A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury

  He looked down at the crown of her dark-gold head as she bent earnestly to the straps, and there were eyes upon them from every quarter, a little wondering and inquisitive but for those who had seen this same boy in the night, and heard him presented as a good and valued servant of their lord in these parts. It mattered not at all now whether they wondered or no. But once he looked up over her head, and found himself gazing into the single dark, alert eye of Archibald Douglas. It was the only time he had ever seen that audacious face fully conscious and also desperately grave.

  He reached down and took her hand as she finished the last strap, and raised her gently to her feet.

  “Julian, the time is close now, and I would have you in safety, for my own sake, for I am guilty who caused you to come here. Go back now, quickly, to the toft, and wait there. Ask my men at the crest there, in my name, to give you a horse, for time may be short. God willing, I shall come for you. And if God will otherwise, then Iago will do my part for me, and bring you to the Lord Owen. I shall go into battle the happier if I know that you are out of danger.”

  She said: “I will go.” But for his peace she did not say how reluctantly, or how short a way.

  “And, Julian, pray for me!”

  “My lord, without ceasing. That God keep you!”

  He was searching her face with an intensity that she felt almost as a caress, but did not fully understand; for she knew only that this might be the last time they would touch and confront each other so, but he in his heart knew that it would indeed be the last in this world. He saw the rounded line of his golden collar, a barely perceptible weal under the thin, soft stuff of her tunic, and wished that he had had by him some better gift to give her, for her future was dark, uncertain and lonely, and he had come by this ambiguous daughter-son too late to make proper provision for her in any formal way. Moreover, the possessions of traitors are forfeit! No, he checked himself, strongly rejecting this fatal acceptance of fate, a man’s death does not always imply his defeat. Think of the old Douglas at Otterburn, who died but won his battle!

  It was the first time he had ever looked so deep into these eyes, black shot through with red, like the embers of camp-fires; there was nothing they kept from him now. Daughter she might be to him, and by their ages well could have been, for she was still only twenty years old. But father he was not to her, nor lord, nor brother, nor friend. As what would she remember him? She was not dependent upon love and lovers as women are wont to be. She had married, and sickened of marriage, and chosen of her own will to look towards other satisfactions, this being soiled and spoiled for her, though not, please God, eternally. You cannot die of disillusion at twenty, not with such a spirit in you. And some day, he thought, her body will awake to joy, all the more fiercely for this waiting.

  And for this bereavement, he thought, with humility, and gratitude, and desperate, loving sorrow. For I have been the supreme cause of joy to her, and I shall be her grief; but because of me she will keep some faith, and it will not always go unfulfilled.

  At this last moment he thought only of her. He took her face between his hands, one bare and one in its steel gauntlet, and stooped and kissed her with formal gentleness first on one cheek, then on the other, the kiss of kinship with which he would have greeted or parted from his own youngest brother, if that brother had not died so long ago.

  “And God go with you, now and always!”

  She turned, as soon as he took his hands from her, without another word or another look, her face pale and bright and remote, like a star, and walked rapidly away from him up the slope, past the curious men-at-arms who watched her in silence, over the crest and out of his sight.

  * * *

  He turned his back on her as she vanished, and went to stand beside Douglas in the shade of the squat hawthorn trees that had rooted in the broken ground above the field. They were silent together for some minutes, watching the earl of Worcester draw close on the other side of the hollow where the ponds glowed in pewter stillness.

  “A soothsayer is not God,” said Douglas at last, abruptly. “He can lie, and he can be mistaken.”

  “So he can. But not she, who came as the innocent messenger of God.” He took no account now of what he said to this man; he knew how much the single piercing eye had seen, the delicacy of those austere bones, the slight swell of her breasts under the faded, dun-coloured cloth. “I have had my summons, Archie, from lips that never dealt in anything but truth for me. She does not know what she has told me, and it cannot but be truth. If she had known, she would have held her peace. And was there any need to speak the name, if it had not been meant that she should do me this holy service, and give me warning of my end?”

  “Every man’s death is treading hard on his heels every day of his life,” said Douglas stoutly. “Yet it will not overtake until he flags. And as for you, my friend, you will outrun him many years yet.”

  Hotspur smiled, looking at him warmly along his shoulder; and after a moment of silence he said: “Archie, there is not a man in the world, not even my uncle, I would rather have by me now, and in my secrets, than you. If I should not run fast enough, and you come out of this day alive and free, will you make my last loving compliments to Elizabeth? And kiss my son for me?”

  “And your little lass, too,” said Douglas heartily. “But all this you shall do for yourself, and I’ll be your echo.”

  “Very well so, and you may yet be right. But remember what I asked of you.”

  And still later he said, his eyes narrowed to watch the look of his uncle’s familiar, and to him expressive, face, as he rode along the headland and into the lines: “Well, if my plough is drawing to its last furrow, let’s make it wide and deep, something for men to remember, and broad enough for two. For, God helping me, I’ll take Henry down with me into the earth.”

  16

  We had best stand to,” said Worcester, “for I have committed us.”

  They had already grasped as much who were near enough to see his face. The men-at-arms had risen silently from the turf, and marshalled their lines. The archers took the cue, and each tested stance and bow, and hitched his quiver to bring his arrows readily to hand. A deep breath and a purposeful stir passed wordlessly along the ranks.

  “So he was implacable!”

  “On the face of it, no. He spoke us very soft and fair. Too soft! Too fair! He was not speaking only for me. He had the prince at his knee.”

  “Ah!” said Hotspur, drawing understanding breath. “And how did Hal take him?”

  “Unreadably, by Henry or by me. Yet the sweet reason was all for him. Having no faith in it, I put our liege lord to the test. I spoke out all that we hold against him, without stint, and in the hearing of more than merely his son. There is not an honest man in England, so bearded, who would not have blazed out in his turn and had his say at me. And he continued mild as a maid, and repeated his offers of pardon and consultation between us, if we disperse in peace. All his words are fair, all are rehearsed, all are hollow. And his eyes speak vengeance.”

  “I hope,” said Hotspur, “you answered the eyes.”

  “He said: I would that you would accept of grace. And I replied to him: I do not trust your grace. For I tell you truly, Harry, what I see in him, rightly or wrongly, of life and death. Me, perhaps, being old, not of his own generation, not fore-fated to go through life stride for stride with him, at every day’s beginning a challenge and a gall to him, at every day’s end out-shining him, he might forgive. Your father also, for the same reasons, he might let live. But you—you, Harry, too close, too much praised, too dear to his boy, too gloriously his overmatch, you he cannot now leave live in this world. If we dispersed he would hold to terms for this time, but I do not believe it would be long before he would find another occasion, more favourable to his hand, and more secret. I chose to have open combat now.”

  “You chose rightly,” his nephew said. “And I tell you now, I never looked for any other.” He looked along his lines, and
the knights were getting to horse, and the squires handing up lances, every man fixing his eyes upon the tight array in the distance. It had grown very quiet; men moved about the final business without words, even the birds had fallen silent.

  “We made this day,” he said, “and we’ll abide it. Let’s mount now and to our places.”

  They had barely reviewed each his own division, and taken station, when the royal trumpets sounded for the onset across the languid noonday fields.

  * * *

  The whole of that glittering mass before them began to move in immaculate order forward across the green, slowly yet, for they had to bring forward their bowmen and their unmounted men-at-arms with them to the edge of shooting range before launching an attack which they knew, from the condition of the ground and the known skill of the Cheshire archers, must be costly. Hotspur sat his horse at the head of his cavalry, and watched them come, and his heart lifted and sang in him dangerously, forgetful of both Berwick and death, waiting for the moment when that splendid line of steel and banners would burst forward and gather speed. There was a great formal beauty about the discipline and unanimity of this forward surge, more like a festival procession than the opening of a battle. Here there was nothing to do as yet but wait and watch. Every man had his orders. Every captain knew his own time, and every master-bowman his range.

  They were well aware when the opposing vanguard was drawing almost within their reach, for they fitted their shafts, and levelled, and began without haste to draw, waiting for the order to loose. And now the colours and coat-armour began to take on significance, and they saw that Humphrey, earl of Stafford, had the perilous honour of leading the van, and of the two great divisions supporting him the prince had the left, and Henry himself the right. Sunlight danced in a dazzle of pin-pricks from the raised lances. When they came down, as superbly drilled as the steady advance, the spurs would drive in and the reins shake out, and the whole great formation sweep forward together, battering and tearing the green earth.

  Up went the royal banner in the midst, down went the lances, and the line leaped forward. The trumpet-call, and the roars of: “St. George…St. George!” that had launched them were left behind by their rush, and came in late and strangely through the still air to the watchers on the slope.

  “Not yet! said the master-bowman, crooning to himself as he calculated their progress yard by yard. “A little nearer yet—a little nearer…Now! Loose!”

  The volley took wing with a sound like a vast flight of wild geese lifting, and the air shook. All the practised hands, without haste and in spare, synchronised movement, plucked and fitted the second arrow, and again waited. In the royal line, now in full and thunderous career and every second gathering impetus, sudden gaps were torn, and round each a small whirlpool of confusion and delay sprang into being; but the balance of the line came on, and those following circled the fallen and the plunging, squealing horses, and dressed their ranks, and spurred forward afresh.

  The second volley took them to more deadly effect, the range being less, though the front ranks of the vanguard were still short of the edge of the bowl, and in the next few seconds must wheel either way to go round it. Evidently, thought Hotspur, watching motionless in his place, Henry’s venerable clerics were less use as observers than my squires, or else he thought it unbecoming to question them on anything but their office. For the centre, with Stafford’s banner high, was hurtling straight for the slight drop into the ponds. They might, after all, choose to drive through rather than go round, and risk the mud for the sake of the impetus they might lose by circling the obstacle.

  In the end they had little choice, for their speed was such that by the time they were fully aware of the difficulty they could not check without being thrust over the edge by those behind. One or two horses baulked, but the rest came plunging down and in, labouring in flurries of shallow green water, and floundering deeper into soft, clinging layers of mud. And volley upon volley of arrows drove into them there and cut them down, bringing the centre to a halt in a tangle of panicking horses and wounded and fallen men. Any who picked themselves out of that chaos and made at the slope beyond were picked off at leisure by the archers. By that route not a man or a horse came through.

  Those on the right and left had fared better, having the firm ground of the headlands to help them. And now their own archers had advanced into range and taken possession of what cover they could, mainly on the flanks, to avoid shooting into their own cavalry; and there were the first casualties among the defenders, and it became a matter for caution even to lean out from cover for a fair shot. But still the slope held intact. Those few of the king’s knights who reached its foot found themselves isolated, and drew off in haste to regroup before trying the assault again.

  For more than an hour the archers had the battle in their hands. The king’s bowmen closed in to new cover wherever they could find it, and shot each man for himself, selecting targets as they offered, and did some execution among the men-at-arms, waiting haplessly with no enemy within their reach.

  This was always the stage that troubled Hotspur most, this new warfare to which he could not adapt himself without fretting, where the knight who had been the focal point and the transcendent weapon of war hung helplessly aloof, while the archers won and lost for him, and owed him nothing. He would rather have been constrained to an attacking battle, as Henry was now. There a knight could still come into his own. Archers might break a way into a square for him, but only he could go into the cleft and demolish the formation. Foot soldiers had not the mobility and speed and force, archers were helpless at close quarters. But in defence they held everything in their hands.

  He detached himself briefly from his division to ride along the rear to the right wing. Richard Vernon’s archers were immovable as yet, less pressed by the king’s bowmen than on the other flank.

  “If you can keep this battle defensive long enough,” said Worcester, staring down, “you will have won it.”

  It was in his mind then, as he rode back, that this was the same counsel Dunbar had urged on him at Homildon, and he knew now, as he had known then, that there was a limit to the killing he could stand at this remove. Where was Dunbar now? Somewhere down there close to Henry’s royal person, surely, for everything he had was staked upon Henry, and if Henry died, Dunbar was a lost man. His hands itched and his heart ached to be away down the slope and into that knot of chosen men that massed about the royal banner.

  Then he heard, away before him in the centre, the sudden roar of voices shouting: “Espérance Percy!” and picked up the cry and hurled it back to them on the gallop aware of the wild shifting of air and thudding of hooves where he had left Douglas. His own division on the left of the centre stood fast as he had left it, but Douglas and all his knights and squires were away down the slope, and into the labouring ranks of horsemen who came surging to meet them. He heard lances shiver and blows fall, and the two forces collide and start below him like bones breaking. Tossing above the ranks of the king’s knights he glimpsed the royal arms with a silver, three-pronged label of cadency, bravely afloat over a tangle of hewing, weaving, bellowing horses and men. He laughed aloud with a crazy, vindicated pride. The only leader who had carried that slope was the prince of Wales, the little, ruthless, whole-hearted paladin of Chester and Shrewsbury.

  This was more to his mind. Since the pressure had reached so close, he had cause enough to thrust in his own hand now. And by the grace of God he had chosen the left, and could let fly at Henry himself, and leave the boy to God’s care. He wheeled his horse again, and leaned down to the master-bowman.

  “Break me a way into the ranks on the left there! Have your men cut me a line between me and the royal banner. Salvayn, go give the same order to my lord of Shipbrook on the flank. His men have the better view there.”

  His own mounted division shivered forward a foot or so in response, feeling their liberation near, and pricked up the points of their lances experimentally, peeri
ng keenly down towards the headland and the confused field beyond.

  He watched the shots of both companies of archers converge steadily, and with merciless accuracy, upon the channel he had indicated, directing volley on volley into the royal ranks. He watched the concentrated shooting gouge into the mass like a knife, minute by minute widening the alley into Henry’s flesh. He could not bear it long.

  “Enough, hold your hand now! We’re going in!” His runners carried the word. He spurred to the head of his knights without waiting for the shooting to cease, for he had some distance to go to reach the breach in the line, and he trusted the judgment of his bowmen to read his moves and act upon their own initiative. Where he rode they would leave the way open for him, and tear a channel for his passage if they could. He stood up in his stirrups, and bayed aloud to the ranks behind him: “Espérance Percy!” and hurled himself forwards towards the causeway below.

  * * *

  Down went the horses, headlong in their own madness, stretching their mailed necks and starting nostrils. And at the point where the gradient levelled out at the headland, down went the lances in a flutter of pennants and a glitter of steel, the sunlight splintering from their points. The king’s archers had no time to do any great destruction during that onslaught, for their target streamed down the slope at such mad speed and at such an angle that they had difficulty in holding a mark, and the scattering of the prince’s knights, driven some yards downhill again by Douglas’s swoop, complicated the field and hampered their aim. Such hits as they made were made by blind chance, and Hotspur and his company plunged almost unscathed along the headland to the field beyond, and sheared accurately into the breach the bowmen had made in the massed ranks of the king’s guard, like an axe into a wound.

  The king’s knights closed in to defend the standard, and Humphrey of Stafford flung himself and his red chevron deliberately in Hotspur’s path. He was young, exalted, commander of the vanguard, and since that morning constable of England in Northumberland’s forfeited place. His white horse was mired and wearied after struggling out of the mud of the ponds, and almost Hotspur regretted both the man and his mount, but they came between him and Henry, and he drove at them without relenting. His lance struck with precision just above the rim of the raised shield, and pierced through the steel gorget into flesh. The earl’s body went somersaulting out of the saddle, and the horse was battered back on to its haunches, shocked and squealing, and flinched away sidelong from the weight of mount and rider bearing down upon him. The impetus of those following enlarged the opening. As one iron shaft the division slashed towards the standard.