The Eve of Saint Hyacinth

Chapter Nineteen

The Duke of Burgundy rode out of Calais the following morning, and the results of his previous day’s council of war with King Edward were soon circulating amongst the troops. Duke Richard was to accompany his brother-in-law, along with some of the other lords and captains, back to St Omer, then bear south to join the King and the Duke of Clarence, who were meanwhile to advance with their levies upon St Quentin, its defender, the Count of St Pol, having offered to surrender the town.

Timothy and I were to travel with the Duke wherever he went.

‘I had a private audience with His Grace as soon as he was dressed this morning and he’s agreed to it,’ Timothy said. ‘I’ve also requested that he leave Ralph Boyse and young Wardroper to follow on with the rest of the household, although I haven’t told him why. It’ll give us a night or two’s respite from their company and a chance to think. By the way, John Kendall told me that Duke Richard will see you now if you’re still of a mind to speak with him.’

The rooms set aside for the Duke’s private use were even more than usually crowded as iron-bound chests full of clothes, books and music were carried downstairs to be loaded on to the baggage wagons. In a day or two, when the remaining officers and servants had also left, accompanying the King, the house would grow quiet again, a decorous gentleman’s residence awaiting the return of its rightful owner.

Duke Richard was today partially armed in breastplate and gorget, with rerebraces on his upper arms and cuisses on his thighs, giving a military aspect to his amber velvet. For the first time since our arrival in Calais ten days before, it seemed as if we might indeed be going to war and not idling our lives away on some eternal picnic. Yet again I felt a momentary qualm; that uneasiness in the pit of my stomach as I confronted the fact that I might be wrong in my assumptions.

‘Well, Roger?’ The Duke raised his eyebrows. ‘You wished to see me?’

‘To ask you a question, my lord.’

‘I’m listening.’

I hesitated, uncomfortably aware of his quizzical gaze but, plucking up courage, proceeded, ‘My lord, when young Matthew Wardroper –’

‘Wardroper again,’ he murmured. ‘That’s the second time this morning his name’s been mentioned.’

I ignored the interruption. ‘When he rode after you, the day Great Hal bolted, did… did you feel that… that he was trying to rescue you or… or drive you into the ditch?’

The eyebrows climbed a little higher. ‘Blows the wind from that quarter?’ the Duke said softly. ‘A very odd question, you must agree, but I’ll try to give you an honest answer. What you make of it I have no wish to know, you understand me? I trust this affair will soon be resolved, and with the least possible fuss. And let it also be clearly understood that I want no man accused of anything without positive proof.’ He fingered his chin consideringly for several seconds, then continued, ‘Until this moment I have thought Matthew my rescuer, but I admit that your query raises certain doubts in my mind. My whole attention was naturally focused on bringing Great Hal under control and I cannot remember the incident with any clarity, but …’

‘But?’ I prompted eagerly when he paused.

‘But the truth is,’ he finished flatly, ‘that I am no longer sure what happened. That is all I can tell you.’

I would have pressed him further, but there was a look in his eye which forbade it. I hoped he would inquire into the reasons for my question, but he curtailed the audience, turning away to greet John Kendall, who had just entered bearing a sheaf of papers for the Duke to read and sign, and I had no choice but to bow and quit the room. Nevertheless, I had achieved something. His Grace, far from dismissing my suggestion as arrant nonsense, had as good as agreed that it might have merit and I could not help but see that as a confirmation of my suspicions.

Two hours later Timothy and I rode out of Calais in Duke Richard’s train, leaving Ralph Boyse and Matthew Wardroper behind us. But not for long. Soon we should rejoin them and the rest of the levies on their march to St Quentin.

‘They must surely make another attempt then,’ Timothy muttered. ‘If you’re right about the meaning of Saint Hyacinth’s Day, they haven’t much time left. We must be ready for them.’ His brow puckered fretfully. ‘I should have thought better of young Wardroper. Lionel will be appalled when the truth gets out. He recommended his cousin to the Duke’s service and will feel responsible for Matthew’s treason.’

I said nothing. Above our heads the banners of England and Burgundy flapped and mingled in the summer breeze, while behind us stretched all the panoply and might of two proud countries caparisoned for war. And on either side of us people went about their daily business as though we did not exist, sharpening scythes, bringing in the hay, tending their bees. It was as much as I could do not to leap from my nag and join them. Duke Richard was not the only person who trusted that this affair would soon be brought to its conclusion.

The rain sluiced down on the field of Agincourt, turning the ground into a sea of mud, the trees dripping mournfully on the encamped English army. It was almost sixty years since Henry of Monmouth had led his decimated troops across that ground to crush the might and chivalry of France and win for his country one of the most resounding victories of all time. But no such glory awaited the present English host as the army took its rest on that famous field.

We had waited in St Omer, entertained by Duchess Margaret and kicking our heels in frustration, for over two weeks, daily expecting a messenger from Calais to say that the King had at last set out for St Quentin. There were murmurings amongst the men about the strangeness of the delay, but for me it only strengthened my conviction that my reasoning was correct: King Edward was playing a deep and devious game. Finally, however, word arrived that the army was at last on the move and that Duke Richard was to join his brothers on the field of Agincourt.

Why King Edward had selected this particular rendezvous I could only guess, but I suspected that it added colour to his bellicose intentions and helped to allay any growing fears that his commitment to the war was less than wholehearted.

As soon as camp had been made, the Duke’s tents pitched alongside those of his brothers, fires for the men started and shelter scouted for in the neighbouring countryside, Timothy and I went in search of Ralph and Matthew, leaving strict instructions with the Squires of the Body that one of them was to be in attendance upon His Grace at all times. To a man, they looked down their patrician noses and muttered darkly about teaching one’s granddam to grope ducks, or the goslings wanting to drive the geese to pasture, but we departed, satisfied that they would not fail in their duty.

We found Matthew easily enough. He was already on his way, in the company of Jocelin d’Hiver and another Squire of the Household, to the Duke’s main pavilion, to present his devoir and resume his normal duties.

‘Where’s Ralph Boyse?’ Timothy asked him, adding quickly, ‘Duke Richard wants him.’

‘No longer with us,’ Jocelin answered before Matthew had a chance to reply. ‘Fortunate devil,’ he went on enviously, glancing around at the water-logged plain, the distant, rain-sodden woods of Tramecourt and the men huddled over smoking fires which offered no kind of warmth to their shivering limbs.

‘What do you mean?’ Timothy demanded sharply. ‘Where’s he gone?’

‘He was sent home to England with a dozen or so others who had developed dysentery,’ Matthew explained. ‘As Jocelin says, lucky devil.’

I forced myself not to look in Timothy’s direction. ‘Ralph seemed well enough to me when I last saw him.’

‘That was weeks ago,’ Matthew pointed out with reason. ‘There was an outbreak of dysentery in Calais just after you left.’

The third man with them nodded. ‘A lot of men were struck down. Some died. Mind you, I don’t think Ralph was very bad. In fact until the night before the ship sailed I didn’t even realize he was ill.’

‘A man can suffer in silence, I suppose,’ Matthew expostulated. ‘Anyway, Master Steward was sufficiently convinced to send him home. I’ll tell His Grace what’s happened.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Timothy said swiftly and turned back towards the tent. If Duke Richard denied that he had been asking for Ralph, Matthew might begin to wonder. Later, when the Duke was at supper, the Spy-Master sought me out to inquire, ‘What do you make of that, then?’

It had at last stopped raining, but the August evening was still dreary and overcast, an impenetrable canopy of cloud hanging low overhead. The ground squelched beneath our feet and there was a chill in the air which had caused my companion to wrap himself in a cloak. I was hardier, used to being out in all weathers, but even I found myself shivering every now and then.

‘Ralph was never our assassin,’ I answered slowly. ‘He is separating himself from Matthew now that we are getting further from the coast and into France. He is no longer necessary to the plan. His French masters – whoever they are, and one of them certainly tried to contact him that night in Calais and has probably since succeeded – have told him to return to England. They wouldn’t wish to jeopardize his position in the Duke’s household. Matthew is now on his own. If he should be caught, Ralph has no connection with him.’

‘But we know better.’

‘And would have difficulty proving it, provided both Matthew and Berys Hogan keep their mouths shut. But no one as yet, apart from the Duke, knows of our suspicions. They still think us floundering about in the dark.’

Timothy stirred up a patch of mud with the toe of his boot. ‘Will young Wardroper make another attempt, do you think?’

‘I think it probable. Unnecessarily.’ I anticipated his question and went on, ‘I don’t believe that even Duke Richard will be able to change the King’s mind in this matter, but there’s no way the French can be sure of that until His Highness finally shows his hand and successfully quells all opposition.’

Timothy sighed. ‘Let’s hope you’re right. I worry all the time that perhaps we should be looking elsewhere for some other person.’

‘Trust me,’ I said with a confidence that frequently deserted me, especially in the long, sleepless watches of the night.

Strangely enough, I slept more soundly that night than I had done for weeks.

I had stood guard with the sentries outside the Duke’s tent until the hour of Matins and Lauds, when Timothy and two others had relieved us. I wrapped my cloak about me, scorning the shelter of a baggage wagon, found myself a place beside a camp-fire in the company of half a dozen good Yorkshire fellows. One or two were snoring, lost to the world, but the rest were huddled over the flames, chatting desultorily, unable to sleep despite the fact that it was two o’clock in the morning.

I had no expectation of sleeping either, but I must have lost consciousness within a few minutes, for the next thing I knew I was standing by that empty shrine in the woods near Chilworth Manor where all sound of birds and insects was silenced, where the trees themselves seemed charged with menace. Coming towards me was the shepherd’s wife, smiling and nodding.

‘Just like his mother, you know,’ she said as she passed me. I turned my head to look after her, but she had vanished and in her place was Amice Gentle.

She murmured, ‘I’m ready to start stitching when I’ve measured you.’ Then as she smiled, her features dislimned, taking shape once more as those of Lady Wardroper, who was holding a Breton bombardt in her hand. Raising it to her lips, my lady played a stave or two of C’est la fin, then walked past me into the trees where, like Millisent Shepherd, she too disappeared. I could feel the heat breaking out all over my body and someone was shaking my arm and shouting …

‘Wake up, lad! Wake up! Tha’s got too near the fire. Thee hose is alight.’

I awoke to a smell of scorching wool and was just in time to roll clear of the fire before it could do my leg any serious injury. Only a patch of sore red flesh was revealed once I had stripped and examined it.

‘Tha wert ridin’ the night mare,’ one of the Yorkshiremen said to me. ‘Tha wert muttering in thy sleep like something’s preying on thee mind.’

‘It is,’ I answered shortly, climbing back into my scorched hose and wincing at the pain in my leg.

‘Tha wants a poultice of lettuce and house leek on that,’ another man advised me kindly.

I barely heard him, but lay down again and covered myself with my cloak, which had got thrown aside during my tossings and turnings. Sleep had fled, however, and my dream went round and around in my head until I began to assemble order out of chaos. Things which had confused me for weeks suddenly began to make sense and I was able to see the path in front of me more clearly. At last, just before dawn, I fell into a dreamless slumber, awaking refreshed to a world still wet underfoot, but with the sun breaking through the clouds and the mist rising almost knee-high across the rain-washed plain. In the distance, the woods of Agincourt and Tramecourt smudged the horizon and the morning air was acrid with smoke as men everywhere tried to breathe life into last night’s burnt-out fires in order to boil a pan of water. From the canvas pouches at their belts each man produced a handful of damp oats with which he attempted to make a little thin gruel. Refusing my companions’ generous offer to share theirs with me I departed for the Duke of Gloucester’s tents, looking for Timothy Plummer.

‘Where’s Wardroper?’ I asked as soon as I found him.

‘I saw to it that he was sent off with a party foraging for milk and eggs for His Grace’s breakfast.’ Timothy lowered his voice and pressed my arm. ‘There’s talk that we’re to spend a second night here, despite the news brought in by scouts at five o’clock this morning that King Louis has raised the Oriflamme and is massing an army at Beauvais. The chivalry of France, by all accounts, is flocking to his standard. Our lord and some others are champing at the bit in frustration. They can’t understand the King’s delay. But it makes me feel more certain that you have come to the right conclusion, chapman.’

The day passed uneventfully. Matthew returned with the rest of the foraging party and from then on Timothy and I scarcely let him out of our sight. Both of us were glad of the excuse to avoid the company of Duke Richard, who grew ever more fretful as the hours wore on with no summons to a council of war by his eldest brother. Indeed the King had withdrawn into his pavilion with instructions that he was not to be disturbed; a command easily comprehended when one of the higher-class camp-followers was seen being ushered into his tent. A report to this effect reaching our lord’s ears, his thin lips compressed until they almost disappeared and his temper for the rest of the day was extremely short.

I received my share of the Duke’s displeasure when he told me curtly to get myself a new pair of hose and not to enter his presence again in such a condition. I had forgotten the great hole scorched in one leg by the fire and went off, duly chastened, to find the Livery Sergeant.

His Grace was in no better mood by nightfall, when he suddenly emerged, grim-faced, from his tent, two of his Squires at his heels, and headed at a brisk pace in the direction of his eldest brother’s pavilion. I glanced inquiringly at my fellow guard, but this worthy merely shrugged and muttered that he would not care to risk the Duke’s anger by following where he was not bidden.

‘Then I must go alone,’ I said and, by running after my quarry, was able to catch up the Duke and his Squires just as they entered the King’s tent, and managed to slip in behind them without being noticed.

In the guttering torchlight which filled the confined space with a veil of smoke I could make out King Edward sitting at a table with some of his captains – Louis de Bretaylle, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Hastings. The Duke of Clarence was kneeling on the ground playing dice with Earl Rivers and the Marquess of Dorset, while the Duke of Suffolk stood a little apart, swigging wine from a leather bottle. Just inside the tent opening Lord Stanley and John Morton drew aside to allow Duke Richard’s unimpeded progress, but neither man could have been flattered by the unseeing way in which he swept past them.

The conversation was turning upon that ever-fruitful topic, Charles of Burgundy.

‘Shall I ever forget,’ the King was demanding half-laughingly of Lord Hastings, ‘his audacity in arriving in Calais with only a bodyguard, as coolly as if he had brought all the troops he had promised me …’ He broke off at the sight of his youngest brother and Duke Richard’s tense expression. He flung up a hand. ‘All right! All right, Dickon! I know you’ve come to reproach me! But we are on the march again tomorrow. You have my solemn oath.’

The Duke’s set features relaxed a little. ‘Not before time,’ he murmured gruffly; and a moment or two later, after receiving further reassurances from King Edward, his sudden and unexpected sense of humour reasserted itself. When Louis de Bretaylle complained that Duke Charles had brought not one man of that vast army which was to have been Burgundy’s contribution to the war he said, smiling, ‘But my dear Louis, my brother-in-law admitted himself that we don’t need him. And what he lacked in men he made up for in encouragement.’

The King and Lord Hastings began to laugh.

‘Charles’s self-esteem is so great,’ the former grinned, ‘that it’s almost disarming. He had the effrontery to suggest that once I had crushed the French by sheer weight of numbers he would be happy to give me his advice on the trickier aspects of an Italian campaign.’

It was at this moment that I lost all interest in what His Highness was saying. I suddenly realized that Duke Richard had moved to one side of the tent, his back almost touching its silken wall, and was, moreover, standing in the full glare of a branch of candles placed on a small camp-table. From outside, his outline must be immediately recognizable to anyone who knew him well; for not only was he small of stature, but the long, swinging curtain of hair brushed shoulders which were not quite equal in size. (I had been told that as a still-growing child of eleven, fighting for his eldest brother, his right breast and upper sword-arm had developed faster than his left, leaving him with a very slightly lopsided appearance.) These three bodily characteristics, height, hair, shoulders, together made him easy to identify.

Even as I spotted the possible danger the thing which must have unconsciously attracted my attention to it in the first place happened again: there was a faint trembling of the silken wall, as though someone were creeping close to it outside. I plunged through the tent opening into the darkness, startling the King’s sentries who were guarding the entrance. Before they had time to gather their wits or challenge me I had raced around the side of the tent and was just in time to see a shadowy figure raise an arm high above its head. I caught the gleam of metal and knew that the descending hand must hold a knife.

I was still too far away to grab our assassin and the only course left to me was to shout. After all these years I have no notion what I said, and probably had no clear idea then. But whatever I yelled, it was loud enough and fierce enough not simply to deflect our would-be murderer’s aim as he plunged his blade through the ripping silk, but also to frighten him into instant flight. I was but vaguely aware of Duke Richard crying out, followed by a general uproar inside the tent, for I was already in full pursuit of my quarry as he stumbled away across the water-logged ground, his feet slithering all ways on the soaking grass.

‘I’m going to lose him,’ I thought desperately, as my own boots slipped in a patch of mud, nearly sending me sprawling. But I had reckoned without the commotion waking most of the surrounding camp. As men staggered to their feet, blinking owlishly through the gloom, I cried, ‘Treason! Stop that man!’

By now, both sentries and most of the occupants of the King’s tent had joined in the hunt, haring across the wet ground, cursing as they stumbled over sleeping men, calling for torches to be brought. Others had appeared from all quarters of the camp and I suddenly found Timothy Plummer at my side.

‘Duke Richard,’ I panted. ‘Is he all right?’

‘A nasty gash in his upper left arm, but nothing to signify. A clean wound, quickly mended.’ He gasped in some air. ‘Was it Matthew Wardroper you saw?’

‘Until we catch him I can’t say for sure, although in my own mind I’m certain… There he goes!’ I yelled at the top of my lungs. ‘There he goes! Heading for the Tramecourt woods.’

But that fleeing figure had already been spotted by others and there was a sudden shout of triumph as the miscreant was brought crashing to the ground. As we all crowded breathlessly around, torches and firebrands were raised to illuminate the heaving, furiously writhing figure, and someone stooped, seizing the chin and twisting the contorted face up towards the light.

Timothy gave a grunt of satisfaction. ‘Matthew Wardroper,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘No, not Matthew. He’s been dead and buried these many weeks.’