‘No, my son,’ she said. ‘You are too young for the kind of battle they anticipate. You are your father’s heir and fifteen years old. You will have time to learn your craft on fields that will not involve such desperate stakes. You are swiftly coming to manhood, but it should not be like this.’
He nodded stiffly but she could tell he was still annoyed. But better that than being caught up in violent bloodshed. Even if he did not have to fight, he would still be a witness, and baggage lines were dangerous places during a battle.
‘I will get you my father’s letter,’ he said and, wiping his hands, went off to his pack.
Joanna took the letter away to her chamber to read, for she did not know its content and she needed to be strong and composed in front of her family. Sitting by the window, she broke the seal. Inside, folded into the parchment was a gold ring set with an amethyst that fitted her wedding finger perfectly, and she had to wipe her eyes. William had written the brief message himself rather than using a scribe, and touching the words made her feel closer to him. He addressed her as his dear love and companion. He missed her and the children and hoped to be with them soon. He was sending her Iohan for safe keeping. This coming battle would be all or nothing, and if he did not return from it, then he knew she would cope and do what was best for the family. He had lodged his will with the monks at Westminster. He asked her to pray for him and hold him kindly in her thoughts.
She pressed her lips together and her chin wobbled, but then the letter’s tone changed at the end. He said he would bring victory home to her and that, God willing, he would win through and they would be together very soon.
Joanna wiped her eyes and drew a deep breath. So be it. She was proud of him and she would be fierce in that pride. Kissing the letter, she placed it on her small chamber altar.
When she returned to the hall, Iohan was playing chess with Agnes while Will and Margaret watched them. ‘I am proud of you,’ she said to them clearly. ‘I am proud of all of my children. You are a credit to yourselves, and to your family names. I need to say it now, because perhaps I have not said it often enough. I love you with all the blood in my heart.’ She went to the cradle where little Isabelle had been put to nap. Gazing at the sleeping, rosy infant, she vowed that God willing she would be there for every one of them while she breathed, whether they were little babies or grown men and women. It was for ever.
William dismounted from his palfrey and had his squire bring up his destrier. He checked his armour again, adjusting his shield strap, making sure his sword drew cleanly from the scabbard. He had checked several times already, but it was part of his detailed preparation for battle. Everything had to be right; there were no more chances. They had been riding through the night to get into position, ready to intercept Simon de Montfort’s force as he tried to break through towards support from the Londoners.
In the early daylight birds were singing, and the leaves hung heavy and limp on the trees, dark-green and weighted with summer. The weather had been as hot as a dry cauldron over a fire for several days, but now the air had grown sticky and humid. He was sweltering in his armour and minute black flies crawled on any areas of exposed skin, and itched like the devil.
The dawn had risen with a gleam of gold on the horizon but that had gone now, leaving the sky bruised and oppressive. God’s wrath was waiting, and he harboured no doubts as to where that wrath would fall. He could not afford to be anything but convinced in his belief.
Two days ago, Edward had held a commanders meeting of the joined forces, and had given Roger Mortimer and a dozen others the task of bringing down and killing de Montfort. That was their sole objective, and it was a sacred trust and a holy thing. A crusade against a man who had overturned the natural order. A man whose supporters had insulted Edward’s mother, imprisoned the ailing King and compelled him to their will. De Montfort had dragged Henry all over England, forcing him to confirm his every command. Edward had told everyone to watch for his father lest he was among the combatants and had assigned Roger de Leyburn to seek him out and ensure his safety.
The sky continued to darken, and thunder grumbled in the distance. The first drops of rain spattered, heavy as silver, and twisted veins of lightning forked the sky. William’s destrier tossed his head and sidled. William kept him reined in and gripped his lance. A rumble beyond the thunder heralded de Montfort’s arrival. William’s heart quickened as he gazed upon the ranks of horsemen and foot soldiers. He drew a long, steadying breath, for now they came to it. The moment between living and dying, when all still had life, but when many soon would not.
He gave the signal to his knights and pricked his horse with his spur. From a walk to a trot to a canter, steadily increasing speed. The rumble of thunder was echoed by the pounding hooves of the destriers as they gained momentum towards their quarry.
The rain increased and started to drive down. De Montfort’s centre hurtled at them, the slope barely diminishing their impetus. William chose his target, a knight astride a bay destrier with a white snip, and adjusted his lance. The thunder crashed overhead and the lightning ripped and flickered. William felt the impact, the scrape of steel on mail, and then the punch through into flesh. Casting aside the lance he pivoted, his sword drawn.
The fighting was hard and close and bloody. Horses plunged and shied, slipping and falling on the wet grass, screaming as they were injured, the din of the battle and the torrential storm melding into one tremendous cataclysm. Blood and water streamed over the trampled ground like channels in a slaughterhouse and churned to crimson mud, and the air stank like a city shambles of blood and bowels and shit. William’s breath sawed over his larynx as he parried and slashed and bludgeoned. He killed in order not to be killed, and gave no quarter. Each blow he struck avenged his exile, the insults, the scorn and contempt. It was for Joanna, for his family, for Edward and the King. It was brutal slaughter and mayhem through a hammering curtain of rain and, as the thunder rolled overhead, William knew that God was directing his sword.
To his left, through the torrent, a knot of men surrounded something on the ground, their arms rising and falling in a flurry of dull mail. A dead white horse lay in the mud, blood streaming from savage blade wounds. Close by, Roger de Leyburn, his sword raised, approached a horseless, unarmed knight clad in common armour screaming for mercy and crying in cracked anguish over and over that he was Henry of Winchester. William recognised the voice, as did Leyburn. ‘The King!’ he roared. ‘It is the King!’
William spurred to join Leyburn, dismounted and frantically unbuckled the knight’s helmet to reveal Henry’s white, tear-streaked face and wild eyes. Blood was trickling from his shoulder where an arrow had pierced his mail, but the wound was slight and the point easily plucked out.
‘You are safe now, sire,’ William said. ‘Come, messire Leyburn and his men will take you to safety and tend to your wound behind our lines.’
Henry responded with a terrified wail, and Leyburn had to manhandle the King away to his escort for he was rooted to the spot and crying like a rabbit in its last moments. Rage and pity burned in William’s heart at the agonised bewilderment contorting Henry’s face. It was not the look of a king but of a wounded, traumatised child.
De Montfort’s levies were fleeing the field and the de Montfort lion banner had fallen, trampled in the bloody murk, its shaft snapped off. A group of knights on foot had surrounded de Montfort and were hacking and stabbing with their swords in an act of filthy raw butchery and dismemberment. William’s lip curled. It was not enough. It could never be enough to wipe away that look of tearful terror on Henry’s face. What kind of man would do this to a king who was not a warrior and who abhorred violence? What kind of arrogant cruelty? Attempted murder, too, in cladding Henry in plain armour and leaving him to take his chance. Some might call Simon de Montfort a devout Christian and a great man, but William had no such scales covering his eyes. He knew de Montfort for what he was, and he hoped his soul burned in hell for eternity.
Sword drawn, William walked over to the group of men. He looked at the hacked and mutilated body and, raising his arm, added another slash to the torso in a single blow. ‘For Henry,’ he said, his voice raw and breaking. ‘For my wife, for my children. For all that you took!’ He wiped his reddened sword on the tatters of de Montfort’s surcoat and turned away before the rage and grief overwhelmed him beyond control, and before he was sick. De Montfort was down and dead, butchered in the mud. Now it was time to move on, to salvage and rebuild.
He went to find Henry and discovered him at the nearby priory being tended by Leyburn and the monks. William left his sword outside the door. His hands were dyed with blood and his surcoat saturated and streaked with mud and gore. He washed his hands and face in a bucket of water by the trough and tipped it out when he finished, his stomach burning at the sight of its discolouration. Crossing himself, he entered the monastery guest house. Henry sat on a bench before the fire, which had been lit despite the oppressive heat of the day. He was bare to the waist and a monk was tending to his shoulder wound. William swallowed, moved to pity to see Henry’s torso, the ribs showing through the flesh. He was shuddering and glassy-eyed. Small whimpers escaped between his teeth, and William remembered that another of his half-brother’s morbid dreads was thunderstorms.
‘Sire.’ William knelt before him. ‘Sire, Simon de Montfort is dead on the battlefield and his forces are scattering in disorder. The lord Edward has carried the day. You are safe now.’
Henry nodded, but his gaze was vacant and William did not know if he had absorbed the words.
The monk stepped back for William to see Henry’s wound, which was a flesh cut and barely seeping, although it would require a couple of stitches. Henry would live, providing he did not take the wound fever.
‘You will be sore for a few days,’ William said, ‘but you will soon mend.’
Awareness glinted in Henry’s eyes. ‘But it will always be with me,’ he said, shivering. ‘I thought I was going to die.’ He swallowed. ‘De Montfort put me in ordinary armour. He said my name was Henry of Winchester, because it was my only entitlement in this world, since I was born there. He intended me to die – to have my own men kill me.’
‘But you are alive and he is dead,’ William said with icy anger. ‘He has paid the price. You can put it behind you, even while never forgetting. You have survived, and the victory is yours.’
Henry did not answer. Two tears rolled down his vein-spidered cheeks and he whimpered again.
William kissed him, gripped his hands briefly, and left him. There was much to do and, in the meantime, Henry needed to rest and hopefully recover his wits. He detoured briefly into the church to thank God for the great victory, and then went in search of Edward.
