Thomas grinned. “Eleven children! ‘Twas no wonder I joined the Church, Will. I gave up hope of inheriting his estates after the birth of his fourth son!”
Will laughed outright, and within minutes the two men were chatting as if they had been bed companions all their lives.
RABY’S FACE was hard when Thomas entered his chamber just after dawn.
Thomas glanced quickly about. The witch was nowhere to be seen.
“She is not here,” Raby said. “She has gone to attend Gloucester’s wife.”
“I spoke harshly to her last night,” Thomas said. “I would that I may find the opportunity to take those words back.”
“You cannot throw stones,” Raby said. “Not you.”
For one horrible moment Thomas thought Raby referred to the fact he had lain with Odile in the woods outside Nuremberg, then realized his uncle referred to Alice
… and to the incident which Thomas had entered the Church to try to atone for.
Thomas looked away, not wanting his uncle to see how he had shamed him. Dear God, everything and everyone about him these past months seemed to remind him of Alice, and reproach him for his own actions in the manner of her death. He had entered the Church to atone for Alice: would no one now let him forget it?
Raby stared at him, then indicated the table. Some well-watered wine sat in a rock-crystal ewer, and a platter held some bread and fruit. “Sit down and eat.”
Thomas sat down and fiddled with a loaf of bread, breaking off a piece to then break the piece into a score of crumbly fragments.
“What can I do to make amends?” he said finally, raising his eyes to Raby, who bit into an apple as he stared at his nephew.
“Not only with the Lady Rivers,” Thomas hastened on, “but with you, and the Black Prince. I have darkened the Neville name with my actions, and deeply angered the prince.”
Raby raised his eyebrows. It was not quite “Thomas” to be the penitent. He chewed his mouthful of fruit, and did not answer.
“I am under your command, and that of the Black Prince,” Thomas said, “until you can hand me into the command of the Prior General.”
“Enough, Tom,” Raby said, swallowing his mouthful with a gulp. “I cannot bear the contrition!”
He sighed and put down the half-eaten apple. “You have been recently in Paris, and talked with Philip. And the Dauphin?”
“Aye, although I met—and only briefly—with the Dauphin some days to the east of Paris.”
“Ah, well, whatever you can tell us will doubtless be more than we know. Tom, we are all but blind here. Should we deal with Philip—and who trusts him?—or with Charles? Should we risk war-weary men and the winter snows and make a push into Paris to force Charles’ hand? Or should we wait out the winter here… and risk Charles raising a force to confront us with in the spring? God knows that the lands of France have far greater resources than England. On the other hand, some think we should simply repair back to England with King John in tow and continue the negotiations from there …”
Thomas nodded, smiling to himself as Raby’s voice trailed off. It was obvious which choice Raby did not want the Black Prince to take.
Raby leaned over the table. “We need all the intelligence we can gather, and you can go some way to restoring a measure of goodwill toward yourself by adding to our store of knowledge.”
“Yet you knew I was on my way, and that I bore a message from Philip. You knew I had left the Saint Angelo friary in Rome, and that I have, um, experienced visions. I know that the prior of Saint Angelo’s must have sent word to Thorseby, and that the Prior General then asked the Black Prince in a letter to take me into custody. But how did you know I was on my way from Philip?”
“Because half of France knew,” Raby growled, then leaned back in his chair.
“Because Bolingbroke has his spies, and one of them passed on information that you had spoken with Philip and were heading toward us. It took no great leap of imagination to realize that Philip would take the opportunity to confuse us with some offer of alliance.”
Raby stood up. “Ah! None of us can decide what to do sitting about tables eating apples. Come. I cannot stand all this idleness. Let me show you my new war horse—as fine a destrier as ever I saw—and as I do, I can tell you of our magnificent victory over John.”
Raby’s face brightened. “Whatever else, we still have the French king! If we get hungry enough… why, perhaps we can eat him!”
Thomas laughed, and stood up. “I am not to be kept under close guard? I do not need the sword at my neck?”
Raby paused, considering Thomas. “Do you give me your word you will not escape?” “You have it,”
“Then you have your freedom of the fortress. Come on, nephew, I want to see if your eye for horseflesh is as good as once it was.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Feast of All Saints
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(Monday 1st November 1378)
— ALL HALLOWS DAY —
— II —
RABY LED THOMAS down toward the stables, but deviated on the way to show his nephew the retinue he had personally contributed to the Black Prince’s campaign.
Raby had brought twenty-five knights (each with at least three horses, and a retinue of the knights’ own valets, pages and squires), forty-six men-at-arms (who had two
horses and one valet each), sixty mounted longbowmen (with only one horse each, and they fought on foot rather than on their horse, and with fifteen valets shared among them), and almost eighty foot soldiers to the Black Prince’s side, and he was well pleased with his contribution. Raby was particularly proud of his longbowmen.
They were veterans of Edward III’s wars with the ever-troublesome Scots, and they were good, very good. Raby liked to boast that each of them had brought down at least two score of French mounted men during Poitiers.
Most of these men were lolling about in their quarters, some cleaning or restringing their bows, some cleaning their swords and oiling them against the encroaching dampness of winter (the archers being equipped with swords and daggers as well as bows). Several were having their hair cut (it was a requirement that all longbowmen keep their hair razored close to their head, so that it could not get caught in the strings of their bows), a dozen were fletching new arrows, and others tidied the rooms—the English were not so much concerned with neatness as with the inevitable sickness that struck down any fortress that was not kept spotlessly clean. The bows of the archers were hung neatly in rows of racks, arrows stowed in chests (each archer had at least sixty arrows in his personal sheaf), and what few personal possessions each man had were rolled into neat bundles by their sleeping pallets.
When Raby finally led Thomas into the horse stables, Thomas saw that the equine accommodations were as clean as those of the men. The stables had been divided into quarters that housed different breeds—the equine hierarchy was almost as rigid as the human social hierarchy. The knights’ destriers, powerful and strongly built creatures, were kept slightly apart from the lesser horses of the men-at-arms and archers. The destriers were also kept slightly apart from each other, for all were highly-strung stallions, bred as fighting machines as well as a means of locomotion, and most spent the greater part of their time looking for something, or someone, to strike at with hooves or teeth. Grooms scrambled about the horses, grooming, muck-raking, feeding and keeping a respectable distance from the teeth and rear hooves of the destriers.
An army encampment, thought Thomas, was as busy and self-important as any bustling market town.
He sniffed the air: there was the sweet smell of newly baked bread wafting over and above the sweet warm odor of the stables, and he swore he could scent the heavily spiced tang of roasting meat.
Raby saw him, and smiled. “It is a feast day, Tom. There will be a banquet this night. Grovel hard enough at the Black Prince’s feet and you may well get yourself invited.”
“A banquet is well enough for the lords, uncle, but surely this smell must drive the soldiers mad with hunger.”
“Chauvigny was well stocked by the French, Tom. After the battle at Poitiers the garrison here fled without destroying a single crust. Everyone shall feast well tonight… and for months to come, should Edward decide to stay. Besides, Lancaster has negotiated a deal with the mayors of the neighboring towns. They supply us what we need… and we forbear attacking them.”