here?‖ she gasped in her frightful hoarse voice. ―Who has condemned me to this hell?‖
―You are with those who love you,‖ Neville said. ―And see? Here is Joan, who you asked
for.‖
Mary turned her head, staring wildly at Joan. ―This is not your place either, Joan. Are you
trapped with me in this terrible dream?‖
Joan leaned forward and rested her hand as gently as she could on a piece of Mary‘s arm
that appeared least shattered. ―We are all trapped,‖ she said, a smile in her voice for Mary, ―but I
hope that we shall soon all be free.‖
Too late did Philip, striding forward in the second of his three lines, realise the enormity
of his mistake, but by then it was too late to stop, and impossible to turn back. His lines were
nine hundred yards wide, the length of the northern end of the strip of land, but as they marched
towards the English they found themselves being forced into a narrower and narrower section of
land.
By the time the first ranks of the French were within twenty yards of the English, they
had been crammed so tightly together that not a man of them could raise his arm to swing his weapon.
Neither, with all the thousands of men marching inexorably at their backs, could they turn
back.
Instead, tens of thousands of arrows rained down on them every minute, plunging
through armour with loud cracks. Those unlucky Frenchmen in the first ranks had two choices:
attack, or panic.
Most panicked.
Men tried to turn and push their way back through the ranks of their comrades, or to push
their way through to the sides of the field and a possible escape down the treacherous slopes of
the wooded embankments. Their panic, as well as the constant rain of arrows from the sky,
communicated itself to the entire French army, and soon the entire northern half of the land was
covered both with panicking men seeking an escape, and with men trying to fight through the
panic, mud and arrows to reach the English.
Men died in their thousands.
The arrows felled many of them, but just as deadly was the cramped conditions and the
panic. As men fell wounded and dying, or had slipped in the mud because they‘d been pushed or
had slipped in their panic, the weight of their armour invariably brought down at least two other
men.
Once in the mud, and under the weight of both armour and panic, few could rise again.
The arrows continued to rain down.
Mary blinked, and some reason returned to her eyes. She turned her head towards
Margaret as much as she could, her lips flickering in a smile. ―Do you have any more of that
lemon water, Margaret? I would have some.‖
Distressed that she hadn‘t immediately thought of it herself, Margaret stood and reached
for the beaker of lemon water (thankful that someone had previously had the forethought to
refresh it this morning) and spooned a little of the liquid into Mary‘s mouth.
―If you wish,‖ Margaret said softly, ―I can send Jocelyn to fetch some of Culpeper‘s
liquor.‖
―Ah, no need,‖ Mary said. ―I have no pain. I am feeling quite well.‖ She tried to smile
again, although her lips were so parched and cracked, and her tongue so swollen, that she only
managed the barest of upward tilts to her lips. ―It has been so long since I have been free from
pain…‖
She accepted some more lemon water, then turned her head slightly in order to see Joan.
―Do not fear, Maid. France will yet be saved.‖ She paused, drank a little more, then continued:
―France‘s mud is good for other things than growing plump onions.‖
Mary laughed a little, harsh and grating, then she quietened, looking to where Catherine
sat. Owen Tudor still stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
―Never fear, Catherine,‖ Mary whispered. ―Love never dies, it simply moves elsewhere.‖
Then she closed her eyes again, and appeared to slip into a light doze rather than her
previous insensible nothingness.
The tiny English army took under thirty minutes to bring twenty-five thousand
Frenchmen quite literally to their knees.
At about eleven thirty, Bolingbroke gave the signal for his own men-at-arms to advance.
They already had their orders: no quarter. So few themselves, the English could not
afford to take prisoners for ransom. Instead, they drew knife and sword, and literally waded into
the field of downed men struggling in the mud before them.
No quarter given.
It was slow work, hot and tiring, but the English men-at-arms and several thousand of the
archers slowly worked their way through the field, carefully walking over the dead and injured.
They prised open helmets, tore off plate armour, slit throats, and removed any small articles of
jewellery that they might easily carry.
Over the field rose the frightful sound of thousands of Frenchmen crying for mercy. They
begged and screamed, but to no avail.
No quarter.
Very gradually the noise lessened as knives rose and fell.
For some time Bolingbroke sat his horse, his eyes moving carefully over the field before
him.
Finally they came to rest on one particular area, and he dismounted, signalling some five
or six men-at-arms to follow him.
Resplendent in his brilliant bejewelled white armour, a gold circlet enclosing a
magnificent ruby about his helmet, Bolingbroke waded into the death with long, sure strides.
He drew his sword.
―Philip!‖ cried Catherine, starting from her stool.
Tudor‘s hands pushed her firmly, but gently, back down again. ―You can do nothing,
Catherine,‖ he said. He hesitated before continuing. ―Nothing but keep a death watch. You can
do him that honour.‖
Catherine turned her head away, staring at a distant wall. ―I find myself heartily sick of
death watches,‖ she said.
―This is all but a dream,‖ Mary murmured. ―Philip will be the better for his wakening. Do
not despair, Catherine.‖
Philip had been caught like so many of his men. Several arrows had struck his armour,
but none hard enough to penetrate. Instead, it was one of his own men who had felled him.
Terrified, blind to reason, the knight had tried to push past Philip and escape through the back
line. Instead, he‘d brought both of them crashing to the mud.
Now Philip lay, trapped both by the weight of his armour and the weight of the man atop
him.
The knight was dead now, for if Philip hadn‘t slid his knife into the eye slot of the man‘s
helmet then his thrashing would surely have killed Philip.
But Philip still couldn‘t move. The dead man was atop him, too heavy to shift off (and
both were surrounded by similar downed men in armour), and Philip was slowly being pushed
deeper and deeper into the mud. Its cold fingers worked their way though the cracks in his
armour, slowly filling the spaces with its weight. It was a slow death; eventually the liquefying
mud would completely fill his helmet, and Philip would drown in its black embrace.
The back of his neck was frozen where the mud clung.
―This is the most foolish of deaths,‖ Philip whispered. ―Catrine, forgive me…forgive
me.‖
Then there came a screech of metal, and the weight of the dead knight atop him rolled
away.
Catherine lurched to her feet, screaming Philip‘s name.
Both Neville and Margaret also rose, distraught, and Tudor, whose hands Catherine had
thrown off, now grabbed her to him, holding her tightly.
―Catherine,‖ he whispered into her hair, ―forgive me for not being able to help.‖
She began to sob, almost hysterical, choking on Philip‘s name.
Bolingbroke threw his sword aside and leaned down, his breath harsh inside his helmet,
and wrapped his hands about the fastenings holding Philip‘s helmet to his chest and back plates.
He ripped the straps loose, then tore Philip‘s helmet off and hurled it several yards away.
Philip cried out, his arms moving weakly, not able to rise.
Bolingbroke retrieved his sword.
―You foolish bastard,‖ Bolingbroke said, his voice issuing harsh and heavy from under
his helmet. ―You thought to have bested me!‖
He raised his sword in both hands, bringing it high above his head.
Philip stared at him, his eyes curiously calm in his muddied face. At his sides, his arms
spasmed once and then were still.
―France shall have you,‖ he whispered, ―and everything you hold dear.‖
Bolingbroke brought the sword arcing down in a flash of steel and screaming air.
―No,‖ Catherine cried, struggling in Tudor‘s arms. ―No!‖
―France shall have him,‖ said Mary, ―and everything he holds dear.‖
Catherine‘s body went stiff, then she whimpered, and slumped against Tudor‘s body.
―He should have loved,‖ whispered Mary so quietly that none heard her, ―for then he
would not have lost.‖
Rich, hot blood splattered across Bolingbroke‘s helmet. He drew in a deep breath, and
tried to pull his sword from Philip‘s spine where it had wedged after it had completed its journey