences. As for their customs...”

  This met with a few snorts of laughter and knowing looks. The habits and behaviours of the Gascons were indeed odd: the duchy was a land apart, owing its allegiance to the King of England rather than France, and the people cherished their independence from Paris. They spoke a different dialect to that of northern France, and lived by a ferocious code of honour.

  The people of Gascony reminded Edward of the Welsh. They were equally fierce and tribal, and resentful of outsiders. The menfolk of both lands considered it a great shame to die in bed rather than battle, and went out of their way to pick fights. The custom of gages de bataille – single combat – ensured that many Gascon nobles died young.

  This was just as well, Edward reflected, since they bred like rabbits. Every castle or maison-forte in Gascony was stuffed to overflowing with spare sons, idle loafers who would never inherit land or lordship. It was no wonder they drank, fought and wenched themselves into an early grave. There was little else to do.

  “Go back to Paris,” Edward ordered his envoy, “and inform my lawyers I leave the matter entirely in their hands. Send my compliments and warm regards to my dear cousin, Philip of France, say I desire only peace. When all the lands of Christendom are settled, we can turn our thoughts to liberating the Holy Land from the infidel.”

  This, he felt, struck the right note. Philip was a pious man, and wanted nothing more than to lead a French army to the Holy Land. Edward’s recent exploits in the East had been a source of great embarrassment to his French cousin, unable to go himself. Minstrels in France and Aragon had composed chansons in mockery of Philip’s cowardice while praising Edward as “the best lance in Christendom”.

  Edward enjoyed such flattery, but at the same time pitied his kinsman. Nor would it do to anger Philip, Edward’s feudal overlord for Gascony. The royal families of both kingdoms were closely related in blood, and it was far better to cultivate friendly relations. If it ever came to war, Edward secretly doubted his chances against the might of France.

  The king beckoned at a page. “Fetch me a bowl of water,” he asked. The page scurried off and returned moments later with a silver basin. Smiling at his followers, Edward dipped his hands into the water and made a great show of washing them.

  “There,” he said. “Like Pilate, I wash my hands of the matter. It is time we went home, my friends.”

  The sudden outburst of laughter and relief startled the guards outside. Clifford and Vescy embraced, roaring and slapping each other on the back. Othon and William Valence linked hands and danced, capering around the pavilion, while even Francesco Accursi allowed himself a quiet smile. Master James of St George, a quiet and discreet little man, remained silent.

  Edward smiled indulgently and called for wine to celebrate. He knew his men had dreamed of England for months, ever since they set sail from Acre. They would have arrived home the previous autumn, but instead Edward chose to go south to deal with the revolt in Gascony.

  It was an unpopular decision. Edward ignored the grumbling, safe in the knowledge that his knights would follow him to the gates of Hell if he asked them. He too longed to see England again, hunt in English forests and walk under English rain. Yet the trouble in Gascony could not be ignored. The duchy was the last fragment of the once-mighty Angevin empire ruled by his ancestors, which had stretched from the borders of Scotland to the Pyrenees.

  Now the empire was a pathetic shadow of its former self. Brittany, Normandy, Anjou and Maine were all gone, signed away to the French by Edward’s father. Only Gascony remained, held as a fiefdom of the Capetian kings. Edward was forced to suffer the humiliation of kneeling before King Philip – a fellow monarch! – and swear homage and fealty.

  Edward doted on Gascony. To him it was a dream of past glory, a rich and fertile land basking under southern skies. As a man of southern blood himself, he loved the province just as much as his kingdom of England.

  Perhaps more so. He could never admit as much to his nobles. Shorn of their French estates, they were Englishmen now, and cared only for England.

  After he had downed three cups of wine, Edward strode outside, somewhat unsteadily, to clear his head.

  It was long past noon, but the air was still hot as an oven. The king wiped perspiration from his brow and thought fondly of English winters.

  His army was wilting in the dreadful heat. All around him men crouched in whatever shade they could find, or stood listlessly at their posts. Edward knew he had driven them hard. It had taken months to reduce Gaston’s castles in the foothills of the Pyrenees, all the while suffering from lack of supplies and savage hit-and-run attacks from rebel outriders. Now his men had to endure the roasting hell of high summer in southwest France.

  “Lord king.” Othon’s voice, familiar and reassuring. The Savoyard had followed him outside, like a faithful dog after its master.

  “You have something to say?” asked Edward. He knew the tone in his friend’s voice. The other man wanted to offered advice, but had to be sure of permission first.

  “Ah...yes.” Othon coughed. “I wanted to praise your decision, lord. It is high time we returned to England. Your men have suffered much. Too much. This foul heat might have proved the end of us. If dysentery broke out...”

  “I know,” Edward said distractedly. “I also hate to leave a task undone.”

  He gazed at the three white towers rising above the forest of Saint-Boues. The lush woodland was pretty to look, but hid a multitude of terrors. Edward’s scouts had discovered a formidable network of defences inside the forest: rows of ditches, all of them bristling with spikes, timber palisades, pits, towers, trenches. If an attacker managed to fight his way past all this, he would still have to storm the castle itself; a small but compact stronghold of white stone, built in the heart of the forest.

  The king had no intention of sacrificing his men in a bloody frontal assault. He had meant to starve Gaston out, but his enemy had slipped away, through the English siege lines, and escaped to Paris.

  Edward forced himself to look away. He glanced northwest. Beyond the drowsing hills, just out of sight, lay the sea. If he left tomorrow, he might be in England inside a fortnight.

  “Othon,” he said. “Do you think England is at peace?”

  His friend looked surprised by the question. “Why, yes, lord king. Lord Burnell’s envoy in Paris assured us of that.”

  “It was in Burnell’s interest to say so. I left him and Merton in charge of the kingdom. If the land had fallen into ruin, they would hardly care to admit it. I don’t like the sound of this Flemish business.”

  He referred to a quarrel with the Countess of Flanders. Burnell had been unable to hide it from his master. Messages had reached Edward from the countess, complaining of English pirates attacking her ships in the Channel. As a result, she refused to buy English wool, which meant the stuff was piling up in heaps in Flanders.

  Much of England’s wealth was bound up in the wool trade. Edward had sent angry messages to the council in London, ordering them to remedy the situation. If Burnell could make such a mess of trade, what of domestic affairs?

  A terrible foreboding struck Edward. He really had stayed away too long. It was time, finally, to put aside his pride and take on the mantle of kingship.

  The burden was heavy. His father had warned him it only got heavier as the years went by, until even the strongest man was crushed under the weight.

  I am prepared, thought Edward. He drew himself up with a peaceful heart and turned to his friend.

  “We leave tomorrow,” he said.

  16.

  Hugh steppe
d smartly out of line and stood before the vintner.

  “I am Master Hugh Longsword,” he said quickly. “A clerk of the royal household. Please escort me to Prince Edmund. At once.”

  The vintner glared at him in astonishment, his club half-raised. He used it to lash prisoners as they trudged past. Many bore wounds from the battle, untreated and roughly bandaged. Blood and pus seeped through the filthy dressings. A few had lost limbs or eyes, and hobbled along on crutches or supported by their comrades.

  “Master Longpork, is it?” hissed the vintner through a mouthful of blackish teeth. “Aye, and I’m the fucking Archbishop of Canterbury. Get back in line, pig, unless you want to end up carrying your nose in a bag.”

  Hugh had watched the vintner at work, and knew a man who delighted in cruelty when he saw one. He had already beaten three prisoners half to death.

  “I speak the truth,” Hugh said calmly. “And can prove it. See here.”

  He unfolded his right hand to reveal his letter of commission. The parchment was crunched into a ball, but still intact. Before giving himself up to the royalists, Hugh had removed the letter from its hiding place in his belt and held it tight. It was his one chance of salvation. Otherwise he would share the fate of all the other captured rebels. Hanged like a common thief or sent off to die in some foul dungeon.

  The vintner’s malicious little eyes goggled at the sight of the royal crest. “You stole that,” he said accusingly.

  “Not so,” replied Hugh. “The letter bears my name. Read it if you like.”

  This almost earned him a whack from the club. The other man was illiterate, as Hugh knew perfectly well, and clearly resented being reminded of his ignorance. Yet the blow did not land.

  “Give me the letter,” demanded the vintner. “I’ll go and get a clerk to check if it’s real.”

  Hugh closed his hand again. “No. I’ve changed my mind. Take me to Prince Edmund. I will show the letter to him and none other.”

  He allowed a touch of iron to enter his voice. “My mission is urgent. Every moment I waste arguing with you the peril to the kingdom grows. If I fail, you fail. Must I spell out the consequences?”

  Hugh glanced meaningfully at the special gallows erected outside the gates of York. It was large enough to hang twenty rebels at a time, and currently bore a full load of bodies. They twisted slowly in the wind, their necks broken, even as flocks of carrion birds squawked and squabbled over so much fresh meat.

  The long line of prisoners was driven towards the gates, past the crow-picked remains of their comrades. They would be judged before a team of royal justices, who had finally dared to show their faces in the north Most would hang. Those who lived would never taste freedom again.

  Fortunately, the vintner was a coward. He turned pale and ran off to fetch his officer, a young knight with deep lines of worry carved into his smooth features. Hugh suspected he had been hanging men all day, and didn’t much like it.

  “That’s the royal seal, right enough,” the said knight in a tired voice when Hugh showed him the letter. “Very well, Master Longsword – if that is your true name – let us see if the prince will receive you.”

  Hugh was taken off under armed escort into York. The streets were busy, and his guards had to bully their way through teeming crowds. An air of fear and uncertainty hung over the city. Rumours swirled of a fresh army gathering in the north. There were fears that the King of Scots might invade, exploiting the chaos and uncertainty in England to annex the northern counties. Effigies of rebels such as Sir John d’Eyvill and the Green Knight were burnt on pyres, or hanged from bridges and outside taverns.

  The young knight, who gave his name as Sir William Leyburn, took Hugh to the castle, where Prince Edmund and his household were lodged. Hugh was ushered into the bailey, where a large half-timbering building served as a royal residence. The wooden keep, an unusual quatrefoil-shaped tower on a high motte, had been damaged by a gale before Hugh was born and never repaired.

  He was escorted up a timber stair to the airy chamber on the first floor. Prince Edmund sat behind a long table, chewing on an apple. The remnants of his supper, a frugal meal of bread and cheese, lay on a wooden platter. Hugh hadn’t seen Edmund since the Holy Land, and was surprised by the change in him. The king’s brother had aged badly in the past year; his burly frame had grown a little heavier, shoulders slumped, eyes weary and bloodshot. He was grey of pallor, with lines on his face that hadn’t been there the last time Hugh saw him at close quarters.

  Edmund gave Hugh a baffled look. “Hugh Longsword. So you’re alive then. Well done. I see you’ve acquired another scar. It doesn’t suit you.”

  Hugh tore the fake scar off his face. “Just a bit of animal hide, my lord,” he said cheerfully.

  The prince snorted. “Clever little fellow, aren’t you? Full of tricks. Now, take a good look at me. What do you see? I know. A man grown old before his time.

  “Duty, Longsword. Duty. The cares of state. I’ve spent the past week judging fellow Englishmen and sending most of them to the gallows. Not a very pleasant task.”

  Hugh judged that to be an understatement. As one who suffered from broken nights himself, he could see the prince slept badly.

  “I should have stayed in the Holy Land,” said Edmund. “The voyage home damn near killed me, and I arrived in England to find the kingdom on the brink of civil war. I tried to stop it. Failed. Now we have a sea of blood on our hands.”

  “Not so, my lord,” said Hugh. “The guilt lies with Earl Ferrers and his fellow traitors. They chose to take up arms against the king. Those men you sent to the gallows deserved to die.”

  Edmund spat out his apple core. “If you truly believe that,” he said savagely, “then you’re an even bigger fool than you look. All the condemned men were peasants. Commoners, serving-men, labourers and the like, forced to fight by their lords. The knights and barons we captured will pay a ransom and ride off back to their manors. Even Sir James Chandos will go free. His family are rich enough to save him.

  “I wanted to hang Chandos in a cage in the market square. The Green Knight, indeed! A brigand in a green coat. We should have stuck his pretty blonde head on a spear and turned the common men loose. Let them scuttle back to their dens. My fellow justices wouldn’t hear of it. The price of rebellion is blood and money. Serfs are made to pay in blood, the lords in coin.”

  He shook himself and passed a hand over his eyes. “Enough of my preaching. I must do what is necessary. What are you doing here, Longsword, and what in hells have you done to your hair?”

  Hugh told the prince of his recent adventures in the north. Edmund, who had started work on a third jug of wine, mostly listened in silence, with the occasional curse or snort of disbelief.

  Finally, Hugh reached the battle near York, where he had fought for Chandos and the northern rebels under the guise of a Gascon mercenary.

  “When the lines started to break, I was among the first to flee,” he said. “I had a good horse and so escaped the rout. After spending the night under a hedge, I decided to risk coming to York.”

  “Dangerous,” remarked Edmund. “Lots of soldiery roving about the countryside. Our men and theirs, looking for easy plunder. You would have done better to lie low until things calmed down a little. Hole up in some cheap tavern somewhere, with a nice girl to keep you warm.”

  “Tempting,” said Hugh with a smile. “But I had to come back. My work is unfinished.”

  “You need not worry on that score,” said Edmund. “If even half of what you told me is true, you have earned the king’s forgiveness several times over. My brother is not without mercy, you know. Oh, he is hard sometimes, but a good king must be hard. Edward will be a good king. Perhaps a great one.”

  If he ever comes back, thought Hugh. “I want to be in at the death,” he said, and meant it. “In truth, my lord, I have failed too. I took Walter Devyas prisoner in Sherwood Forest, and he was murdered under my very nose. I adopted a disguise to join the rebel
s at Tickhill, and where did that lead? Nowhere. I’ve achieved nothing. Nothing!”

  He was surprised by the anger in his voice. Edmund’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, Longsword,” the prince said quietly. “Don’t make it personal. You are a servant of the crown, and a willing and able one. Brave, too. That’s more than enough. I will certainly speak in your defence to the king. You have my oath.”

  “Enough for most men,” said Hugh, “but not me. I want to destroy Earl Ferrers. I want him to beg at my feet, as he did at Chesterfield, all those years ago.”

  Only then will I be able to rest at night, he added privately. Perhaps that was the key. If he helped to bring peace to England, he might be allowed his own peace of mind.

  He knew it was a mistake to press Edmund’s goodwill too far. The prince was a milder man than his brother, but still an Angevin, with the hot blood of his forebears. To his surprise, Hugh craved redemption more than he feared the rage of the Devil’s Brood.

  He waited, heart knocking against his ribs, as Edmund took another long swallow of wine. When he had drained the cup he set it down and drummed his fingers on the table. Then, to Hugh’s great relief, he grinned.

  “I always thought you were a bloodless creature, Longsword. Just another of Master John’s pale killers, creeping about the palace with a knife hidden under your cloak. It’s good to know you have some decent passion under that meek little face. So you want revenge on Robert Ferrers. You and thousands of others. That man has plagued this kingdom for far too long.”

  “Then let us end it,” said Hugh.

  Edmund gave him another shrewd look. Silence fell as the prince thought awhile. Outside a church bell rang in the city, followed by deep monkish voices raised in plainchant. As ever, the sound caused Hugh’s troubles and anxieties to melt away, at least until the chant stopped.