The Brothers of Gwynedd (77 page)

  "I know why," said the earl, without hatred or blame.

  "And the second scroll, my lord, is the king's own reply. The gravest he could make."

  "I know it," said Earl Simon, and with a strong movement broke the seal. "I have spent six years staving it off, to no purpose, it is almost welcome to me now. It is the formal act of
diffidatio.
He has renounced our homage and fealty, and withdrawn his overlordship from us. He is no longer our king, and we are no longer his men. But it is his act that severs the tie, not ours."

  He stood before us all, and read it aloud, the denunciation of the solemn obligations of kings towards their vassals, his own excommunication from the body of the realm, along with all the barons who held with him. Even the youngest of those lords, unawed by the spleen of an ageing king for whom they felt mild liking and much impatience and exasperation, grew solemn of face under the banishing stroke of kingship itself.

  The earl stretched out his hand to the bishop, and smiled. "Come within, and take your rest. I have worn you out, body and mind, to no purpose here, but God records the gallantry and the good faith elsewhere. Though I must send to King Henry again tomorrow, and return his courtesy if he will not withdraw it, that I will not do by your hand. I have cost you enough."

  And those two went in together, the lame lord and the gentle and steely bishop, quietly about their remaining business here. And so did we all, knowing now the best and the worst, and those who had not witnessed the return of the envoys, having duties elsewhere, got the word from us who had, and in turn set about making all ready for the morrow. There was little said that evening, but not out of any clouded spirits. Rather every man settled to his own particular task with a single mind, like practical citizens bent on getting the best possible out of tomorrow's market. Armourers went over harness already furbished to its peak, fletchers viewed the reserves of arrows and did their final re-flighting and balancing, lancers sharpened their blades, archers trimmed new shafts and waxed their strings, swordsmen whetted their edges, squires and grooms and boys walked all the horses, and I went to borrow mail and buckler to my size and weight, and to find myself a place, if I could, in Earl Simon's own battle. Not that my prowess or privilege were such as to earn for me an office close to the highest, but only that I desired it, and felt it no sin to bid for it. And Robert de Crevecoeur, a Kentish lord whom King Henry had tried to woo to his side only a few days previously, for the sake of his formidable archers of the weald, accepted me cheerfully into the ranks of his mounted men, and made no question at welcoming a Welshman. He was very young and blithe, and dearly set upon knighthood at the hands of Earl Simon above all men, and on the morrow he got his wish.

  So this night went, and we slept without dreams, and waked without fears, however the meaning of the dawn rushed in upon us. For the potent enchantment that held us all enlarged somewhat beyond the bounds of our own flesh and spirit did not break, but carried us still, as long as we had need of it.

  When the day was come, Earl Simon also committed to parchment his solemn renunciation of his homage and fealty to his king, in response to the repudiation pronounced against him, and did so in the name of all those King Henry had denounced. But this final severance he gave into the care of the bishops of Worcester and London, to deliver or withhold according to the reception they received from the king. For he would not move without attempting all that could be attempted with honour to avoid out-and-out war, though he knew, barring a miracle from God that he should meet with no response but contumely. And so we all knew. But his dignity, for all his occasional passions flaring like tinder, was not vulnerable by the scorns of littler men. I speak of the soul and the heart, for of the body there were then few men living, as I suppose, so large as the Lord Edward, who most reviled and detested what he had sometime inadequately loved.

  So those two bishops rode down the valley to their own ordeal.

  They came back in the late afternoon, empty-handed, the renunciation of fealty delivered. For King Henry, buoyed up by the greater numbers he commanded, and the brimstone hatred of those nearest to him, who were sure of victory, would not retract anything he had said or done, but denounced Earl Simon as his felon and traitor, and refused all contact with him. So his great vassal formally withdrew the fealty that was no longer valued or desired, and took back his freedom.

  "Get your rest now," said the earl, "for we muster at nightfall." And he issued his orders quietly, and went to his own brief rest. And so did all those young men of his, the buds of the nobility, many of them in arms against fathers and kin, some against elder brothers, all with alliances upon both sides. They did his bidding and copied his example with clear, white faces grave as angels and bright as stars, and after his pattern they composed their lives to passion and prayer, whether to live or die being a lesser thing. And if they knew many more such days in their lives, however long, that I question, and if they did, they were visited by God above other men.

  Before the afterglow had faded, the horn summoned us, and to that solemn sound we stood to, and went every man to his place in the ordered companies. Almost in silence we assembled, only those words were spoken that were needful. Earls, barons and knights came forth to join their men half-armed, to be ready for any event and yet go lightly through the night, and they wore on their surcoats the white cross of the crusader. Behind the ranks of fighting men, drawn close in the woods, the sumpter horses gathered with mail, arms and supplies. In the faint remnant of the light the boles of the trees stood ranked like the pillars of a great church, and we were still as pilgrims at their journey's end.

  The bishops came forth with Earl Simon. Bishop Walter of Worcester said mass for us all, and gave us solemn absolution, for we had come to this place and this hour with eyes open, and were as men voluntarily dead before our deaths in the quest for the thing we believed in and desired. Then we marched.

  There was never such a night's march as that. Some ten miles we had to go, at the speed of the foot soldiers, and before dawn we had to be in possession of the ground Earl Simon had chosen. Therefore the pace was fast and steady, to have time in hand for ordering our ranks at leisure when we reached our stay. And silently we went, except that some of the footmen raised a soft murmur of singing that helped to set the stride. I never made proper reckoning of the numbers we had in all, but estimate that there may have been nearly two hundred knights, as many again of other mounted soldiers, and about four thousand foot soldiers, archers, lancers and swordsmen, including a great number of the trained bands of London. We knew from our outriders that the king had greater strength, notably in knight service. I think it may be said that our scouting was better done than theirs, if, indeed, they did any at all, for in the event our advance passed quite unmarked. They had not expected us to move before day.

  But what I chiefly remember is the beauty of that May night, cool and fresh and still, with a few drifting clouds that made shadows in the open spaces even under starlight, after the moon was down, and the green, spring scent of burgeoning bushes and the first may-blossom. And after we came into the track along the river-valley, close to the water-meadows that were brimming from the April rains, the overwhelming fragrance of meadow-sweet.

  Earl Simon rode that night, the first time he had tried his ill-knitted bone so hard, and I think not without pain, but to use the chariot here was impossible. For some time the old track along the river ran straight, and the going was smooth, but well before we drew near Lewes we turned aside to the right, into the woods, and climbed up the flank of the downs in a long traverse, in cover all the way. We had the best of guides, for Robert de Crevecoeur and his men of the Weald knew this countryside as they knew their own palms. The only danger was that King Henry or some shrewder soul in his company might belatedly have stationed a brigade on the high ground towards which we made our way. But we heard no rumour of men or movement but our own, and came before full light to the chosen place.

  We emerged upon the great, bare shoulder of the downs, and wheeling to our left, saw below us in the pearl-grey dawn the town of Lewes, a mile or more distant and deep below us, in the bowl where the river valley opened out into broad fields and soft, marshy hollows. We had made a half-circle about it in cover, and by the position of the sun, not yet risen but turning the sky above it into an aureole of thin, greenish gold, we stood now almost due west of it. For when we looked over the pool of delicate mist that hid all detail in the town, we looked full into the promise of the morning, and that we took in our hearts for an omen.

  "In good time!" said Earl Simon, and without pause turned to draw up his array, before the sun rose. He was singularly alone in his leadership, however gallant and devoted those young men who followed him, for without exception they lacked all experience of deploying an army for battle, or making use of the ground afforded. And he was forced to go, with fierce patience, from one end of his station to the other, and place his companies himself, with clear orders. His host he had divided into four sections, brigading a company of foot soldiers and archers with each body of horse. Three of his sections were drawn up as centre and wings, the fourth he held in reserve, to follow at a little distance when we moved down.

  When all was ordered and ready, Earl Simon called together those who were not yet knight among his young captains, and himself conferred that high order upon them, and girt them with the sword, as was customary before battle, and in particular before so sacred and responsible a battle as this. The list of their names was long and proud: two earls among them, Gilbert of Clare and Robert de Vere of Oxford, de Burgh, Fitzjohn, Hastings, Crevecoeur, de Lucy, de Munchensey, and many another, all received the accolade at the hand of a man greater than kings.

  I was among Crevecoeur's mounted men in the centre battle then, watching the film of mist dissolve from over Lewes town, as though a hand had removed a veil of gauze dropped into the hollow of a green cushion. The towers of Earl Warenne's castle rose on a hillock in the centre of the town, the grey shapes of the priory more to the south, a house of Cluny, and very rich. Though all was still in shadow, being low in that sheltered bowl, the air was clear between, we could see the pattern of a street, and the tower of the church, and the roofs of the houses were honed sharp as daggers. In the hills beyond, the sun showed its rim, and the faint gold flushed into rose. Then the first long ray reached out across the bowl like a burning lance, touched us where we stood, and blazed upon the burnished helm of Earl Simon as he rode back to his own battle.

  Out of their dimness below some watchman saw that light, and doubtless cried out and ran to sound the alarm in haste. We heard the first trumpet, shrill and small, then another and another taking up the peal, and all that quiet scene below began to boil and heave, jetting out running men from every part like spurting blood. The barking of dogs we heard, and the rolling of a drum in some high place, perhaps the church tower. Out of the castle men came pouring, and out of the priory, and everywhere about the town there was this festering excitement, as King Henry's host clambered into its harness and tumbled out into the dawn to form its array in furious haste. Whether we on our hilltop, glittering in sunlight while they scurried in shadow, appeared to them as the host of hell or heaven, certain it is the sight of us fell on them like a lightning-stroke.

  Yet they had some little time to muster and form, for we were a mile and more distant from them, and must keep our foot pace most of the way, and they lay close and easy about the town, with ample room for movement once the alarm was given. They were more than we, and they had not marched ten miles in the night, but we were awake and aroused, and had the upper ground, through their folly in leaving it unoccupied. We counted the day well begun as Earl Simon gave the signal to march forward, and our three battles began to move steadily down the slope.

  We went upon a broad, open spur of ground that kept an even descent aimed at the heart of the town below, but lower down, this ridge narrowed somewhat, and was split into two by the hollow of a little brook, and to keep even ground under them our left wing continued downhill upon the eastern spur, divided from us by the hollow. And as we went it was strange how clearly we saw, and how calmly, those great powers massing against us. The rays of the sun still did not penetrate into the bowl far enough to prick out for us the bright devices of the king's men, yet their colours came to birth gradually in glowing shadow, and many we knew by their coat-armour. And as they watched us descend, so did we watch them as they gathered and took shape in their three battles, and with solemn, ponderous majesty moved forward out of the town to intercept us.

  Their right wing was perfect the first, and first to move, forming up under the castle, where they had been lodged. Even before the sun came up fully, and awoke the colours of the banners, I knew by the fashion of the leader who marshalled them what name belonged to him, for I doubt if there was another such giant among the nobility of England. On a raw-boned horse, leaner built and faster than most destriers but huge like his rider, the Lord Edward wheeled his battle into position against our left, on their severed spur. And having excellent eye-sight and a long memory, doubtless he recognised the levies of the city of London, which had sided against his father, several times foiled his own plans, and hunted his mother out of her barge into cowering sanctuary in St. Paul's. For grievances, humiliations, grudges, his memory was even longer than for services rendered, as long as life itself.