Stormbird

He heard the snap of bows release behind him and holes appeared in the line of pikes. Those men needed both hands to balance the heavy poles. The peasants carried no shields and boiled leather jackets were no protection at all against the shafts that tore into them. The foot charge wavered as yew bows punched out volley after volley.

Despite the carnage of the assault, it was the sight of the hated archers that kept the French pikemen coming. Standing in wide-spaced rows, wearing simple brown cloth like farmers, the archers were the monsters of a thousand tales and disasters. The pike ranks pushed on, desperate to reach the men calmly killing their friends. It was all they knew — the one weakness of a bowman. If he could be rushed, he could be killed.

William was forced to retreat once more. His ranks of swordsmen came back with him as the pike lines re- formed and left their dead behind. Step by step, the English forces lost the ground they had gained in the first advance, until they were back in their original positions. There, they dug in and stood with raised swords and shields, panting and waiting.

Some of the archers had been too slow to retreat with them, so that they vanished in a moving tide of men and rage. Yet around eight hundred made it back to their own mantlets and stakes. They turned once more with blood in their eyes for the pikemen.

Those volleys of arrows did not soar. As the pike regiments continued to charge, the shafts punched out in short, chopping blows, cutting off battle cries and sending men to their knees. Gaping holes appeared in the lines and pikes dropped or wavered upwards to the sky. The entire French line tried to slow down rather than rush into withering fire. Those behind compressed, their pikes as dense as spines on a hedge-pig, a forest of wood and iron.

The pikemen came to a staggering, bloodied halt and the archers took fresh quivers from arrow baskets and shot until their hands were bloody and their shoulders and backs ached and tore with every shaft sent out. Against a standing enemy, it was a savage slaughter and they delighted in it.

The French regiments retreated at last, unable to force themselves any closer. They jogged away, turning their backs and then feeling the surge of terror that lent wings to their feet. Behind them, archers cheered and howled like wolves.

William felt a surge of pleasure that lasted as long as it took him to look over his forces. He’d lost a great number of men in just the first action, perhaps six hundred or a little more. He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling sick. Ahead of him, French knights were massing again and their king had even sent small groups forward to manhandle the mantlets into better positions. His archers responded with a dozen boys who sprinted out and gathered arrows into their arms, plucking them from the ground into great sheaves. As William watched, a lone crossbowman took careful aim and shot one of the boys as he turned to come back. He fell with his arrows spilling like a white wing and the archers roared in anger.

The French were going to charge again, William was certain. He could see more than eight thousand of the enemy who had not yet fought that day. His soldiers had wreaked bloody destruction, but the cost had been high and there were simply too many of the enemy still fresh and ready to attack.

‘Second charge coming, Alton!’ William bellowed across the field.

As he spoke, his horse made a huffing sound and sank to its knees, almost sending him over the animal’s head. In his heavy armour, William dismounted slowly and clumsily. He found two bloody holes in the horse’s chest, where it had been struck by bolts. He could see red droplets around the muzzle and he patted the powerful neck in distress, already looking for another mount to carry him.

‘A horse here!’ he called, standing patiently while his messengers found one of the reserve mounts and brought it to him. It was the first time that morning that he had seen the battlefield from the height of his men-at- arms and he drooped at the width of the ranks still facing him. The French had lost a crippling number, perhaps two thousand against hundreds of his own. In any other circumstances, the victory would be his. Yet the king still lived and he would only have grown in fury and bile.

‘One more charge,’ William muttered as he was helped to mount. In the privacy of his own thoughts, he knew he would surely have to retreat after that. He’d tell the surviving archers to run for the bridges, while his knights and men-at-arms fought the rear. He could do that much, he told himself, redeem that much honour. Until then, he had to survive another massed charge by an enemy who sensed their weakness.

‘Ready archers!’ he bellowed.

Few of the crossbowmen had survived the mêlée around the mantlets. If the French wanted a victory that day, they were damn well going to have to charge the yew bows they hated. With an effort, William pulled off his helmet, wanting to breathe and see clearly. They were coming and the archers were already bending their bows, waiting for them. He kept a spark of hope alive because of those men — and those men alone.

19

‘I don’t understand what you are saying!’ Margaret retorted, driven to fury. ‘Why this talk of degrees and arcs and shadows? Is it illness or not? Listen to me. There are times when Henry speaks clearly, as if there is nothing wrong. There are other times when he talks without sense, like a child. Then something changes and his eyes grow dull. Do you understand? It lasts for minutes, or hours, or even days, then he revives and my husband looks back at me! Those are your symptoms, Master Allworthy! What herb do you have in your bag for those? This talk of fluxes and the … planets does you no credit at all. Should I have my husband moved from London, if the air carries such a taint here? Can you answer that at least, if you can’t treat whatever ails him?’

The king’s physician had drawn himself up, his face reddening further with every word she spoke.

‘Your Royal Highness,’ Master Allworthy began stiffly. ‘I have dosed and purged the king. I have administered sulphur and a tincture of opium in alcohol I have found to be most effective. I have bled His Grace repeatedly and applied my best leeches to his tongue. Yet his humours remain out of balance! I was trying to explain that I have feared the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter for days, knowing what it might bring. It is an evil time, my lady. His Grace suffers as the representative of his people, do you follow?’ The doctor rubbed the small beard he allowed himself, winding his fingers into the knots of hair as he thought. ‘It may even be his nobility, his holiness, that is his undoing. Royal blood is not as that of other men, my lady. It is a beacon in the darkness, a bonfire on a hill that calls to dark forces. In such a time of unrest and chaos in the heavens, well … if God is ready to clasp His Royal Highness to His embrace, no mere man can stand in the way of that divine will.’

‘Oh, stand aside then, Master Allworthy,’ Margaret said, ‘if that is all you have to say. I will not listen to your mealy-mouthed talk of planets any longer, while my husband is in such distress. Stay here and consider your precious Mars and Jupiter. I wish you joy of them.’

The doctor opened his mouth, growing even redder. Whatever he might have replied was lost as Margaret pushed past him and entered the king’s chambers.

Henry was sitting up in bed as she entered. The room was gloomy and, as she crossed to him, Margaret’s foot caught on some part of the learned doctor’s equipment. It fell with a crash and made her stumble, then kick out in a temper. A complex contraption of brass, iron and glass went spinning across the floor. In her fury with the doctor, she was tempted to follow it like a fleeing rat and stamp it to pieces.

Her husband turned his head slowly at the clatter, blinking. He held up bandaged hands and Margaret swallowed as she saw fresh blood on the bindings. She had cleaned and dressed them many times, but she knew he bit at the wounds whenever he was left alone, worrying at them like a child.

With care, she sat on the bed, looking deeply into her husband’s eyes and seeing only grief and pain reflected. There were scabs on her husband’s bare arms, where the doctor’s narrow knives had opened his veins. He looked thin, with dark circles under his eyes and blue lines showing on his pale skin.

‘Are you well, Henry?’ she said. ‘Can you rise? I think this place carries illness on the very air. Would you prefer to be moved along the river to Windsor, perhaps? The air is sweeter there, away from the stinks of London. You can ride to the hunt, eat good red meat and grow strong.’

To her dismay, her husband began to weep, fighting it, his face crumpling. As she moved to embrace him, he held up his hands between them, as if warding her off. His fingers shook as if he had an ague, a chill, though