The Crippled Angel Page 25

  The earth lurched under Bolingbroke’s feet, and he grabbed at Giles for support. There came a low rumble, more felt than heard, and then, for just a moment, there was both silence and stillness.

  “Giles?” Bolingbroke said finally. “What—”

  He stopped, mouth agape. The entire western section of Harfleur’s walls suddenly sagged. Then, slowly, slowly, slowly, seven of the towers along the length of that section began to topple backwards, into the town itself. Most of the wall itself toppled into the moat, completely filling it.

  “Now!” Bolingbroke shouted. “Now!”

  Giles turned about and began to wave his hands frantically. Moments later the bellies and mouths of London, England’s Messenger and the Beloved Mary boomed and belched, sending incendiary shells hurtling towards the town. Another pause, another few heartbeats, then the shells hit, all on the now-tumbled-down southwest gate.

  Bolingbroke stared, taking one tense step forward, waiting for the smoke to clear.

  Then he breathed out in relief: the incendiary shells had set both gate and the wooden barbicans about it on fire. The entire western section, walls, towers, moat barbicans and gate, were now destroyed.

  Harfleur’s defences were broached.

  Within the hour Bolingbroke sent a message with Lord Hungerford to the mayor and aldermen of Harfleur. It was a simple message, and honest, for Bolingbroke was well aware that if he won this country, he would also need to win its citizens’ love. Fear not, for I am not come to waste either your land or your lives. Surrender now, peacefully, and all will be well.

  By that evening, Hungerford returned with the news Bolingbroke wanted. An hour behind Hungerford would follow the mayor and twelve aldermen of Harfleur, delivering to the English king the first conquest of his French campaign.

  VII

  Monday 12th August 1381

  —i—

  Philip folded the letter, then tapped it reflectively against his teeth once or twice as he regarded the Earl of Suffolk and his five-man escort.

  Then he glanced at Charles, sitting nervous and fidgety in the chair at his side. Charles looked at him, perhaps hoping for a glance at the letter, but Philip had absolutely no intention of allowing the man to see it at all. No, this was between himself and Bolingbroke only.

  “You may rest here this night,” Philip finally said to Suffolk, “and enjoy his grace’s hospitality.”

  At that Charles’ eyes widened, as if he thought Philip meant that he should himself keep the English delegation amused through the night.

  Philip sighed. “And in the morning you shall have safe escort back to the English lines.”

  “And the answer, your grace?” Suffolk said with a slight bow of acknowledgment of Philip’s assurance of safety.

  “You may tell Bolingbroke that I am not one to forget my obligations,” Philip said. “He will know to what I refer.”

  Again Suffolk bowed and, taking his leave, turned to withdraw himself and his delegation from the presence of the two kings.

  “Wait,” Philip called, rising from his chair. He walked over to Suffolk. “Also tell your King Bolingbroke,” he said to the earl in a low voice, “that his gift shall not come without a price. Twenty thousand gold pieces, I think.”

  “Your grace, I do not think that—”

  “Bolingbroke asks for too much for free,” Philip hissed, “including my goodwill. Tell him that his gift comes for a price, and that price is twenty thousand gold pieces.”

  Suffolk’s face froze. He glanced behind Philip to Charles, slouched in his chair and chewing on a fingernail as he watched what was going on in the centre of the hall. “Perhaps his grace the King Charles ought to be—”

  “This is a contract between me and Bolingbroke, you rateyed wart. Just do as you are told.”

  For a long moment Suffolk held Philip’s furious stare, then he capitulated. He took a long step backwards, bowed yet once more, then turned and exited the hall, his delegation at his back.

  “Philip?” Charles called. “What was all that about? Let me see Bolingbroke’s letter.”

  “Do you want to lead France’s army yourself?” Philip said, pivoting on a heel to face Charles. “Would you like to be the one facing England’s cannon on the dawn that is surely coming?”

  Charles flushed, as much at Philip’s anger as at the idea that he should personally lead France’s army. “No, no, of course not, Philip. But I was just curious. What can Bolingbroke have wanted?”

  You simpleton, Philip thought, but he moderated his voice as he replied. “He wants victory, as always,” he said. “This,” he waved the letter about, “was merely an opening ploy in the great game which is about to commence.”

  “But you have agreed to do what he asked?”

  “I do not dance to his tune. I only intend to manipulate Bolingbroke’s ambition to France’s advantage. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a war to win…as you are so patently loath to do yourself.”

  Then Philip turned smartly on his heel and left the hall.

  He walked into the palace gardens, wincing a little at the smell of the raw sewage and rotting animal corpses that clogged the Seine. Sweet Lord. The stench of this city! Then he put the odour from his mind as he once more read the contents of Bolingbroke’s letter.

  Philip,

  I come to conclude the bargain we made in Gravensteen one year past precisely. Hand to me Joan, the Maid of France, that I may dispose of her as I will. Then we will bow both our wills before Catherine, so that she may decide which of us she takes as husband…and thus which of us takes France to wife.

  Philip. You will by now have heard that Harfleur is fallen. No town, no city, no man can withstand me. You do not wish to take this to the battlefield. Hand me Joan, then we allow Catherine to make the choice.

  Send me your agreeance by Suffolk, and I shall expect the Maid within the week.

  Philip snorted in derision then slowly tore the letter into tiny pieces before dunking them into a fish pond where trout eagerly ate them. Allow Catherine to make the choice, indeed. Once he’d been sure of her—certainly he’d been sure of her when he’d made that stupid pact with Bolingbroke!—but now? No, not now. She refused to wed him, she refused to give him a child.

  All this she must be reserving for Bolingbroke.

  Philip no longer believed either her loving caresses or her protestations of love.

  So…what to do?

  Philip considered his options.

  Giving Joan to Bolingbroke could only work to Philip’s advantage. One, it would mean that Bolingbroke would believe that Philip was still going to adhere to the bargain they’d made in Gravensteen. Two, it would get Joan out of Philip’s way once and for all (Philip had no doubts that Bolingbroke meant to put her to death…he certainly couldn’t afford to keep her alive). Joan was too damned determined to ensure Charles’ place on France’s throne. She definitely needed to go…and giving her, anonymously as it were, to the English would be the best way to do it. The French would blame the English, and Philip could wail with the best of them. That led to the third and best reason to hand Joan over to Bolingbroke. The girl was France’s mascot, its saint, its star of fortune. The French people would go berserk with rage the instant the English got their horrid hands on their Maid. It would rouse them as nothing else would.

  Frankly, Philip no longer liked Bolingbroke’s chances once he faced an infuriated and obsessively vengeful French army and nation. Making sure that Joan found her way into the hands of the English could only ever work in his favour.

  In this instance, Philip fully intended keeping his part of the bargain between himself and Bolingbroke. Of course, to do it successfully, he’d need to involve Regnault de Chartres, for if Philip handed the girl in body to Bolingbroke, then de Chartres would need to hand him the ammunition to try her. There would be no need to share the twenty thousand gold pieces with the archbishop, for Philip did not expect Bolingbroke to pay it; if Philip had acquiesced to Bolingbroke
’s demand without demurring in some manner then Bolingbroke would have been instantly suspicious.

  But to keep the second part of the bargain? Allow Catherine to make the choice? No. That Philip could never allow to happen.

  Philip meant to hand Joan over to the English and then, while they were consumed with rigging a trial and then a death, he would swing his army north, preparing to attack the English from behind. Even now, he’d heard, Bolingbroke was leading his army into Rouen (which had capitulated without a struggle). The city was a third of the way along the Seine towards Paris, and it would give Philip ample room to swing north and then behind the English lines.

  Philip sat down on a bench, stretching his legs out in the hot sun, and grinned.

  He’d heard that Bolingbroke was having some troubles. In the days after his capture of Harfleur, almost half of his army had fallen ill with such desperate griping in the guts that many of them were unable to move. Ten thousand, Philip had heard from his spies, had either succumbed to the griping, or were so ill they’d been shipped back to England.

  Worse, at least for Bolingbroke, was that the disease showed no sign of abating. No one knew precisely what had caused it—many cited the unripened apples that the English had eaten in the cartload from orchards to the northwest of Harfleur—but it was decimating England’s finest.

  Philip closed his eyes and tilted his face back in order to enjoy the full caress of the sun, sending a quick prayer of gratefulness to God and his angels for their timely aid.

  Soon Bolingbroke would have twin evils to counter: the spreading sickness within his army, and the wrath of the French people for murdering their beloved Maid.

  VIII

  Monday 12th August 1381

  —ii—

  Joan paced back and forth, back and forth, her mouth dry with nerves and her stomach roiling with fear. She’d known there would be a betrayal, and had known from which direction it was likely to come, but now that it was nigh…well, premonition was never the most easy of companions.

  The news regarding Harfleur’s fall had come two days ago, and the arrival of Bolingbroke’s envoy this morning. Joan had no doubts whatsoever that the betrayal would come soon.

  She wondered vaguely what price Philip had demanded for her capture.

  Thirty pieces of silver, or had the price gone up since Christ’s time?

  Ah! Joan shook herself out of her thoughts. She drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes, and prayed for courage to the Lord Jesus Christ and the woman who comforted him.

  For a long moment she stood still, her eyes closed, her head thrown back, and then she smiled very slightly, her peace of mind restored.

  She opened her eyes, then walked to the door of her chamber.

  Charles was in a slumber so light it could hardly be called a sleep. Far from a haven, Paris now seemed a trap—the cursed Bolingbroke was within a few days’ march. Why on earth had he come here of all places? Why hadn’t he fled south? Sweet Lord Christ. Who was it persuaded him to Paris in the first instance?

  It must have been Philip, dark-browed, dark-hearted Philip. He couldn’t have possibly thought of this all by himself.

  Had he done the right thing in giving Philip control of the military? Could he be trusted?

  No.

  Could he wrest control away from Philip and give it to someone else?

  No. Philip would never stand for it. Even now the snake was likely sending assassination squads to his chamber.

  Charles whimpered, then jerked into full wakefulness. He pulled the sheet to his chin, his eyes jerking fearfully about the dark room.

  Was that chest there when he’d gone to bed?

  Yes, he supposed so.

  Was that table slightly out of place, as if someone had pushed against it while moving softly about in the dark?

  Yes, almost certainly so.

  Charles whimpered again, squirming further down beneath his covers.

  A draught of air slid softly, almost apologetically, over his face.

  For an instant Charles did not react. Everyone expected draughts in something as leaky and cold as the Louvre.

  Save that his chamber was closed tight against the night (and assassins) and there should be no draught.

  Charles drew in a terrified breath, breaking out into a sweat.

  “Who’s there?” he said. “Who? I command you, stand forth!”

  What was he saying? What was he saying? Perhaps he should pretend to go back to asleep, and then whoever was in the room might leave. Might…

  “It is only me, your grace,” said a soft voice, and Charles managed a sigh of relief.

  Which instantly turned into imperious anger. “What are you doing here, Joan? What, I say? My private chamber is no place for you.”

  “There was a time you would not have said so,” Joan said, emerging from the shadows clinging to the tightly shuttered windows. “There was a time when you would have drawn comfort from my presence.”

  “You dare not speak to me like that,” Charles said, emerging from under his covers to stare at the girl. She’d stopped a foot or so from his bed, and now had the extraordinarily bad manners to sink down onto her knees, leaning her elbows on the bed and clasping her hands in an attitude of prayer.

  “What are you doing? Go away.”

  “Charles,” she said, giving him the benefit of no title nor flatteries, “my time is almost nigh. Soon I will be betrayed—”

  “Go away!”

  “—and you will be left by yourself. Charles, you must not despair—”

  “Have you led assassins here?” he asked as her opening statements finally sank through into his consciousness. “Have you?”

  Joan finally rose. “They will come for me tonight, I expect, but—”

  Charles gave a wail of fear. “Get out of this chamber. Guard! Guard!”

  Joan’s right hand snaked out and delivered a hearty slap to Charles’ cheek. “Be quiet and listen to me.”

  Charles was shocked into silence. She had hit him. Her! The Maid! Was she an assassin? Lord Jesus Christ, save me now! Lord Jesus Christ, save me now!

  “Listen to me, Charles! By the morning you will be on your own. Paris is dangerous, too dangerous for you.”

  She finally had his complete attention.

  “Flee south, somewhere safe, somewhere surrounded by loyal French counts and vassals. Wait for word.”

  “Wait for word? What do you mean?”

  She smiled very sadly, even though she knew he could not see it. “Wait for word, Charles. You will know it when it comes for you.”

  Charles did not like the sound of that at all. “Joan,” he began, then wailed in terror as the door to his chamber burst open.

  Five men, all darkly cloaked and masked, leaped into the room.

  Steel glinted in the faint light.

  Charles gave another shriek, trying to clamber over to the other side of the bed, but hampered by the suddenly wet, urine-soaked sheets that clung about his lap and upper legs.

  “Be still,” Joan whispered. “They have not come for you.”

  She faced her abductors calmly. “With whose authority do you come for me?” she asked as the first of the men reached her.

  “With this authority, lady,” said the first of the men, and he clubbed her over her head with the hilt of his sword.

  Joan slumped to the floor, clinging to the last vestiges of a consciousness riven by Charles’ shrieks: Take her! Take her! Leave me alone!

  You poor fool, she thought, sliding deeper into unconsciousness. One day you will look back to this moment and think it the most cowardly of your life.

  And with that thought she blacked out completely.

  IX

  Thursday 15th August 1381

  —i—

  Nicholas Culpeper wiped his forehead with his forearm; its sleeve was stained a light brown with two days’ worth of his sweat. He slowly sat on the bed of the soldier, cursing his stiff back, and hoping that it was stiff on
ly because of his two days of work without rest, and not as a harbinger of disease.

  This bloody flux which now consumed the English army was almost as bad as the pestilence which had gripped London.

  It was not killing so fast, nor so horribly, but kill it did, and increasing numbers of men died each day. They’d moved from Harfleur, where the flux had first struck, to Rouen two days ago, the passage of the English army marked by a trail of blood-stained shit.

  Thank sweet Jesu that the French had not the forethought—or the ability—to attack while they were on the march. Christ, the archers were too doubled over to be able to draw their bows, and few knights dared put on a single piece of armour, let alone mount a horse, for fear they’d have to squat in the roadside dust the instant they did so.

  “Fetch me a bowl and water, and a cup of the opium and primrose infusion,” Culpeper said to the nearest of his assistants, Will Cooper. As Cooper went to do his master’s bidding, Culpeper sighed, sponging the face of the man on the bed. He wished he had a better stock of herbs, and more variety, than those he’d brought with him. Apart from his duties to the queen (who, praise Jesu, had not been struck with the flux…yet), Culpeper had expected his duties, as those of every other physician travelling with the English army, to encompass battlefield wounds…not the squirting misery that now confronted him.

  Cooper returned with a cup of the infusion, and Culpeper gently raised the man’s head and dribbled the liquid between his lips. The opium would relieve the agony in the man’s gut, while both it and the primrose would go some way towards calming the almost continual spasms that gripped his bowel.

  The man gulped, his face sheened with grey sweat, then collapsed back onto his pillow.

  He moaned and rolled over, curving himself about his belly, his eyes staring, his hands clawing at the mattress.