Falls the Shadow

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “God in Heaven, a lass!”

  Edward and his accomplice exchanged amused grins. “I’d as soon you kept that to yourself, Tom. They had enough trouble trusting in the word of a green stripling. Jesú forfend that they ever learn my spy was a wench!”

  The girl departed, with the same insouciance that had enabled her to penetrate an enemy encampment. Thomas chuckled, but as he turned back, he saw that she’d taken Edward’s good humor with her. He looked suddenly tense, somber. “So much can go wrong, Tom,” he said, “so much…”

  Thomas was amazed; he’d never heard Edward admit to doubts before. “I think your plan is inspired, Ned,” he said earnestly. “I truly do.”

  “Inspired?” Edward smiled then, a smile so bleak, so bitter, that Thomas caught his breath. “I am but taking a page from my godfather’s book, Tom. A night march and a surprise attack worked very well for Simon at Lewes, did it not? God willing, it will work as well for me at Kenilworth.”

  Thomas was silent, not knowing what to say. He’d forgotten that, just as Harry de Montfort was King Henry’s godson, so Edward was Simon’s.

  Bran awoke with a start, unable to breathe. Opening his eyes, he discovered why; he’d inhaled some of his bedmate’s tangled swirl of hair. He spat it out, sat up on the pallet. Reaching for his braies, he pulled the drawers up over his hips, tightening the drawstring. He didn’t bother with his chausses or tunic, started to hunt for his shoes. In the midst of the search, a pair of arms entwined themselves around his neck, a pair of breasts pressed against his back. “My lord…?” Yawning. “You want me now?”

  “No, it’s too hot, lass.” It was, too; where their skin touched, it clung, sticky with sweat. Standing up, he fumbled for a wineskin, drank and passed it to the girl. She was so dazzled by his good manners that she actually found herself regretting that he did not want to couple with her again, and when he reached for the tent flap, she could not keep from crying out:

  “Where do you go, my lord?”

  “I’m just going out to take a piss. It’s sweltering in here; mayhap I’ll take another dip in the lake.”

  “Again?” She was accustomed to humoring the quirks of her customers, but never had she encountered one so bizarre. In truth, the man was besotted with bathing, even insisting that she take a bath herself ere he’d bed her! Were all lords so daft about soap and water?

  She looked so dumbfounded that Bran grinned. “Go back to sleep,” he said, not unkindly. Guy always swore that a man could not go wrong by treating a slut like a lady and a lady like a slut. For certes, it seemed to work with harlots; they were pitifully grateful for any scrap of courtesy. Mayhap he ought to have tried it on Isabella, a thought so outrageous that he burst out laughing.

  The lake shimmered invitingly, silvered by the last glimmerings of starlight. A welcome breeze wafted off the water, dried the sweat trickling down his chest. Not yet dawn and already ungodly hot. Poor Johnny; the castle must be like a veritable oven. Several of the blanket-clad forms stirred sleepily as he passed. A few early risers were relieving themselves by the edge of the lake. A dog’s howling floated over the castle walls, cut off by a spate of cursing, inventive enough to make Bran grin. But the cursing soon faded and quiet once more reigned throughout their camp, lulling the dozing men back into a deeper sleep.

  Bran loved the stillness of summer, loved this tranquil, turquoise hour just before the dawn. He quickened his pace until he reached the lake, stripped off his braies, kicked off his shoes, and plunged in. He was a strong swimmer, a relatively rare accomplishment, and he swam well out into the lake, sending up diamond droplets of crystalline water in his wake. Wading back to shore, he discovered that he’d forgotten a towel, but a freckle-faced youngster gladly offered his. Others drifted over, their accents telling Bran that he’d wandered into the midst of his London volunteers. He was quite willing to linger; he liked these cheeky, cheerful, sharp-witted townsmen, so quick to rally round in his father’s time of need.

  They were arguing the merits of Southwark ale-houses when the dogs began to bark. A man shouted from the castle battlements; another took it up. The Londoners would have ignored the noise had Bran not interrupted himself in mid-sentence. “It must be your supply wagons, my lord,” the freckled youth ventured. “Right on time, too—”

  “No…” Bran sounded so strange that he drew all eyes. As they watched, uncomprehending, one of their wineskins slipped from his fingers, spilled into the grass. “Christ Jesus…” Almost a whisper, as intense as any prayer. “God help us, we’re under attack!”

  They gaped at him, disbelieving. But then the screams started. Bran shouldered them roughly aside, running for his tent. He didn’t make it. An armed knight, seeming to appear from nowhere, bore down upon him. The Londoners shouted a futile warning, as Bran dodged a death-dealing blow from a spiked mace. But as the stallion galloped past, it brushed him with its heaving hindquarters. He was flung sideways, into the smoldering embers of a dying campfire. The Londoners reached him just as he rolled clear. His face was bloodied, his eyes dazed. “My sword…”

  “You’ll never make it, my lord!” They gestured, and he saw that the camp was already overrun with mounted knights, ripping open the sides of tents, chasing after fleeing, naked men, trampling the slow and the clumsy underfoot. Women were shrieking, men shouting, fire arrows spearing the sky above their heads. Bran could no longer find the de Montfort banner; they were surrounded by the streaming gold and scarlet lions of his cousin Ned.

  “My lord, what should we do?”

  The question acted as a catalyst, enabling Bran to focus his thoughts. His head was gashed, his forearm burned, but he didn’t feel the pain, not yet. “We’ve got to get into the castle. There’s a boat tied up in the rushes…” His eyes sought their only salvation—a fortified sanctuary, an island citadel, his father’s castle of Kenilworth, an awesome silhouette against the brightening sky, its massive sandstone walls blood-red in the first light of dawn. Why had he not heeded Johnny’s warning? Christ forgive him, why had he not listened?

  In less than an hour, it was over. Edward’s victory was total. Some of Bran’s men managed to escape into the castle. Others fled, naked, across the fields to safety. More died in their beds, bled to death in the debris of their own tents. The Earl of Oxford and fifteen banneret knights were taken prisoner. Bran’s supply train was seized on the outskirts of town, and so many horses were captured that Edward could now provide an unheard-of luxury, a mount for every man in his army.

  “We’ll rest here today,” Edward announced, “and return to Worcester on the morrow.”

  Gloucester frowned. Their triumph had been tarnished for him upon discovering that Bran had escaped. “I think we ought to lay siege to the castle,” he said, his yearning for vengeance momentarily overcoming his common sense. His suggestion reaped only ridicule, and for a few tense moments, it looked as if the two greatest Marcher lords, Gloucester and Roger de Mortimer, were about to cross swords.

  Edward made haste to intervene, dispatching de Mortimer to take charge of their highborn captives. “I understand your disappointment, Gilbert. I want to take Kenilworth as much as you do, for not only is Bran sheltered within those walls, so is my uncle Richard. But we could besiege the castle from now till Judgment Day and it would avail us naught. Simon has made it well nigh invincible. That is why we must make sure he never reaches it.”

  Glancing around, he beckoned to a nearby knight. “Philip, fetch me the de Montfort banner. Get Oxford’s, too, and as many others as you can find.”

  Gloucester grinned. “I never knew you were one for collecting trophies!”

  Edward’s smile was indulgent. “Not trophies,” he said. “Bait.”

  Edward’s triumph at Kenilworth was such a resounding success that he dared to hope he had at last vanquished memories of his blunder at Lewes. He had, after all, done precisely what he’d set out to do; he’d even managed to reach Kenilworth in an amazing fourteen hours. As they returned
to Worcester—at a more moderate pace—Edward felt complacently confident that his August 1 exploit was likely to pass into legend.

  They reached Worcester very late on Sunday, the 2nd, in remarkably high spirits for men whose war was not yet won. The shock was all the greater, therefore. As they’d made their way back along the hilly Worcestershire roads, Simon had seized his opportunity, and that same day ferried his army across the Severn at Kempsey, just four miles south of Worcester.

  Edward exploded in a rage spectacular even when measured against the formidable furies of his Plantagenet forebears. Why had they not sent him word at once? Did they think de Montfort’s movements were of such little interest to him? Did they not realize what could happen now that Simon had broken free? London lay open to him. So did Kenilworth. Short-sighted, simple-minded fools!

  No one was so rash as to dispute him; they prudently let his anger burn itself out. When he finally stormed off in the direction of the priory cathedral, his lords took hasty counsel among themselves, much alarmed. They could not possibly attack de Montfort on the morrow, as Edward was vowing to do. Christ on the Cross, their men had covered a staggering sixty-eight miles in little more than two days, and fought a battle between marches!

  Listening to them hold forth upon the folly of Edward’s intent, it occurred to Thomas de Clare that not one of them was willing to confront Ned—not his brother Gilbert, not de Warenne, not the swaggering de Lusignan, not even the fiery, reckless Roger de Mortimer. Secretly amused by their sudden skittishness, he wondered if Ned knew that they were learning to fear him. Caught up in this intriguing line of thought, he was taken aback, therefore, when Gloucester said:

  “So we agree, then? My brother Tom is to be the one to talk to him, to make him see reason. Tom? What are you waiting for? Go after him!”

  Thomas found Edward in the nave of the cathedral, standing before the marble tomb of his grandfather. Turning at the sound of footsteps, Edward said in a conversational tone of voice, one that held no echoes of his earlier rage, “King John of evil fame; how often have I heard him called that! Think you, Tom, that he was as black-hearted as men say?”

  “I…I do not know,” Thomas stammered, caught off balance by this sudden shift in mood, and Edward shot him a searching look. Light from a recessed wall torch spilled over onto the tomb, onto the brilliantly colored effigy of a long-dead King. Edward’s eyes caught the light, too; they held an amused blue gleam.

  “How did you get to be the lucky one, Tom? Did they draw lots? Well, you need not fret. You can go back and tell them that you’ve bedazzled me with your nimble wit, your irrefutable logic.”

  “Then you’ll not march on Kempsey tomorrow?” Thomas asked, much relieved when Edward shook his head.

  “How can I expect our men to fight another battle without even pausing for breath? I knew they could not, even as I swore upon all the saints that we would.” Moving away from his grandfather’s tomb, he gave Thomas a wry smile. “I lost my head, so desperate am I to bring Simon to bay. I was afraid, Tom, afraid that he’d fade away on the morrow, slip right through our net. But to force a fight ere we’re ready would be madness. Once before, impatience was my undoing. I’ll not travel down that road again.”

  “So what will you do, then?”

  “I’ve already done it—put myself in Simon’s place. By all accounts, they had a rough time of it in Wales. His men sickened on the Welsh food; how many Englishmen could long abide a diet of milk and mutton? They’re bound to be disheartened, too, for I’ve thwarted Simon’s every move for nigh on two months. Now he has taken advantage of my absence, succeeded in crossing the Severn. But he well knows his danger. By now he knows, too, that Bran has finally reached Kenilworth. What he does not know is that his reinforcements are never coming. As urgent as is his need to put distance between his army and mine, he’s been crippled, knows that neither his men nor his horses are capable of making a mad dash for Kenilworth. So what does he do? What can he do but seek to make the best of a bad bargain? He sends scouts to keep vigil on Worcester, to warn him should I venture toward Kempsey. Tomorrow he gives his army a much needed day of rest. And at dusk, he pulls out, thus escaping both the heat of the day and prying enemy eyes.”

  Edward paused. “I grant you that he could strike out for London. But I am gambling on Kenilworth. There are two roads he can take—and I mean to cover them both, to cut him off ere he can reach Kenilworth and safety. Tom? Why do you look at me like that? You do not agree with my reasoning?”

  “I think,” Thomas said slowly, “that you have read Simon de Montfort’s mind, and it scares me some—how easily you did it. Have you any idea, Ned, just how much this past year has changed you?”

  Edward considered that in silence for several moments. “Mayhap you’re right. If so, I do owe a debt to my uncle Simon. As you know, I do not always repay my debts. This one, though, I will repay—but in the coin of my choosing.”

  38

  ________

  Evesham, England

  August 1265

  ________

  With the coming of August, Simon’s luck at last changed for the better. Bran sent word of his long-awaited arrival at Kenilworth, and Simon’s scouts discovered an unguarded ford across the Severn. His army crossed the river on Sunday, August 2, passed the night and the following day at the Bishop of Worcester’s manor at Kempsey. Once sunset had flamed over the rolling Worcestershire hills, they were on the move again, heading east under cover of night. By dawn on Tuesday, they were within sight of the sweeping curve of the River Avon, could see the distant limestone walls of Evesham Abbey.

  To Henry, Evesham rose up out of the gloom like a vision of salvation. Spotting his nephew not far ahead, he cried out, “Harry! I need you!”

  Harry’s companions grimaced, for Henry had long since exhausted their reserves of patience, and only Simon’s formidable will kept his men from treating their King with the contempt they felt he so richly deserved.

  It had begun with Edward’s escape. What should have heartened Henry seemed instead to have plunged him into a bottomless pit of selfpity and despair. He no longer made any pretense of enduring with fortitude. His complaints were constant, vociferous, quarrelsome, and often petty: unseasoned cold food, hard beds, blisters, saddle sores, cramps, stomach colics. Henry’s forced sojourn in Wales was an undeniably unpleasant experience for one accustomed to the luxuries of Westminster and Windsor. But theirs was a world in which men were expected to shrug off suffering, to make light of battle wounds and broken bones. Henry’s peevish harangues won him scant sympathy from Simon’s swaggering young knights. Their concept of kingship was, consciously or not, cast in Simon’s image, and they felt betrayed by these disillusioning glimpses of a too-mortal monarch, one who bewailed the lack of a soft pillow and whined about belly aches in the midst of a life-and-death struggle for England’s soul.

  Harry alone seemed willing to humor his unhappy uncle, and when the others now muttered of wet-nurses, he came good-naturedly to Henry’s defense. “You’re a hard-hearted bunch of bastards, in truth. He’s an old man, deserves some pity.”

  “Let Papa hear you say that and you’ll be the one in need of pity,” Guy warned. “Lest you forget, he’s but a year younger than Henry!”

  “And are you comparing the two of them? That would be like matching a wolfhound against a lady’s lap spaniel,” Harry said with a grin, and checked his stallion in answer to Henry’s summons.

  “Is that Evesham? We are going to stop at the abbey, are we not?” Henry asked eagerly, and his distress was acute when Harry shook his head.

  “I doubt it, Uncle. Whilst you look at Evesham and see the abbey, my father will see only a potential trap. Look how the river curves around the town—like a horseshoe—and with but one bridge. Should an army come down upon Evesham from the north, it’d be like corking a bottle.” Good intentions aside, Harry was unable to resist a small jab. “Just as it was at Lewes.”

  Henry scowled, then su
ddenly kicked his mount forward, taking his escort by surprise. Alarmed, they spurred after him, but Henry was already reining in his stallion, having caught up with Simon.

  “Harry says we’ll not be stopping at the abbey. I’m telling you here and now that I’m not going another foot beyond it. I’ve been in the saddle all night, am bone-weary and half-starved.”

  “Alcester is but another ten miles or so. We can dine there,” Simon said dispassionately. Since taking Henry hostage, he’d invariably treated him with icily correct courtesy—subject to sovereign—falling back upon all the prescribed formalities to distance himself from the distasteful reality of their mutual plight: that he was in fact holding his King against his will.

  “That’s three more hours, mayhap even four!”

  “It cannot be helped, my liege. Evesham is in too perilous a—”

  “Harry spouted the same nonsense, babbling about a battle commander not wanting to fight with a river at his back. But I know better, Simon, for I know you expect to meet Bran today on the Kenilworth road. So the danger is past, for you’ll then have an army twice the size of my son’s. If you refuse, it can only be because you take pleasure in taunting me, in mocking my impotence!”

  “That is not so. It was never my intent to humble your pride, and I have truly tried to make your predicament as tolerable as I could.”

  “How? By dragging me into that accursed Welsh wasteland, by forcing me to make that odious treaty with Llewelyn ap Gruffydd? You know how wretched I was in Wales, how I sickened, but did you care? And now when all I ask is a decent meal and a chance to hear Mass, you’d begrudge me even that meagre consolation! How can you claim to be my liegeman when you would deny me God’s Word?”

  The Bishop of Worcester was an intent witness to this tense exchange, to their continuing war of wills. He’d finally concluded that Henry was avenging himself the only way he could, by seeking to crack Simon’s shield, to goad him into a rage that would give the lie to his show of deference. Worcester very much doubted that Henry would succeed, no matter the provocation, for Simon was equally determined to accord Henry the trappings of kingship.