Simon thought of his daughter, her eyes bright with young love. He would hate to take that light from her eyes but if Llewellyn did not fulfil his side of the settlement it might have to be done. As always his thoughts went then to Eleanor, far away in Dover, for that she had done what he asked he had no doubt. When would he see her again? He was under no illusion as to the gravity of the situation. His enemies –Edward, Gloucester, Mortimer and the rest, with de Valence raising the men of Pembroke – had an army that must amount to more than twice the number under his command. All he could do was to try to repeat the surprise of Lewes and by God, if he took Gilbert the Red that young man would repent of his treachery! By late afternoon the last of the baronial army had filed through the pleasant vale of Evesham, taking apples from the trees to allay their hunger – though the fruit was scarcely ripe, and before darkness came all were safely in the town and scrambling for lodgings.
Simon slept in a merchant's house with Henry in the same room, a brief exhausted sleep, but by dawn he was up and dressing. A man came to his chamber and announced that there was good news.
'We can see an army coming, my lord, and your own banners at the head of it. It must be Sir Simon.'
'God be praised!' Simon was tying the strings of his jack. 'Have the horns sounded. Sire, it is time to be up.'
Henry sat up slowly, his face pink and puffy with sleep, his thin grey hair disordered. 'We have not heard Mass. If you will summon my chaplain –’
Simon hesitated and then went to the door. Now that his son was here, haste was not so imperative and he was never willing to forgo what was due to God, but before he could call for the King's priest, there was a further commotion below. A voice cried out desperately that he must see the Earl and the fear in that sharp cry made Simon order him up the stair, asking, 'What is it? Out with it, man!'
'My lord!' The fellow scrambled up, tripping on the last step in his haste. He was a barber by trade and he had once served at Kenilworth. 'My lord, I went up the abbey tower to look, to rejoice that Sir Simon has come, but – but – they are your banners, my lord, but captured. It is a ruse. The Lord Edward is on us, with all his army.'
'Jesu!' Simon stood still for one moment, paralysed by the unexpected blow. Harry and Guy had tumbled from their beds and come to find out what was happening and Harry cried out, 'Oh God, is Simon dead?'
Pale and grim, their father gave his orders, the men to be assembled at once in full battle array. There could be no surprise now, for Edward had seized that advantage, and if he had marched so swiftly to destroy the Kenilworth reinforcements and then return here, he was becoming a general beyond Simon's reckoning.
Deep in his anxiety for his second son, Simon swung round on the King. 'Dress, sire. There's no time for Mass now but commend your soul to God for you will stand with us in battle, and in plain harness.'
'Mother of God!’ Henry cried out. 'Would you have my own men, perhaps my own son, kill me?'
'God shall decide between us this day,' Simon retorted. Two squires had brought his hauberk of mail and were helping him into it. He pulled his mail hood over his head himself and set a flat-topped helm firmly over it. Another squire had brought a soldier's gambeson and mail tunic for the King, and Simon watched as he was hurried into it.
'You have brought all this on us, your subjects,' he said sternly, 'and by the arm of St James, you will face it with us.'
A hasty consultation was held below. Scouts came hurrying to their leader, reporting Mortimer on one bank of the loop of the river, Gloucester's troops on the other, and ahead on the flat ground between the two banks lay the whole strength of Edward's own division. Their only hope was to try to cut their way through that centre and make for the Alcester road and Kenilworth.
A sudden breeze had risen, storm clouds driving up from the east and hiding the blue of the summer sky. Simon called his sons to him. 'We are in a desperate position,' he said in a low voice. 'Pray for God's protection this day, for without a miracle our bodies are at the mercy of our enemies. And if the day goes badly one of you must try to reach your mother.'
Impulsively Harry embraced his father while Guy stood gripping his sword hilt; his swarthy face grim.
From Evesham Abbey came the sound of chanting. Despite the imminence of a battle at their very gate the monks were singing the office of Prime, some pale and fearful, but discipline keeping their hands folded, the procession into the choir as orderly as usual.
Simon heard the sound and his mouth tightened. The King said with sudden passion, his voice shaking, 'If I am slain you will burn in hell, Simon de Montfort, and my son will wreak such a vengeance as you and yours have never seen.'
Simon answered, 'It is in God's hands,' and turned his attention to positioning his men. A few large spots of rain fell and there was a clap of thunder overhead. Some of the men cried out that it was an omen, but for or against which side they did not know.
The army filed out in a tight block, no diverging to deal with Mortimer or Gloucester. Simon's experience told him that the centre was his only hope, where Edward had drawn up, this time taking the advantage of a small rise in the ground. There seemed to be no end to that daunting mass of enemy soldiers.
Simon set Henry slightly to the rear of himself, in the centre of the horsemen. He knew it was unjustifiable yet he did not reverse the order. Henry was the author of twenty years of trouble, of enmity against himself and Eleanor, and this was to be the reckoning. He bowed his head and crossed himself and with one last brief prayer, for Eleanor as well as for himself, he commended them both to the care of the Blessed Virgin and gripped his lance in his gauntleted hand. There would be no half-measures now – it would be victory or death. His years seemed to slide away, the weariness, the disillusion gone. He would make something of this fight, by God, and if it was to be his last at least he would die for a cause he believed in. And that cause would surely, somehow, survive him in the years to come, for he had fought for it for so long.
With his sons one on each side of him he led the first attack against Edward's knights. On horseback, his knees pressed hard against the animal's flanks, reins twisted round the pommel, he plunged forward. Beside and behind him some hundred and sixty cavalry followed him and such was the force of their attack that Edward's line sagged in the middle. Simon struck out and saw a man go down, broke his lance on another's shield, drew his sword and brought it down in a great thrust, using his shield painted with his emblem to deflect a blow. The battle was joined in earnest, and added to the clash of weapons, the battle cries, the screams of wounded horses and men alike, was the noise of the thunder. Sudden shafts of lightning illuminated the scene and while the fight raged below a summer storm shook the sky above.
Simon was in the thick of it now. He sensed the enemy rallying after the first shock and shouted encouragement to his men, though it was doubtful if they could hear him. He saw Hugh Despenser go down and after him both Arundel and Percy. He fought on, swinging his sword with the accuracy for which he was famed, losing none of his skill with the years, and he was spattered with the blood of those he had slain. He became aware of Gloucester's banner nearby, implying the
Earl had broken his flank, and in an access of passion sought to cut his way through to it, to use his weapon on Gilbert so that more than Gilbert's hair should be red, but before he could do so he heard a sharp cry. A lance thrust with deadly aim had pierced Harry's chest, and with both hands at it, he was swaying in the saddle. A slash from a sword had bloodied his face and as he fell horses trampled him under foot.
Simon gave one sharp anguished cry and tried to reach him but it was too late. In an agony of grief he struck at an enemy horseman, his sword deep in the man's belly.
Somewhere behind him a high-pitched voice was calling, 'I am your King! I am Henry of Winchester – don't slay me – don't slay your King!'
Momentarily distracted he paused. Had the enemy fought their way through and cut him off? But that pause was fatal. A terrific clap o
f thunder overhead seemed like a stark pronouncement of doom and he cried out involuntarily, 'God's grace!' as a battle axe came down on him, cleaving him at the joint of neck and shoulder. He swayed, his mouth full of blood, his throat burning. He tried to raise his shield but his enemies were encircling him now; a sword was driven with unerring aim at his chest, forcing the chain mail inwards. Choking on his own blood, in an agony of pain, he fell from his horse and was aware of someone standing over him, a two-handed sword poised. From out of the roaring in his ears, from the smell and taste of blood, he saw the blow coming, but of its fall, swift and sure, he was no longer conscious.
The rain began to fall, heavy summer rain, washing the blood from dead faces.
The Lord Edward, with his father free, his first great victory under his hand, his men hailing him as a great soldier, found as many had done that victory was not all triumph and joy. That night he stood beside the monks in Evesham Abbey and watched the body of his cousin Harry lowered into a grave below a paving stone in the nave. He had loved Harry, despite everything, and now he remembered only their youth together, Harry's laughter, the hunting, the shooting at the butts, the drinking and feasting, and he wept, the tears running unchecked down his face.
Outside, one of Mortimer's men bore the head of Simon, Earl of Leicester, stuck high on a spear for all to see. One of those who saw it was the younger Simon, breasting the rise with the remaining men of Kenilworth gathered after Edward had raised the siege. There was no mistaking that iron-grey head, the loved features. He rocked in his saddle in a paroxysm of grief, of shame and horror and bitter remorse, and then he and his small army turned and fled from the tragedy he might have prevented.
Eleanor sat alone in a small square room in Dover Castle. Beyond lay the sea, blue and calm today under an October sky, a ship waiting to sail, loaded with all the goods and furniture and money that she had left. Her face was pallid with grief and strain, her eyes shadowed, no tears left now, only numbness and a chill in her that neither sunshine nor fire could warm. She wore a russet gown once more and she smoothed the skirt, remembering Cecily de Sanford and the dreary days after William's death. Then she had been young, and youthful resilience had come to her aid, grief passing with time, but today she felt old, with nothing left to live for.
She had wept until she could weep no more, crushed by the enormity of the holocaust that had swept away Simon and Harry. Young Simon was besieged in Kenilworth, Guy wounded and a prisoner. Only Amaury and the Demoiselle were with her. They tried to offer comfort, but there was no comfort anywhere. Even gentle Adam Marsh was dead and though her chaplain here tried to speak soothing words she cried out in rebellion against God – until she remembered Easter and how she had implored Him that He would give Simon rest. He had answered that prayer indeed, for He had taken Simon to the longest rest of all.
When she could think again, she had appealed to Henry. He was after all still her brother, but in the stern vengeance that followed Evesham, he would not listen. She wondered if he even read her letters.
Now she was banished, to leave England today with no more than the possessions she had here in Dover Castle, and she had sent her daughter and her women out of the room, intolerable sorrow threatening to take away her reason. She knew it all now, all the horror of the battle, the shame inflicted on that dear body she had loved. If she could have killed in her own revenge she would have done it. He had not deserved that desecration – was it not enough for them that he was dead? When she asked for his body, they had said that Mortimer's men had so mutilated it, it had been hard to find the remains for burial.
She sat quite still, her hands gripped together, trying to shut the awful images from her mind – the blood, the smashed bones, the brutality of the victorious on the battlefield. Out of his one hundred and sixty knights only twelve survived.
She set both hands before her eyes, gasping with dry sobs yet again, the pictures tormenting her into an agony that seemed insupportable, and in her grief she did not hear a step outside, nor the knock on the door.
In a moment, a hand was set on her arm and a familiar voice said, 'My dear aunt, don't – I beg of you. Let me get you some wine.'
She made an effort and recovered herself sufficiently to look up. Edward was on one knee beside her, as tall as an average man even in that posture. He had a cup of wine in his hand, concern on his face.
She took the cup with a shaking hand and drank. 'I – I did not think you would come to me yourself. Once my castellan had surrendered – '
'I can never forget you are my aunt.' His voice was gentle. 'Nor that you were so often kind to me at Kenilworth. I could not let you go without saying farewell.' He got up and finding a stool sat down facing her. 'I have things to say that may cheer you a little.'
She set the cup down on the table by her side. 'There is nothing left for me in this life.'
'Perhaps not, but I have heard news of my cousin Simon. You know we were besieging him in Kenilworth? Well,' he smiled a little, 'he always was a good swimmer – I remember you and I watching him from your window. Now he has swum the moat again, this time away from the castle and it seems likely he has joined a group of reb– friends of his who are holding out on the Isle of Axholm.'
A little life came into her face. 'Pray God he at least is safe.'
'My uncle Richard told me he owes his life to Simon.' When she looked up, startled, he went on, 'Perhaps you did not know that Simon nearly reached the field in time? But he saw it was all over and rode back to Kenilworth with any that had escaped. They wanted to be avenged and my uncle says that they would have hanged him from the gatehouse if Simon had not stopped them. So even if we take Simon he will receive at least his life – though I cannot promise his freedom.'
She gave an unsteady sigh. 'That was noble of him. I would not have wanted Richard to die. And Guy?'
'He is recovering from his wounds.'
'Thank God. Edward – ' she made a great effort – ‘I wish I could find it in me to forgive what you have done but I can't. You destroyed a man who was greater than you can know, and you and my brother and all your lords have exacted a terrible retribution. You have soiled victory with cruelty – I know, I have heard.'
'I am sorry,' he said and for the first time his voice was cold. 'War is a harsh business and my father will have no more rebellion while he lives.'
'Rebellion!' she echoed. 'Simon fought only for what was right. Even you cannot fail to see that your father –’
He interrupted her. 'I'll not listen to a word against him after all he has suffered at my uncle's hands. Earl Simon made a mockery of kingship. This last year, since Lewes, he made my father – nothing! And God has punished him and all those who fought under his banner. Not one of them will be left with enough substance to defy us again.'
'You are cruel,' she said again. 'I did not know you could be so cruel.'
'Not so,' he returned, 'only realistic. And you know what he did to my father, setting him in the centre of the battle in plain harness. He wanted him killed.'
'Oh no, no,' she cried out, 'I'll not believe that. If he did, it was only that Henry might know what his folly had brought on him.'
'We had best not talk of it,' Edward said heavily. He thought of the dying moments of the battle, the thunderstorm, the sweeping summer rain, and Mortimer's men closing in, hacking Leicester's body to pieces. He had put a stop to that at least, and going back to the door he picked up a small casket he had set down on a stool there. 'I have brought you this. It contains his right hand.'
Shock made her reel for a moment, clasping the arm of her chair, but she reached out, trembling, to take the box. For several moments she held it, and then, slowly steeling herself, she opened it. Yes, that was his hand, the wrist wrapped in a piece of red silk, the hand that had so often caressed her, bearing still the ring she had given him. Still slowly she bent and set her lips to it, finding it marble cold. Then she closed the box. 'This shall be sealed. No one else shall see it.'
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She steadied her voice and went on, 'I do not know why it was God's will that he should be struck down, but this I do know. He is with God now, but none of you will forget him.'
Edward was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'I will try to remember the past, when we were friends, before this bloody reckoning. And not all he worked for will be lost, I will see to that. As for you, dear aunt, I am sorry you must leave England, but at least you have your freedom.'
'I have only grief and loneliness,' she said. 'Tell them below I will be ready in half an hour.'
He put her hand to his lips without speaking again and when the door had shut behind him, she went to stand by the window.
Her people were embarking; she could see Martin Finch, looking so much older since that wild night ride and the loss of his father, helping Mary and Dionysia with their baggage, and then the Demoiselle, sobbing again, and Amaury with his arm round her. Poor child, Eleanor thought, she wept as much for her lost lover in far away Wales as for her dead father and brother.
And then Eleanor too wept, one last fierce storm of tears, crying out his name again and again. Memories beat at her consciousness, memories of him at Odiham, on their wedding day, his face when he beheld their first-born, in sleep when he lay beside her. All through the years they had been one in thought, the few sudden and flaring quarrels dying as quickly, always healed by the night's passion. What was it he had said on that last night, neither of them knowing it was the last? Or had he had some instinct that his course was run. 'Nothing is as important as loving you.' It had seemed as if there was more, as if he wanted, before parting, to talk of things for which there had been no time. Now there would never be time.
Dear God, she thought, could such grief be borne? She was a Princess of England, but it was as Simon's wife that she was being banished and at least she could have pride in that. She would have it no other way – if men remembered her it would be as Simon's widow.
The Royal Griffin (The Plantagenents Book 2) Page 21
