carved casket, slowly made his way down the gangplank.
He saw Neville staring at him, nodded and smiled, then made his way towards the
English camp with the rest of the tradesmen.
III
Tuesday 30th July 1381
Bolingbroke established his camp only a mile distant from Harfleur in the gently rolling
hills to its northwest. On the Saturday, while still waiting for the majority of his force to
disembark, Bolingbroke had sent north the Earl of Suffolk and a force of some two thousand
men to circle Harfleur in an effort to secure the three roadways that led into the town.
They were only partially successful, as Bolingbroke now heard.
The Earl of Warwick was leaning over a map on a trestle table that had been set up in
front of Bolingbroke‘s pavilion. A shade had been erected over the table and the men grouped
about under it to protect themselves from the hot sun. Before them the ground slowly sank towards Harfleur, its walls and twenty-six towers aflutter with pennants.
―The French knew we were coming,‖ Warwick said, and Bolingbroke hitched a shoulder
up.
―Of course. Our preparations could not have gone unnoticed.‖
―Yes…well,‖ Warwick replied. ―They knew enough in advance, and had enough
forethought, to protect Harfleur with everything they could. See.‖ His finger jabbed down at the
river valley to the north of the town. ―They‘ve dammed the River Lézande, and now the valley is
nothing but a lake a hundred yards wide. Suffolk had to detour above it, and it took him a day
longer than expected.‖
Now Warwick‘s finger fell on the salt marshes to the east of the town. They were
bisected by a single road. ―Harfleur managed to get in a convoy of food and other supplies on
Sunday afternoon and evening, before Suffolk could complete his encirclement. Three hundred
carts and some five score pack mules crossed the road.‖
Bolingbroke muttered a curse. ―But Suffolk has now managed to encircle the town?‖
―Aye, as best he can.‖ Warwick‘s finger drew a wide arc on the map from their position
in the west, across the northern flooded river valley and then down to the east of Harfleur to the
coastline. ―We have them surrounded on land on three sides, and, of course—‖
―Our ships cover the south in the bay,‖ Bolingbroke completed for him. He raised his
head from the map once more and stared at the vista before him. Harfleur was encircled by the
English, true, but it was also very, very well defended. Assaulting this town would be difficult in
the extreme. Harfleur sat on the bay formed by the expansive mouth of the River Seine. To the
north was the river valley of the Lézande, now dammed, although water from the river still
flowed through the town. To the east were salt marshes. To the south the bay, entrance into the
port of Harfleur being via a small harbour. This was now crisscrossed with heavy chains below
the surface of the water, and Bolingbroke knew there was no way he could sail his ships into the
harbour itself.
Harfleur was surrounded by a perimeter wall of some two miles. It was well constructed,
protected by its twenty-six towers—some with cannon—and a moat. Only three gates broached
the wall. One to the northeast (leading to the now flooded river valley), one to the southeast
(leading to the salt marsh road) and one to the southwest (leading to the hills upon which the
English were now encamped). All three gates were heavily protected by wooden barbicans,
earthworks and an extra moat dug about all three.
And each would be a bastard to approach, let alone broach. Bolingbroke‘s preferred
method, to bombard the wall and towers about all three gates and then ram them once the
defences were in disarray, was not going to work here. Both the placement of the wood and
earthworks and the wide moats made that impossible.
That left an all-out attack on the walls—an option not to be considered until the town had
been starved and bombarded through a lengthy siege—or…
―Tunnelling,‖ Bolingbroke said. ―It is our only option. I can‘t afford to waste months
here starving Harfleur into submission while Philip and Charles manage to deploy their army to
their best advantage.‖
Warwick and the other commanders present all nodded. They‘d reached the same
conclusion themselves. Tunnelling under a town‘s walls until they collapsed was a tried and
proven tactic, and Bolingbroke had among his engineers some of the most experienced tunnellers
in Christendom. With luck and effort, Harfleur‘s defeat could be accomplished within two
weeks.
With luck, and the grace of God.
―Meanwhile,‖ said Bolingbroke, ―we can set the artillery on these hills, spanning the
entire west and northwest section of the walls.‖ He pointed to three spots, one to the south of
him, and two to the north. ―There, there and there. Bombard the walls by day and night. The
French will be so consumed with trying to negate the effects of the bombardment they will
hopefully neglect to set aside men to observe for tunnelling.‖
He paused, returning his gaze to study the town itself. ―Target the walls, but also the
steeple of the church of Saint Martin. It will no doubt cause much distress if we manage to
demolish their beloved church.‖
And with that he turned away.
By that evening the artillery had moved their three massive cannon into position. The
cannon were new, commissioned by Bolingbroke at the start of his reign, and the biggest
Christendom had yet seen. Cumbersome, bulky, difficult and always with the potential to blow
up in everyone‘s faces, the cannon could nevertheless hurl two hundred pound missiles well over
a mile in distance. The entire army seemed to have adopted them as mascots, and had given all
three names.
London sat atop a hill nearest to the coast from where it could bombard the harbour and
southwestern portions of Harfleur‘s walls. The grimly- but aptly-named England”s Messenger sat in the central portion of the western hills, from where it could send its message of hate and ill
will deep into the town. And, finally, the Beloved Mary was positioned further to the north, from where she could spit her missiles into the northern defences of Harfleur. (Mary, when she‘d
heard the men had named one of the cannon for her, was said to have shuddered and to have
turned aside her head.)
That night began the bombardment of Harfleur.
IV
Monday 5th August 1381
― here is he do you think, Tom?‖
Neville did not have to ask of whom Mary spoke.
―Somewhere close, I am sure.‖
―I dreamed of him last night.‖
Neville‘s first reaction to this statement was one of utter gratefulness—at least Mary had
managed some sleep. Her condition was now pitiful, and Neville did not think she was long for
this world.
Was she the reason the carpenter carried the casket?
The voyage itself had almost killed her. Neville remembered how ill Mary had been after
their voyage into exile in Flanders; now she looked tenfold worse than she had then. She had lost
so much weight she was skeletal. Her bones showed through her flesh, and her skin had
collapsed so greatly about her face she looked more like breathing skull than living woman. Her skin was papery and grey, her eyes dull, her lips cracked.
Two of her bones in her left arm had broken in the effort to lift her out of the Grace Dieu,
and the arm rested encased in a sling and cushioned splints. Mary was now so fragile that every
movement threatened to break her apart.
Normally Neville would have held her hand, now all he did was stroke the back of her
right hand very gently with his forefinger, careful not to break the papery skin.
―Did Culpeper give you a dose of his liquor?‖ he asked, wondering if this was what had
aided her to sleep.
―Nay.‖ Her tongue, grey and swollen, licked at her lips. ―I refused his liquor last night.‖
Neville wondered at her strength, not only in enduring the agony that must now be
coursing through her, but at resisting the entreaties of her ladies, no doubt distraught that she
would refuse the numbing liquor.
―I wanted to see,‖ Mary continued, ―if my dreams were caused by the liquor…or by
something else.‖
Neville smiled very softly, glad for her, knowing that Christ in truth must have come to
her.
―I dreamed of a carpenter‘s shop,‖ she said. ―It was full of the sweet scent of shavings,
and soft, gentle light. I saw our Lord there, working. He turned, as if knowing my presence, and
smiled at me, loving, comforting, and said my name. I woke then, and for several hours I had no
pain.‖
―It is a shame we cannot bottle dreams,‖ Neville said, ―for methinks they do you much
more good than Culpeper‘s liquor.‖
Mary laughed, a little breathlessly, and when she spoke again it was to talk of other