17.
The King had won his battle of wills against the Dauphin, but the citizens of Rouen proved harder to break. Inspired or intimidated by their hard-nosed captains, they put up fierce resistance.
Henry did all he could to starve and isolate the city. He set up camps at all the roads that to Rouen, cutting off any hope of relief by land. As at Caen, where we had seized the Abbaye de Saint-Étienne, he ordered Clarence to garrison the abbey at Mont-St-Katherine and mount cannon on the roof. The town of Pont de l’Arche, upstream from Rouen, was taken to prevent the French sending supplies by river. As an extra precaution Henry had chains thrown across the river, barring access to boats.
He deployed bands of Irishmen to patrol the nearest villages and sniff out French partisans. These bloodthirsty savages, armed with darts and javelins and great knives, were free to forage the land as they pleased, and slit the throat of any Frenchman (or woman) they found bearing arms. Their chief was the Earl of Kilmaine, a shaggy-bearded savage who wore furs and skins over his mail, more like the captain of a band of starving routiers than a high-born nobleman.
Kilmaine’s wild Irishmen did their work well, and there was no interruption to the vital flow of food and other supplies sent to us from England via Harfleur.
Meanwhile the people of Rouen began to starve. By mid-December the poorer citizens were said to be reduced to eating horseflesh, and then rats, dogs and cats after the horses ran out. Supplies of bread ran dangerously low, and food prices increased so rapidly the poor could not afford to eat, but had to beg or steal to stay alive.
“Meat and drink and other victuals,
In the city began to fail.
The bread was full-nigh gone,
And of flesh, save horse-saddle, they had none...”
I scrawled these lines while sat cross-legged on the frosted ground before my tent. A chaplain had given me some parchment and writing materials in exchange for a few pennies, and I had just eaten a good breakfast of salted bacon and rye bread, washed down with ale brewed in England.
Like many of our men, I was getting fat. We had done little for months on end save dice, drink, eat and argue, with some occasional excitement provided by sorties from the city. The French weren’t content to sit on their backsides and starve, and every so often a band of mounted soldiers would erupt out of the gates, to wreak as much havoc as possible before they withdrew.
It was after one such sortie, in which the French slew a number of the Duke of Gloucester’s men, that Henry showed a glimpse of impatience. Still reluctant to fire on the city, he ordered teams of workmen and engineers to undermine part of the western wall.
The miners worked under the shelter of timber mantlets, draped with animal hide to guard against them being set alight by fire arrows. My lord Clarence had his camp outside the western wall, and I watched with detached interest as a series of tunnels were gouged out of the earth with pick and shovel.
My detachment didn’t last long. No less a knight than Sir John Cornwall, the most famous tourney fighter in England, volunteered to take a band of men-at-arms into the tunnels to guard the miners as they dug.
Their aim was to reach the foundations of the wall. These would be propped with timber struts, which were then set alight, causing the masonry to come crashing down. The French could see the mines being dug under the city, and dug counter-mines to break into our tunnels. Vicious combats were fought in the awful heat and darkness. I didn’t envy Cornwall, or the men he chose to take with him.
I should have realised that Clarence would never allow himself to be outdone by a mere knight. As soon as word reached him of Cornwall’s intention, he ordered his marshals to pick out a score of men to go down the mines.
The duke would not go himself, of course: princes of the blood royal do not grub about in the dark, brawling with French miners. Instead he appointed one of his veteran knights, Sir Maurice Bruyn, to lead the party.
Bruyn’s esquire was quick to find me, curse him. “Master John Page,” the lad said with a bow, “my lord Sir Maurice requests that you attend him at once.”
“What for, puppy?” I demanded, though I knew the answer already.
He dodged the blow I aimed at his head. “Why, so you might accompany him to the mines. My lord says that he cannot possibly do without such a famous champion as the hero of Caen and the poet of Rouen at his side.”
With much reluctance, I belted on my sword and followed the esquire to Sir Maurice’s pavilion.
The hero of Caen and the poet of Rouen. This was flattery, in a way. The glory of my little exploit at Caen still lingered, and lines from my poem circulated about the camp. I was keen to recite them, even in the face of jeers and laughter from my comrades. A little mockery is nothing compared to the fruits of popular fame.
I found Sir Maurice outside his pavilion, among a group of men-at-arms. Robert Caunfield was there, and Roger Floure, as well as others I had come to know.
They all looked as sick as I felt, even Sir Maurice, though he did his best to hide it. He gave me a curt nod, and tightened his mouth in a forced grin.
“Our very own Chaucer has deigned to join us,” he cried jovially, “I’m afraid we must ask you to conduct yourself like a soldier for a change, Page, instead of a clerk. Remind me, how many Frenchmen have you killed so far?”
“None, my lord,” I replied. I knew the grizzled knight’s temper, and that he despised those who allowed him to bully them.
“None,” he spat, “and more likely to get killed yourself, until you find some proper gear. The shame of it, to see an esquire in the retinue of the king’s own brother, armed with naught save a padded jack and a soup-bowl on his head!”
There was some truth in that. Every man present save myself was covered in steel. I favoured freedom of movement over protection, and still wore the light bascinet and half-armour I had bought in Southampton.
One of my fears was to slip into a waterlogged ditch and drown, dragged under by weight of metal, or to suffocate in the heat of the press, unable to draw in enough breath through the tiny air-holes bored into my helm. In those days I preferred not to wear full armour, thought it cost me a few scars I might have otherwise avoided.
We went on foot to the section of wall being undermined. It was at the north-west of the city, where the moat fed by the Seine ran out. To the north and south were two strongly defended gatehouses, and further south lay the pile of the castle. The silver lilies of France flew from the high towers and ramparts, mocking us with their defiance.
Our workmen had opened three tunnels, spaced some twenty yards apart. They were at a safe distance from the walls, out of range of all save cannon. The French gunners tried their luck, and there was the occasional flash of orange flame on the battlements, followed by the whine of a gunstone as it passed far overhead.
A heap of French ammunition lay next to the mouth of the central tunnel. “These were the closest,” explained the overseer who met us, a strongly built peasant in a filthy smock, his face and hands covered in dirt from the mines, “see that ball on the top? It came near to taking my head off.”
“Where is Sir John Cornwall?” asked Sir Maurice. I noticed him glance nervously at the nearest tunnel, and a bead of sweat form on his lined brow. He was the bravest of men above ground, but I could almost taste his fear at venturing into that black hole.
“He went underground some time ago, my lord,” the overseer replied, “maybe an hour gone. There is hard fighting in the mines. The French are knocking holes in our tunnels faster than we can seal them up, and we haven’t even got close to the foundations yet.”
We waited in nervous silence while the overseer rounded up his workers. I counted about forty of them, dirty, gaunt-faced men carrying picks and shovels and hammers, their clothes rank with dirt. They paid us no heed and filed by threes into the mouth of the right-hand tunnel.
Sir Maurice led us after them. I lagged close to the rear, and had to duck my head when I passed under the low ent
rance. The lintel was supported by timber props, cut from the forests near Rouen.
The passage inside sloped downwards, and was gloomily lit by rows of iron lanterns, hung from nails driven into wooden struts that supported the packed earth of the walls.
At first there was little room to move, and a sense of panic infected me as we delved into the bowels of the earth. My chest tightened, and I fancied I heard the echo of voices trapped in the deep.
Much to my relief, the passage started to widen. Ahead, over the steel helms of my comrades, I glimpsed the miners at work in a huge cavern, hacking away at the vertical rock face. The tunnel was some three hundred yards long, by my reckoning, which meant another fifty or sixty yards had to be dug out before they reached the foundations of the outer wall.
Sir Maurice held up his mace as the signal to halt. Our men stood in two rows, with our backs to the walls, while the miners cursed and panted and laboured away at their muscle-tearing task. The heat was intense, and a few of them stripped to the waist, or went naked save for their breech-clouts.
Not so the wretched soldiers, condemned to stand and suffer in our layers of metal and leather, while the sweat rolled down our flesh in waves.
I caught Caunfield’s eye. The old boaster had turned ghastly pale, and I was tempted to ask if he wished himself back in the Welsh hills, trading blows with Owen Glendower.
The jest was strangled by the dryness in my throat. I took the flask from my belt and swallowed a long draught of ale.
As I drank, the noises in the dark grew louder. I made out the sound of scraping; the tap-tapping of hammers against solid rock; the distant echo of voices.
My heart skipped a beat. French voices, and not so distant either.
Sir Maurice heard them too. “Beware!” he shouted, “the enemy are near! Form line, form line!”
Even as we tried to shuffle into ranks, a few of the workmen downed tools and ran straight through us, yelling in panic. One of them, a huge oaf with a beard like a spade, knocked me down. We got tangled up together, limbs thrashing, and his naked foot kicked me in the chest.
All around me was noise and chaos and bodies struggling in the hellfire glow of the lanterns. I screamed as the left side of my face burst with pain. Some fool had dropped his sword in the confusion, and the edge of the blade scorched across my cheek.
The pain blossomed and dissolved. The babble of voices melted away. For a brief time I floated in a void, unable to move or see or hear.
My sight was the first to return. Some incredible force had lifted me off the ground and hurled me against a wall. I lay stunned on the floor, my head ringing like the inside of a belfry, my mouth rank with the salt tang of blood.
I blinked away the purple blotches flashing before my eyes. More bodies had poured into the tunnel, and a battle was raging. Men hacked and clawed at each other like wild beasts in the dark. I heard shouts of ‘Saint Denis!” and ‘Diex Aye!” among the cries for Saint George.
The air was full of dust and blood and foul black smoke, and the uneven floor covered in scattered heaps of earth and shattered rock. I gaped in horror at the massive hole in the far wall, through which French soldiers, men-at-arms and billmen and archers, poured in a ceaseless tide.
You may trust the French to do something unexpected. Despite the risk of collapsing the mine, they had set a charge of gunpowder to blow a hole into our tunnel. Too much powder was used, and the almighty blast ripped through the tunnel like a thunderclap, hurling bodies right and left and almost bringing the roof down on our heads.
Coughing out the blood in my mouth - I had bitten my tongue - I groped for my dagger and looked for the nearest Frenchman to kill. Swords were useless in this kind of close-quarter fighting, with the enemy mere inches from one’s face, unless you used the hilt as a club.
A man in a dark blue jupon rose before me. He wore a badge embroidered with the lilies of France on his breast, and was about to drive a spear into the exposed back of one of our workmen.
I was still on my knees, and dived headlong at him, stabbing at his crotch. My aim was off, and the blade merely pinked his thigh as my shoulder crashed against his hip, throwing him to the ground.
He tried to push me away, but I was stronger and heavier, and managed to pin his arms with my knees. My knife flashed down, pierced the soft jelly of his left eye and sank into his brain.
Only then, with my gauntlet soaked in his blood, did I realise how young and thin he was. The pathetic wisp of blonde moustache over his top lip failed to conceal his age. No more than twelve, maybe. I had slain a child.
A gigantic shape loomed before me. Two men-at-arms were smashed aside by a black mace, and a demon stepped forth.
The demon was an enormous French knight, well over six feet tall, his face hidden under a pig-faced bascinet. His costly plate armour was painted black, save for an escutcheon displaying a red griffon with spreading wings inscribed on his breastplate. He wielded a mace in his right hand, and an axe with a half-moon blade in his left. Both dripped with blood and brains.
My limbs froze at the sight of this terrible apparition. He might have slain me, for I was incapable of defending myself, if a couple of brave fools hadn’t hurled themselves at him.
One of them was Robert Caunfield. I have called him a vain braggart, and so he was, but none could deny his courage.
Little good it did him. The French knight fought with brutal skill, and his axe took off Caunfield’s sword-arm below the elbow. My comrade’s shriek of agony almost burst my eardrums. Hot blood gushed from the stump of his arm, even as the Frenchman carved a deep gash into the other fool’s belly.
More English soldiers closed around the black knight, screaming for revenge. He effortlessly battered them aside, crushing skulls and cleaving limbs, while triumphant shouts of ‘SAINT DENIS!” echoed down the length of the mine.
Our men started to break. The knight of the red griffon was unstoppable, and the French outnumbered us at least two to one. I was carried along in the flood of bodies streaming back down the passage. Soldiers and workmen shoved and trampled each other to get past, yelling in fear, cursing each other, all their pride and courage melted away.
I tripped over a discarded helm and fell flat on my face. Pain flooded through my ribs as some whoreson ran over me. I tried to crawl towards the mouth of the tunnel, a mere glimmer of light maybe fifty yards ahead of me. The pain was excruciating, and I had to use my knife to drag myself forward, almost weeping at the fire in my side.
A trumpet screeched through the vault. Through a mist of tears, I glimpsed bright colours, silver and blue and gold, and a sword flamed in the darkness. Fresh war-cries tore through my head.
“Saint George! God for England and Saint George!”
I had just enough strength and sense left to roll against the wall. A tall, slender figure in burnished steel leaped past me, the lilies and lions on his surcoat whirling before my eyes.
“The King! The King! Rally to the King!”
I have said that princes of the blood royal do not, as a rule, risk their persons in the mines. Yet here was one who did - King Harry of England, the victor of Agincourt, who ever led from the front, above ground or below it.
Close on his heels were Sir Robert Umfraville, a stone-faced Border knight who had slain more Scots than the plague, and the screeching, hairy ruffian that was the Earl of Kilmaine. Behind them charged a horde of wild Irish knife-men and royal bodyguards in white jupons emblazoned with the red cross of Saint George.
Henry closed with the knight of the griffon, who waddled in pursuit of the English fugitives. While the Irishmen and the royal guard ploughed into the rest of the French, the King and the black knight exchanged an eye-blurring flurry of blows.
From my vantage point, it soon became clear that the Frenchman was outmatched. Despite his weight of steel, Harry moved with the grace of a dancer on a marble floor, elegantly avoiding or turning aside his foe’s bloodied axe and mace.
The duel was ove
r in seconds. Henry ducked under a laboured attempt to cut him in half and thrust his dagger under a joint in the black knight’s armour, where the right arm met the shoulder.
His blade sank deep into the other man’s armpit. Disabled, the knight could only parry desperately with the axe in his left hand. Henry caught the underside of the half-moon blade on his hilt and gave a sudden twist, forcing his foe to drop the axe. For the coup de gráce, he rammed the point of his sword into the narrow slit of the knight’s visor.
With a final shudder and a groan, the giant warrior slowly keeled over, like a felled tree, and landed with a deafening crash of ironmongery. The French, seeing their talisman slain, uttered a cry of dismay and started to fall back, hotly pursued by our reinforcements.
Shrieks of joy and pain echoed through the mine as the wild Irish slew with gleeful abandon, dragging French soldiers to the ground and stabbing them to death where they lay.
“Curse their eagerness,” shouted the King, “sound the recall, in Heaven’s name, before the roof comes down!”
Now the immediate danger had passed, I noticed how the ground shuddered. I glanced up, and some dust from the ceiling landed on my face.
The shock of the blast had sent a tremor through the earth. Coupled with the noise and violence of the fighting, the mine would soon collapse and bury us all under tons of rock.
Gasping at the agony in my side, I used the wall to help me stand. While Henry and his officers bawled at their men to run, I limped towards the entrance, picking my way over fallen bodies, abandoned tools and bits of war-gear.
“Retreat!” the cry echoed and re-echoed behind me. I risked a glance over my shoulder, and saw the Irish being dragged off their prey like hounds from a kill. In their mindless rage, some turned on their officers, even as more dust fell from the ceiling and the lanterns swayed alarmingly.
There were men just inside the entrance to the mine, helping our wounded to get out. One of them, the overseer I met earlier, gave me his brawny shoulder to lean on and half-carried, half-dragged me outside.
The Wolf Cub Page 14
