Son of the Morning (19 page)

A warhorse leapt forward, its skirts billowing, the rider high in the saddle, his lance couched. His aim was true and the lance slipped the shield, slamming into the breast plate. Sir William was lifted clean out of the hobby horse saddle and dashed to the turf of the ring.

‘Good, good!’ shouted Sir William. ‘You put the tension into your arm at nearly the right moment. Do it again and see if you can really hit me this time. I expect to land here.’ He rolled over and put a mark in the grass.

‘You think the French can beat this, Bardi?’

‘I’m not a military man, sire.’

‘No. You’re not,’ said Edward, as if that indicated some deep character flaw. ‘Well, they won’t have to,’ he continued.

‘Sire?’ said Bardi. Was there a hope Edward was going to put off his campaign, try to pay his debts by subduing the Scots, maybe raising taxes? Would he at least wait until the Drago had been found, so they might have some chance against France? Bardi was convinced he would never recoup his investment otherwise.

‘This is just a game now. We go through the motions but the day of the warhorse is done. Won’t stop us having them – taking them to France and charging down a few peasants with them when we scorch Philip’s lands, but the cavalry charge is living on borrowed time. Did you hear of our glorious charge against the Scots at Halidon Hill?’

‘Er, I heard something of the brave deeds done by your knights that day, sir.’

‘More than I did. They never took place. Our horses were useless against their pikes. We got off, defended our archers and let them pin the Scots to the mud. And pin them they did. The arrows fell like a sleet storm. We had our fun chasing the retreating army, but it was the archer who won that battle. The common man. Fact. Galling isn’t it? The future’s behind me there in the keep. Five hundred longbows. More are coming. Many more.’

Bardi tried to collect his thoughts. He only had a few moments with the king and that had taken him months to secure. The courtiers had been ordered a way off to allow the king to speak to Bardi in confidence and stood lounging around on the grass at the foot of the terrace, cold butterflies in their scarlets, yellows and green – too keen to show their finery to wear cloaks, too proud to admit they were frozen to the marrow.

‘Sire.’ Bardi was about to speak again when Edward held up his hand for silence. Another rider had come into the practice area, a huge man with a bright yellow surcoat over his mail, his black hair thick on his helmetless head.

The king tapped the child on his arm. ‘What’s wrong with the way Baron Holland holds his lance?’

‘Too strong, too straight, Father.’

‘Very good. He could almost unhorse himself against Sir William like that, and his horse is made of wood and doesn’t gallop. If Holland hits another knight at full pelt, he’ll be off – as he often is. You tense only at the moment of impact and then release. Tense, release. Get it?’

‘Yes, papa.’

The knight charged. Edward cried out. ‘Douce, Thomas, Douce! Gentle, you fool!’

The boy joined in too. ‘Douce! Douce!’

The king laughed. ‘The baron is a good man. Man’s a beast in a foot mêlée. I’d have him by my side before four others.’

The knight hit the shield, but Sir William on the hobby horse expertly turned aside the blow.

‘See, if he was doing it right, old Neville would fly over the castle. Thomas, unhorse, I want to see you fight on foot. You against Desbrulais and Grosvenor. Get Fortescu to fight you too. Go on, Bardi, I haven’t all day.’ The king spoke in English. Bardi, more competent in the normal court language, replied in French.

‘Sire, certain signs delivered by certain men …’

‘My God, you speak like a politician.’

‘Thank you, sire. These signs indicate a way forward. Something to help and augment our own angels. Perhaps even stand in for them, should they not be coaxed from their shrines.’

‘The angels will come, Bardi. You presume too much.’

Bardi refused to be sidetracked. ‘You are aware of the existence of the banner known as the Drago?’

‘I am. My mother had it when we fought my father at Orwell.’

Bardi wasn’t sure how to respond. So
that
was how old Edward had been defeated. ‘Would it not be politic and wise to use it against the French?’

‘It would.’

Bardi had no response to this.

Edward was suddenly furious. ‘It went missing. Stolen and hidden by the tyrant Mortimer, no doubt. Do you not think we’d use it if we had it?’

Bardi kept quiet. He knew Edward’s tempers were fierce, but only like a summer storm, there and then gone.

The knights on the practice field were strapping on their gear for the foot fighting, laughing with each other as they did. Bardi never got used to this. In five breaths time they were going to be bashing each other’s faces in.

The king spoke to his son, ‘Watch this, little Edward, and you’ll see how he doesn’t get overwhelmed by the numbers. He attacks quickly and cleanly to stop them surrounding him and makes every blow count. He doesn’t bother about defence – if he tried to block or dodge then they’d gain the initiative. He goes in directly, lets the armour do its job and makes sure his opponents are on the back foot. In his mind, he’s their problem, not they his.’

‘Doesn’t their armour help them?’

‘Of course, but Holland hits hard and keeps pressing. He’s more accurate than his opponents in finding the gaps in the armour – or he would be if this was for real – and he’s advancing while receiving blows from a retreating man.’

‘I’m sure the Drago can be found. I have my best fellows working on it. It will be located shortly.’

‘Sorcery?’ said King Edward.

‘The work of churchmen, learned churchmen. There is a London clergyman who has achieved some remarkable insights through his studies.’

‘Sorcery.’

‘No priest has ever been convicted of that.’

‘Only because they have the right to be tried by the ecclesiastical courts, which are never going to convict them because half of them are up to the same thing.’

‘These are learned men.’

‘Learning leads to the sin of pride and pride was the first sin against God. Dealing with divine powers is the province of kings; dealing with diabolic powers that of the damned. Churchmen should not infringe on either sphere.’

‘But if the banner could be found …’

‘At the cost of a soul? Better one thousand English bodies go into the grave before one soul goes to Hell.’

Bardi swallowed a sigh. Piety didn’t suit Edward. He knew for a fact that Edward had at least consulted with sorcerers, if not used them. After all, it was Bardi who had arranged the meeting, through the Hospitallers. Nothing wrong with that – several European kings kept their own magicians and the church contrived to look the other way.

‘With it, sire, you have every chance of success. I wouldn’t be surprised if it might even be used to persuade some of the French angels to our side.’

‘You have a poor opinion of the piety of the French. Besides, it has not been found.’

‘Not yet, but as I say, it will be discovered. It would be equal to the Oriflamme in combat. And no angel would strike at an army that bore such a holy banner before it.’

Edward shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not enough time,’ he said. ‘I’m paying the lords of the Low Countries through the nose for the use of their forces. They’re ready to go. I can’t keep them sitting on their arses indefinitely.’

‘Your chances of victory …’

‘Bardi, do I advise you on your investments and loans?’

‘No, sire.’

‘Because I trust you know what you are doing. Pay me the same compliment when it comes to the arts of war.’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘You also know little of the arts of diplomacy, despite your sophisticated air. You say you are certain you will find the Drago?’

‘My men are excellent.’

‘Then it’s as good as found. So I can announce to Parliament that we have it. That should stiffen their resolve for the fight with France.’

‘I didn’t go that far, sir, I …’

‘Have you lied to me, Bardi? It would suit me to call you a spy and cancel my debts to you.’

Bardi coloured. ‘Lord, I  … ’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Edward, smiling, ‘I still have need of you. Unfortunately, killing bankers – however attractive and pleasurable that may be in the short term – tends to diminish one’s chances of credit at a time of future need.’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘Forget about holy banners. Concentrate on raising me more money. I’m going to the Holy Roman Emperor. If he’ll declare me vicar of the Holy Roman Empire I will stand in his place before God and add the angels of the Holy Roman Empire to our own, not to mention a good few thousand Bavarian men-at-arms. By summer we will sail for France and I intend to give Philip the beating he’s been asking for all these years.’

Edward stood up, lifting the boy to his feet. In the circle, Holland had a mace in one hand, a shield in the other. Three other knights surrounded him, armed with swords.

The banker went to say more but Edward was crying out, ‘Set to! Set to!’

The three knights attacked almost simultaneously. Holland caught Debrulais’ attack high on his shield and thumped a short, pulled blow to the side of the helm, sending Desbrulais crashing to the floor. He deflected Grosvenor’s attack with the vambrace on his arm, stepping in and under the cut before delivering a stab with the mace into the back, dropping him too. Fortescu, having missed his first swipe, came on straight at Holland, who seized his arm, stepped his foot behind him and sent him crashing to the floor, where he faked the action of smashing him in the head.

‘Take a look at that, little Edward,’ said the king. ‘That’s the future, right there, smashing Sir David in the head. The foot soldier. Makes you weep, doesn’t it? Go, Bardi. My lady is approaching.’

The king set the boy down as the queen, Philippa, came up the stairs, followed by four ladies-in-waiting. The queen was a good-looking, slim woman in her early twenties with deep olive skin and dark eyes. Edward smiled to see her. Bardi knew she had been given to the king, but they were as close as any love match. She’d borne him good sons and, though they’d lost their William as a baby the year before, she was likely to produce more. What king would not love her for that?

The king smiled as Sir Gerald Sydney bent to one knee and began a poem to Lady Charlotte Hamilton, the prettiest of the queen’s women, a pale red-haired thing in a blue gown. Edward took the queen’s hand and walked with her to the bottom of the wooden terrace, away from their retainers, seeking privacy, thought Bardi.

A cloth banner hung at the back of the terrace and, checking to see if he was observed, Bardi ducked beneath it as the courtiers applauded the poem. He moved inside to where he could hear clearly and see enough through a gap in the boards. He pressed his eye to it. The king had turned his back to the rail at the bottom of the terrace and his queen stood sideways, speaking to him. Bardi was so close that he breathed slowly, afraid he would be heard.

‘My lord.’ The queen bowed.

‘My lady.’ Edward bowed deeper.

‘The fleet is mustering, I hear,’ she said.

‘You hear right. We have powerful allies on our side. The Duke of Brabant stands ready to welcome us on the continent and Ludwig has put the forces of the Holy Roman Empire at our disposal. He may yet do more.’

‘But Parliament?’

Edward blew, like one of the warhorses asked to do its twentieth charge of the day. ‘They’ll give me what I want. We’ll get a wool levy and that will give us collateral for all the loans we need in Flanders. One of the advantages of admitting commoners to Westminster was that they’re used to doing as they’re told.’

‘It is said there is a serious chance they may not fund the expedition.’

‘Don’t pay attention to the gossip of court ladies.’

‘So you would have to sue for peace. And on Valois terms.’

‘I go to them this afternoon. I have plans that should secure the money.’

‘Will the French angels appear?’

Edward kicked at the terrace, and Bardi had to stop himself from crying out in surprise.

‘Too much is talked of angels!’ he shouted. ‘Why must it always be angels? We had none at Halidon Hill. Give me good knights and five thousand archers above all the angels God can grant.’

Philippa crossed herself. ‘Do not talk so!’ she said. ‘We succeed under God or not at all.’

Edward was already calm again. ‘I simply think we trust too much to God, when God wants us to trust to ourselves. The French have no angels, I’m sure of that. Sir Walter Manny lured the French garrison at Sluys into a fight at Cadsland. No angels.’

‘Manny is blessed by God himself, and you know full well that a victory against a rattish garrison led by no one more noble than a knight is different entirely to the flower of France under the king and the Oriflamme. You cannot be certain!’ She whispered, so low that Bardi had to strain to hear, ‘Our angels do not come!’ Bardi was amazed the king let his wife speak so openly and so frankly. He was inclined to think of a saying of his father’s:
Women are like peppercorns. They yield their best flavour with a little bashing.
Why did the king not hit her?

‘I would not wish to be certain. If there was only certainty in war, there would be no valour.’

The pair said nothing for a while and then the queen spoke, ‘I hear word from France.’

‘Yes?’

‘My aunt Joan says her husband, the king, is entertaining Joan of Navarre and her son.’

Edward nodded slowly. ‘Nothing to concern us at present. Navarre fights with the Scots. God, he must hate us to come from his warm palaces to get blown about up there. How does our cousin Philip?’

‘Well.’

‘That’s bad to hear. The man is somewhat indecisive, but only because he thinks too much. And often, though he wobbles, he settles in the right place. His son John thinks too little. I prefer the offspring as the opponent. The Valois have produced generations of idiots, why did I have to come against a clever one?’

‘You’re speaking about my family.’

‘I don’t include you in it.’

‘Your Capetian blood boils at the thought of a Valois as an equal.’ She laughed and leaned in to him affectionately.