Falls the Shadow (72 page)

They were at last listening intently. Davydd won his way back into Edward’s good graces by asking an eminently sensible question, one that showed how seriously he was now taking this venture. “We know Bran means to join forces with Simon. How do we know he’ll still be at Kenilworth on the morrow? Mayhap he’ll be well along the road toward Hereford.”

The young spy shook his head, revealing an unexpectedly impish smile. “God has indeed favored us, my lords. Earl Simon’s son is expecting a supply train tomorrow. How likely is it that he’d set out ere its arrival?”

Edward’s audience still looked dubious; a forced night march was too novel a tactic for their liking.
As it was done since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, so must it always be done
. The words, sardonic, impatient, familiar, echoed suddenly in Edward’s ears, so vividly that he almost spun around to look for Simon. “Now you know my intent,” he said abruptly. “So why, then, are we tarrying here with so much still to do? Need I remind you that we cannot afford to squander even a single hour?”

They rose, filed out. But as Thomas passed Edward, the latter signaled for him to stay. Soon they stood alone in the circular, vaulted splendor of the Chapter House, Edward and Thomas and the mud-splattered would-be instrument of Bran’s downfall. “Seek out my steward,” Edward said with a smile. “He’ll see that you are well rewarded.” The youth knelt, turned to go. But as he reached the door, he paused to adjust his cap, and Thomas’s jaw dropped. Unable to credit what he’d just seen—two neatly pinned-up brown braids—he gasped:

“God in Heaven, a lass!”

Edward and his accomplice exchanged amused grins. “I’d as soon you kept that to yourself, Tom. They had enough trouble trusting in the word of a green stripling. Jesú forfend that they ever learn my spy was a wench!”

The girl departed, with the same insouciance that had enabled her to penetrate an enemy encampment. Thomas chuckled, but as he turned back, he saw that she’d taken Edward’s good humor with her. He looked suddenly tense, somber. “So much can go wrong, Tom,” he said, “so much…”

Thomas was amazed; he’d never heard Edward admit to doubts before. “I think your plan is inspired, Ned,” he said earnestly. “I truly do.”

“Inspired?” Edward smiled then, a smile so bleak, so bitter, that Thomas caught his breath. “I am but taking a page from my godfather’s book, Tom. A night march and a surprise attack worked very well for Simon at Lewes, did it not? God willing, it will work as well for me at Kenilworth.”

Thomas was silent, not knowing what to say. He’d forgotten that, just as Harry de Montfort was King Henry’s godson, so Edward was Simon’s.

Bran awoke with a start, unable to breathe. Opening his eyes, he discovered why; he’d inhaled some of his bedmate’s tangled swirl of hair. He spat it out, sat up on the pallet. Reaching for his braies, he pulled the drawers up over his hips, tightening the drawstring. He didn’t bother with his chausses or tunic, started to hunt for his shoes. In the midst of the search, a pair of arms entwined themselves around his neck, a pair of breasts pressed against his back. “My lord…?” Yawning. “You want me now?”

“No, it’s too hot, lass.” It was, too; where their skin touched, it clung, sticky with sweat. Standing up, he fumbled for a wineskin, drank and passed it to the girl. She was so dazzled by his good manners that she actually found herself regretting that he did not want to couple with her again, and when he reached for the tent flap, she could not keep from crying out:

“Where do you go, my lord?”

“I’m just going out to take a piss. It’s sweltering in here; mayhap I’ll take another dip in the lake.”

“Again?” She was accustomed to humoring the quirks of her customers, but never had she encountered one so bizarre. In truth, the man was besotted with bathing, even insisting that she take a bath herself ere he’d bed her! Were all lords so daft about soap and water?

She looked so dumbfounded that Bran grinned. “Go back to sleep,” he said, not unkindly. Guy always swore that a man could not go wrong by treating a slut like a lady and a lady like a slut. For certes, it seemed to work with harlots; they were pitifully grateful for any scrap of courtesy. Mayhap he ought to have tried it on Isabella, a thought so outrageous that he burst out laughing.

The lake shimmered invitingly, silvered by the last glimmerings of starlight. A welcome breeze wafted off the water, dried the sweat trickling down his chest. Not yet dawn and already ungodly hot. Poor Johnny; the castle must be like a veritable oven. Several of the blanket-clad forms stirred sleepily as he passed. A few early risers were relieving themselves by the edge of the lake. A dog’s howling floated over the castle walls, cut off by a spate of cursing, inventive enough to make Bran grin. But the cursing soon faded and quiet once more reigned throughout their camp, lulling the dozing men back into a deeper sleep.

Bran loved the stillness of summer, loved this tranquil, turquoise hour just before the dawn. He quickened his pace until he reached the lake, stripped off his braies, kicked off his shoes, and plunged in. He was a strong swimmer, a relatively rare accomplishment, and he swam well out into the lake, sending up diamond droplets of crystalline water in his wake. Wading back to shore, he discovered that he’d forgotten a towel, but a freckle-faced youngster gladly offered his. Others drifted over, their accents telling Bran that he’d wandered into the midst of his London volunteers. He was quite willing to linger; he liked these cheeky, cheerful, sharp-witted townsmen, so quick to rally round in his father’s time of need.

They were arguing the merits of Southwark ale-houses when the dogs began to bark. A man shouted from the castle battlements; another took it up. The Londoners would have ignored the noise had Bran not interrupted himself in mid-sentence. “It must be your supply wagons, my lord,” the freckled youth ventured. “Right on time, too—”

“No…” Bran sounded so strange that he drew all eyes. As they watched, uncomprehending, one of their wineskins slipped from his fingers, spilled into the grass. “Christ Jesus…” Almost a whisper, as intense as any prayer. “God help us, we’re under attack!”

They gaped at him, disbelieving. But then the screams started. Bran shouldered them roughly aside, running for his tent. He didn’t make it. An armed knight, seeming to appear from nowhere, bore down upon him. The Londoners shouted a futile warning, as Bran dodged a death-dealing blow from a spiked mace. But as the stallion galloped past, it brushed him with its heaving hindquarters. He was flung sideways, into the smoldering embers of a dying campfire. The Londoners reached him just as he rolled clear. His face was bloodied, his eyes dazed. “My sword…”

“You’ll never make it, my lord!” They gestured, and he saw that the camp was already overrun with mounted knights, ripping open the sides of tents, chasing after fleeing, naked men, trampling the slow and the clumsy underfoot. Women were shrieking, men shouting, fire arrows spearing the sky above their heads. Bran could no longer find the de Montfort banner; they were surrounded by the streaming gold and scarlet lions of his cousin Ned.

“My lord, what should we do?”

The question acted as a catalyst, enabling Bran to focus his thoughts. His head was gashed, his forearm burned, but he didn’t feel the pain, not yet. “We’ve got to get into the castle. There’s a boat tied up in the rushes…” His eyes sought their only salvation—a fortified sanctuary, an island citadel, his father’s castle of Kenilworth, an awesome silhouette against the brightening sky, its massive sandstone walls blood-red in the first light of dawn. Why had he not heeded Johnny’s warning? Christ forgive him, why had he not listened?

In less than an hour, it was over. Edward’s victory was total. Some of Bran’s men managed to escape into the castle. Others fled, naked, across the fields to safety. More died in their beds, bled to death in the debris of their own tents. The Earl of Oxford and fifteen banneret knights were taken prisoner. Bran’s supply train was seized on the outskirts of town, and so many horses were captured that Edward could now provide an unheard-of luxury, a mount for every man in his army.

“We’ll rest here today,” Edward announced, “and return to Worcester on the morrow.”

Gloucester frowned. Their triumph had been tarnished for him upon discovering that Bran had escaped. “I think we ought to lay siege to the castle,” he said, his yearning for vengeance momentarily overcoming his common sense. His suggestion reaped only ridicule, and for a few tense moments, it looked as if the two greatest Marcher lords, Gloucester and Roger de Mortimer, were about to cross swords.

Edward made haste to intervene, dispatching de Mortimer to take charge of their highborn captives. “I understand your disappointment, Gilbert. I want to take Kenilworth as much as you do, for not only is Bran sheltered within those walls, so is my uncle Richard. But we could besiege the castle from now till Judgment Day and it would avail us naught. Simon has made it well nigh invincible. That is why we must make sure he never reaches it.”

Glancing around, he beckoned to a nearby knight. “Philip, fetch me the de Montfort banner. Get Oxford’s, too, and as many others as you can find.”

Gloucester grinned. “I never knew you were one for collecting trophies!”

Edward’s smile was indulgent. “Not trophies,” he said. “Bait.”

Edward’s triumph at Kenilworth was such a resounding success that he dared to hope he had at last vanquished memories of his blunder at Lewes. He had, after all, done precisely what he’d set out to do; he’d even managed to reach Kenilworth in an amazing fourteen hours. As they returned to Worcester—at a more moderate pace—Edward felt complacently confident that his August 1 exploit was likely to pass into legend.

They reached Worcester very late on Sunday, the 2nd, in remarkably high spirits for men whose war was not yet won. The shock was all the greater, therefore. As they’d made their way back along the hilly Worcestershire roads, Simon had seized his opportunity, and that same day ferried his army across the Severn at Kempsey, just four miles south of Worcester.

Edward exploded in a rage spectacular even when measured against the formidable furies of his Plantagenet forebears. Why had they not sent him word at once? Did they think de Montfort’s movements were of such little interest to him? Did they not realize what could happen now that Simon had broken free? London lay open to him. So did Kenilworth. Short-sighted, simple-minded fools!

No one was so rash as to dispute him; they prudently let his anger burn itself out. When he finally stormed off in the direction of the priory cathedral, his lords took hasty counsel among themselves, much alarmed. They could not possibly attack de Montfort on the morrow, as Edward was vowing to do. Christ on the Cross, their men had covered a staggering sixty-eight miles in little more than two days, and fought a battle between marches!

Listening to them hold forth upon the folly of Edward’s intent, it occurred to Thomas de Clare that not one of them was willing to confront Ned—not his brother Gilbert, not de Warenne, not the swaggering de Lusignan, not even the fiery, reckless Roger de Mortimer. Secretly amused by their sudden skittishness, he wondered if Ned knew that they were learning to fear him. Caught up in this intriguing line of thought, he was taken aback, therefore, when Gloucester said:

“So we agree, then? My brother Tom is to be the one to talk to him, to make him see reason. Tom? What are you waiting for? Go after him!”

Thomas found Edward in the nave of the cathedral, standing before the marble tomb of his grandfather. Turning at the sound of footsteps, Edward said in a conversational tone of voice, one that held no echoes of his earlier rage, “King John of evil fame; how often have I heard him called that! Think you, Tom, that he was as black-hearted as men say?”

“I…I do not know,” Thomas stammered, caught off balance by this sudden shift in mood, and Edward shot him a searching look. Light from a recessed wall torch spilled over onto the tomb, onto the brilliantly colored effigy of a long-dead King. Edward’s eyes caught the light, too; they held an amused blue gleam.

“How did you get to be the lucky one, Tom? Did they draw lots? Well, you need not fret. You can go back and tell them that you’ve bedazzled me with your nimble wit, your irrefutable logic.”

“Then you’ll not march on Kempsey tomorrow?” Thomas asked, much relieved when Edward shook his head.

“How can I expect our men to fight another battle without even pausing for breath? I knew they could not, even as I swore upon all the saints that we would.” Moving away from his grandfather’s tomb, he gave Thomas a wry smile. “I lost my head, so desperate am I to bring Simon to bay. I was afraid, Tom, afraid that he’d fade away on the morrow, slip right through our net. But to force a fight ere we’re ready would be madness. Once before, impatience was my undoing. I’ll not travel down that road again.”

“So what will you do, then?”

“I’ve already done it—put myself in Simon’s place. By all accounts, they had a rough time of it in Wales. His men sickened on the Welsh food; how many Englishmen could long abide a diet of milk and mutton? They’re bound to be disheartened, too, for I’ve thwarted Simon’s every move for nigh on two months. Now he has taken advantage of my absence, succeeded in crossing the Severn. But he well knows his danger. By now he knows, too, that Bran has finally reached Kenilworth. What he does not know is that his reinforcements are never coming. As urgent as is his need to put distance between his army and mine, he’s been crippled, knows that neither his men nor his horses are capable of making a mad dash for Kenilworth. So what does he do? What can he do but seek to make the best of a bad bargain? He sends scouts to keep vigil on Worcester, to warn him should I venture toward Kempsey. Tomorrow he gives his army a much needed day of rest. And at dusk, he pulls out, thus escaping both the heat of the day and prying enemy eyes.”

Edward paused. “I grant you that he could strike out for London. But I am gambling on Kenilworth. There are two roads he can take—and I mean to cover them both, to cut him off ere he can reach Kenilworth and safety. Tom? Why do you look at me like that? You do not agree with my reasoning?”