1356. Bernard Cornwell

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      The horsemen and their servants stopped beside the river at the city’s centre and there they divided into small groups, each going to find their own lodgings, but one group of half a dozen men, attended by servants better dressed than the others, crossed the bridge to an island in the Seine. They twisted down narrow alleys until they came to a gilded gatehouse where liveried spearmen stood guard. Inside was a courtyard, stables, a chapel and stairways leading into the royal palace, and the half-dozen horsemen were greeted with bows, their horses were taken away and they were led up stairs and down corridors to their quarters.

      William, Lord of Douglas and leader of the two hundred men-at-arms, was given a chamber facing the river. Sheets of horn covered the windows, but he knocked them out to let the damp air into the room, where a great fire burned in a hearth carved with the French royal coat of arms. The Lord of Douglas stood by the fire as servants brought in bedding, wine, food and three women. ‘You may take your choice, my lord,’ the steward said.

      ‘I’ll take all three,’ Douglas said.

      ‘A wise choice, my lord,’ the steward replied, bowing, ‘and is there anything else your lordship desires?’

      ‘Is my nephew here?’

      ‘He is, my lord.’

      ‘Then I want him.’

      ‘He shall be sent,’ the steward said, ‘and His Majesty will receive you for supper.’

      ‘Tell him I am filled with happiness at the prospect,’ Douglas said flatly. William, Lord of Douglas, was twenty-eight years old and looked forty. He had a clipped brown beard, a face scarred from a dozen skirmishes, and eyes as cold as the winter sky. He spoke perfect French because he had spent much of his boyhood in France, learning the ways of French knights and perfecting his skills with sword and lance, but for ten years now he had been home in Scotland where he had become the leader of the Douglas clan and a magnate in the Scottish council. He had opposed the truce with England, but the rest of the council had insisted, and so the Lord of Douglas had brought his fiercest warriors to France. If they could not fight the English at home then he would unleash them on the old enemy in France.

      ‘Take off your clothes,’ he told the three girls. For a heartbeat they looked astonished, but the expression on Douglas’s grim face persuaded them to obey. A good-looking man, all three thought, tall and well muscled, but he had a warrior’s face, hard as a blade and with no pity. It promised to be a long night. The three were naked by the time Douglas’s nephew arrived. He was not much younger than his uncle, had a broad, cheerful face, and was wearing a velvet jerkin trimmed with gold embroidery above sky-blue skin-tight leggings that were tucked into soft leather boots tasselled with gold thread. ‘What the hell are you wearing?’ Douglas asked.

      The young man plucked the embroidered hem of the jerkin. ‘It’s what everyone wears in Paris.’

      ‘Good Christ, Robbie, you look like an Edinburgh whore. What do you think of those three?’

      Sir Robert Douglas turned and inspected the three girls. ‘I like the one in the middle,’ he said.

      ‘Jesus Christ, she’s so skinny you could use her as a needle. I like girls with meat on the bone. So what has the king decided?’

      ‘To wait on events.’

      ‘Jesus Christ,’ Douglas said again, and went to the window where he stared at the river, which was being dappled by rain. The stench of sewage seeped from the slow swirling water. ‘Does he know what’s looming?’

      ‘I have told him,’ Robbie said. He had been sent to Paris to negotiate terms with King Jean, and he had arranged for his uncle’s men to be paid and armoured by the French king, and now the men had come and the Lord of Douglas was eager for them to be unleashed. There were English forces in Flanders, in Brittany and in Gascony, and the Prince of Wales was raping southern France, and Douglas wanted a chance to kill some of the bastards. He hated the English.

      ‘He knows the boy Edward will likely strike north next year?’ Douglas asked. The boy Edward was the Prince of Wales.

      ‘I have told him.’

      ‘And he’s havering?’

      ‘He’s havering,’ Robbie confirmed. ‘He likes feasts and music and entertainment. He’s not fond of soldiering.’

      ‘Then we’ll have to put some backbone into the bloody man, won’t we?’

      Scotland had known little but disaster in the last few years. The pestilence had come and emptied the valleys of souls, but almost ten years before, at Durham, a Scottish army had been defeated and the King of Scotland had been taken prisoner by the hated English. King David was now a prisoner in London’s Tower, and the Scots, to get him back, were expected to pay a ransom so vast that it would impoverish the kingdom for years.

      But the Lord of Douglas reckoned the king could be restored in a different way, a soldier’s way, and that was the main reason he had brought his men to France. In the spring the Prince of Wales would probably lead another army out of Gascony, and that army would do what English armies always did, rape and burn and pillage and destroy, and the purpose of that chevauchée was to force the French to bring an army against them, and then the dreaded English archers would go to work and France would suffer another defeat. Its great men would be taken prisoner and England would get even wealthier on their ransoms.

      But the Lord of Douglas knew how to defeat archers, and that was the gift he brought to France, and if he could persuade the French king to oppose the boy Edward then he saw the chance of a great victory, and in that victory he planned to capture the prince. He would hold the prince to ransom, a ransom equal to that of the King of Scotland. It could be done, he thought, if only the King of France would fight.

      ‘And you, Robbie? You’ll fight?’

      Robbie coloured. ‘I took an oath.’

      ‘Damn your bloody oath!’

      ‘I took an oath,’ Robbie persisted. He had been a prisoner of the English, but he had been released and his ransom paid on a promise not to fight the English ever again. The promise had been extracted and the ransom had been paid by his friend, Thomas of Hookton, and for eight years Robbie had kept the promise, but now his uncle was pushing him to break the oath.

      ‘What money do you have, boy?’

      ‘Your money, uncle.’

      ‘And do you have any left?’ Douglas waited, saw his nephew’s sheepishness. ‘So you’ve gambled it away?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘In debt?’

      Robbie nodded.

      ‘If you want more, boy, you fight. You strip off that whore’s jacket and put on mail. For Christ’s sake, Robbie, you’re a good fighter! I want you! Have you no pride?’

      ‘I took an oath,’ Robbie repeated stubbornly.

      ‘Then you can untake the bloody thing. Or become a pauper. See if I care. Now take that skinny bitch and prove you’re a man, and I’ll see you at supper.’

      When the Lord СКАЧАТЬ