Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

‘In return, sire,’ the Earl of Oxford took up the tale, ‘your army will be permitted to march to Gascony, the King of France will betroth one of his daughters to you, and she will bring you the County of Angoulême as her dowry.’

‘Are his daughters pretty?’ the prince asked.

‘Prettier than a hill covered in English corpses, sire,’ the Earl of Warwick said sharply. ‘There is more. You and all England must swear not to take up arms against France for a period of seven years.’

The prince looked from one earl to the other, then to the captal, who sat to one side of the tent. ‘Advise me,’ he said.

The Earl of Warwick flinched as he stretched his legs out. ‘We’re outnumbered, sire. Sir Reginald believes we can slip away in the dawn, cross the river and be on our way before the enemy notices, but I confess I’m sceptical. The bastards aren’t fools. They’ll be watching us.’

‘And they’re moving south and west, sire,’ the captal put in. ‘They must be thinking we’ll try to cross the Miosson and they’re trying to close that escape.’

‘And they’re confident, sire,’ the Earl of Oxford said.

‘Because of numbers?’

‘Because our men are tired, outnumbered, hungry and thirsty. And the fat cardinal said something strange. He warned us that God has sent France a sign that He is on their side. I asked him what he meant, but the fat bastard just looked smug.’

‘I thought the cardinals spoke for the Pope?’

‘The Pope,’ Warwick said dourly, ‘is in France’s grip.’

‘And if we fight tomorrow?’ the prince asked.

There was silence. Then the Earl of Warwick shrugged and used his hands to imitate a weighing scale. Up and down. The thing could end either way, his hands were suggesting, but his face showed nothing but pessimism.

‘We hold a strong position,’ the Earl of Salisbury, who commanded the troops at the northern end of the English hill, said, ‘but if the line breaks? We’ve made pits and trenches that will stop them, but we can’t entrench the whole damned hill. And it’s my belief they have at least twice our numbers.’

‘And they’re eating well today,’ the captal said, ‘while our men make acorn stew.’

‘The terms are harsh,’ the prince said. A horsefly landed on his leg and he slapped at it angrily.

‘And they demand noble hostages, sire, as a surety that the terms are honoured,’ the Earl of Oxford said.

‘Noble hostages,’ the prince said flatly.

‘Noble and knightly, sire,’ the earl said, ‘which includes everyone in this tent, I fear.’ He took a piece of parchment from a pouch on his sword belt and held it towards the prince. ‘That’s a partial list, sire, but they will undoubtedly add other names.’

The prince nodded and a servant took the list and went on one knee to give it to his master. The prince grimaced as he read the names. ‘All our best knights?’

‘Including Your Royal Majesty,’ Oxford said.

‘So I see,’ the prince said. He frowned as he read the names. ‘Sire Roland de Verrec? Surely he’s not in our army?’

‘It seems he is, sire.’

‘And a Douglas? Are they mad?’

‘Sir Robert Douglas is also here, sire.’

‘He is? Christ’s bowels, what’s a Douglas doing with us? And who in God’s name is Thomas Hookton?’

‘Sir Thomas, sire,’ Sir Reginald spoke for the first time. ‘He was one of Will Skeat’s men at Crécy.’

‘An archer?’

‘Now a vassal of Northampton, sire. A useful man.’

‘Why in Christ’s name is Billy knighting archers?’ the prince asked petulantly. ‘And why in hell’s name do the French know he’s here and I don’t?’

No one answered. The prince let the parchment drop onto the carpet that covered the turf. What would his father think? What would his father do? But Edward the Third, the most feared warrior-king in Europe, was in faraway England. So this was the prince’s decision. True, he had advisers and he was wise enough to listen to them, but in the end the decision was his alone. He stood and walked to the tent door and stared past the banners, through the trees to where the light was fading in the west. ‘The terms are harsh,’ he said again, ‘but defeat will be harsher.’ He turned and looked at the Earl of Warwick. ‘Beat them down, my lord. Offer half of what they demand.’

‘It’s hardly a demand, sire, but a suggestion from the cardinals. The French must accept the terms too.’

‘Of course they’ll accept them,’ the prince said, ‘they dictated them! Even half of what they want means victory for them! Christ! They win everything!’

‘And if the French won’t accept lesser terms, sire? What then?’

The prince sighed. ‘It’s better to be a hostage in Paris than a corpse in Poitiers,’ he suggested, then flinched as he thought again of the French demands. ‘It’s a surrender, really, isn’t it?’

‘No, sire,’ the Earl of Warwick said firmly. ‘It’s a truce and an arrangement.’ He frowned, trying to find some good news amid the bad. ‘The army will be allowed to march on to Gascony, sire. No prisoners will be demanded.’

‘And hostages are not prisoners?’ the Earl of Salisbury asked.

‘Hostages pay no ransom. We’ll be treated honourably.’

‘You can drape it in velvet,’ the prince said unhappily, ‘and drench it in perfume, but it’s still a surrender.’ But he and his army were trapped. Call it a truce, an arrangement, or a treaty, he knew it was really a surrender. Yet he had no other choice. So far as he could see it was surrender or be slaughtered.

Because the English were beaten.

The Hellequin guarded the ford. The Sire Roland de Verrec and Robbie Douglas had stayed on the hill with the rest of the Earl of Warwick’s men-at-arms, but the remainder of Thomas’s men were camped just south of the river. A cordon of archers was on the northern bank, and Keane was there with his wolfhounds. ‘They’ll howl if they smell men or horses,’ he said.

‘No fires,’ Thomas had ordered. They could see the glow of the English and Gascon campfires on the hill, and a greater glow stretching around the northern and western horizon that marked where the French army was spending the night, but Thomas would have no fires. Sir Reginald did not want to draw the enemy’s attention to the crossing over the Miosson, and so the men-at-arms and archers shivered in the cold autumn darkness. Clouds smothered the moon, though there were gaps through which bright stars showed. An owl called and Thomas made the sign of the cross.

Some time in the night and somewhere in that darkness hooves sounded. The wolfhounds stood and growled, but then a voice called softly, ‘Sir Thomas! Sir Thomas!’

‘I’m here.’

‘Sweet Jesus, it’s dark.’ It was Sir Reginald who appeared out of the blackness and eased himself out of his saddle. ‘Good man, no fires. Any visitors?’

‘None.’

‘But we reckon they’ve moved men onto that hill.’ He gestured towards the dark loom of le Champ d’Alexandre. ‘Damn it, they must know the ford’s here; they must have realised we’ll try to escape. Except we might not.’

‘Might not?’

‘The churchmen have come up with terms. We pay the bastard French a fortune, give them hostages, return all the land we’ve conquered, and promise to behave ourselves for the next seven years. The prince has agreed.’

‘Jesus,’ Thomas said quietly.

‘I doubt he has anything to do with it. And if the French agree to the church’s proposal? Then tomorrow we give them hostages and slink away.’ He sounded disgusted. ‘And you’re one of the hostages.’

‘Me!’

‘Your name’s on the list.’

‘Jesus,’ Thomas said again.