“I thank you, my fair and sweet father,” said the prince, with joy flushing his handsome boyish face.
“The leading ship shall be mine. But you shall have one, Walter Manny, and you, Stafford, and you, Arundel, and you, Audley, and you, Sir Thomas Holland, and you, Brocas, and you, Berkeley, and you, Reginald. The rest shall be awarded at Winchelsea, whither we sail tomorrow. Nay, John, why do you pluck so at my sleeve?”
Chandos was leaning forward, with an anxious face. “Surely, my honoured lord, I have not served you so long and so faithfully that you should forget me now. Is there then no ship for me?”
The king smiled, but shook his head. “Nay, John, have I not given you two hundred archers and a hundred men-at-arms to take with you into Brittany? I trust that your ships will be lying in Saint Malo Bay ere the Spaniards are abreast of Winchelsea. What more would you have, old war-dog? Wouldst be in two battles at once?”
“I would be at your side, my liege, when the lion banner is in the wind once more. I have ever been there. Why should you cast me now? I ask little, dear lord—a galley, a balinger, even a pinnace, so that I may only be there.”
“Nay, John, you shall come. I cannot find it in my heart to say you nay. I will find you place in my own ship, that you may indeed be by my side.”
Chandos stooped and kissed the king’s hand. “My Squire?” he asked.
The king’s brows knotted into a frown. “Nay, let him go to Brittany with the others,” said he harshly. “I wonder, John, that you should bring back to my memory this youth whose pertness is too fresh that I should forget it. But someone must go to Brittany in your stead, for the matter presses and our people are hard put to it to hold their own.” He cast his eyes over the assembly, and they rested upon the stern features of Sir Robert Knolles.
“Sir Robert,” he said, “though you are young in years you are already old in war, and I have heard that you are as prudent in council as you are valiant in the field. To you I commit the charge of this venture to Brittany in place of Sir John Chandos, who will follow thither when our work has been done upon the waters. Three ships lie in Calais port and three hundred men are ready to your hand. Sir John will tell you what our mind is in the matter. And now, my friends and good comrades, you will haste you each to his own quarters, and you will make swiftly such preparations as are needful, for, as God is my aid, I will sail with you to Winchelsea tomorrow!”
Beckoning to Chandos, Manny and a few of his chosen leaders, the king led them away to an inner chamber, where they might discuss the plans for the future. At the same time the assembly broke up, the knights in silence and dignity, the squires in mirth and noise, but all joyful at heart for the thought of the great days which lay before them.
XVII
The Spaniards on the Sea
Morning had not yet dawned when Nigel was in the chamber of Chandos preparing him for his departure and listening to the last cheery words of advice and direction from his noble master. That same morning, before the sun was halfway up the heaven, the king’s great nef Philippa, bearing within it the most of those present at his banquet the night before, set its huge sail, adorned with the lions and the lilies, and turned its brazen beak for England. Behind it went five smaller cogs crammed with squires, archers and men-at-arms.
Nigel and his companions lined the ramparts of the castle and waved their caps as the bluff, burly vessels, with drums beating and trumpets clanging, a hundred knightly pennons streaming from their decks and the red cross of England over all, rolled slowly out to the open sea. Then, when they had watched them until they were hull down, they turned, with hearts heavy at being left behind, to make ready for their own more distant venture.
It took them four days of hard work ere their preparations were complete, for many were the needs of a small force sailing to a strange country. Three ships had been left to them, the cog Thomas of Romney, the Grace Dieu of Hythe, and the Basilisk of Southampton, into each of which one hundred men were stowed, besides the thirty seamen who formed the crew. In the hold were forty horses, amongst them Pommers, much wearied by his long idleness, and homesick for the slopes of Surrey, where his great limbs might find the work he craved. Then the food and the water, the bowstaves and the sheaves of arrows, the horseshoes, the nails, the hammers, the knives, the axes, the ropes, the vats of hay, the green fodder, and a score of other things were packed aboard. Always by the side of the ships stood the stern young knight Sir Robert, checking, testing, watching, and controlling, saying little, for he was a man of few words, but with his eyes, his hands, and if need be his heavy dog-whip, wherever they were wanted.
The seamen of the Basilisk, being from a free port, had the old feud against the men of the Cinque Ports, who were looked upon by the other mariners of England as being unduly favoured by the king. A ship of the West Country could scarce meet with one from the Narrow Seas without blood flowing. Hence sprang sudden broils
