Son of the Morning (49 page)

The young squire who had led them there ducked inside the tent.

In a few moments he emerged. ‘Put your weapons in a pile at the door,’ he said.

‘Won’t be necessary!’ came a child’s voice from inside. ‘These people are expected!’

The pardoner glanced at Dow, as if he might read some explanation in his face. There was nothing to read.

They entered the pavilion. Dow had never been in such a luxurious place. The black ground was invisible, covered by rich carpets in red and blue, three couches sat around the room beautifully decorated with hunting scenes and two gorgeous tapestries featuring prancing unicorns were hung from stands left and right of the entrance. A minstrel on one of the couches was strumming and two servants were setting up a book on a reading stand.

In the middle of the room, being disrobed by three servants, stood a tall man of around twenty-one. He wore a dusty riding coat and fine boots, which one of his men struggled to pull off. Next to him, equipped almost identically down to a sword at his side, was a boy of around eight. His surcoat bore the quartered arms they’d seen outside the tent.

‘These are your countrymen, cousin?’ The older man spoke.

The boy smiled. ‘They are indeed. Welcome, lady, welcome friends. You are very welcome!’

He smiled and walked forward to Orsino. ‘The protector.’ He walked on to Dow, ‘The one we’ve been very keen to meet.’ The boy walked up to the lady, ‘No doubt who you are.’ Then, to the pardoner, ‘What do
you
do?’ The question was suddenly sharp.

‘Help,’ said the pardoner, a word that could have been mistaken for a request to God rather than a statement to the boy.

‘Help.’

‘Yes, help.’

‘Help!’ The boy suddenly screamed in the pardoner’s face and Osbert leapt backward. The boy burst into laughter, as did the tall noble and the servants. Even Orsino conspicuously smiled.

‘Help,’ said the boy, calm again. ‘Well, I should say you’re certainly going to do that.’

‘Who are they, cousin?’ the young man spoke.

The boy turned to him. ‘The lady is a relative of my mother, Uncle John,’ said the boy, ‘and I’m dying to get back to Paris to introduce her.’

‘Oh, Charlie, we have a little warring to do before that. Will you not stay at least until Valenciennes. It’s a pretty little town and will look so lovely afire.’

‘My mother wishes to see this lady. She is a relative after all and my mama was concerned for her, knowing she was in this part of the country.’

Dow swallowed. This was the prince who might lead them to the angel?

‘What’s her name?’ said John. ‘She looks rather dark for your mother’s line, Charlie lad. A rare beauty, though.’

‘Oh, we don’t worry about that sort of thing in our family,’ said the boy. ‘It only gets confusing.’

‘Very wise,’ said John, ‘impossible to keep track of all one’s relatives so best not even to try. Everyone’s called Joan or Philip, if in doubt I just go with that. Or set a man to remember it for one – I recommend that, Charlie. You know how people stand on such things.’

Sariel stared at the little boy like a cat at a sunbeam, trying to work out what it was.

‘I’d love this lady to see the angel,’ said Charles.

‘We can’t have half of Navarre making a bee line in there,’ said John, ‘although she is very pleasing on the eye. Will you dine with us tonight, lady?’

Sariel turned her eyes to John.

‘I would regard it as an honour to speak to princes,’ she said, ‘for you will one day be kings and speak to God.’

‘That’s settled then,’ said Charles. ‘And the rest of you, once you’ve tidied yourself up, can eat with the servants which – let’s face it – is what you are.’ He looked directly at Dow. ‘A rare sort of servant but a servant nevertheless.’

He clicked his fingers at a nobleman who stood close by. ‘Arnaud, see these men get a space in a tent appropriate to their station. Stick them in with some of the crossbowmen, failing that a smith. Some sort of useful lower man. Lady, I’ll have a knight vacate his tent for you. I’m afraid we have no higher quarters, but I’ll make sure you are very well attended.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sariel. Dow had never seen her like this. She seemed almost entranced by the princes. But then he remembered – she was a fallen angel and royalty was appointed directly by the spiteful Îthekter. Was she seeking a way back to Heaven? He saw the little boy staring at her, his perfect, pampered face like a grinning moon. At Dow’s belt was the devil’s knife. For the moment, he kept his hand away from the handle.

11

Edward knelt before the statue of Mary at Ipswich, gazing up at the image of Christ’s mother, her infant on her knee. He was about to set sail again, bringing reinforcements but nowhere near as many as he wanted.

He tried to summon her presence, the cool blue light he’d known as a child, the sense of peace. Nothing.

‘Holy Mother, grant us now our deliverance in our hour of need.’

A year and a half before the demons would take another of his children. Was it enough time to carve out a piece of France to give to Free Hell? It had to be. What he would do for Montagu. Taken by the French! God’s judgement on him for disregarding the order to stay away from his mother. When he thought of Montagu’s disobedience his mouth became dry with anger. At least, according to reports, the earl had come away his own man. Edward was thankful for that and reminded himself of Montagu’s great service to him. Doubtless he had gone to his mother in a misguided attempt to further Edward’s cause. He could forgive him for that, and Montagu’s current perilous situation caused him anguish. He had heard nothing from the French concerning a ransom. Thank God, he couldn’t afford it and needn’t suffer the embarrassment of saying so. Montagu’s visit to Castle Rising provided the ideal justification for telling the French to keep him. But could he do that to his friend? And yet his debts. God, what confusion, in the state and in his heart.

There was a murmur behind him, the sound of the guards admitting someone. He kept praying. The footsteps came closer.

‘Do you need to make confession, lord?’ It was the voice of the Archbishop of Canterbury, John De Stratford. Edward didn’t bother with the ‘De’. The French were his enemies now and it was good to mark the difference between them. The king himself had given up speaking French earlier in the year – roughly when he’d declared himself king of France. The English were afraid that, should Edward make good his claim, they would become a vassal state of France. Edward had never been so English as in the months following his announcement.

The king kept his eyes on the statue. He did, desperately, need to confess. But he couldn’t. That would put him too much into the power of the priesthood. And what penance could he do that would shrive him of his sin? A usurper, exactly as Mortimer had said. A usurper.

He stood and faced Stratford. The archbishop was an athletic-looking man in his late forties, soberly dressed for a churchman of his rank, in a plain green surcoat decorated with a simple diamond brooch in the shape of the cross. He spoke his mind and had been greatly disliked for it by the king’s father – the exact reason the young Edward favoured him.

‘God hears me directly, Stratford. I have no need of priests.’

‘I have need of you, sir. You have imprisoned my brother.’

‘The chancellor was responsible for raising taxes for the war effort. The taxes have not been raised, whether through sloth, indolence or incompetence, I cannot tell.’

‘Do not blame him, sir. Or at least hear his plea. Let him be judged by a court of his peers.’

‘You say that I, who stand in the place of God who judges us all, am not capable of judging him?’

‘Yes, I am. You weren’t here. You do not know the difficulties he faced.’

‘Is this why you travelled to see me?’

‘No, I have received a letter from the Duke of Guelders. Your collection for the war effort is in vain, anyway. I have news that the French have blockaded the Zwin at Sluys. Between two and three hundred ships. Nineteen thousand men. The angel Jegudiel was seen over the skies behind them, blowing their sails full. God has declared his hand. The mission must be abandoned.’

‘Get out!’ Edward bawled at the guards at the doorway. The men instantly withdrew from the chapel, closing the doors behind them.

‘We have forty ships out there,’ said Edward, ‘Forty! This is the result of your lazy brother’s efforts! Forty to take on two hundred!’

The king tried to clear his thoughts. A blinding white light seemed to descend on him and it was all he could do to stop himself cutting down Stratford on the floor of the chapel.

‘If the French try to invade it will be costly for them,’ said Stratford, undaunted; ‘we fight them here, on our soil, well supplied, well defended. Their angels may not travel. Ours are certain to come to our aid.’

‘You know our angels retreat inside their shrines, Stratford. They haven’t spoken for years. We are lucky to have the one. We cannot wait until the French muster all theirs.’

The archbishop glanced at the statue of Mary before continuing. ‘Our angels are absent at the moment. But the threat to their shrines, to their dwelling places, is all it will take for them to rise again. We have an ophanim at Canterbury, Uriel in the light of Westminster Abbey, Seraphiel dwells not sixty miles hence at Walsingham. They will come when threatened, believe me.’

Edward threw back his head, as if indeed asking for help from the Almighty.

They would not come, he knew. His one course of action, his only way forward, was to smash his way into France, show his faith in God before almost certain death. The longer he left it, the more angels Philip would raise. To allow the French to come, to risk more burned churches, more ruined and smashed monasteries, was to invite disaster. He knew one way only, the way he’d known all his life. Attack.

‘The fleet will sail,’ he said.

‘You have forty ships!’

‘And whose fault is that?’ Edward shouted, an inch from the priest’s face.

‘It cannot be done. It will not be done,’ said Stratford, ‘I will not stand by and watch my countrymen go to slaughter.’

Edward shoved Stratford in the centre of the chest, sending him staggering backward.

‘Those who are afraid can stay at home. I am a lion! An English lion and I will devour these French lambs!’ Again, the white light, the pulsing in his head, all reason burned away.

‘You cannot fight an angel! I speak on behalf of all my advisers.’

‘So you have crawled behind my back! I have faith in God,’ said Edward. ‘It is a pity that you, as archbishop, can’t have the same. Where was the French angel when we ran Philip’s army so close at Tournai? He refused to come to the fight, despite an official invitation to battle. Were Philip so confident he would have leapt upon us.’

‘He had no need to disturb his angels. He knew that he only had to prance around for a month or two to bankrupt you.’

‘Which brings me back to your brother’s inadequacies,’ said Edward.

‘You cannot milk a stone,’ said Stratford, ‘the country is bled dry.’

‘Which is why we will restore it with the plunder of France. Now get out of my sight and send Morley and Crabbe in here.’

‘I would have my brother tried by his peers.’

Edward felt his anger cooling as quick as it had come. Stratford had been his close ally, provided good and honest counsel for years. He probably spoke sense of some sort. He just didn’t see that God required an act of faith from kings. Faith, faith. Then God would reward him with his father’s death and the angels would attend him, freeing him from all bargains with Hell, and save his sons.

‘Give your brother his trial. I haven’t time to oversee it.’

Stratford nodded and strode from the hall. Ten minutes later, Crabbe and Morley came into the church, each grimy and wet with sweat from overseeing the preparations for departure.

The men bowed.

‘Hear this,’ said Edward, ‘and mark it well. Your days of idleness are over. Dispatch your officers, gentlemen. I want every ship over forty tons’ burden to assemble ready for my attack. From the Downs to the Cinque ports they will assemble in the Pool of Orwell. The ships of the western Admiralty too – our troops are ready to depart.’

‘That will strip the land of all defence, sir and cause great hardship to the merchants,’ said Crabbe.

‘I am king of England and of France. I am not interested in the hardships of ordinary men.’

‘The men of Yarmouth will refuse flat, sir,’ said Morley. ‘They value their ships highly and do not easily submit to the will of kings.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Edward. ‘Summon my horses. I’ll pay a visit to Yarmouth and test the resolve of these jumped up mariners face to face. In the meantime, a week, no more to assemble all ships. How many will that be?’

‘One hundred and twenty, at the most, sir.’

‘Three times better than forty. Good. Well don’t just stand there, go and do what I tell you.’

The men left the hall and he kneeled again before the statue of Mary.

‘Well, God,’ he said, ‘Abraham offered you his first son as a sacrifice. I offer you an army. Let not their deaths be in vain.’ He crossed himself and strode from the chapel, calling for his horse. This time, there would be no running from him. There would be war if he had to fight Philip alone.

12

Suffolk was quite drunk and lay sleeping on his bed but Montagu had drunk no more than a cup of wine and could not sleep.

The room was well appointed and they had a good fire but still Montagu shivered. He was thinking of Isabella. Had she robbed him of his courage? He had always disdained to value his life too much. He had loved his wife greatly, his children equally. The service of Edward had given him purpose and his wars had brought danger and fame. He had lived so boldly, so vibrantly. And yet, and yet, there was always a distance between him and the world. His closest friends saw it. Everything to Montagu was a joke or an adventure or something between the two. No matter how hard pressed he was, how concerned about the fate of England and Edward, it was always as if he was acting the role of himself in some old court play. When he thought of Isabella, there was no distance, no pretence. He was utterly himself, knowing himself completely. There, in that prison, he was not Montagu nor Salisbury nor Marschall of England. He was a man desperate to see Isabella again. No more.