to say,’ Thomas said, ‘that an arrow made of mistletoe couldn’t miss.’
‘How in God’s name would you make an arrow of mistletoe? It’s nothing but a bundle of twigs.’
‘It would be a short arrow.’
The two hounds ranged ahead, noses to the ground. ‘They’ll not go hungry,’ Keane said.
‘You feed them?’
‘They feed themselves. They’re hunting dogs.’
They left the trees, crossing a rough strip of grassland to where the hill dropped steeply to the river valley. The river itself was hidden by mist. The army’s wagons were down there somewhere, parked on a track that led to a ford. Treetops showed above the mist. To the west was another valley, much shallower. In Dorset, Thomas thought, they would call it a combe. The nearer slope was terraced for vines, the farther slope was arable land that rose to a wide, flat-topped plateau. Nothing moved there. ‘Is that where the French are?’ Keane asked, seeing where Thomas was staring.
‘No one seems to know. They’re close, though.’
‘They are?’
‘Listen.’
They fell silent, and after a pause Thomas heard the distant sound of a trumpet. He had heard it a moment before and wondered if he had imagined it. The two hounds pricked their ears and stared northwards, and Thomas, out of curiosity, walked towards the sound.
The English and their Gascon allies were camped among the high trees on a long, wide and high hill that ran north from the River Miosson. If they were to escape the French they must cross that river. It was not large, but it was deep, and to cross it the army could use the bridge by the abbey and a ford that lay farther to the west, and such a crossing would take time and give the French an opportunity to attack while the army was only partway across the river. So perhaps the army would stay here. No one knew.
Though it was certain the army would stay for at least a while, because banners were being planted on the grassland that edged the high woods at the crest of the long hill. The banners ran from the south to the north and they marked where the men-at-arms must assemble. The distant trumpet was sounding more insistently now, and its call was bringing the English and Gascons from the trees. They wondered if the sound presaged an attack. The Earl of Warwick’s lion banner was at the southernmost point of the crest and, though that was Thomas’s place, he kept walking northwards. The combe was to his left. The combe’s slope was precipitately steep where the hill met the River Miosson, but as he and Keane walked northwards the slope became ever more gentle as the valley floor rose, and by the time Thomas reached the great banner blazoned with the Prince of Wales’s feathers the slope to his left was long and shallow, a mere dip between this crest and the flat-topped hill to the west, though it would hardly be an easy approach if the French chose to attack from that far hill. The long slope was crossed by vineyards, the grapes tied with willow slips to hemp lines stretched between chestnut posts. To make things more difficult there was the thickest hedge Thomas had ever seen stretching across the slope, a hedge as wide as ten or twelve feet to make a long and impassable thicket of brambles and saplings. There were two wide gaps in the hedge where carts had left great ruts in the soil, and archers were now gathering at either side of those gaps. The English banners were some forty or fifty paces behind the rutted openings.
Keane watched the English army assembling. Lines of men in mail and steel. Lines of men with axes and hammers, with flails, clubs, swords, and lances. ‘They’re expecting an attack?’ he asked, sounding anxious.
‘I don’t think anyone knows,’ Thomas said, ‘but nothing’s happening yet.’
Then a trumpet sounded again, but much closer. The archers, who had been sitting, stood up and some strung their bows. They planted arrows in the turf, ready to be plucked up and shot.
‘That came from the hill there,’ Keane said, staring at the wide, flat hill to the west.
Nothing showed on that far hill. Two horsemen wearing the Prince of Wales’s livery galloped from the trees and stood in one of the hedge’s great gaps from where they gazed westwards. Men-at-arms were thick beneath the English banners now, and Thomas knew he should go back to the southern end of the line where the hill loomed over the Miosson valley, but just as he turned to go the trumpet called again. Three brazen notes, each held for a long time, and when the third note faded a horseman appeared on the flat-topped hill. He was a half-mile away, perhaps more, but Thomas could see he wore a gaudy tunic, then watched as the man raised and waved a thick white stick over his head. ‘A herald,’ he said.
There was a pause. The French herald just sat watching the English-held hill, though he could see little of the prince’s army because it was obscured by the thick hawthorn hedge. ‘Is he just going to stay there?’ Keane asked.
‘He’s waiting for an English herald,’ Thomas guessed, but before any of the prince’s heralds had a chance to meet his French colleague, a group of horsemen showed on the far skyline. They were dressed in red or black and they spurred their horses down the long slope to where the vines began. ‘Three cardinals!’ Thomas exclaimed. There were six men-at-arms in plate armour, but the riders were mostly churchmen: priests and monks in black, brown or white being led by three men in cardinal’s bright red robes. One of them was Bessieres. Thomas recognised the bulk of the man and pitied the horse that had to carry him.
The horsemen, all but one, stopped in the dip of the land, while one cardinal came up the slope alone. He threaded the vines on a narrow track, watched by scores of Englishmen and Gascons who were crowding into the hedge’s wide gaps.
‘Make way! Make way!’ voices shouted behind Thomas. Men-at-arms wearing royal livery were ploughing through the crowd, dividing it to make a space for the Prince of Wales. Men went on their knees.
The prince, mounted on a grey stallion and wearing a jupon with his coat of arms above a mail coat, and with a helmet surrounded by a gold coronet, frowned in puzzlement as the cardinal came closer. ‘It’s Sunday, isn’t it?’ he asked loudly.
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Perhaps he’s come to give us a blessing, boys!’
Men laughed. The prince, not wanting the approaching cardinal to see too much of what lay behind the hedge, walked his horse a few paces forward. He waited, his right hand resting on the gilded hilt of his sword. ‘Anyone recognise him?’ he called.
‘That’s Talleyrand,’ one of the prince’s older companions grunted.
‘Talleyrand of Perigord?’ the prince sounded surprised.
‘The same, sire.’
‘We are honoured,’ the prince said sarcastically. ‘Stand up!’ he called to the men behind him. ‘We don’t want the cardinal to think we’re worshipping him.’
‘He’d like us to worship him,’ the Earl of Warwick growled.
The cardinal reined in his mare. The horse was bridled in red leather that was trimmed with silver. The saddlecloth was scarlet with gold fringes, the saddle’s pommel and cantle were edged with gold. Even the stirrups were gold. Talleyrand of Perigord was the richest churchman in all France. He had been born into the nobility and had never taken to heart his church’s preaching on humility, though he respectfully bowed low in his saddle when he reached the waiting prince. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said.
‘Your Eminence,’ the prince replied.
Talleyrand glanced at the archers and men-at-arms, and they gazed back, seeing a tall, thin-faced man with haughty dark eyes. He leaned forward and patted his horse’s neck with a red-gloved hand on which a thick gold ring, set with a ruby, glowed bright. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said again. ‘I come with a plea.’
The prince shrugged, but said nothing.
Cardinal Talleyrand looked up at the sky as if seeking inspiration, and when he looked back to the prince there were tears in his eyes. He stretched out his arms. ‘I pray you will listen to me, sire. I beseech you to hear my words!’
He had looked to where the sun was burning through a layer of thin cloud, Thomas thought, to make his eyes water.
‘This is no time for a sermon!’ the prince said brusquely. ‘Say what you have to say and say it quickly.’
The cardinal flinched at the prince’s tone, but then recovered his sorrowful look and, gazing into the prince’s eyes, declared that a battle would be a sinful waste of human life. ‘Hundreds must die, sire, hundreds will die, and they will die far from their homes to be buried in unconsecrated ground. Have you marched this far just to gain a shallow grave in France? For you are in peril, Your Majesty, you are in dreadful peril! The might of France is close,
