Wife to Henry V: A Novel (27 page)

Isabeau wrote from Paris. There had been bonfires and processions and a great service at Nôtre Dame; even Burgundy, whatever he thought in his heart, made a show of rejoicing.

Henry sent his greetings where he lay with his armies before Meaux. The King was glad over the birth of his son—so the messenger said—as no man ever before. Well, and why not? she asked herself,- defiant. He'd got his heir. But she had her doubts. It didn't ring quite true. It was not in Henry to show joy like other men; and she had, after all, flouted him. When she pressed the messenger she found the actual words of greeting bare enough. Was the man concealing something? Had Henry asked where the child was born?

For all her new-found spirit she dared not ask.

It was Jacqueline who coaxed it from the unwilling man.

The King had not thought to ask, at first. He had, no doubt, taken the matter for granted. But later he had asked. And, “Windsor,” he had said. And again, “Windsor.” And then he had spoken like a man in a dream not knowing what it was he said. “I Henry of Monmouth shall reign a little while and gain much; but Henry of Windsor shall reign long and lose all...all.” And he had fetched a sigh from the depths of his heart, and, speaking still on the breath of his sighing, added, “As God wills, so be it!”

“Gloomy and devout. And there,” Catherine said, “speaks the true Henry.”

Henry was gloomy. He was tired to the bone. Fatigue he was used to; it came naturally after a day in the field, and sleep came as naturally. But this was an unhealthy weariness, a weariness without end. He rose up with it, took it about with him, carried it back to his bed where it forbade sleep...and so full circle to the weary, reluctant rising.

Meaux was the very devil of a place! He'd been here over six weeks. Early October when he'd come and the trees all red and gold. And now it was grey November. The face of the countryside had changed; and it seemed a lifetime.

Rain. Rain. Rain. And the swollen river flooding north, south, east and west. And the lack of food. It couldn't be brought along the flooded roads which were fast freezing. It couldn't be brought along the river either—he hadn't any boats. He hadn't thought he'd need them. But the enemy had plenty. They'd taken to the hateful habit of dashing out in their boats, harrying his men, seizing whatever they could lay hands on—food chiefly—and dashing back again. And how cold it was this late, wet November! The cold and the wet together seemed to eat into one's bones. And his men were not only cold and hungry, they were sick, too; dysentery had made its appearance. Once that started one never knew where it would stop.

He was heartsick of Meaux; but here he must stay until it was taken. Let no man say of him that once he had set his hand to a thing he did not finish it! But...why had he started this particular siege? For several reasons, the chief being to keep Paris quiet.

Paris had welcomed him with joy—or so one might have thought. So long ago it seemed; and yet, a bare few months. Early July; and it seemed a lifetime! Paris had looked gay enough. But hadn't it been more show than joy?

Underneath the fine welcome he had felt the city seething. And what else could you expect? Paris was starving.

He had seen, as he rode in streets still gay with banners, how children scrambled on the muckheaps, crammed filth into their swollen bellies. And the common people, so he'd heard, ate raw roots the pigs wouldn't touch. Pigs, it seemed, were more fastidious than men!

“The worst winter for forty years,” Isabeau had told him shivering over the fire at St. Pol. For all it was July, Paris had still held the quality of a sharp, early spring. “Even at Easter the roads were icebound. And then, when the ice melted at last—the floods. And with them famine and sickness and misery and death. But still we went on hoping. The bitterness of winter is gone, we said; now we may hope again. Well you can see for yourself what became of our hopes.”

Yes he had seen—seen the naked vines, the stripped vines.

“Even by June the vines hadn't begun to flower,” she'd said. “And then as soon as the buds did begin to break—the caterpillars, a filthy plague. Revenues lost from wine; and wine hard to come by—and I don't know which is worse!” She'd shrugged. “God, you might think,” and she'd been mocking a little, “punishes poor France for resisting His Soldier.”

Well, she could have been right there! Under all its show of welcome Paris had been in a bitter mood. Even the clergy who should have set an example were rebellious; he'd had to clap a couple in prison to teach them a lesson. And the merchants were furious still. And what in God's name had they to be angry about—pockets and bellies well-lined?

Isabeau had started to tell him, beginning on the old grievances—taxes and the cost of new coins; but he'd cut her short.

“Soldiers may spill their blood and children starve, but these gentry grumble if they smart in their pockets.”

“That's the way of merchants. Listen, you Heir of France. Of all your friends I am the truest. I have cause. For if you fall, which God forbid, then where am I? It is from me, from me alone, you will get the truth. In these weeks things have changed—as, indeed, you might expect. Our defeat at Baugé has gone to the enemy's head like strong wine. But that isn't the worst of it, by no means the worst. The worst I tell you now. Our own friends slip away to join our son.

As for the good Philip, he will stand by you as long as it suits him and no longer. It's the Burgundy way.”

Your way too...

She smiled, knowing his thoughts.

“For me, it must always suit to be your friend. Son Henry, listen. You must strike at once and strike hard. You've lost the love of Paris...for the moment; but it shouldn't be hard to win it again. Meaux.” She paused, laid her jewelled claw upon his arm. “You must take Meaux. It's too near Paris for our comfort—the centre of our dutiful son's rebellion. We cannot rest by day or night because of Meaux and its constant attacks. They steal what little food we have; they kill our men, carry off our virgins, fire our houses. You must take Meaux.”

“In good time,” he said not relishing a woman to teach him his business. “In wartime one must expect inconveniences.”

“You said that once before; you may say it again—once too often. This is not the first time you've been told
Reduce Meaux
. Have you forgotten? When you were here last we all implored you; we told you of our losses and of our anguish and of our fears. And what did you say?
War without fire is like sausage without mustard.”

“There are men who do not relish mustard,” Charles said gently, Charles the King whom they had forgotten, sitting there and plucking at his thin beard and speaking with that terrible simplicity of his, that wise madness.

“The jest was not good,” Isabeau said. “It's cost you much in the way of goodwill, already. To win Paris you must take Meaux.”

Meaux. He heard the boom of the guns, the whistle of a gunstone as it shot through the air, waited for the noise of its splitting.

Meaux. And it was stark winter. And the town not yet taken. And the days were passing, passing...and there was Catherine. She must be near her time. There was another worry—she was so young a creature, so self-willed, so foolish. He'd told his brother John to keep a close watch on her comings and goings. To endanger the life of his heir, though it were done in mere silliness, would yet be blackest treachery.

He got up from the table, wandered backwards and forwards. The cold of this abbey where he lodged! It ate into a man's bones.

Was he aging as the Dauphin said, mocking? Or was he—God forbid—catching the sickness?

He went over to the brazier, leant to it, held his hands to the flame.

It was the rain, the rain. And not having a soul to talk to—being a King was a lonely job. He missed Tom unbearably. It was not only a battle he'd lost at Baugé, it was his brother; his brother and his friend.

He came from the fire, stood by the window-slit, looking down on the water-logged town; the roads had iced considerably. He heard the ring of feet along the stone passage, knew his uncle of Exeter's knock; called eagerly for him to enter.

Exeter shook the rain from his cloak, stood by the brazier, began to steam.

“Well, lad!” And there were few who dared to call him that; fewer still from whom he would have taken it. Now, in his despondent mood he welcomed it.

“Well, lad, what ails ye?” Exeter was bluff and hearty; he could put off the courtier when it pleased him. “Never tell me, man, I know. By your leave, Harry!” He plumped upon a stool and began to tug at his wet boots. “This cursed town, you think, does not budge. But it will budge, it will budge.”

“When?” the King burst out. “Don't deceive yourself, Uncle. If the little Dauphin sent forces now, now I say, then Meaux would be relieved—and we defeated.”

“If and if! But the little Dauphin will not send. He was never over-tender of his friends. He sits in Bourges with his tailors and his cooks and thinks of nothing but fine clothes for his back and fine foods for his belly—and the townspeople of Meaux may rot for all he cares!”

“I work for my success, Uncle; it should not hang upon a fool's whim.”

“You're too much of a soldier to believe that!” Exeter said. “A whim—wise man's or fool's—may change the fortunes of war. But you've little cause to complain of your fortune, so it seems. You'd barely shown your nose in France when Chartres fell to our hand and the Dauphin ran away to Touraine. After Chartres—Dreux.

Untakeable they said; but still you took it. And scarce a blow struck. Everything handed over, lock, stock and barrel—especially barrel! And still you think of Baugé and still you grieve for Baugé. And I—have I not equal cause to weep for Baugé?”

He saw his uncle's face drawn in lines of pain; remembered his young cousin, Exeter's son, dead, too, in the slaughter, and reached a hand to the old man's arm.

“And then,” Exeter shook off his grief like a dog shaking off water, “it was like a game of ninepins. Nogent fallen to us, and Bonneval and Epernon—and who can remember all the names? Fallen like skittles. You've made good your losses, Harry.”

“Yes,” the King said, “yes. But they cost me dear,” and was silent remembering the harrying of his men at Montargis and Chateaurenard—his sick and hungry men; remembering the nightmare marches through hostile country—the stench of burnt fields and everywhere the peasants lurking to murder any man that fell out for a moment to relieve himself; remembering...Rougemont. “Rougemont,” the King said and sighed as though his heart were broken within him.

Rougemont where he had gone mad with frustration after the long heat of the summer's day. A handful of enemy horsemen in flight sheltering in Rougemont; that was all. But he had been driven crazy by their escape. He had thrown himself upon Rougemont; he had hanged the captain and all the garrison. And he had drowned the horsemen...and their horses with them; the fine horses he loved. He would never forget it; the whinnying and the neighing of terror; and the way the horses had fought in the water. That shamed him more than anything—the good horses, the noble horses. Nor could he excuse himself; he'd been no longer driven by fury; he'd been cold by then, stone cold.

It was at Rougemont he'd first heard the whispering, his own men whispering...The King is sick; ailing and failing...

“A man is driven beyond himself,” Exeter said, knowing the King's thoughts, remembering his own lust to punish because Edmund was dead.

“Tom is dead. And it rains, it.rains, it rains. And Meaux stands fast. Would you think God forsakes His Soldier, Uncle?”

Exeter let out a great laugh. “It was enough for our valiant little Dauphin to hear you were within fifty miles of him to drop everything—even the city he had already won—and run for his life. Don't you know, boy, it's the enemy's boast to have been within five leagues of you? And yet, when you landed they'd never been stronger. Such an offensive we've never had to face. But you broke it, lad, you broke it. Within a month or so you had them on the run; everything they'd gained—lost! Never talk to me of ailing and failing. Yet for all that a man is but flesh-and-blood, and you would be the better for a rest. Go back to Paris—we'll clean up for you here. Play a little, pray a little...”

“Pray, yes; play, no. How can I play when my men die—not a man's death with the quick, clean sword, but in the slow bite of hunger and the filth of dysentery.”

“You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs; that's a saying here in France. As for the hunger, as for the sickness, you are not to blame in that. You have done all a man may do—there were trenches and food and firing; there was ammunition in plenty. Was it you that sent the flooding? Was it you that spoilt the food and filled the trenches with water? We've had to retreat a mile; but it was weather, not men, that forced us.”

He knew, he knew. All going according to plan. His men moving nearer, nearer to the walls...and all the time the cursed rain until a man might think Noah's flood come again. He looked out again across the flooded countryside; at his battalions divided each from each by spreading water. March isolated on the east wall, Warwick on the south; he had hardly seen either of them for days!

“Winter operations.” He shrugged. “Was I wrong to undertake them? Maybe the rules of warfare are sound. Uncle, should I have waited for the spring?”

“You couldn't wait—if only to keep Paris quiet.
Reduce Meaux
. Reduce Meaux. It buzzes in my ear still like a gnat. And how right they are! Apart from its nuisance-value this obstinate city locks up the valley of the Marne. Of course it must be taken. But you can't expect the .city to agree with that. And so it fights on, knowing well enough there's nothing to hope for. It can't go on forever.”

“But still it does go on! And all the time rain, rain; and my divisions are isolated by the bitter water and we are driven from our warm trenches and our men are racked with pain and shaking with ague; and all the bread I bake can't fill the gnawing in their bellies.” He stopped, biting back the thing he could not bear to say. And all the time the men murmuring, murmuring against me—their captain.
And all the time men deserting; not only Burgundians and Normans , but my English, my own English. In the few weeks before this stubborn city—a fifth of my army lost—sickness, death, desertion. My army...my army…