Crown in Candlelight (22 page)

Yet he said calmly: ‘Go, eat and rest before the day begins. There will be food and drink for you and all the wounded and weary. Be undismayed.’

The surgeon said urgently: ‘Your Grace, the Bishop …’ and Henry turned saying softly, yes, I come, walking away past the pavilions whose glow was dimmed against the growing dawn.

Owen got up. How strange he is, almost unconcerned, save for that trembling, that determination. And he acknowledged me, a nothing.

‘He’s confident,’ he said to Davy Gam. ‘And kind.’

Gam answered with derision. ‘He conceals himself. He always does. He’s full of doubts, but he’d tear out his heart rather than admit them. Kind … maybe, yes.’ His voice softened. ‘He noted your face, your words. He’ll not forget you. He forgets nothing, no one.’

‘I felt … he really cared for us.’

Gam rubbed the blindness beneath his eye-patch.

‘He does, boy. And maybe in you he saw himself. Though he’s no longer a youth. Yes, he cares. That’s why we follow, and he knows it. We may follow him yet into Hell.’

It was accomplished. Harfleur had fallen. In his silk pavilion outside the walls, the King decided that Sir John Holland, saviour of the hour, should be created Earl of Huntingdon for his peerless service. It was appropriate that he should be given the title taken from his father by Henry’s own father, Bolingbroke. Sir John had wrought miracles, although the laxness of the Dauphin at Vernon had played its part: Louis had virtually abandoned Harfleur which, with its diminished supplies, its sick and starving people, and its garrison’s strength finally lowered, had weakened sufficiently for the final assault on the Leure gate to be successful. And now he prepared to receive the keys of the town. But his triumph was tempered by the wasted weeks, the thought of the burial pit filled with pointless death, and his heart was in private mourning.

Bitterness hardened his resolve that Harfleur should be made to pay for the grave or mortal sickness of March and Arundel and Suffolk and his brother of Clarence. Above all, for Courtenay. He sat very still, his embroidered gown spread out like stiff plumage, his eyes glinting with temper and grief. Harfleur should be humiliated duly. He did not stop to wonder whether this was what Courtenay would have wished, for that kindly wisdom was stilled for ever.

He had watched him die. Courtenay had been lucid, even eloquent throughout, and though his body was wrung out like a rag from the disease, he seemed remote and uncomplaining. Even the air within his tent remained sweet and decent. Harry had been watching while the Bishop dozed, a deathly sleep, the fine features marmoreal like an effigy’s, the hands closed firmly about the crucifix on his breast. When he awoke, he smiled.

‘It is your birthday, Harry.’

‘It is?’ He could hardly answer.

‘And I have no gift. Save my love, my blessing.’

The King bowed his head. Courtenay murmured: ‘I’ve been on such a long journey this day. A pilgrimage … I did not reach the shrine … so near …’ He tried to sit, and Harry supported him.

‘That’s better,’ Courtenay said, and Harry’s heart lifted, but only for an instant.

The Bishop said: ‘You must rest.’ Then: ‘But then, you never need to rest. Your strength is your shield, son. Cherish it.’

Hoping in some way to imbue the Bishop with that envied strength, he placed his hand on the chill hand over the crucifix. Immediately he felt, through his own flesh, Courtenay’s anguish. It lanced him, settling leech-like in his bowels. He knew all about contagion, but kept his hand steady on the Bishop’s. Benedict Nichols, Bishop of Bangor, and Thomas Morestede, chief surgeon, stood silent behind him. Both had done all they could. He dismissed them and knelt at Courtenay’s side. Into the sphere of this passing crept all other losses and deaths, long before Scrope’s treachery to the death of his own young mother, Mary de Bohun. And now, this waste and robbery, all because Harfleur had defied him! In the bowels of Christ, he thought savagely, they were unworthy to be called
his
people!

He had offered them chivalry, honour, protection. In his preliminary letters to Charles of France, he had stressed that he only claimed what was his by right. He had had no scruples at styling himself King of England and France. He had ardently expressed his desire to avoid the slaughter of innocents. He had advised Charles to think of eternity, when both must answer to the Throne above. And the more concessions Charles had offered, the more his own dissatisfaction had grown. Not enough were the important principal towns and provinces, nor the 800,000 crowns, the dowry for the Princess, nor Katherine herself. He must have everything, or be seen to have failed. Then came the final spark that hit home. The emissary, the Archbishop of Bourges, had declared: ‘Sir, the King of France is the true King, and with respect to those things to which you say you have a right, you have no lordship not even to the kingdom of England; which belongs to the true heirs of the late King Richard …’

Courtenay sighed. From the borders of that other kingdom his eyes watched, still caring, knowing Henry’s doubt.

‘Do not deny your cause.’ He moved his fingers feebly beneath the King’s hand.

‘Is the cause good?’ He would have said this to no living person, but Courtenay seemed no longer of the living.

‘It is yours. Go and fight for it. If you betray it now, you betray yourself. Make war, then peace. But spare the innocent, my son.’

‘I will spare Holy Church. None shall sully her. I will honour her and say:
in hoc signo vinces
.’ Deep within, the shared pain moved. ‘But will the cause be fulfilled?’ The Bishop stared up into the shadows of the tent, his free hand flat on his crucifix as if he shielded it.

‘Will it? King Charles has come to Mantes himself, bringing the oriflamme of St Denis, to rally the people. He is saner than for years—strong enough to arm a great force …forgive me. I weary you.’

‘No, no. Continue, my son.’

‘I had hoped to persuade Jean sans Peur to my side, but it’s said that Burgundy is ready to join Valois. The French will gladly enlist under such power.’

The Bishop’s faint smile was macabre on his dying face.

‘Harry … if you do not know these French you are unready to rule them. Their armies are not like your armies … their obedience is a flickering wanton light against your strong flame. They are afraid .…’

He bent closer.

‘Afraid?’

The Bishop’s eyelids drooped. His voice was very weak.

‘… more afraid of the tax-gatherers … than any invading army …’

Harry, staring at him, thought: Yes! and the structure of even their payment for their troops is not the stable convention that we know. Therefore the discipline will be poor .… deserters numerous, morale variable … the French do not welcome a fight, otherwise why would Charles be so content, earlier, to parley? That Welsh boy, with the gold hair and the bright eyes and the dirty face … worth two of their elegant prancing knights. He saw the Bishop’s eyes fall open again and was about to say: you have elated me! but saw that he was too late. Courtenay was over the border; he had reached the shrine. A little of its surpassing gold shone in his eyes. Harry closed it in with a tender downstroke of his hand. He was in a tumult of grief and enmity and fresh hope. In my singleness is security, he thought. My men seek no other leader, and there’s the adherence between England and France; when Armagnac captains refused to serve under a Burgundian, and when Jean sans Peur locked up his own son, Philip, rather than see him enlist in the ranks of Valois … confusion, faction! as potent weapons as the burning logs placed across the moat by Sir John Holland’s men to fire the Leure gate or the gun-stones that had thereafter brought chaos into Harfleur as far as the church of St Martin. (God forgive me for St Martin!) From where he now sat he could see the ruined steeple and the still smoking bastion. Arundel and March might be deathly sick and Suffolk dead with two thousand others, and Clarence sent home to Southampton to die or recover. But the town was his. Hostages were taken. The cause was good. He prayed again, silent words which, through their very familiarity were as integral and natural as the beating of his heart.

Beside him stood Humphrey of Gloucester, sumptuously robed and jewelled. Near him was Benedict Nichols, who had lately celebrated Mass in the smoking shell of St Martin, and by him the Earl of Dorset and Lord Fitzhugh, with the ancient Sir Thomas Erpingham, and John Holland, hero of the hour. On the King’s right Sir Gilbert Umfraville held a pikestaff surmounted by the King’s tilting helm and crown. Humphrey of Gloucester broke the waiting silence.

‘How much longer, Sire?’

Henry said: ‘Until my honour is satisfied and their penitence is complete.’

Their humiliation. He had ordained the Sire de Gaucourt, the Sire de Bracquemont and twenty-four French hostages should proceed behind the Eucharist into the English pavilions, where they were to kneel before lesser knights. Each was wearing a felon’s rope about his neck. Faces white or red, they looked like cattle going to market.

At last they knelt before him. The Sire de Gaucourt held the keys of the town upon a cushion. The rope chafed him and the sackcloth shirt he had been bidden to wear pricked his flesh. Henry stared over the hostages’ heads while another half-hour passed and one of the penitents swooned. The tilting helm grew heavy on Sir Gilbert’s pike. Old Erpingham’s bladder swelled painfully. Finally Henry lowered his eyes. The Earl of Dorset brought the keys to him and he said:

‘You have withheld my town from me for too long. Yet as you have given yourselves to my mercy, I shall not be merciless.’

He bade them rise. Agonized, they crawled upright.

‘You shall sup with us.’ And they bowed dispiritedly.

The French noblemen did justice to an elaborate meal, agitating bellies shrunken by the siege. They looked bewilderedly at Henry who harangued them from the dais, and wondered why he himself ate nothing. Harfleur, he declared, should be an English town like Calais. The citizens would stay to rebuild, working in harness with emigrants from England who would settle by grants of demesne.

‘Every man shall take the oath of allegiance save those wealthy enough to pay for their freedom, and these shall be sent captive to England until their ransom is raised. I release the Sire de Gaucourt and the Sire de Bracquemont and as many noble knights who are willing to be paroled, provided they bring ransom to Calais at an appointed time.’

Then, with slightly less arrogance: ‘We need artisans to make Harfleur strong as the garrison town it is. But there will be no place for the infirm, the aged, or infants.’

One of the French knights dropped his goblet. Henry continued steadily, his voice drowning Courtenay’s ghostly counsel (
spare the innocent!
): ‘Women and children shall be given an escort as far as Lillebonne and five sous apiece for all. All men shall make a true declaration of their possessions. All moveables of value are forfeit. My brother of Gloucester shall be overseer, and false declaration will be punishable by hanging.’

Gloucester bowed in affirmation. The King rose. His head was spinning, while a griping ache that was nothing to do with hunger assailed him. He needed coolness, arched stone, and the sight of the Holy Rood.

The church of St Martin reeked of fire, but the altar was intact. Barefoot, Harry crossed the broken masonry in the chancel. A sharp piece of rubble sliced his foot and he went on, uncaring, trailing garnet drops. He fell prone before the altar. From a dark ruined corner a baby cried and its terrified mother stifled the sound with her breast.

The following morning the exodus began in a creeping file. The lame, the blind, the very young and very old, quitting the town gates beneath Henry’s banner of St George. Women suckled infants in the early October mist. The slow line was quiet. In every hand was clutched the hot pittance of five sous, soon to be seized by robbers on the road.

Humphrey of Gloucester had been riding round the town, taking inventory and spoil. He had hanged no one, and was also disappointed at the lack of treasure and piqued by the moderation of the King’s demands. Only a modest assortment of gold and silver plate had been taken aboard
La Trinité Royale
. In his pavilion he let an esquire divest him of his harness. The King was waiting for him.

‘I could have acquired much more for you,’ said Humphrey.

‘I wish for no plunder. I am a builder, not a destroyer. All that is in Harfleur is mine.’

‘What now?’ Gloucester wiped sweat away. ‘Faugh! Surrender hasn’t made this place any less foul.’

‘I plan a
chevauchée
into the heart of my kingdom.’

Gloucester whistled softly. ‘With its depleted force? The
Holy Ghost
has just weighed anchor from Winchelsea. We should send home for reinforcements first.’

‘There are none. You know that. All the men we brought are the flower of England’s arm. Nine thousand, and over half are gone.’ He rose, his face hollowed by fasting. ‘We must leave at least a thousand to guard the garrison here. Yet we must go on.’

‘To Paris? To pass Rouen with this little army? Harry,’ he said quietly, ‘God may be with this enterprise, but he doesn’t suffer fools. There’s a gathering force at Rouen under the Sire d’Albret … and Burgundy may still decide to throw its arm against you …’

Henry, his back turned, thought: How can I return to England having won one paltry town? There would be many ready to do more than jeer—those who mock my kingship, ready to see, in my ineffectuality, the curse of the usurper’s son …

‘But if we were to march to Calais,’ Gloucester said thoughtfully, ‘it would at least be a showing, that you are victor enough to traverse France northward, taking what you may in your path. It would underline your challenge to the Dauphin …’

‘… still unanswered. I offered him personal combat the prize being the succession to the throne upon Charles’s demise. That youth must be either a coward or so debauched he lacks the strength to wield arms.’

‘We could travel lightly. And fast! Slide beneath the noses of d’Albret and whoever Burgundy might care to send. Speed!’ He grew excited. ‘Harry, you were always famed for it.’