‘No. They are soldiers only.’
The knight shrugged.
‘Then it falls to me to accept your surrender, milord. If you will hand over your sword and give your parole, you may ride at my side until I find a place to keep you. Can you write, to have the money sent?’
‘Of course I can write,’ Highbury replied. With a muttered epithet, he unstrapped his great sword and handed it over. As the knight’s hand closed on it, Highbury held on.
‘You will let my men go, in exchange for my parole?’
Sieur André de Maintagnes laughed.
‘Milord, there is nowhere for them to run, not any more. Have you not heard? The king is coming and he will not stop until he has pushed you English into the sea.’
With a jerk, he took the scabbard out of Highbury’s hands.
‘Stay close to me, milord,’ he said, turning his horse.
His companions were cheerful enough at the thought of a fine ransom to share among them.
Highbury briefly considered asking for food and water. As his captor, the French knight had a responsibility to provide such things, but for the moment, Highbury’s pride kept him silent.
They rode back down the road Highbury had followed all afternoon, and as they went, he saw more and more knights and marching men, until he was staring around in confusion and dismay. He’d ridden so far and fast that he’d failed to understand that the entire French army was coming north behind him. The fields were filled with them, all heading to the new border of English territory in France.
17
William de la Pole paced up and down, his hands shaking as he gripped them together behind his back. The gulls screeched around the fortress, a noise that had begun to sound like mockery. He’d spent the morning roaring orders at his hapless staff, but as the afternoon wore on, his voice had grown quieter and a dangerous calm had settled on him.
The last messenger to reach him was kneeling on the wooden floor, his head bowed out of a sense of self-preservation.
‘My lord, I was not given a verbal message to accompany the package.’
‘Then use your wits,’ William growled at him. ‘Tell me why there are no reinforcements ready to cross to Calais, when my forces are outnumbered and a French army is charging across English Normandy.’
‘You wish me to speculate, my lord?’ the servant replied in confusion. William only glared at him and the young man swallowed and stammered on. ‘I believe they are being gathered, my lord, ready to be brought south. I saw a fleet of ships in harbour when I left Dover. I heard some of the Crown soldiers have been sent to quell unrest, my lord. There have been murders and riots in Maidstone. It may be that …’
‘Enough, enough,’ William said, rubbing at his temples with a splayed hand. ‘You’ve said nothing more than I can hear in any alehouse. I have letters to be taken home immediately. Take those and go, in God’s name.’
The young messenger was grateful to be dismissed, scuttling out of the duke’s presence as fast as he could go. William sat at York’s table and seethed. He understood his predecessor’s words a little better after a few bare weeks in command. France was falling apart and it was small wonder that Richard of York had been so cheerful and enigmatic at being relieved.
William wished Derry were there. For all the man’s sarcasm and acid, he would still have had suggestions, or at least better information than the servants. Without his counsel, William felt completely adrift, lost under the weight of expectations on him. As commander of English forces in France, he was required to turn back any and all interference by the French court. His gaze strayed to the maps on the table, littered with small lead pieces. It was an incomplete picture, he knew. Soldiers and cavalry moved faster than the reports that reached him, so the stubby metal tokens were always in the wrong places. Yet if only half of the reports were true, the French king had crossed into Normandy, the fragile and hard-won truce ripped apart as if it had never been agreed.
William clenched his fists as he continued to pace. He had no more than three thousand men-at-arms in Normandy, with perhaps another thousand archers. It was a massive and expensive force for peacetime, but in war? Given a battle king to lead them, they might still have been enough. With an Edward of Crécy, or a Henry of Agincourt, William was almost certain the French could be sent running in humiliation and defeat. He stared hungrily at the maps as if they might contain the secret to life itself. He had to take the field; there was no help for it. He had to fight. His only chance lay in stopping the French advance before they were knocking on the doors of Rouen or, God forgive him, Calais itself.
He hesitated, biting his lip. He could evacuate Rouen and save hundreds of English lives before the French assault. If he accepted the impossibility of taking the field against so many, he could devote himself instead to defending Calais. He might at least win time and space enough to allow his king’s subjects to escape the closing net. He swallowed nervously at the thought. All his choices were appalling. Every one seemed to lead to disaster.
‘Damn it all to hell,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I need six thousand men.’
He barked a short laugh and puffed out his cheeks. If he were wishing for armies he did not have, he might as well ask for sixty thousand as six. He’d sent his pleas to both Derry Brewer and King Henry, but it seemed the refugees coming home from Anjou and Maine had brought their contagious fear with them. The king’s forces had been deployed to keep the peace at home. Back in France, William was left with too few. It was infuriating. By the time the English court even understood the magnitude of the threat, he thought Normandy would be lost.
William wiped sweat from his forehead. Calais was a superb fortress on the coast, with a double moat and massive walls that were eighteen feet thick at the base. Set on the coast and supplied by sea, it could never be starved into surrender. Yet King Edward had broken it once, a century before. It could be taken again, with enough men and massive siege weapons brought in to hammer it.
‘How can I stop them?’ William said aloud.
Hearing his voice, two servants came scurrying in to see if the commander had fresh orders. He began to wave them away, then changed his mind.
‘Send orders to Baron Alton. He is to make the garrison ready to march.’
The servants disappeared at the run and William turned to stare out at the sea.
‘Christ save us all,’ he whispered. ‘It’s been done before. It can be done again.’
Numbers were not everything, he knew. English kings had commanded a smaller force against the French almost every time they’d met in battle. He shook his head, his thick hair sweeping back and forth on his neck. That was the difficulty that faced him. The people of England expected their armies to win against the French, regardless of numbers or where the battles were fought. If he failed to protect Normandy, after the chaos of Maine and Anjou … William shuddered. There was only one other piece of English territory in France — Gascony in the south-west. It would be swallowed up in a season if the French triumphed in their campaign. He clenched his fist, hammering it on the table so that the lead pieces scattered and fell. He had lost his own father and brother to the French. Every noble house had taken losses, yet they had kept and enlarged the French territories. They would all despise a man who could not hold what their blood had won.
William understood the ‘poisoned cup’ York had described in their brief meeting. Yet he did not think even York had foreseen the sudden advance of French forces into Normandy. He sighed miserably, rubbing his face with both hands. He had no choice but to meet the French king in battle and trust to God for the outcome. He could not choose disaster, only have it forced upon him.
He summoned his personal servants, three young men devoted to his service.