The King's Women

by Deryn Lake

  They came from every comer of France: the Dukes of Alençon, Bourbon, Orleans and Anjou, the Counts of Armagnac, Foix, Etampes and Nevers, and the Earl de Richemont accompanied by his brother, the Duke of Brittany. From Paris came the senile Duke of Berri, the only uncle of the mad King left alive, to act as President, the King, and his son the Dauphin, both being too ill to attend. And finally on 20th October, the Council of War was called into full session.

  Clambering to his feet, the Duke of Berri spoke in the fluting tones of a child. “Gentlemen, let us negotiate with the English King. Let there not be one drop of French blood spilled while we are able to parley.”

  The Earl of Richmond was on his legs so fast it was obvious at once that etiquette and protocol and youth’s respect for age had gone out of the window in the face of this terrible crisis.

  “Coillons, Monsieur! Negotiation with a land-grabbing warmonger like him is out of the question. Henry of England is the kind who will stab you in the back while he shakes your hand. He is an unscrupulous villain and that describes him in the best possible terms. I know him of old. He is my stepbrother, more’s the pity. And as such I hope it is I who deal him the death blow.”

  They stood up cheering, the noble lords of France, spoiling for a fight and full of justifiable fury at King Henry’s rape of Harfleur.

  “How many men has he got?” shouted Duke Louis of Anjou.

  “Six thousand,” answered Alençon, rising. “And they’re tired, every one. Spies tell us they are a load of tatterdemalions; sick, feverish and some barefoot. They’re ready for the taking. Who’s with me?”

  He raised his arms over his head and there was another huge cheer.

  “How many men do we have?” called Bourbon.

  “Nearly fifty thousand, and I’ve another twelve thousand in Brittany only waiting my signal to get on the move,” answered Richemont’s brother.

  “I say we go for him now,” cried Charles d’Orleans. “How far has he got on the march to Calais?”

  “He’s trying to cross the Somme and can’t find a causeway.”

  “May he fall in on his arse,” said Richemont and everyone laughed while the Duke of Berri banged helplessly with a gavel to restore order.

  The Maréchal of France, Charles d’Albret, a seasoned campaigner if ever there was one, spoke for the first time.

  “Gentlemen, if we march at dawn tomorrow we can stalk him all the way. There’s nothing worse than looking over your shoulder at an unseen menace. It will be a war of nerves with the advantage to us. I agree with young Richemont. This is an enemy with whom there can be no parley. Let’s strike now.”

  “No, no…” quavered Berri, but nobody paid any attention.

  “I’ll go back to Vannes and alert my men,” said the Duke of Brittany. “I’ll catch you up on the way even if I have to march all night.”

  “Then it is agreed that we leave at once?”

  “I suggest we go tonight,” put in Louis d’Anjou. “Surely every minute is precious? We mustn’t let him slip through our fingers whatever happens.”

  The Maréchal who had taken charge, ignoring the impotent Berri, nodded his head.

  “If you gentlemen are willing I will give the order for immediate mobilisation. In that way we should be on the move by midnight.”

  “I say we do it,” said Alençon, and there was a huge answering shout of ‘Oui!’

  “Death to the usurper,” cried Richemont, his voice distorted by all his pent-up emotion.

  “Death to Harry of England,” echoed Count Bernard d’Armagnac. “Death to all who threaten the safety and welfare of France.”

  It was an oblique reference to Burgundy but no one paid any heed.

  “Death to the English King,” shouted the cream of French chivalry in one voice and, as the Maréchal raised his clenched fist in salute, left the Council chamber to prepare for battle.

  Thirteen

  They stalked Henry V of England for four days, a mighty ghost army of fifty thousand men constantly at his back. In a panic, the English King tried repeatedly to cross the river Somme but seemed to be thwarted at every turn. Finally, in desperation, Henry had no choice but to repair the causeway across the marshlands, his tired men felling trees and pulling apart deserted farmhouses to get wood. The English had waded up to their waists in mud to build that road, for the rain which had dogged them for days and which had started as a gentle drizzle had now turned into a blinding torrent.

  On the night that the English army had gone safely across the makeshift road, the French had camped their mighty horde at Péronne, only six miles away from where Henry of Lancaster slept, and on the following morning the Bourbon heralds had ridden across and challenged him to war. The rose red lips of the Englishman, shocking somehow in his drained white face, had uttered the words of acceptance, and then Henry had continued to march on, waiting for that enormous shadow to reveal itself.

  The weather had worsened, the mud had turned into a quagmire, and it was in these conditions that Maréchal d’Albret had decided to make a detour and pass the English, blocking their road to Calais irretrievably. So it was at Blangy that the two armies had caught sight of each other for the first time and the inequality of the fight had been made clear to both.

  “We’ll wipe him out,” said Richemont, astride his horse, staring across to where the weary English had made camp.

  “He asked for trouble and now he’s got it,” answered Charles, Duke d’Orleans. “His army’s a wreck.”

  Behind them came the shrill excited neigh of the French destriers, the war horses, the finest in Europe, who tomorrow would be superbly caparisoned in their armour and adornments, ready to carry their riders into the fray.

  “There’s only one thing I fear from him,” Richemont replied thoughtfully.

  “And what’s that?”

  “His Welsh longbowmen, they are the best I have ever seen, magnificent marksmen and hard as nails everyone.”

  “We’ll mow them down.”

  “We must, because they are the strength of that grabbing bastard.”

  “Richemont,” said Charles d’Orleans firmly, “we outnumber him five to one, six to one when your brother arrives with his extra troops. The odds are too great. He cannot succeed.”

  “Please God,” answered the Earl. “Please God.”

  There was no sleep that night while the armourers worked at full pitch, their tools tapping away through the dark hours; the grooms inspecting every horse to see if it was fit to go into battle; the Archbishop of Sens, who tomorrow would fight with the French nobility, hearing confessions, shriving and absolving.

  “I have sinned with the wife of another,” whispered Richemont, on his knees, the floor of his tent damp with the mud beneath. “And I knew a man’s betrothed before she went to her marriage bed.”

  The Archbishop said nothing, his oddly young face shadowed in the candlelight.

  “I am a worthless wretch,” the Earl went on, gulping away all the mixed emotions he felt at that moment. “But I do repent and pray only that I may be valorous in the company of my countrymen.”

  “In the name of Christ I forgive you your sins,” answered the Archbishop quietly. “You are given absolution. If your soul is called to God this day then it will go shriven.” There was no sound except for the steady beat of rain against the sides of the tent.

  “Amen,” said Richemont.

  It was still raining at dawn when, after three hours’ snatched sleep, the Earl rose to be dressed by his squire. Against his skin he wore a padded shirt to protect him from the weight of his breastplate, over which the squire slipped the Earl’s cote d’armes, showing the chained and collared ermine of Brittany, together with the coroneted falcon of Richmond. The great helm with the family device above, Richemont carried with him as he went out into the damp morning to hear Mass.

  They knelt in the mud to receive the sacrament and then, suddenly, it was time. With a swift leg up, the Earl was mounted on his handsome destr
ier, also wearing the crest of Brittany above its protective faceplate, its caparison sweeping the ground as it moved. Seizing the banner of Richmond from his squire’s hand, Richemont took his place as the front line of the mighty French army formed up.

  They were all there: Orleans, Alençon, Eu, to name but a few. Every Frenchman worth his salt had turned out to fight for his country — with three glaring omissions. Burgundy, obviously, was not present but, far more worryingly, the Duke of Brittany still had not appeared with his army, and though the Duke of Anjou’s men were present, their leader was not. As they had left Rouen, Duke Louis had been seized with such an excruciating pain in his bowels that he had been forced to turn back.

  Remarks of a cruel nature had been passed, of course, and to the Earl’s chagrin it was now being whispered that his brother was using delaying tactics in order to avoid the confrontation which lay ahead. Almost as if to defy what was being said of his family, Richemont jostled his way to a place amongst the very front of the leaders.

  Opposite, across the mile of what had once been a cornfield but was now nothing but a sodden pulp, the English army, what there was of it, stood ready. Narrowing his eyes, Richemont could make out clumps of bowmen breaking up the foot soldiers and the mounted. So his hated stepbrother was deploying his one strength cleverly. Yet looking down the line of the French, armoured, prepared, three thousand banners, each denoting a noble house, waving behind the fluttering oriflammes, the Earl knew they were invincible.

  The morning dragged on, the downpour giving way to drizzle, and still neither side made a move. An hour passed, two, three, possibly four, and then ridiculously, almost by accident, the battle began. French knights, still trying to have the honour of fighting in the front line, swelled its ranks so greatly that it broke. Seeing the French cavalry move forward, the English trumpets rang out, their counterparts responded, and the fight was on. Richemont, spurring his horse to full charge, momentarily glimpsed King Henry himself, sword in hand, holding his archers back until the last possible second.

  The heavily armoured destriers, slow in the mud, caught that first wave of arrows, some falling, and suddenly it seemed to the Earl that he was packed in too solidly by other riders. He realised then, though too late, that the French army was badly placed, hemmed in by trees on one side and the thick scrubland beneath the castle of Azincourt on the other. As his horse lumbered forward towards the English lines, going as fast as it could in the sucking slime, Richemont saw to his horror that the Welsh longbowmen had now produced pointed stakes and had made a wooden palisade in front of themselves.

  The beautiful destriers, weighed down by their caparisons and sinking in the mud, charged on to their deaths, pierced to their faithful hearts by the vicious points of this makeshift barrier. In shock, the Earl felt his beloved horse founder beneath him and almost fell off, but then quickly scrambled up again ready to fight hand to hand. Maddened animals were everywhere, screaming in terror, knocking over the French knights as the frantic and injured creatures galloped wildly about.

  ‘Oh, Christ help me,’ thought the Earl. ‘I mustn’t fall.’

  But others had, lying on their backs, their armour too heavy to let them get up, the English slaughtering them almost casually where they lay.

  “God’s Holy Blood,” screamed Richemont at the top of his voice, and turned to fight as he never had before, venting on the enemy his frustration that the most highly trained cavalry in the world had been brought quite literally to its feet by the sheer weight of its own numbers. There was mud and blood everywhere and complete chaos amongst the French as the English front line now moved from the defensive to the offensive position.

  “You lousy bastards,” Richemont shouted and his sword became an instrument of revenge as he killed frantically, horribly, without heed or mercy, in a frenzy of rage and despair.

  How long he went on and how many lives he took, the Earl did not know, but a sudden cheer from the scattered and hapless French ranks brought him back from his delirium and he saw that a new contingent, bearing the banners of the Duke of Brabant, had arrived and were fresh, ready, and foolhardy enough to swing things in their favour. With a leap of his heart, the Earl took a breath, wiped his bloody hands on his sleeve and looked about him.

  He stood in a circle of bodies, the ground beneath his feet dyed a sickly shade of ochre while a nearby puddle was completely filled with red water. Behind him, Brabant’s men were coming hell for leather, but in front was a sight that made him retch. The French prisoners, huddled behind the English lines, were being slaughtered where they stood, like cattle, Henry of England, his obscene red mouth hard as a gash of blood, personally supervising this monstrous massacre. Without mercy, hundreds were being put to the sword, and the smell in the air was as acrid and foul as that of an abattoir.

  All his violent dislike of his stepbrother welled like a mill race in Richemont’s heart and he found himself mouthing a prayer that he might only get near enough to be the one to end the English King’s arrogant life. And then, in the cold of that October afternoon, his wish was miraculously granted. The English regrouped and went at charge against Brabant and suddenly Henry was there, almost within his grasp, hacking and cutting with that awful controlled violence which the Earl so loathed in him.

  “You!” shrieked Richemont. “You!”

  And he careered towards his stepbrother, dripping weapon high. But he never got to him. Out of nowhere came a sword, sharp and cruel, its point and blade crimsoned and thick with blood. It seemed to the Earl of Richmond, then, that his entire life had been leading up to this one moment for now he faced its end for sure.

  Slowly, almost with a terrible fascination, he watched the sword rise in the air and make contact with his forehead. And then came a pain so terrible that Richemont called for death. Blinded by blood, he heard the harsh sweet song of arrows and as he dropped to die a heap of other bodies fell on top of him, and all was darkness.

  They stood in a desperate little group, knotted together by anguish, in the great hall of the castle of Angers, as the white-faced Duke of Anjou slowly walked through the door, back only a few minutes from his journey home from Rouen. But they had already heard the news he had to tell from one of the swift white-wanded messengers who served them. Everyone knew, the Duchess, her three elder children, Charles, his friend the Bastard, the Seneschal, Conseillers, servants, that the mighty French army had been humbled by a scarecrow band and defeated ignominiously.

  “And I couldn’t be there,” said the Duke without even greeting them, and wept publicly.

  Nobody made a move, even his wife standing motionless, a hand on the shoulder of each of her two sons, watching in pitying horror as Duke Louis, of whose courage there could never be any question amongst these people who had seen him in battle, broke his heart that illness had prevented him fighting, and dying if necessary, with his fellow countrymen.

  Eventually it was the Lord de Beauvau, the Seneschal, who said, “My Lord, I beg you not to distress yourself further. I pray you to be calm.”

  With a child’s gesture, Louis dashed his eyes with his sleeve. “I arrived too late to fight but by God I saw the battlefield. Over ten thousand dead lay in the mud…”

  Yolande drew her breath sharply but said nothing.

  “…and nearly every one of them French. When extra soldiers came from Brabant’s army that bloody butcher Henry slaughtered every prisoner he had.”

  “I curse the monster,” said someone softly.

  “We have lost the flower of our nation.”

  “But how did it happen?” the Seneschal asked dazedly. “What went wrong?”

  “The French army was too big and unwieldy for the area in which it fought. The horses were impaled on spikes and shot at with arrows. Then chaos followed as the oncoming riders fell over a mountain of dead men and beasts. It was carnage, total carnage.”

  “Did the Duke of Brittany betray us?”

  “I think not. He and his men arrived in time to
help clear the field and bum the bodies. I do not believe it was deliberate. But, of course, that is also being asked about me. Was I, Louis d’Anjou, a traitor to the cause?”

  Yolande spoke for the first time. “No one who knows you will ever believe that and let your enemies whisper what they will.”

  The Seneschal said gruffly, “How did it end, my Lord? How was victory conceded to the Englishman?”

  “The Maréchal d’Albret had been killed, the Archbishop of Sens also, the Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon and Alençon taken prisoner.”

  “Not murdered?”

  “No, no. They were taken after the devil’s whelp knew he had won. At sunset it was over. As the sun went down he sent a messenger to parley and then he came himself. It was unspeakable. He gave us permission to bury our dead. But there were so many corpses that we…that we…”

  The Duke broke down and Yolande, with her lips trembling, rushed to kneel by the chair into which he had thrown himself, his head in his hands.

  “Oh, mon cher, mon cher, it is over now. Please feel no remorse. You did your best.”

  He looked at her with glazed eyes. “I must speak to you alone. There is something I feel I must impart.”

  “Let me have a few moments alone with the children,” she whispered, “and then I will come to you straight away.” Half an hour later, puzzling over the complexities of life’s twisting threads, the Duchess made her way to the private apartments she shared with her husband only to find that he was already seated in a chair by the fire, his boots and travelling clothes removed and soft shoes and a comfortable robe put in their place. His eyes were closed wearily but he opened them as she approached and, just for a second, Yolande saw death peep out at her.

  “Oh, my darling,” she said, full of tender love for this man who had fathered her children and who trusted so greatly in her capabilities as a ruler. “I have been worried for you. Tell me everything that occurred.”

  Louis shook his head, almost as if in disbelief. “I was ready to go, was just preparing to mount my horse when a searing pain shot through me. I felt my bowels and bladder were being burned out. Mon Dieu, Yolande, I never want to experience an agony like that again.”