The She-Wolf (The Accursed Kings, Book 5)

by Druon, Maurice

  This minor quarrel between allies resulted in over three hundred dead.

  The six thousand archers, forgetting all about the Scottish war, thought only of exterminating the Hennuyers. Messire Jean de Hainaut, who was both furious and outraged, determined to go home, if only the siege of his lines could be raised. In the end, after a few hangings, things calmed down. The English ladies, who had accompanied their husbands to the army, were particularly gracious to the Hainaut knights and pleaded with them to stay with tears in their eyes. The Hennuyers were then encamped half a league away from the rest of the army, and so a month went by during which they looked at each other like cats and dogs.

  Finally the decision was taken to start campaigning. Young King Edward III, for this his first war, had under command eight thousand knights and thirty thousand footmen.

  Most unfortunately the Scots proved elusive. The barbarians made war with neither baggage nor baggage-train. Their light troops needed no more than a flat stone at the saddle-bow and a small bag of flour; and on this they were able to live for several days, damping the flour in the burns and cooking it into cakes on the stones they heated in a fire. The Scots mocked the huge English army, made contact, skirmished and retreated, crossed and recrossed the rivers, drew the enemy into bogs, forests and narrow defiles. The English advanced at hazard between the Tyne and the Cheviot hills.

  One day there was a considerable stir in some woods through which the English were marching. The alarm was sounded. Everyone charged, visors down, targes at the ready, lances in rest, waiting for no one, father, brother or comrade, only to find, somewhat abashed, that a herd of deer were fleeing in terror from the clatter of their arms.

  Supply was becoming difficult; there was no food to be found in the country except what was brought with considerable difficulty by a few merchants who sold their goods for ten times their value. The horses were lacking oats and forage. And then it rained without stopping for a whole week. Saddle-flaps began rotting under their riders’ thighs; the horses cast their shoes in the mud; and the whole army was rusting. At night the knights had to cut branches with their swords to make themselves shelters. And the Scots were still proving elusive.

  Sir Thomas Wake, the Marshal of the Army, was in despair. The Earl of Kent almost regretted La Réole; at least they had had fine weather there. Henry Crouchback had rheumatism in his neck. Mortimer was becoming increasingly bad-tempered and growing weary of going to and fro between the army and Yorkshire, where the Queen and the Government offices were lying. A hopelessness, giving rise to every kind of dissatisfaction, was beginning to take effect among the troops; they were talking of being betrayed.

  One day, while the commanders of the banners were discussing angrily what had not been done and what ought to have been done, young King Edward III gathered a few squires of his own age together, and promised both a knighthood and lands worth a hundred pounds a year to anyone who could discover where the Scots army was. Some twenty boys, between fourteen and eighteen years of age, set out to scour the country. The first to return was Thomas de Rokesby; breathless and exhausted, he cried: ‘Sire Edward, the Scots are four leagues from us among the hills and they have been there for a week. They have no more idea of where you are than you have of their position.’

  Young Edward immediately had the trumpets sounded, assembled the army on what was known as ‘the white moor’, and ordered an advance against the Scots. The great men of the lists were astonished. But the noise this huge armoured force made as it advanced through the hills was heard afar off by Robert the Bruce’s men. And when the knights of England and Hainaut reached the crest of a hill and were preparing to descend into the further valley, they suddenly saw the whole Scots army drawn up on foot in battle array with their arrows already slotted to their bow-strings. They stared at each other from a distance and did not dare come to battle, for the terrain was ill-suited to the launching of cavalry. They stared at each other for twenty-two days.

  Since the Scots had apparently no intention of moving from a position that was so favourable to them, and the knights were disinclined to give battle on a terrain which prevented their proper deployment, the armies remained on either side of the crest, each waiting for the other to move. They contented themselves with skirmishing, generally by night, and with leaving these minor engagements to the infantry.

  The most important action of this strange war, which was being fought between an octogenarian leper and a fifteen-year-old king, was carried out by the Scot James Douglas who, with two hundred horsemen of his clan, fell on the English camp one moonlit night, slaughtered everyone in his path and, to the cry of ‘Douglas! Douglas!’ succeeded in cutting three of the King’s tent-ropes before retiring. After that night the English knights slept in their armour.

  And then, one morning before dawn, two Scots scouts, who appeared to be watching the English army, were captured. It seemed almost as if they wanted to be taken. And when they were brought before the English King, they said: ‘Sire, what do you seek here? We Scots have gone back to the mountains, and Sire Robert, our King, has told us to inform you of it, and also that he will make no more war against you this year, unless you pursue him.’

  The English advanced carefully, fearing a trap, and found themselves suddenly face to face with four hundred camp-kettles for boiling meat hanging in a line. The Scots had left them there so as to travel light and make no noise during their retreat. They found, too, in a huge heap, five thousand worn rawhide boots. The Scots had changed their footgear before departing. There was not a living soul in the camp except five English prisoners who, completely naked and bound to posts, had had their legs broken by blows from cudgels.

  To pursue the Scots through the mountains, over difficult country, in which the whole population was hostile to the English, and where the army, already exhausted, would have had to fight a war of ambushes for which it was not trained, was clearly pure folly. The campaign was declared at an end. The army returned to York and was disbanded.

  Messire Jean de Hainaut had to take stock of his dead and useless horses, and he presented a bill for fourteen thousand livres. Young King Edward had insufficient money in his Treasury, particularly since he had still to pay his own troops. So Messire Jean de Hainaut, making his usual grand gesture, guaranteed to his knights all the sums due to them from his future nephew.

  During the course of the summer, Roger Mortimer, who had no interests in the north of the kingdom, concluded a treaty of peace. Edward III had to renounce all suzerainty over Scotland and to recognize Robert the Bruce as King of that country, which Edward II had always refused to do. Moreover, David Bruce, the son of Robert, married Jane of England, Queen Isabella’s second daughter.

  Had it really been worth depriving the former King, who was now living in seclusion at Berkeley Castle, of his powers for such a result as this?

  7

  The Grass Crown

  DAWN WAS BREAKING red behind the Cotswold hills.

  ‘The sun will soon be up, Sir John,’ said Thomas Gournay, one of the two horsemen riding at the head of the escort.

  ‘Yes, the sun will soon be up, my friend, and we haven’t reached our halt yet,’ replied John Maltravers, riding beside him, stirrup to stirrup.

  ‘When day comes, people may well recognize our prisoner,’ the first man replied.

  ‘Yes, they may indeed, my friend, and that’s precisely what we’ve got to avoid.’

  They were talking in deliberately loud voices, so that the prisoner behind might hear.

  Sir Thomas Gournay had reached Berkeley the day before, having ridden across half England to bring John Maltravers the latest orders from Roger Mortimer at York about the disposal of the fallen King.

  Gournay was a man of singularly unprepossessing appearance; his nose was short and flat, his lower teeth were longer than the rest, his face was blotchy and high in colour, covered with red hairs like a sow’s hide; his too long hair curled like copper shavings under the edge of his s
teel helmet.

  To assist Thomas Gournay, and also to some extent to keep an eye on him, Mortimer had given him Ogle, who had once been barber in the Tower of London.

  As night was falling, at the hour when the peasants had eaten their suppers and were going to sleep, the little cavalcade had left Berkeley Castle and ridden south through the silent countryside and the dark villages. Maltravers and Gournay rode in front. The King was surrounded by a dozen soldiers under the command of a subaltern officer named Towurlee, a huge man with a small head whose intelligence was in inverse proportion to his physical strength which was considerable. But Towurlee was obedient and useful for tasks in which it was better not to ask oneself too many questions. Ogle brought up the rear, together with the monk William, who had never been looked on as among the best in his monastery. But he might be needed to give extreme unction.

  All night the ex-King had been wondering in vain where he was being taken. And now dawn was breaking.

  ‘How can one prevent a man being recognized?’ Maltravers asked pointedly.

  ‘Change his face, Sir John, I can see no other solution,’ Gournay replied.

  ‘You’d have to tar his face or black it with soot.’

  ‘The peasants would think we were in company with a Moor.’

  ‘But unfortunately we haven’t any tar.

  ‘We could shave him,’ said Thomas Gournay, with a meaning wink.

  ‘That’s a good idea, my boy! And we’ve got a barber with us. Heaven’s clearly on our side. Ogle, come here! Have you got your bowl and your razors with you?’

  ‘Indeed I have, Sir John, at your service,’ Ogle replied as he joined the two knights.

  ‘Well, let’s stop here. There’s water in that stream.’

  This had all been arranged the evening before. The little column came to a halt. Gournay and Ogle dismounted. Gournay had wide shoulders and very short bow legs. Ogle spread a cloth on the grassy bank, laid out the tools of his trade and began slowly sharpening a razor, while staring at the ex-King.

  ‘What do you want with me? What are you going to do to me?’ asked Edward II anxiously.

  ‘We want you to alight from your steed, noble Sire, so that we can give you a new face. And here’s a proper throne for you,’ said Thomas Gournay flattening a mole-hill with the heel of his boot. ‘Come on, sit down!’

  Edward made to obey. But, as he seemed to hesitate a little, Gournay pushed him over and the soldiers of the escort burst out laughing.

  ‘Stand round, my lads,’ Gournay said.

  The soldiers formed a circle and the huge Towurlee stood behind the King so as to push him down by the shoulders, should it be necessary.

  Ogle went to fetch icy water from the stream.

  ‘Wet his face well,’ said Gournay.

  The barber threw the whole contents of the bowl in the King’s face. Then he put the razor roughly to the King’s cheeks. Tufts of blond hair fell on the grass.

  Maltravers was still on his horse and, sitting with his hands leaning on the pommel and his hair falling over his ears, he was watching the operation with evident satisfaction.

  Between two strokes of the razor Edward cried: ‘You’re hurting! Couldn’t you use hot water at least?’

  ‘Hot water?’ said Gournay. ‘Particular, isn’t he?’

  And Ogle, pushing his round white face into the King’s whispered in his ear: ‘Did my lord Mortimer have hot water in his bowl when he was in the Tower of London?’

  Then he continued his task with great strokes of the razor. Blood pearled on the skin. Edward began weeping with pain.

  ‘Oh, look at the clever fellow,’ cried Maltravers; ‘he’s discovered how to wet his cheeks with warm water!’

  ‘Shall I shave the hair too, Sir Thomas?’ Ogle asked.

  ‘Of course, of course, the hair too,’ Gournay replied.

  From his forehead to the nape of the neck the locks fell under the razor.

  Ten minutes later Ogle handed his victim a tin mirror, and the King stared with stupefaction at his real face which, at once childish and ageing, now appeared under a long narrow, naked skull. The long chin no longer concealed its weakness. Edward felt stripped and absurd, like a clipped dog.

  ‘I don’t recognize myself,’ he said.

  The men standing round him laughed again.

  ‘That’s all right then,’ said Maltravers from his horse. ‘If you can’t recognize yourself, anyone looking for you will be still less likely to. That’s what you get by trying to escape.’

  For this was why the King was being moved. A few Welsh lords, led by a certain Rhys ap Gruffyd, had organized a conspiracy to rescue the King. But Mortimer had been warned of it. In the meantime, however, Edward, taking advantage of Thomas de Berkeley’s negligence, had escaped from his prison one day. Maltravers had set off in pursuit and had recaptured him in the middle of a forest, running towards the water like a hunted stag. The King was trying to reach the Severn estuary in the hope of finding a boat. And now Maltravers was taking his revenge, for at the time he had been very much perturbed.

  ‘Get up, Sire King; it’s time we were moving on,’ he said.

  ‘Where are we going to halt?’ Edward asked.

  ‘Somewhere we can be sure you’ll find no friends. Your sleep won’t be disturbed. You can count on us to watch over you.’

  Their journey lasted almost a week. They rode by night, and rested by day, either in a manor of which they could be sure, or in some shelter among the fields, some isolated barn. On the fifth morning, Edward saw the outline of a huge grey castle built on a hill. There was a gusty wind from the sea, fresh, damp and salt.

  ‘It’s Corfe!’ Edward said. ‘Is that where you’re taking me?’

  ‘Of course it’s Corfe,’ said Thomas Gournay. ‘You seem to know the castles of your kingdom well.’

  Edward uttered a cry of terror. His astrologer had once told him never to stay at Corfe, because it would be fatal to him. And, as a result, when he had journeyed in Dorset and Devon, he had often passed Corfe, but had always obstinately refused to enter it.

  Corfe Castle was older, larger and indeed more sinister than Kenilworth. Its giant keep dominated the whole surrounding countryside, the whole Purbeck peninsula. Some of its fortifications dated from before the Norman conquest. It had often been used as a prison, particularly by King John, who, a hundred and twenty years before, had ordered twenty-two French knights to be left there to starve to death. Corfe seemed specially dedicated to the commission of crime. The tragic stories about it dated back to the murder of a boy of fifteen, the other Edward II, called the Martyr, who belonged to the Saxon dynasty before the year one thousand.

  The legend of his murder was still current in the surrounding countryside. This Saxon Edward, the son of King Edgar, whom he had succeeded, was hated by his stepmother, Queen Elfrida, his father’s second wife. One day, when he had returned from hunting and was heated with the chase, while still on his horse, he raised a horn-cup of wine to his lips, and Queen Elfrida had struck him in the back with a dagger. Screaming with pain, the young King had spurred his horse and fled into the forest. Exhausted from loss of blood, he had soon fallen from the saddle; but he had caught his foot in the stirrup and his terrified horse had dragged him a long way, banging his head against the trees. Peasants had found his body by a trail of blood through the forest, and had buried him secretly. Then his grave had begun performing miracles, and King Edward had later been canonized.

  The prisoner had the same name and the same number as that king of the other dynasty; and this coincidence, made more disturbing yet by the astrologer’s prophecy, was well calculated to make Edward tremble. Was Corfe to be the scene of a second Edward’s death?

  ‘You must have a crown, noble Sire, with which to enter this fine castle,’ said Maltravers. ‘Towurlee, go and get some grass from that field!’

  Maltravers made a crown of the handful of dry grass the giant brought back, and placed it on the King’s shaven h
ead. It was sharp enough to sink into the flesh.

  ‘Now we’ll go on, and you must forgive us for having no trumpets!’

  A deep moat, a curtain wall, a drawbridge between two huge round towers, a green hill to climb, another fosse, another gate, another portcullis, and then more grassy slopes: turning round you could look down on the little houses in the village, with their roofs of flat, grey stone tiles. How could such small houses carry such heavy roofs?

  ‘Go on!’ cried Maltravers, giving Edward a blow with his fist in the small of the back.

  The grass crown fell askew. The horses were moving forward through narrow, tortuous passages, paved with round cobbles, between huge, fantastic walls on whose summit crows were perched side by side making a black frieze along the grey stone, watching the column pass fifty feet below.

  King Edward II was certain he was going to be killed. But there were many ways of putting a man to death.

  Thomas Gournay and John Maltravers had no express orders to assassinate him, but rather to let him die. They therefore chose slow means. Twice a day Edward was given a disgusting gruel, while his guards crammed themselves in his presence with all kinds of delicious food. And yet the prisoner survived the disgusting food as he did the mockery and the blows. He was singularly robust in body and even in mind. Other men in his position might easily have lost their reason: he contented himself with complaining. But his very complaints were proof of the fact that he was sound in mind.

  ‘Are my sins so heavy that they deserve neither pity nor relief? Have you lost all Christian charity, all kindness?’ he said to his gaolers. ‘Even if I am no longer a sovereign, I am still a father and a husband; what have my wife and children to fear from me now? Are they not satisfied with having taken from me everything I had?’