trail away.
‘Lancaster?’
‘The idea was to join the Earl of Lancaster and make havoc in northern France, but we couldn’t cross the Loire. And nothing’s gone right since then, and now we’re trying to get back to Gascony without the bloody French killing us. So stay here till dawn!’
To help an army escape.
The Captal de Buch took twenty men-at-arms northwards. They rode past the Earl of Salisbury’s men who guarded the northern end of the ridge. Most of the earl’s men were arrayed beyond the northern end of the protective hedge and so his archers were busy digging and disguising pits to break the legs of charging horses. A bowman guided the captal and his men past the pits, and once past the traps the captal could look back and see the cardinals and churchmen who were attempting to forge a peace. They and the French negotiators had met the English emissaries in the open fields, just beneath the vineyard. Someone had brought benches to the place and the men were sitting and talking, while heralds and men-at-arms waited a few paces away. There was no tent or awning. A single banner was planted behind the churchmen. It showed the crossed keys of Saint Peter, a sign that a Papal Legate was present.
‘What are they talking about?’ one of the captal’s men asked.
‘They’re trying to delay us,’ the captal said, ‘they want to keep us here. They want us to starve.’
‘I hear the Pope sent them. Maybe they want peace?
‘The Pope shits French turds,’ the captal said curtly, ‘and the only peace he wants is to see us in his chamber pot.’ He turned away and led his Gascons down the long slope that dropped gently to the north. They were heading into a tangled landscape of woods, vineyards, hedges, and hills, and somewhere in that tangle was a French army, but no one was quite certain where it was or how big it was. It was certainly close. The captal could tell it was close because the smoke of French cooking fires was thick on the northern skyline, but the prince had asked him to try to discover just where the enemy was camped and how many they were, and so he spurred down the slope, keeping now in the shelter of the trees. Neither he nor his men were mounted on their great destriers, the trained war horses that went into battle, but on coursers, fast light horses that could speed them out of trouble. The men wore mail, but not plate, and had helmets and swords, but no shields. They were Gascons and that meant they were accustomed to perpetual war, to countering French raids or making raids themselves. They rode in silence. There was a cart track to their left, but they stayed away from it, keeping hidden. They slowed when they reached the foot of the slope, for now they were well beyond English bowshot and if the French had posted sentinels then they could be anywhere among these trees.
The captal gestured to spread his men out, then gestured again to signal them forward. They went very slowly, searching the woods ahead for a movement that might betray a hidden crossbowman. They saw nothing. They were climbing through thick woods, and still there was no sign of the enemy. The captal stopped. Was he being lured into a trap? He waved a hand indicating that his men should wait where they were, and he swung out of the saddle and went alone on foot. The slope was not steep and he could see the crest not far ahead. Surely that was a place to put sentinels? He was moving quietly, furtively, watching for the flight of a bird, but for all his caution he sensed he was alone. He watched the skyline for a moment, then moved on up to the crest and suddenly he could see far to the north and west.
He crouched.
The main French encampment was only half a mile away, the tents clustered about a village and a manor, but what interested him was the sight of men going west. They would be invisible to the English on their hill, but the captal could see that the French forces were being led around to the west and south, curling closer to the river. They were not in battle order, indeed they were in no order that he could see, but they were undeniably moving westwards. It looked to him as if they were going to the flat-topped hill, to le Champ d’Alexandre. He could not count them, they were too many and there was too much dead ground. Eighty-seven banners, he remembered.
He backed away, stood, and went to his horse. He mounted, turned and waved his men southwards again. They rode fast now, sure that no enemy was within sight or earshot, and the captal wondered if the French would keep the truce.
But of two things he was sure. The enemy were readying to attack, and the attack would come from the west.
The Earls of Warwick and Suffolk came back to the prince’s tent in the late afternoon. They sat wearily when the prince offered them chairs, then drank the wine that his servant brought. All the prince’s advisers were there, all waiting for the results of the long negotiations to be announced.
‘The terms are these, sire,’ the Earl of Warwick spoke flatly. ‘We must return all the land, fortresses and towns captured in the last three years. We must yield all the plunder in our baggage train. We must release all prisoners held here or in England without further payment of ransom. And we are to pay France an indemnity of sixty-six thousand pounds to compensate for the destruction we have wrought over the years.’
‘Dear God,’ the prince said faintly.
‘In return, sire,’ the Earl of Oxford took up the tale, ‘your army will be permitted to march to Gascony, the King of France will betroth one of his daughters to you, and she will bring you the County of Angouleme as her dowry.’
‘Are his daughters pretty?’ the prince asked.
‘Prettier than a hill covered in English corpses, sire,’ the Earl of Warwick said sharply. ‘There is more. You and all England must swear not to take up arms against France for a period of seven years.’
The prince looked from one earl to the other, then to the captal, who sat to one side of the tent. ‘Advise me,’ he said.
The Earl of Warwick flinched as he stretched his legs out. ‘We’re outnumbered, sire. Sir Reginald believes we can slip away in the dawn, cross the river and be on our way before the enemy notices, but I confess I’m sceptical. The bastards aren’t fools. They’ll be watching us.’
‘And they’re moving south and west, sire,’ the captal put in. ‘They must be thinking we’ll try to cross the Miosson and they’re trying to close that escape.’
‘And they’re confident, sire,’ the Earl of Oxford said.
‘Because of numbers?’
‘Because our men are tired, outnumbered, hungry and thirsty. And the fat cardinal said something strange. He warned us that God has sent France a sign that He is on their side. I asked him what he meant, but the fat bastard just looked smug.’
‘I thought the cardinals spoke for the Pope?’
‘The Pope,’ Warwick said dourly, ‘is in France’s grip.’
‘And if we fight tomorrow?’ the prince asked.
There was silence. Then the Earl of Warwick shrugged and used his hands to imitate a weighing scale. Up and down. The thing could end either way, his hands were suggesting, but his face showed nothing but pessimism.
‘We hold a strong position,’ the Earl of Salisbury, who commanded the troops at the northern end of the English hill, said, ‘but if the line breaks? We’ve made pits and trenches that will stop them, but we can’t entrench the whole damned hill. And it’s my belief they have at least twice our numbers.’
‘And they’re eating well today,’ the captal said, ‘while our men make acorn stew.’
‘The terms are harsh,’ the prince said. A horsefly landed on his leg and he slapped at it angrily.
‘And they demand noble hostages, sire, as a surety that the terms are honoured,’ the Earl of Oxford said.
‘Noble hostages,’ the prince said flatly.
‘Noble and knightly, sire,’ the earl said, ‘which includes everyone in this tent, I fear.’ He took a piece of parchment from a pouch on his sword belt and held it towards the prince. ‘That’s a partial list, sire, but they will undoubtedly add other names.’
The prince nodded and a servant took the list and went on one knee to give it to his master. The prince grimaced as he read the names. ‘All our best knights?’
