Beyond the archers Jim came to the men-at-arms. These were scattered in small groups around individual fires, seated, sharpening their weapons, and doing other small maintenance duties; or simply lounging and gossiping.
There was little if no eating or drinking going on, since the foraging parties had not been sent out as a routine measure but simply because the British, as they had been at the Battle of Poitiers in the history of Jim's own world, had literally been caught with their supplies down. Jim noticed a great number of wagons loaded with plunder, but the lack of food and drink would be of more serious concern.
The plan had been that both he and Brian would only glance at the archers at opposite ends of the line, and then work more slowly down the line of lightly armed men-at-arms until they met at the middle. Meanwhile, Dafydd might well have even dismounted from his horse and be mingling and talking with the bowmen, looking for recruits.
If he found none at the right end of the line, he would try the left end of the line. If he had relatively good success at the right end, he was to return to the chapel as quickly as possible; and aid Aragh in being ready to defend the Prince against any who might stumble over that royal personage.
Jim went slowly along past the seated men, earning hardly a glance from any of them. He was a typical knight, effectively in undress uniform—without his armor, heavy weapons and war-horse. Unhappily, he recognized nobody; not John Chester, not those few men-at-arms of Brian's whom he knew by sight, and none of his own. Eventually he saw Sir Brian riding slowly toward him, and assumed that the other had had no luck either.
Jim's hopes took a downward plunge. He wondered what had happened. Most likely, John Chester and the men had lost their way, failed to find the English forces, or blundered into the hands of the French. Any of these mishaps would make then unavailable. If that happened, it would create more than a small problem, because such hazy plans as Jim had in his mind at the moment all depended upon having their full complement of men-at-arms with them and ready to fight.
He came together at last with Brian; and spoke to him in a voice too low for any of those near to hear.
"No luck for you either?" he said.
"No, no luck—Hah!" replied Brian in the same low voice; and then Jim saw a smile breaking out at the corners of the other's mouth and Brian's right hand twitching on the pommel of his saddle. Only then, Jim realized that the other was longing to make a fist out of that hand and punch Jim exuberantly upon the shoulder. "Of course I had luck! I found them not fifteen minutes ago. One of the men even knew where the chapel was, so he has gone first with John Chester to guide him to it. Then he'll return and direct the others as they go off, by twos and threes. Theoluf will stay to the last, to make sure that all get off all right, and without causing a stir. I kept on riding down to meet you, so as not to attract any unusual attention."
He raised his voice.
"Come," he said, loud enough for his voice to' carry to those nearby. "We may be out of meat but I still have a flask of wine left. Come with me, old friend!"
He dropped his hand on Jim's shoulder and turned his horse away from the lines. Jim followed his lead, and they rode away from the line, not in the direction of the chapel, but back into the woods. Once within the trees, however, they turned and galloped swiftly toward the chapel itself.
By the time they got there, some dozen men had already arrived. John Chester met them with large smiles.
"Well done, John!" said Brian exuberantly, swinging his right leg over the saddle, freeing his left toe from the stirrup, and sliding off his horse's back. Jim, who had never learned that particular trick of dismounting, got off more sedately; and Brian gestured at one of the men-at-arms to take the horses. "Well done all the way along, John. We'll make a knight of you, yet!"
"I thank you for the compliment, Sir Brian," said John Chester, "but it can be no secret to you that, if it had been left to me, I would have been a poor leader indeed. It was Theoluf and the more practiced men-at-arms who kept the company in order and saw it got where it should."
"But you learned, John? Hah?" Brian cuffed him in a manner that Jim thought a little too rough to be friendly, but which John Chester did not seem to object to. "That is the main thing. You learned. Just keep on learning, and what I said will come true. Knighthoods are not won on the battlefield, alone—though you'll have your chance at that, too, before the sun is twice more down, or I'm badly mistaken!
"Let us, you and I, James," he said, turning to Jim, "inside, and see how His Highness has put up with this waiting."
They entered the ruin together. But when they came to the narrow stone-choked alley that had been an aisle, they had to go single file, Jim first. At the end of the aisle, the Prince was seated more or less comfortably upon some of his belongings, to pad the surface of a stone block. Aragh was lying before him. They were deep in talk.
Jim was surprised, for it was Aragh who was doing most of the talking, in a steady, low, growl of a voice. He broke off as Jim and Brian came up; and both he and the Prince looked at them.
"Sir Wolf is very wise," said Edward. "He would make a good teacher. I have been learning much."
Aragh opened his jaws in his silent laughter.
"From 'pert' to 'good' and now to 'wise,' " said Aragh. "I'm improving in this human's estimation."
"Truly, I have much to learn," said Edward seriously, "and being still young I often ignore the gold of wisdom when it is scattered on the ground before me. That, at least, I am not doing at this moment. When I am King, I will have responsibilities. Then knowledge and wisdom will be called for. For this is a new age, mark you, gentlemen; and a new time coming in my generation."
"It will little please me if it does," growled Aragh. "I am all for the old ways and no change in the land as I know it. But I am willing to talk to one who will listen."
"And I have been willing to listen," said Edward. "It is a new thing for me to hearken to one who neither fears nor even very much respects me. One, in fact, to whom even one of my blood is somewhat less in some ways."
"All of us can learn from others at some time or other, I think, Highness," said Jim. "However, the rest of us have been up to the English lines and found our own men. They're coming in, two and three at a time; and soon we'll have thirty to fifty good men here, plus any archers that Dafydd may have been able to find and bring to our help."
"It is a scant enough force," said the Prince, "but I have not asked for any defense at all, even a small one."
"Forgive me, Highness," said Jim, "but it is not your defense I have in mind directly for these men. Some I'll leave with you for that purpose; but there are other things to be done. I hope to use them to reach the false Prince, and eventually bring you face-to-face with him."
"God send the hour!" said the Prince. His eyes glittered and his fingers played with the hilt of Sir Giles's sword.
Giles returned, and they were all gathered now except Sir Raoul, Dafydd, and anyone whom Dafydd might have been able to find. Sir Raoul was the next to arrive. Jim and Brian, the Prince and Aragh had moved back outside and had been joined by John Chester at Brian's orders. Sir Raoul rode up and dismounted with a thin smile.
"I see you found your men," he said, as one of the men-at-arms took his horse at the wave of Theoluf's finger, and began to lead it back behind the chapel to join the other horses there. "Well, I too have been successful, as far as information goes. There is to be a truce and a parley while the French and English discuss terms that good King Jean has offered them."
"I heard nothing of a truce on the English side," said John Chester. It was doubtful whether he would have spoken up so freely to Brian or any of the other English knights, but the fact that Sir Raoul was French had evidently made him feel he had a certain amount of license.
"Possibly you English do not talk as much between yourselves as Frenchmen." Raoul dismissed the objection with a wave of his hand, not even looking at John Chester. "No battle will take place until tomorrow. Th
ey will use the night on either side to discuss things, and send envoys back and forth, for it is already too late in the day to get forces into position and begin a battle, which if started now, must end in darkness and confusion."
"Then tomorrow?" asked Brian. The smile vanished from Sir Raoul's face.
"I should expect battle shortly after dawn," he said, "for King Jean and those with him will not yield in their terms; and certainly the Duke of Cumberland, who commands on this English side, is too pigheaded to back down from his position."
"Do you know in what part of the line the King himself and his bodyguards will be fighting?'' asked Jim.
Raoul looked at him.
"I know you particularly charged me to find an answer to that question if I could," he said. "It is my understanding that the King himself will command in the third division, or the furthest back of the three battle lines of the French troops. This is uncertain information, since it may well be changed on the morning; but I think you can pretty well count on it, in this instance. Because of that position, it may well be that he and his division will not need to enter the fight at all. For certainly the first two divisions alone are enough to ride down the English."
"We are not entirely without archers on our side," said Brian, "and yon French found it none too easy to ride us down, either at Crecy or Poitiers. If it had not been for the wisdom of your King Jean then in resting his Genoese bowmen and sending them out secretly to fire into the English right flank, at a time when the battle might have gone either way, you would not have won the field that day."
"But he did, and we did win!" Sir Raoul's eyes flashed.
"Let's not fight past battles now," said Jim. "Remember, we're gathered here for one purpose only. That's to unmask the false Prince Malvinne created, while my own special charge from Carolinus is that neither side win. That can only be done if battle is prevented completely."
"And you've a plan for this?" Sir Raoul asked him.
"No solid plan, yet." Jim shook his head. "But I've got the makings of a plan, and I have hopes. We may have more help coming than we imagine."
"What help would that be, James?" asked Giles.
"That, I won't tell you now," answered Jim. "Best none of you count on it. Because I'm going to endeavor to set things up so that, if nothing else, Malvinne's falseness will be demonstrated even to the French King. If that alone is done, much will have been accomplished."
"I do not see, in any case, how battle can be prevented—" Raoul was beginning to object; when a babble of voices among the men-at-arms, and a parting of their ranks some short distance away, revealed Dafydd coming toward them, followed by three men, all with bows over their shoulders and full quivers of arrows at their belts.
"Only three bowmen?" said Sir Raoul, almost sneeringly. "Here's reinforcements!"
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dafydd came up to the group in conference. The three with him, while not as tall as Dafydd, nonetheless could no more have been mistaken for anything but bowmen, than Malvinne to Jim's eye could have been anything but a magician. They were all lean, tanned individuals, with faces brown and set with premature lines from long exposure to the sun, though none of them seemed to be older than their mid-thirties. They walked with their bows cased behind their shoulders as if the weapons had grown there.
Dafydd brought them up to the waiting group before he stopped with them; and when he spoke he addressed himself directly to Jim.
"I bring you," he said in his soft voice, "Wat of Easdale, Will o'the Howe, and Clym Tyler. All are master bowmen, whom I have shot against in contests of archery over more than a few past years; and I have found them among the best in the world with the long bow."
An awkward silence threatened, but Jim rushed to break it with at least some words of welcome.
"We're glad to have such men with us, Dafydd," he said. "If some of us do not seem as overjoyed as we might, it is only because we rather expected that you would stay longer among the archers, and return with more men than just three."
"So could I have done," answered Dafydd, "but I think that, look you, you will find these three and myself more than ample for the purpose that I have in mind; and that I think you will welcome. Important indeed it is that they be master bowmen, not merely as to skill with the long shaft; but men who have stood in line of battle before, and can be counted on even in the thick of things to do what they have been set to do."
"By Saint Dunstan!" said Brian. "I do not remember you being asked to plan our fighting for us!"
"I was sent to find archers; and archers are used to a particular purpose, or they are wasted," said Dafydd. "Being the only archer here myself among us, it seemed to me that I must take upon myself the planning of what the archers should do, for none of the rest of you are trained to do so. Am I wrong in that? Or was I wrong?"
"No, Dafydd," Jim answered for all the rest, "you were not wrong and are not wrong. Let's at least hear what you have in mind."
"It is not ordinary for an archer to tell belted knights how fighting should go, I know," said Dafydd, "but an archer, look you, is like a tool to the hand. No two tools are exactly alike; and some are better fitted to a particular job than any others, even though others look so like to them that those not used to tools cannot tell the difference. I have here three bowmen specially fitted to a certain use. Whatever else you plan to do, Sir James," he said, now addressing Jim directly, "it is your plan to bring yourself, these gentlemen with you, and in particular your Prince, close to King Jean and Malvinne. Is it not?"
"That's true," said Jim.
"And your only hope of approaching him is during the battle, am I not right?" went on Dafydd.
"You're right," said Jim.
"And am I further right that in a battle, the King of France will be surrounded as thick as they can ride, by at least fifty picked knights, who will be ready to die in place rather than let any possible enemy close to him?"
"That is no whit less man the truth," said Sir Raoul, "and by the Lilies and Leopards themselves, I have from the beginning imagined no way by which a small group like this can penetrate such defense. If you have come up with a method, archer, I freely give you my apologies for any opinion less than favorable of you I have had in the past."
"What I suggest," said Dafydd, as calmly and quietly as always, "must needs depend upon myself and these three being carried safely within a certain range of King Jean and his bodyguards. From that point, however, they may become the tool to open up that steel shield that surrounds not only the French king and Malvinne but the false Prince, for he is sure to be there also as a sign to both armies that he is on the French side."
"I think there is much sense in what the archer says," said the Prince unexpectedly.
"Indeed, Your Highness is probably right," said Brian. "But, Dafydd, just how did you plan that we were to carry you that close?"
"Ah, that," said Dafydd with a slow smile. "I leave to you gentlemen of metal weapons and dress. Think you, that whomsoever leads the approach against these knights cannot be naked men such as myself and these three archers, but must be armored in steel as they are. You know that in such battles as these, your men of the bow are of great power from a distance; and so long as they can retire behind armed and armored men when the enemy comes to close blows. At close range, we are so much cold meat to be sliced."
"True enough, Dafydd," said Jim, as much to end the discussion as to give Dafydd his due. "The making of plans to get us close is within my province. Even our men-at-arms must follow we leaders who're in full armor; or else they, too, could not face the clash with those armed and clad as we. In fact, they'd stand the shock only a little better than you and your bowmen. As it happens, I've got some ideas on that."
"It would be of a great benefit," said Brian wistfully, "if you could go before us in your dragon guise; and at least throw their horses into dismay and excitement. So that they will be less free to oppose us, for needing to control their steeds. But such w
ould not be a gentleman's way, James, as I'm sure you know. Magic should only compete with magic; otherwise it is a case as Dafydd has said, of naked men against those better weaponed and prepared."
"You can indeed turn into a dragon at will, Sir James?" asked the Prince, fascinated.
"Yes, Highness," answered Jim, "although I'm not much of a magician in other ways."
"He is overmodest, Your Highness," said Brian. "He got us into the inner parts of the castle of Malvinne and brought us safely out. That latter part in particular you know, yourself."
"That is very true," said the Prince. "But I'd greatly like to see you change into a dragon someday, Sir James."
"As well wish to see me venture into the castle of a magician to rescue a Prince," snapped Aragh. "It can be done; but it is not something to be done except for special and very strong reasons."
The knights around the Prince all drew back slightly, as if instinctively expecting an outburst of royal temper at this rebuke. Instead, to the surprise of all those there, including Jim, the Prince merely looked thoughtful.
"That also is true, Sir Wolf," he said. "Once again you teach me to think before I speak. I am indebted to you all; and I am sure that great reasons as well as great courage impelled you to come to my rescue where I was held."
There was the beginnings of another awkward silence, but it was Brian this time who hurried to fill the gap.
"James, you said you had some thought about how we could approach King Jean and those with him?" he said. "Remember, Raoul has just told us that the King will be in the third division, with the bulk of the French army before him."
"Exactly," said Jim. "That is why I've planned all along to make a large circuit with all our people and approach from the rear, or from some angle behind them where they are least likely to expect an attack."