The king frowned at the question. He paused. He shifted his weight and scratched at his nose, then reluctantly nodded. ‘We fight,’ he said.
‘Thank God,’ Clermont muttered.
The Lord of Douglas went to one knee. ‘Then with your permission, sire, I would ride with Marshal d’Audrehem.’
‘You?’ The king sounded surprised. ‘You’re the one who told me to fight on foot!’
‘I shall indeed fight on foot, sire, and take pleasure in beating your enemies into bloody pulp, but I would ride with the marshal first.’
‘So be it,’ the king allowed. The French feared the enemy archers and so they had assembled five hundred knights whose horses were elaborately armoured, heavy with mail, plate, and leather. Those great destriers, protected from arrows, would charge the archers on the English flanks, and when the horsemen had scattered the bowmen and beaten them down with axes, swords and lances, the rest of the army would advance on foot. ‘When the archers are dead you will join Prince Charles,’ the king commanded Douglas.
‘I am honoured, sire, and I thank you.’
The dauphin Charles, just eighteen years old, would command the first battle of French men-at-arms. Their job was to advance up the long slope and crash into the English and Gascon knights and slaughter them. The king’s brother, the Duke of Orleans, commanded the second line, while the king himself, along with his youngest son, would lead the rearmost troops. Three great battles, led by princes and a king, would assault the English, and they would attack on foot because horses, unless they were armoured like men, were too vulnerable to arrows.
‘Order all lances to be shortened,’ the king commanded. Men on foot could not wield long lances, so they must be cut down to manageable lengths. ‘And to your battles, gentlemen.’
The French were ready. The banners were flying. The king was armoured in the best steel Milan could make. It had taken four hours to clad the king in plate steel, each piece first blessed by the Bishop of Chalons before the armourers buckled, strapped or tied the item comfortably. His legs were protected by cuisses, by greaves, and by roundels over his knees, while his boots had scales of overlapping steel. He wore strips of steel fixed to a leather skirt, above which were his breast- and backplates, which were buckled tightly over a mail coat. Espaliers covered his shoulders, vambraces and rerebraces his arms, while his hands were in gauntlets that, like the boots, had scales of steel. His helmet had a snouted visor and was circled by a crown of gold, and over his body was a surcoat blazoned with the golden fleur-de-lys of France. The oriflamme was ready; the French were ready. This was a day to go into history, the day that France cut down its enemies.
The Lord of Douglas knelt for the bishop’s blessing. The Scotsman was still nervous that the king might change his mind, but he dared not ask questions in case those very queries made Jean cautious. Yet what Douglas did not know was that the king had received a sign from heaven. During the night, as the armourers had fussed and measured and tightened, the Cardinal Bessieres had come to the king. He had dropped to his knees, grunting with the effort, and then looked up at the king. ‘Your Majesty,’ he had said, and offered with both hands a rusty, feeble- looking blade.
‘You’re giving me a peasant weapon, Your Eminence?’ the king had said, irritated that the fat cardinal had interrupted his preparations. ‘Or do you want me to reap some barley?’ he asked because the crude sword, its blade broader at its tip than at the base, looked like a grotesquely lengthened hay knife.
‘It is the sword of Saint Peter, Your Majesty,’ the cardinal had said, ‘given into our hands by the providence of God to ensure your great victory.’
The king had looked startled, then disbelieving, but the earnestness with which Bessieres had spoken was reassuring. He had reached out and touched
‘I am sure, Majesty. The monks of Saint Junien were given guard of it, and they delivered it to us as a sign from God.’
‘It has been missing these many years,’ the Bishop of Chalons had said reverently, then knelt to the relic and kissed the pitted blade.
‘So it is real?’ the king had asked, amazed.
‘It is real,’ Bessieres had replied, ‘and God has sent it to you. This is the sword that protected our Saviour and the man who possesses this sword cannot know defeat.’
‘Then God and Saint Denis be praised,’ the king had said, and he had taken the sword from the cardinal and touched it to his lips. The cardinal had watched, hiding his pleasure. The sword would bring victory, and victory would raise King Jean to be the mightiest monarch of Christendom, and when the Pope died the King of France would add his persuasion to the men who would advocate Bessieres’s candidacy for the throne of Saint Peter. The king closed his eyes momentarily and kissed the blade a second time before returning it to the cardinal’s gloved hands.
‘With Your Highness’s permission,’ the cardinal had said, ‘I shall give this holy blade to a deserving champion so he can cut down your enemies.’
‘You have my permission,’ the king had said. ‘Give it to a man who will use it well!’ His voice was firm because the sight of the blade had given him a new confidence. He had been wanting a sign, some hint that God would grant France a victory, and now he had that sign. Victory was his. God had decreed it.
Yet now, as dawn edged the world, the king felt his old doubts return. Was it wise to fight? The English prince had accepted humiliating terms, so perhaps France should impose those terms? Yet victory would yield much greater riches. Victory would bring glory as well as treasure. The king made the sign of the cross and told himself that God would prosper France this day. He had confessed his sins, he had been forgiven, and he had been sent a sign from heaven. Today, he thought, Crecy will be avenged.
‘What if the cardinal arranges a truce, sire?’ d’Audrehem interrupted his thoughts.
‘The cardinal can fart for all I care,’ King Jean said.
Because he had made his choice. The English were trapped, and he would slaughter them.
He led the way from the house into a world made grey by the day’s first wolfish light. He put an arm around the shoulder of his youngest son, the fourteen-year-old Philippe. ‘Today, my son, you will fight at my side,’ he said. The boy had been equipped like his father, head to toe in steel. ‘And today, my son, you will see God and Saint Denis shower glory upon France.’ The king lifted his arms so an armourer could strap a great sword’s belt about his waist. A squire held a war axe with a haft decorated with golden hoops, while a groom led a handsome grey stallion that the king now mounted. He would fight on foot like his men, but at this moment, as the dawn promised a bright new day, it was important that men should see their king. He pushed up his helmet’s visor, then drew his polished sword and held it high above his blue-plumed helmet. ‘Advance the banners,’ he ordered, ‘and unfurl the oriflamme.’
Because France was going to fight.
The Prince of Wales, like the King of France, had spent most of the night being armoured. His men had spent it in their lines, beneath their banners. They had been drawn up in battle order for twenty-four hours, and now, in the dawn, they grumbled because they were thirsty, hungry, and uncomfortable. They knew a battle had been unlikely the previous day; it had been a Sunday and the churchmen had proclaimed a Truce of God, though still they had waited in line in case the treacherous enemy broke the truce, but now it was Monday. Rumours flickered through the army. The French numbered twelve thousand, fifteen thousand, twenty thousand. The prince had surrendered them to the French, or the prince had arranged a truce, but despite the rumours there were no orders to relax their vigilance. They waited in line, all but those who went back to the woods to empty their bowels. They watched the skyline to the north and west, looking for an enemy, but it was dark and unmoving there.
Priests moved among the waiting men. They said mass, they gave men crumbs of bread and absolution. Some men ate scraps of earth. From earth they came, to earth they would go, and eating the soil was an old superstition before battle. Men touched their talismans, they prayed to their patron saints, they made the jokes that men always made before battle. ‘Keep your visor lifted, John. Goddamned French see your face they’ll run like hares.’ They watched the wan light grow and the colour come back to a dead world. They talked of old battles. They tried to hide their nervousness. They pissed often. Their bowels felt watery. They wished they had wine or ale. Their mouths were dry. The French numbered twenty-four thousand, thirty thousand, forty thousand! They watched their commanders meet on horseback at the line’s centre. ‘It’s all right for them,’ they grumbled. ‘Who’ll kill a goddamned prince or earl? They just pay the bloody ransom and go back to their whores. We’re the goddamned
