A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury

  “What is it?” Elizabeth asked, looking in wonder and anxiety from one face to the other. “What order have they issued that can disturb you, Harry?”

  But he had turned to the second missive, and spread it brusquely between his hands, frowning over it fiercely; and when he looked up again the slumbering fire blazed.

  “What the plague has got into the man? He cannot do this! He has no right, and he knows it. I sent to him, I made generous offers, far beyond any duty I owe him, and he strikes me in the face now with this!”

  “He has done it,” said Northumberland grimly. “And he would say that he has a right. It was common practice formerly that the crown should enjoy the right to dispose of important prisoners, though always with respect to the captor’s honour, and his right to fair compensation.”

  “No such claim has been enforced now for years. Though God knows,” he said, flaming, “there are other outmoded rights he has not scrupled to revive for his own profit, now I call them to mind. How long has it been since any sovereign levied an aid to marry his daughter? Sixty years? Seventy? King Edward never asked any for his girl.”

  “From all I heard of it,” said Northumberland sceptically, “that did him little enough good.”

  “Neither shall this, I swear it. And “fair compensation”! From what funds? He has none! No, that’s but a form of words—it means he takes from us what might in part supply what he owes us, and in return he’ll give us another bad tally, life-long, never to be redeemed. And after I’d made known to him what I intended! It’s from Edmund he’s stealing, not from me!”

  It was a strong word, and they stiffened at hearing it. Elizabeth, quivering as much with exasperation as with anxiety, struck her hands together in entreaty.

  “Harry, for God’s sake, will you tell me what this means, for I’m lost here. What has he done? What has Edmund to do with it?”

  “I misdoubt I’m the bone between two hounds,” said Douglas at her shoulder, and laughed, but for once wryly.

  “Why, the king writes me here that it was he directed the council to send out this order—that none of our Scottish prisoners are to be ransomed or freed without the authority of council. But in his own letter—in his own hand, mark you—he goes farther, for he orders that all the noble prisoners shall be delivered up to him in the term of this parliament. And he promises—promises!—that there shall be fair compensation made to the captors! He does not say from what fool’s gold! He does not say when! Simply, he will take to himself all those prizes we won honestly while he was trailing his draggled plumes out of Wales.”

  “He writes thus crudely? To you?” She meant: To you who made him, and set him where he is!

  “He says there are urgent reasons. But he does not say what they are, or give me one word to justify himself.”

  “The ransom price of an earl or two,” said Douglas ruefully, “is urgent reason enough, if your Henry is as beggarly as you make him.”

  “But what did you mean, Harry, what did you mean—about Edmund?”

  He looked at her, and his roused and formidable face softened. “Why, I did not mean to keep anything from you, but I thought it too soon and too cruel to raise your hopes and have you bedded on thorns. I sent him word by the courier that so far as any ransom monies accrued to me, they should be at his disposal to defray Edmund’s ransom. And here he seeks to take this means out of our hands.”

  “He cannot have received your message when he sent out such an order! He cannot have known!”

  “He did know. Merbury reached him on the twentieth. The order is dated two days later.”

  He saw that there were tears in her eyes, and misread them, for it would have seemed to him then unthinkable that these edicts he held in his hands could have been conceived for the very purpose of denying freedom to a kinsman and a loyal subject. It was she, not he, who read more deeply into the letter she had not even seen. He saw nothing but a clutching at one means of gain, and even that chilled his heart. But she saw a dynastic quarrel deeper than blood itself, and she would have done anything, uttered any lie, to keep him from the same vision.

  “No, trust me,” he said warmly, “he has not understood. When I meet him we shall resolve everything. I will not believe that he has thought clearly what he does. He’ll listen—I know him! But I will not resign any part of my rights,” he said, stiffening. And he turned and stared, with eyes like levelled lances, at his father and Dunbar. “And you, my lords? Do you stand with me?”

  Dunbar shook his sandy head weightily, and looked sidelong with his blue, bright eyes, scrubbing with dubious fingers in his beard. “For me it’s none so easy. I’m a Scot among the English, in no case to stand too high upon principle. “Fair compensation,” his Grace says, and for my part I’m bound to trust in his word. I had lands in Scotland, and if we win them, I’ll be in the king’s debt if he’ll but make me free of my own. I rede you do as I do, and bow to this decree.”

  Hotspur looked long at his father, and Northumberland took his time about responding. He was not in need, he felt in no necessity to quarrel with his king, though he did feel some annoyance at the want of civility and humility in this utterance from a made king to an earl who had made him. He felt no fear, and therefore no compulsion to appear fearless. The matter, on the whole, was too small for a breach. And Mortimer was no close kin of his, though he respected his son’s affections, and knew their strength.

  “Harry, there’s matter for thought here. I’m the king’s man, and have shown myself so many times over, and I incline to go with the king’s order as far as I honourably may. Tomorrow we head for London, and there’ll be time to talk of this. For my part, I shall reserve my rights, and trust to have speech with him. I’ll make up my mind then whether I surrender my prisoners or no.”

  Hotspur looked from his father’s face to Dunbar’s, and thought, some way beneath the level of his own personal anger and intransigence: He is taking note of all. He sees himself as the king’s jackal. But he wastes his efforts. Henry is no such dupe, for all this present greedy folly he knows who his true friends are. He looked at Elizabeth, pale-faced but calm, willing to go with him unquestioningly wherever he saw fit to go, and at Douglas, whose wild, ebullient spirits were curbed now by his new and voluntary regard for his captor. He turned the uncompromising stare of his brown eyes on them both, and embraced them with his heart and love.

  “Well, do as you think best. That’s every man’s right and duty. But for me, I pledge you now I will not surrender one grain of my rights. What I took, I took, and by God, I’ll keep it, too. Take her home tomorrow, Archie, and never look back to watch what I do, for you know it before. I would not give him one knight who had confided himself to me and none other, much less you. Only over my dead body,” said Hotspur hardily, eye to eye with the friend he had made under Homildon Hill, “will King Henry ever claim you as his prisoner.”

  7

  King Henry’s third parliament went the way of all parliaments, beset with a host of private petitions, local grievances, problems of finance, complaints of discrimination, and the fretful and continuing menaces of Wales and Ireland. But early in October, with unusual cordiality, the estates took occasion to present a loyal address of thanks to the sovereign and his family for their tireless labours in the service of the realm. To Henry, for his great exertions against the Scots and the Welsh, to the prince of Wales for his direction of the struggle in the principality, to Prince Thomas for his industry in Ireland. And through his Grace they desired also to express their thanks to the earl of Northumberland and his forces for the notable victory of Homildon Hill.

  Finally, whether spontaneously or how prompted it was difficult to say, they respectfully entreated the king to sanction the raising, through Lords Willoughby and Roos, of a loan of ten thousand marks to ransom Lord Grey of Ruthyn out of his captivity in Wales; a request which was graciously granted.

  No other prisoner was mentioned.

  * * *

  On Frida
y, the 20th of October, in the White Hall at Westminster, parliament met in a special and ceremonious assembly, with prince, lords, and commoners all in their due stations, and King Henry on his throne of state at the upper end of the hall. Only the constable of England, the earl of Northumberland, was absent from his place, and that was for a purpose. The king was already advised of the ceremony to come, and had graciously assented in it; privately he had known for some days that certain of the prisoners of Homildon—such as were in fit case to travel, naturally—had been brought south to London. He had even been faintly surprised, and deeply gratified, at the earl’s compliance and complaisance. This solemn presentation would set the seal on his authority and prestige, publicly redeeming that disaster of Wales which he still could not get out of his dreams.

  Northumberland, always an imposing figure in any picture, was monumentally impressive now as he made his entrance at the far door, very splendid in cloth of gold.

  “Your Grace, give me leave here to present before you these knights and noblemen of Scotland and of France, taken in battle at Homildon Hill, and here delivered to your Grace’s charge.”

  They came in singly at the earl’s back, and he named them as they came.

  “Murdoch Stewart, earl of Fife.”

  Albany’s son was tall and reddish fair, a handsome young man, fretted now with his captivity, and limping still from his fall at Homildon. He came in proudly enough, but he was unlucky in bearing a famous, even a notorious, name, and he glared and flushed to the hair under the bombardment of inquisitive stares. Tradesmen of the City craned and stood on tiptoe to gape at him, the son of a royal duke and nephew of a king, directed now to kneel on Northumberland’s right before another king.

  “The Lord Montgomery.”

  He stepped to the left with a closed and stony face, and kneeled, looking at no one.

  Close to the throne, the prince shifted unhappily in his seat, and looked away; and it was not quite chance that he looked to where Hotspur sat, erect and cold in distaste, his broad brown forehead lofty and blank as a castle wall, and the corners of his lips curled.

  “Sir William Graham—Sir Adam Forster…”

  There were three Frenchmen after, Sir Jean de Heley, Sir Piers Hazars, and Jean Dormy. They joined their fellow-prisoners, kneeling just within the doorway until the king inclined his head and beckoned them to advance.

  The entire company came forward, kneeled again in the centre of the hall, and a third time immediately before the steps of the throne. Hotspur watched them sink to their knees, one or two painfully, being so recently wounded, within touch of Henry’s hand, and smiled for the first time during this spectacle, thinking involuntarily: Douglas would have stood his ground rather, and spat in Henry’s face! And again, devoutly: I’m glad I did not subject him to this. He would rather I’d run my sword through him on the grass at Homildon!

  The prince was beset with equally ungovernable thoughts, for what had flashed irresistibly into his mind was: Richard would have swooped down from his throne and lifted them by the hands, and himself seated them with all honour, like a squire attending his lord. He knew when to humiliate, and when to humble himself for his better exaltation. But you cannot learn it. You have it or you have not.

  Yet he knew in the same moment that he did his father an injustice, for whatever Henry might lack, it was not a sense of the courtesy of kings, or the wit to know how best to burnish his own image in such a planned and rehearsed scene. No, there was something deeply wrong here, something that had distracted his mind and caused him to miss his moment. It was as if he had been waiting for something more, some following name, a climax which had failed to come, and could not yet believe that he was to be forced to make do with this. With these! There should have been at least one more, the greatest, the most eagerly anticipated. And there were others present, too, who had sensed the lack almost as soon as he, and were leaning head to head now in half-gleeful, half-appalled wonder, and whispering another name. For where was the earl of Douglas?

  The king looked up once towards where Hotspur sat, stared briefly at the high and stony front that encountered and repelled him, and made shift with what he had. His grievance burned in him, for he had been robbed not only of the crown of his triumph, but even of the spontaneity with which he might partly have atoned for what was lost. He rose valiantly, and took Murdoch Stewart by the hand, but there was not a soul present who did not sense that it was done with no more than the half of his attention. He raised his enforced guests graciously, and dismissed them into Northumberland’s care until they should all meet at the royal table in the evening. And all was done well enough, and with impressive majesty, if only it had been done in time, and with his whole heart. But his heart was not whole, it was corroded with bitterness and anger. He had essayed a public demonstration of his power and his magnanimity, and it had been turned into a public humiliation, not of his prisoners, but of himself. A king who gave orders, and was flouted coldly, openly, to his face! He knew, none better, that all that muted buzz of excitement as the lords and commons dispersed from the White Hall was a threnody on the names of Douglas and Hotspur. They knew whose prisoner the great earl was, they knew who had denied him.

  The king kept his face heroically until he had withdrawn into his own apartments in the palace. He felt hazy of vision, and dizzy, though perhaps that was only the pressure of anger within his brain. Of late he had been troubled with an irritable, swollen eruption that marred his face in moments of stress, and he felt it rising now to complete the anomaly, and mark him, not the insolent vassal, with the insignia of shame. Afterwards in calm it always subsided, leaving as yet no mark behind; but always it came when most he needed to be free of it, and magisterial, and royal.

  “My lord of Worcester, remain here with me. Heron,” he said, to the steward of his household, “ask my lord of Northumberland to join us. And send to the Lord Henry Percy to bid him attend us here at once.”

  William Heron, Lord Say, was an old adherent of Lancaster, and knew his master well, though he had been his steward only a few months. He was accustomed to doing such errands as this without too much haste, for not even kings can lose by being given time to think again; and often enough he had been called back from the doorway by a change of heart. This time, too, he had barely reached the door when the king called after him. “William…”

  “My lord?” Say turned without eagerness or surprise, either of which would have been taken ill. But all the king said, and with dark intent, was: “Send also, William, for our son, the prince of Wales!”

  * * *

  The first person Hotspur saw, when he entered the room, was the prince, very slender and aware on a stool by the king’s right knee, his large, intelligent eyes, at once so candid and so consciously guarded, wearing here one more film of withdrawal, though his delicate nostrils dilated and quivered like those of a high-bred horse scenting thunder. Veiled though they were, the eyes clung to Hotspur’s eyes, and it was with deliberate purpose that Hotspur kept his gaze neutral and turned his head away. The boy should not have been here, it was unfair to try to use him or influence him thus. But whoever assayed it would find that there was a highly individual mind to be reckoned with behind the eyes. As for Hotspur, he willed to be alone with the king, and from this moment, father and uncle and prince notwithstanding, those two were alone. Northumberland on the king’s right, Worcester on his left, stood ware and watchful to prompt him or throw him lifelines as they might, but he ceased to take them into consideration from the moment his eyes met Henry’s eyes.

  “Your Grace was pleased to send for me. I am here.”

  The king looked ill, blotchy of cheek and feverish of eye, braced back tautly in his great chair with hands spread on the lions’ heads that formed the arms. Hotspur was momentarily shaken by a recollection of the great, agile body sweeping through the lists at St. Inglevert on a tall, raw-boned destrier as grey as cloud. He tensed his own easy, never-questioned muscles wonderingly, an
d recaptured briefly the knowledge that one part of him, at least, was nothing but joy. And he nearly two years the elder! And a part of his chilly anger at least warmed, if it did not depart from him.

  “My lord, you have somewhat to answer for to me.”

  “I shall answer whatever your Grace is pleased to charge me with.” His voice was equable, clear of all impediment; he was not yet roused, and his will was to be placated upon reasonable terms.

  “My lord, you, like your father here and certain others, received not my orders merely, but my council’s, concerning the disposal of your prisoners taken at Homildon. Yet you have not delivered up to us your chief prisoner, the earl of Douglas. We expected he should have been brought to us today with Fife and the others. Why was he not?”

  He had changed to the royal “we” and “us.” The temperature fell with the mutation. It was a mistake; they had been so close that its inappropriateness here in private jarred sadly.

  Northumberland said, brusquely but readily, the honest father speaking up for the obstinate son: “My liege, the earl of Douglas suffered five wounds at Homildon, and lost the sight of an eye. Can a man put that load from him in so short a time? It would be barbarous to ask him to ride so far so soon.”

  The king looked wordlessly at Hotspur; and Hotspur smiled, though disdainfully. “My liege, the earl of Douglas is indeed in no great case to try his strength too far as yet, but by stages he could have made this journey very well. He rode with me and hawked with me before ever I left Bamburgh. It is not his health prevents, but my honour.”

  “Your honour? Are you not sworn my liege man? Do you not owe me fealty?” The king was leaning forward, gripping the arms of his chair with hands like talons, and his face was blotched from brow to chin with rafts of angry red. “I ordered you to surrender your prizes to me. You have not done so. Not Douglas only, but some number of knights you also hold. You say the earl can assay this journey without danger to him. Very well, I take your word for it. Since he can, he shall, and forthwith. You will send orders this day by a fast courier that he shall set out under escort and be delivered here to me within seven days from the time your messenger reaches Bamburgh. This you will do this very hour, before you quit my court, and you will submit your order to me to be despatched.”