reminder of home to the man who sat in the tower and ruled in the king’s name.
‘I regret … that I must be the bearer of such news, Richard,’ he said.
To his surprise, York broke into harsh laughter, patting the table with his outstretched palm as he shook and gasped.
‘Oh, William, I’m sorry, it’s just your grave expression, your funeral manner! Do you think this is the end of me?’
‘I don’t know what to think, Richard!’ William retorted. ‘The army sits in Calais and doesn’t move a step, while the king’s subjects are forced on to the road across Anjou and Maine. What did you expect, if not to be relieved from this post? God knows, I would rather not see you shamed in such a way, but the king commands and so I am here. I do not understand your mirth. And still you laugh! Have you lost your wits?’
York controlled himself with difficulty.
‘Oh, William. You will always be a cat’s-paw to other men, do you know that? If ever there was a poisoned cup, this is it. What will you do with my soldiers in Calais? Send them out? Will you have them play nursemaid to all the English stragglers coming home? They won’t thank you for it. Have you even heard of the riots in England, or are your ears stopped up by all your new titles? I tell you this scroll is no favour to you, no matter what it says. I wish you luck in Calais, William. You will need it, and more.’
With a sharp gesture, York broke the wax seal and unrolled the sheet, looking it over. He shrugged as he read.
‘Lieutenant of Ireland, the king’s man? As good a place as any to watch this fall apart, William, don’t you think? I could have wished for somewhere warm, I suppose, but I have a small estate in the north there. Yes, it will do well enough.’
He rose, tucking the scroll into his tunic and putting out his right hand.
‘I have heard there is fighting in Maine, William. You’ll find I have a good man here in Jenkins. He passes out coin so that I am kept informed. I’ll tell him you are his new master in France. Well, then. My regards to your lady wife. I wish you luck.’
William rose slowly, taking the hand offered to him and shaking it. York’s grip was good and his palm dry. William shook his head, nonplussed at the man’s mercurial moods.
‘My regards to Duchess Cecily, Richard. I believe she is enceinte?’
Richard smiled.
‘Any day now. She has taken to sucking on pieces of coal, does it not amaze you? Perhaps the child will be born on the Channel, now that we are leaving. Or the Irish Sea, who knows? Salt and soot in its veins, with Plantagenet blood. It would be a good omen, William. God willing they both survive.’
William bowed his head at the brief prayer, only to be startled as York clapped him on the shoulder.
‘You’ll want to be about your work now, William. It’s been my practice to have a ship and crew ready at all hours for the commander of the Calais garrison. I trust you won’t object to me taking her home?’ He waited while William de la Pole shook his head. ‘Good man. Well, I won’t disturb you further.’
The duke strode over to the steps leading down and William was left alone in the high tower, with the gulls calling overhead.
Baron Highbury panted as he drew rein, his lungs feeling cored out and raw with the cold. Every breath hurt as if he bled inside. Above the wedge of his beard, his pale skin was spattered by mud thrown up from the hooves of his mount. He’d halted in a field of green, growing crops, with a cold wind blowing straight through his men. He could see they were as bedraggled and weary as he was, with their chargers in an even worse state. Highbury worked his dry tongue around his mouth, feeling spit glue his jaws. The water flasks were all empty and though they’d ridden over two streams that morning, they hadn’t dared stop. The French were relentless in their pursuit and a drink was a high price to pay for being caught and slaughtered.
Highbury’s mood was sombre at how few had made it through with him. He’d brought forty horsemen south into Maine the previous winter, the best of those retained by his family. They’d known the odds against them and volunteered even so. Just sixteen remained, while the rest had been left to rot on French fields. There had been twenty men just that morning, but four of the mounts had been lame and when the French horns blew, they were run down.
At the thought, Highbury dismounted with a groan, standing with his head pressed against his saddle for a moment while his legs uncramped. He walked quickly around his brown gelding, running his hands up and down the legs, checking for heat. The trouble was, it was there, in every swollen joint. His horse reached back to nuzzle him at his touch and he wished he had an apple, or anything at all. As he heaved himself up into the saddle once more, Highbury scratched his beard, pulling a fat louse from the black depths and crushing it between his teeth.
‘Right, lads,’ he said. ‘I think that’s it for us. We’ve bloodied their noses and lost good men in turn.’
His men-at-arms were listening intently, knowing that their lives depended on whether the baron saw his family honour as satisfied or not. They’d all seen the massive numbers flooding into the area over the previous few days. It seemed the French king had summoned every peasant, knight and lord in France to Maine, an army to dwarf his original force.
‘Anyone seen Woodchurch? Or that coxcomb Strange? No one?’
Highbury scratched at his beard roughly, almost angrily. He’d ridden miles that morning, pursued by French forces doggedly on their tracks. He wasn’t even sure where Woodchurch had gone to ground, or whether he was still alive. Yet Highbury didn’t like the idea of leaving without a word. Honour demanded he return, even if it was only to say he was leaving. Woodchurch was no fool, he told himself. If he lived, he’d surely be finding his own way north, now that the towns and fields of Maine were full of French soldiers.
Highbury smiled tiredly to himself. He’d repaid his nephew’s murder, many times over. He’d disobeyed orders from Lord York to come south into Maine and he suspected there would be a reckoning for that. Even so, he had forced the French king to run from archers and English horsemen. He had seen the man’s soldiers cut down by the hundred and Highbury had taken a personal tally of six knights to add to his slate. It was not enough, but it was something — and far better than sitting safe in Calais while the world fell apart.
‘We’re thirty miles south of the Normandy border, perhaps a little less. Our horses are blown and if any of you feel the way I do, you’ll be about ready to lie down and die right here.’ A few of his men chuckled at that as he went on. ‘There’s a good road about four miles to the east. If we cut across to it, we’ll have a straight run north.’
Some of the small group turned sharply as they heard a horn blowing. Highbury cursed under his breath. He couldn’t see over the closest hedge from the height of his saddle, so he pulled his feet from the stirrups and clambered up to kneel on it, feeling his hips and knees creak. He heard the horn blow again, sounding close. Highbury swore softly at the sight of eighty or ninety horsemen streaming along a path across the nearest hill. As he stared, they began to cut across the ploughed land in his direction, their horses making hard work of the clogging mud.
‘Christ, they’ve seen us,’ he said bitterly. ‘Ride, lads, and the devil take the hindmost — or the French will.’
Thomas Woodchurch lay flat. His hand was on Rowan’s arm, keeping him still but also bringing some comfort to the father.
‘Now,’ he said.
The two men staggered up from the ditch and crossed the road. Thomas checked both ways as they ran and dropped down on the other side. They waited breathlessly for a shout to go up, or the horn call that would bring French horsemen galloping in search of them. Seconds passed before Thomas released his breath.
‘Help me up, lad,’ he said, accepting an arm and limping on through the trees.
Thomas kept the sun on his right hand as best he could, heading north to stay ahead of the men hunting for them. He could feel the wound he’d taken stretch and pull with every step. Leaking blood had made his trousers sodden on the right side and the pain was unceasing. He knew he had a needle and thread pressed into a seam somewhere, if he could find a place to rest out the day. If he’d been alone, he would have hidden himself in some deep bracken and set strangling traps for rabbits with a few pieces of twine. His stomach grumbled at the thought, but he had Rowan to keep safe and he stumbled on.
He reached the boundary of a ploughed field and looked out from the trees and bushes along the edge over open ground, with all its possibilities for being spotted and run down. Thomas took his bearings once again. He
