The Scarlet Lion (58 page)

   The arbalester had been joined by two companions. Bolts whizzed overhead, one bouncing off the iron face of the ram, another striking into a shield and splintering through to the other side. William threaded his arm through his own shield straps and prepared to charge.

   "No, my lord," said the Bishop of Winchester urgently. "We should wait. Who knows how many are waiting through that gap? De Breauté may not have drawn them all off yet. We dare not risk it. At least send in a few men to reconnoitre."

   "No," William snarled as another crossbow quarrel sang overhead. "By the time they've done so, French reinforcements will have arrived. I will tarry no longer."

   "My lord, your helm!" cried the squire as William made to spur Aethel into the gap. The youth dashed forward with William's helmet.

   "Jesu God," William hissed through his teeth with self-irritation as he snatched the helm from the youth and jammed it on his head. The squire hastened to help him lace it to his hauberk.

   "You'll be forgetting your head next," Will said laconically, his own voice emerging muffled through his visor guard.

   "Losing it more likely," William retorted with selfdeprecating humour. A good thing Chester isn't here to see it." He saluted his son with his sword. "God be with us."

   "Amen." Will kissed the hilt of his own sword and flourished the cross guard at his father.

   Abruptly William turned, lashed the reins down on Aethel's neck, and plunged through the dusty gap into the town of Lincoln. There were few to meet them in the initial charge, for the French were engaged either in defending the North Gate against the Earl of Chester, or battling with the contingent led by Faulkes de Breauté in the streets around the east side of the castle. Easily sweeping aside the small resistance they met, William's force galloped down Westgate Street, swung right, and met the French who were still engaged in assaulting the castle's southern wall.

   "Marshal, Marshal, God is with the Marshal!" roared the Bishop of Winchester at the top of his lungs, as if by doing so he could win the Almighty's ear. William felt Aethel's fluid power beneath him and the stallion's strength and vitality seemed to flow into him too. He dug in his spurs and the destrier hit full stride, the mail breast-band swishing like a silver curtain as they struck the French besiegers. William's sword sang and descended, silver light flashing off the honed edge before it bit flesh. He felt the jolt of the first blow shudder up his arm, and with it came tingling exhilaration as he relinquished himself to the terrible beauty of his God-given talent. Even at seventy years old, it felt almost as good as it had done at twenty and thirty.

   The fighting split up into hard, individual combats. A master of the mêlée, William handled sword, shield, and destrier in perfect coordination. The Bishop stayed close behind him, roaring his battle cry, and Jack and Jean were at either shoulder in the positions they had held as his squires in the days of the old King Henry. Will and Longespée had broken away to tackle a group of French knights who were putting up a stout and skilled resistance, the silver and red shield of Perche showing at its centre.

   A French trebuchet team was still in position, launching stones at the castle walls, its crew plainly mistaking the English knights for their own men returning from the North Gate. They rolled the boulder into the sling and cranked the tension. The crew leader raised his arm and counted down the launch. "Three, two—" The final shout never came as a sword flashed like the flank of a fish in shallow water and took off his head. As the body toppled, the rest of the crew fled, yelling the alarm.

   The fighting bubbled through the streets of Lincoln like yeast frothing on top of new ale, churning up afresh as pockets of English and French met and clashed. The Count of Perche had made a stand before the cathedral and, in its shadow, was fighting so fiercely that it looked as if he might turn the tide. William pricked Aethel towards the knot of fighting men, intent on reaching Perche in the hopes of making him yield.

   A French knight tried to strike William with a mace and he deflected the blow on the side of his shield. Another came at him with a spear but Jean caught the haft on his sword and forced it away; pushing under the man's guard, he cut him down.

   The ground was bloody underfoot. Men fell and were trampled. Horses screamed as they were slashed. The clash of battle deafened William's ears. He spurred through the fray, aiming inexorably towards his cousin. Perche thrust off an assault from the left. Reaching him, William roared at him to yield, but Perche was in the grip of battle fever. Turning, he struck out at William, hitting him fiercely on the helm. At William's side a knight thrust his sword through the eye slit of Perche's helm, then wrenched it free, blood damascening the steel. Perche's arm continued in motion for a second blow and then a third. On the downstroke, his fingers lost their grip and the sword fell from his hand. He slumped sideways from the horse and hit the ground with a thud like a sack of wet flour, and didn't move again. There was a sudden hiatus in the fighting, the Count's supporters pulling back, the English holding their blows.

   William gestured Jean to dismount and remove the Count's helm and it became immediately plain he was dead. The wound through his eye slit had pierced to his brain; his final two blows had been naught but reflex. His good eye stared frozenly; the other was a ruined red cavern. "Cover him," William said in a parched voice. "And mind that he is afforded full honour." He swallowed, trying to moisten his battle-dried throat before he raised his voice. "Your lord is dead. Let all those who desire to yield, lay down their swords and cry quarter!"

   Some did, but many fled the scene in search of the other French forces in the town who were fighting on near the river. William was enjoining two knights and a detail of serjeants to take custody of those who had surrendered when more knights arrived at the gallop, the wheat-sheaves of Chester blazoned on their shields.

   "My lord, the North Gate is breached!" one cried, drawing rein before William. "The Earl of Chester has broken through!"

   "Great news!" Triumph blazed through William. He wouldn't think of his cousin's death. There was no time. Besides, Thomas had died in fierce battle, which was no bad way to make an end. "Return and tell him to come to the lower end of the town. The French are trying to rally there!"

   The knights saluted and spurred back the way they had come. William turned for the next onslaught and was joined by Will. He noticed a trickle of blood running down his son's right hand, and the red rims to his fingernails.

   "You are not wounded?" he asked sharply.

   Will shook his head. "Most of it's not mine," he said. "I've taken scratches, nothing more. If I was afraid, it was for you in the thick of it all."

   William smiled behind the mask of his helm. "I've taken ten times worse on the tourney field. But the danger is always the sword through the eye slit. God rest Thomas's soul."

   "Amen," said Will, signing his breast.

   William echoed the gesture, gathered his reins, and spurred on.

   At the South Gate of the town the fighting grew fierce again as the French regrouped and attempted to fight back up the hill, their efforts bearing a desperate edge. The moment came when their ranks broke on the granite of the English resolve and fragmented into individuals fleeing for their lives, but their escape from the town was prevented by a jammed portcullis. Picked off, hewn down, captured, the French were annihilated. Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, was taken prisoner, and with him Robert FitzWalter and Gilbert de Clare, English leaders crucial to the opposition.

   "Victory!" The cry arose in a single English throat and was taken up, man by man, until it was a full-blown triumphant roar. William felt the words surge through him in a tangible vibration. Aethel snorted and sidled, ears flickering. The gamble—the greatest gamble of his life—had paid off. One half of the French army and the senior English rebels had been brought either to destruction or to surrender on the battleground. With fingers that were suddenly unsteady, he sheathed his sword and fumbled to unlace his helm.

   Jean was swiftly at his side, helping him as he had once done

as a squire. Sweat trickled down William's cheeks, mingling with tears. He wiped his face on the oily cuff of his gambeson. "You know the first thing I have to do?" he croaked.

   "No, my lord?" Jean was breathing hard from his own exertions.

   "Find Hywel and send him to my wife with the news that we're all safe. If she doesn't hear, then no matter the victory, I won't live to enjoy it beyond the first moment of reunion." A tremulous grin broke across his face.

   "Yes, my lord." Jean returned the grin.

   William pushed down his coif and, unfastening his arming cap, dragged it off his head. "I'm still not sure I believe it," he said. "I knew we had to take the victory, and I knew we could do it, but…" He blotted his brow. "There's still many a slip, but for the first time I can see the harbour lanterns."

Forty-three

NOTTINGHAM, MAY 1217

Two hours after his arrival at Nottingham Castle with the soldiers who had defeated the French at Lincoln, Isabelle finally got her husband to herself—more or less. Servants and retainers still occupied the room like worker bees in a busy hive, but she paid them no attention; her focus was all on William. The Legate had wanted to suck every drop of information out of him like a leech draining blood from a victim's body. Even now, bloated with detail, he was not satisfied, but had reluctantly conceded William needed to refresh himself before the dinner hour.

   When William entered the room, her heart turned over when she saw how fatigued he looked, his eyes bleary and the hollows beneath dark as ink. He walked heavily too, as if there were weights attached to his feet. The victory at Lincoln had been decisive, but there came a time when the heady mix of triumph and exhilaration no longer had its effect on the exhausted body.

   "You need to sleep," she said as she helped him to disrobe, dismissing the squires and her women—reserving that right to herself.

   "I am looking forward to it," he admitted. "I knew the Legate was a hard taskmaster, but I hadn't expected to fight the Battle of Lincoln all over again."

   Isabelle inspected his body as she removed the layers. Bruises of varying shades discoloured his upper arms and from the careful way he had moved when entering the room, she knew he was suffering from strained muscles at the very least. Jean had told her he had performed in his usual manner, refusing to stay back among the ranks. His throat and wrists bore dark streaks from the places where the grease and steel from his hauberk rings had rubbed against his skin.

   "You should not have yielded to him."

   William shrugged. "It's politic to keep him sweet. Once he's dissected the situation to his satisfaction, he'll be less demanding." He stepped into the tub, sat down, and leaned back with a soft groan.

   Isabelle fetched a piece of white soap and set about washing him with a soft linen cloth. William closed his eyes and surrendered to her ministrations. It was another indication to her of how tired he was, for usually he would opt for independence and wash himself—unless he was inveigling her into love-play, and this obviously wasn't one of those moments.

   "I was sorry to hear about Thomas of Perche," she murmured.

   His closed eyelids tightened. "I was there," he said. "There was nothing to be done; it was in the press of battle, God rest his soul. At least it was a quick, clean death, and the way he would have chosen."

   Isabelle made a non-committal sound. She could imagine that William would choose the same, and didn't want to think about it. "What next?" she asked after a moment's soaping and rinsing.

   He replied without opening his eyes. "I've ordered a muster at Chertsey in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime we wait to see what Louis does. Half his army has been destroyed and I am confident that as well as the men we captured at Lincoln, others will return to the fold. While Louis was winning it might have seemed worth their holding on, but now I believe we'll see a steady trickle away from his service."

"You think he'll sue for peace?"

   "He might. I don't suppose it will be easy, nothing ever is, but at least we're making progress instead of going backwards." He raised his lids to slant her an amused look through his weariness. "My love, you stand in danger of interrogating me more fiercely than the Legate."

   Isabelle flushed with chagrin and his smile widened. "Then again perhaps not. I can't see a priest of Rome soaping my back whilst I sit in my bathtub."

   The image made Isabelle splutter and then giggle. "I won't be able to sit near him at the table and not think of that now!" she admonished.

   He laughed and almost began to look like himself instead of a shadow. "He'll just think that the return of your husband whole and victorious has turned your wits and made you as flighty as a girl."

   "He would probably be right," Isabelle said ruefully and handed him a green glass cup filled with wine.

   He arched his brow without comment, drank, and made an appreciative sound. Isabelle told him about the caves beneath the castle and throughout the town that made the Nottingham vintners the envy of all their neighbours, because of the perfect storage conditions. She spoke of everyday trivia while she continued to attend to him and by the time he stepped from the tub, the first measure of wine drained and the second one halfway down, the dark smudges beneath his eyes had lessened and his gaze was no longer lifeless. Even so, once he was dressed, Isabelle made him lie on the bed.

   "I will call you when the dinner horn sounds," she murmured persuasively. "It will do you no harm to rest awhile."

   For a moment she thought he was going to be stubborn and refuse, but then he capitulated with a sigh and lay back, closing his eyes and folding his arms behind his head. Isabelle leaned over to free the bed hangings and draw them shut so that he could have some privacy in the chamber.