Bolingbroke nodded, and would have spoken, but just then a man’s voice hailed out of the night, and there was a low rumble of hooves.
The fifty men-at-arms who had apparently vanished now joined the small group about the Black Prince. They were headed by Wat Tyler who appeared wan and exhausted.
“My lord!” Tyler said. “We thought we’d lost you forever!”
“It is not me,” the Black Prince said quietly, his eyes not leaving Thomas’ face,
“who is apparently lost forever.”
Then he swung his gaze to Tyler. “What happened?”
Tyler shrugged. “A devilish mist crept in about us, and we took a wrong turning—both sight and sound were warped by the fog. I swear before God we might have ended up in Paris itself if I hadn’t realized our error! It took us time to rejoin you. My lord, is anything amiss?”
“The whole world is amiss,” the Black Prince said, and rode off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Vigil of the Feast of St. Catherine
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(Wednesday 24th November 1378)
— II —
THE RIDE BACK TO THE CAMP at Chauvigny was hard. It was accomplished at a canter with stops only every few hours to give the horses rest. By the time it was done, dawn had lightened over the Vigil of the Feast of St. Catherine, and all the riders and horses were stumbling with weariness. Nevertheless, the Black Prince, who had been struggling with his health the past few weeks, appeared the freshest of all as they finally dismounted.
The Black Prince began shouting the instant he was off his horse. “Ask Lancaster and Raby to attend me in my chamber immediately! Tyler—take the three-men-at arms who hadn’t got lost with you and secure them somewhere where they cannot speak to any other men. Hal, Thomas, with me. Now!”
LANCASTER AND Raby were waiting for the Black Prince in his chamber.
“What news?” Lancaster said, striding forward to greet his brother. “You are back much earlier than we expected. Why? Did you manage to deal with Philip? Or are we sworn enemies?”
“Philip has allied himself with Charles, and we shall have to fight without him.
Worse, Philip has a force of some eight thousand at Chatellerault and threatened to arrive and bring in the New Year with them at his back.”
Lancaster, appalled, began to speak, but Edward hushed him.
“No, all that can wait, believe it or not. There is something else we need to discuss first… there is something that Thomas needs to explain, before we even think about Philip. We have greater forces to worry about than his, I am sure.”
Lancaster and Raby glanced at Thomas, Bolingbroke close by his side, then back to the Black Prince.
“Edward?” Lancaster said.
The Black Prince did not answer. Instead he swung about to face Thomas, drew a knife, and thrust it at Thomas’ neck until the point nicked his skin.
“Talk!'” the Black Prince hissed.
“My lord!” Raby said, half moving forward before he thought better of it.
“Why—”
“Thomas has been consorting with the Devil, it seems,” the Black Prince said, his face tight and fearful beneath his basinet, “and I am not going to remove this knife until he tells me the why of what we witnessed on the journey back here!”
“Edward” Lancaster said. “You are near exhausted. At least have your valet remove your armor before you—”
“1 will hear what Thomas has to say now!” the Black Prince all but screamed, and, apart from Thomas, the other three men present froze.
“My gracious lord,” Thomas said, his eyes steady on the Black Prince’s face, “I work only for your salvation, as for that of every God-fearing man and woman in
Christendom. What met us on the journey back here are our true enemies, not Philip or Charles. I am no danger to you, my lord, but, I beseech you, hark what my Lord of Lancaster says—you are near collapse with weariness, and it will only serve our enemies further if you take not the trouble now to remove your armor and fortify yourself with some food and wine. My lord, Bolingbroke can briefly describe to my Lords of Lancaster and Raby what transpired with Philip, and what we encountered in the meadow lands while your valet rids you of your armor. Please, my lord, I beg you. See, I will stand here where you can see me.”
The Black Prince stared at him, hissed, then withdrew his knife and shouted for his valet. “And if you move, so help me God, Thomas, I will set the entire army to your slaughter!”
As the valet entered, moving swiftly to divest the Black Prince of his armor, Bolingbroke joined Lancaster and Raby and, motioning them to a corner where the valet would not overhear him, he began to speak quickly, his hands gesturing, his face so earnest the other two men could not doubt what he said. Within a moment or two they were both staring at Thomas, their faces a mix of bewilderment and fear.
As the valet laid aside the last of the metal plate, the Black Prince shrugged into a fur-lined robe and accepted a glass of warmed wine. Then he motioned the valet out, asking him to tell the guards that they were not to be disturbed and, if the friar was seen to leave the chamber unaccompanied, then he was to be killed.
Finally, the Black Prince sank into a chair, and looked at Thomas, still standing in the same spot. “Speak.”
In truth, Thomas was relieved that he could now tell someone else of the events of the past few months, although there were some details on which he decided he should remain silent.
He spoke evenly and in a quiet voice, directing both voice and eyes to the Black Prince. He told of his vision when he first arrived at Rome, and of the subsequent times when the archangel had appeared to him.
None disbelieved him. Thomas spoke with the authority of one touched by the messenger of God, and all had been raised since birth to believe in the power and word of God as expressed in miracles, prophecies and supernatural appearances of God’s servants.
“That there is evil abroad, my lord, you cannot doubt,” Thomas said. “Nothing has been the same since the time of the great pestilence. Men who were once content with their lot now agitate for a greater standing in life, commoners are infected with the noxious idea of personal freedom, and merchants control more wealth and power than good noble men. Every day more men abandon the spiritual in search of greater material comfort and wealth, even, I am sad to say, from within the Church itself.”
Lancaster nodded from where he sat. He was a devout man, and the state of the Holy Church had distressed him for many years. “The holy office is in sad disarray,”
he muttered, “with many bishops and archbishops so wealthy that, if only they gave up their gold and jewels, we could feed the poor for many a year. And, to compound the Church’s woes, we have two popes, each trailing expensive and corrupt retinues, and I hear that the general council of the Church wants to meet and
elect a third pope to replace the other two!”
“Yes,” Thomas said. “And I have been touched by God in order to try and set right the wrongs which now infest Christendom. I learned of a friar, Wynkyn de Worde …”
Thomas related what he knew of de Worde, and then of how he left St. Angelo’s without permission in order to travel north to Nuremberg—he told them of the encounter he’d had with one of the demons in the Brenner Pass—and from there into the forests of northern Germany.
Here Thomas faltered, and asked for wine.
Bolingbroke handed him a goblet wordlessly.
Thomas took several sips, then spoke of the Cleft.
He did not speak to them of Odile, or of the demon who had told him that Thomas’ own soul would be the battlefield.
He told them only that he was to find Wynkyn de Worde’s casket—it was secreted, hopefully, in Bramham Moor friary—and that the casket would contain all he needed to know in order to combat the devilish influence of the demons.
“And this saintly damsel that Philip mentioned?” Bolingbroke said. “What of her?”
Thomas shrugged. “When I traveled through the village of Domremy in Lorraine, I encountered a peasant man, Jacques d’Arc, who had a daughter, Jeannette. She …
she also has been blessed by Saint Michael. She said that she was to go to the aid of the French dauphin and rally his spirits. She said,” Thomas gave a wry grin, “that evil stalked the land in the guise of an English soldier, and that evil must be destroyed.”
The Black Prince, as Lancaster, snorted with laughter.