The Earl of Warwick rode at the very head of the column, one of his squires riding alongside him carrying aloft his banner, three red crosslets above and below a band of red on a yellow background. With him rode his retinue, and behind them marched Holland’s company, Sir Thomas himself astride his massive courser at their head. Beside him Adam Villiers rode a bay rouncy, holding Holland’s banner aloft, and Brother Ambrose rode a skewbald pony. Next came the knights and squires under Holland’s command, including Beaumont and Stamford, followed by a hundred archers slogging it on foot. It was John Conyers who pointed out that a dismounted man who marched in the place of honour had the advantage of having to walk through less horse-muck than the dismounted men at the rear of the column.
Preston marched at the head of his platoon, puffing away at a set of bagpipes. He was not the only musician in the column; there were other men, armed with trumpets, horns, clarions and pipes, and drummers beating out the rhythm of the march on tabors and nakers. As they marched, their music combined with the jingle of harness and the clatter of mail to give their progress a martial air. At the centre of the column was the baggage train, a dozen carts and wagons piled high with victuals, equipment and spare arms. There were over six hundred armed men of one kind or another in the column, which stretched back along the dusty track for nearly half a mile. The horsemen moved off at a trot, forcing the foot-soldiers to jog along in their wake, and it was not long before the tail of the column began to straggle, merging with the host of camp followers who came in their wake. Most of these were pedlars who knew that they could exhaust their wares sooner or later if they stuck with the column long enough, but there was also a troupe of tumblers heading south seeking protection against any bands of brigands who might be lying in wait on England’s lawless roads, and a handful of enterprising prostitutes who cruelly mocked the peasant girls running after the column to wish their loved ones goodbye.
Marching so close to the head of the column, Martin was unaware of the carnival it degenerated into towards the rear. He was looking at the well-armed and disciplined troops around him. He had heard that Philip of Valois ruled over the richest and greatest country in the world; yet he found it hard to believe that Valois could ever hope to muster an army as magnificent as this one. And this was only what was left in the county after Henry of Derby had taken the pick of the men to Gascony the previous year. Rudcock and some of the other veterans speculated as to what their ultimate destination might be. Would the king join Derby in Gascony, unite with his allies in Flanders, or would he land in Brittany, where the English had established a foothold following the Earl of Northampton’s defeat of the French at Morlaix a few years ago?
It was a warm day, and before long the hot sun began to squeeze sweat from every pore in Martin’s body. He still felt awkward and ungainly in his heavy leather jerkin, and the sword that hung at his hip knocked irritatingly against his thigh with every step. The earl forced a punishing pace, and Martin soon developed a stitch in his side. But there could be no stopping to rest. Martin was consoled by the fact that none of the other new recruits seemed to be faring any better, and he was glad that after his sojourn in gaol he had had a few days to rest and recoup his strength. Inglewood was obviously suffering, being more used to riding when travelling over a distance.
‘Come on, Perkin, keep it up,’ Rudcock told him, panting through gritted teeth. ‘It won’t be a very good start to your military career if you collapse on your first day of marching, will it now?’
They had set out from Bosworth later than the earl had intended, and he was determined to make up for lost time, forcing the pace. They crossed the border into the County of Warwick shortly before dusk. For many of the new recruits, including Martin, it was the first time they had set foot outside their native county. Darkness fell, and the earl ordered torches to be lit so that they could march on through the twilight, not stopping until they reached the village of Brinklow at the hour of vespers. The men made camp below an old Norman motte and bailey castle, while the noblemen found lodgings in the village inn or slept inside their tents. The men were able to forage enough dead wood to make camp fires, and they dined on roast beef beneath the stars, chatting merrily and boasting about the feats of prowess they hoped to perform in the fields of France. They slept soundly that night, exhausted by the day’s march.
They were roused early the following morning by reveille. After their usual breakfast of bread and ale, the veterans of Preston’s platoon initiated the new recruits by seizing them bodily and throwing them into a brook that ran alongside the camp. Most of the new recruits knew it was all in fun and put up only a token resistance, but Inglewood did not see it in the same light, struggling furiously as he was dragged to the edge of the stream. When he landed in the water, the old hands laughing as they looked down at him from the bank, it seemed for a moment as if the red-faced Inglewood might burst into tears, but he managed to choke back his sobs and settled for glowering sulkily at the pranksters.
It was a very different story with Hal Drayton. Rudcock and Conyers managed to drag the muscular youth to the brook, but there Hal broke free, pushing Conyers into the water. As he did so he lost his balance, slipping in the churned mud on the bank and toppling in himself, but he nevertheless managed to pull Rudcock in after him.
Preston appeared on the bank. ‘All right lads, play time’s over,’ he said sternly, but not unkindly. ‘Time to strike camp. We’ve a long way to go yet before we reach Portsmouth.’
The men formed up into a column once more; they were rapidly learning to obey the orders of the marshals and the serjeants promptly. It was the first day of June, and the warm sunshine soon dried out the clothes and equipment of those who had had a soaking.
They reached the village of Coventry shortly after noon. Coventry Common was the mustering point for the men of the County of Warwick, and it was there that the rest of the earl’s command waited. The Leicester men pitched camp alongside the Warwick men’s encampment while the earl inspected the men who had been raised in his county in his name. Inevitably, there were a few fights that night between the men of Leicester and the men of Warwick; but the two counties were so closely bound together administratively that there was more amity than enmity. The serjeants kept a tight rein on the troops under their command to ensure that the few brawls that did break out were not allowed to escalate into all-out rioting.
More than doubled in size by the addition of the men of Warwick, the column set out immediately the following day at dawn. Whenever it passed through a village, the peasants gathered to line the roadside, waving and cheering; the king’s propaganda had spread word of Valois’ usurpation throughout the realm, and there were few Englishmen who would have even contemplated questioning the righteousness of the king’s cause. From his customary place at the head of the column, the earl led them on at the usual punishing pace, but the weather was fine and morale was high, the men chatting amongst themselves and laughing gaily, or singing along raucously to the martial airs played by the pipers.
They continued south in this manner for several days, through the Forest of Arden and across the Cotswolds into the County of Oxford. They marched along the bank of the River Cherwell to its confluence with the Isis just outside the town of Oxford itself, where they camped one night. Martin toyed briefly with the idea of slipping from the camp to visit his brother Nicholas, but he was not sure that he would be able to find Merton College in the large town in the dark; besides which, the sight of the three men being hanged for desertion was still grimly fresh in his memory, and he did not want to risk being hanged just so that he could see his sanctimonious brother.
South of Oxford, the column passed between the White Horse Hills and the Chilterns into the Vale of Kennet, crossing into Hampshire and marching over the South Downs. Towards late afternoon on the ninth day of the march, they emerged from the Forest of Bere and began a steep climb up the north face of a ridge, the draught animals straining to haul the wagons up behind them. Martin could detect an unfamiliar tang in the air, and he caught sight of white birds circling overhead, their harsh cries clearly audible above the clatter of the marching men. They were birds with which even Martin was familiar, being occasional visitors to the fields of Knighton during the winter months: seagulls. The crest of the ridge formed the horizon, drawing ever closer until finally the men had breasted it, and the harbour of Portsmouth suddenly came into view below them.
Martin had never seen anything like it. The harbour itself was huge – far bigger than Groby Pool, the broadest expanse of water he had seen up to that day – and teeming with literally hundreds of wooden ships, of all shapes and sizes. There were cogs, carracks and crayers, barges and ballingers, hakeboats, loadships, pickers, doggers and galleys. Their striped red and white sails were furled, and many of the larger ships had wooden turrets built fore and aft.
A castle stood on a promontory jutting out into the harbour, the king’s flag flying from atop the massive stone keep to show that his Majesty was in residence. The town of Portsmouth itself stood on the east side of the harbour’s narrow opening, a close-packed huddle of slate-roofed houses, the tower of a church rising up from their midst. A little to the north-east of the town, an even larger settlement stood on the flat expanse of Southsea Common, stretching out along the roads to London and Winchester: a mass of tents and pavilions that formed the camp of the king’s army.
And beyond all this was the sea, stretching away for as far as the eye could see, the deep blue waves rolling in to break in a welter of foam against the shore. Martin had often tried to picture the sea in his mind’s eye, but even the mental image of a lake so broad that the far side could not be seen simply had not prepared him for the mind-numbing reality: he had not thought there could be so much water in the whole world. He wondered how far across one would have to sail before one reached the coast of France.
‘All right, lads, let’s show these whoresons how the men of Leicester go to war,’ Preston growled, as they began to descend the south-facing slope of the ridge towards the encampment. He blew a tune on his bagpipes, a martial air with which they had all become familiar during the march from Bosworth, and the men joined in, singing raucously and lustily with their banners and pennants raised once more. At the foot of the ridge they crossed the old stone bridge on to Portsea Island, which formed the eastern side of the harbour. It was dusk by the time they drew near the encampment, but even the fast-fading light could not hide the fact that it was even larger than Martin had first thought. Even the experienced veterans seemed astonished by the size of the army being assembled by the king, averring that it must be the greatest force of men that the kingdom had ever seen. Surely Valois could not hope to muster an army strong enough to face this threat?
The Earl of Warwick had already been appointed Marshal of the King’s Army for the forthcoming campaign, and as such it was nominally his responsibility to see that the arriving troops were quartered on the common; in his absence, he had delegated the task to the Under-Marshal, Robert Howell, who met the earl at the outskirts of the camp. Howell was accompanied by Sir Thomas Norwich, both of them mounted on fine palfreys. The earl signalled the men behind him to silence.
‘My lord of Warwick,’ said Norwich. He was a tall, lean man in his mid forties, with dark hair fading to iron-grey, a lean-jawed, wedge-shaped face, and a long, straight nose. His cold grey eyes were piercing, and his countenance could match the earl’s for sternness. At that moment he exuded bonhomie, a frequent trick of his, but the earl was no longer taken in; behind his amiability was hidden a mind that was as ruthless as it was razor-sharp. ‘You are most welcome. These are the men from the counties of Warwick and Leicester?’
The earl nodded.
‘I’ll have to check their names off against my copies of the muster rolls, my lord, but that can wait until the morrow, when I have the indenture sheets made out.’
The earl made a dismissive gesture. ‘I’ll have one of my clerks attend to it.’ Unlike Norwich, he had always found the administrative side of soldiering tedious in the extreme.
Norwich smiled thinly. ‘As you will, my lord.’
Howell gestured to a stretch of greensward a short distance from where they sat astride their horses. ‘With your permission, my lord? If you and your men would be willing to pitch your tents yonder?’
The earl inclined his head. He had every confidence in his subordinate’s ability to marshal such a vast army of men – he would not have agreed to his appointment, otherwise – and since Howell already seemed to have the organisation of the camp well in hand, the earl saw no reason to interfere in his underling’s work at this late stage. He barked out a few curt orders to his marshals, and immediately his men began to pitch their tents adjoining the main camp, where Howell had indicated. Since leaving Bosworth, the raw recruits had become as adept at pitching camp as the veterans.
The routine at the great encampment on Southsea Common proved to be more or less the same as it had been at the camps which the Earl of Warwick’s column had set up on the march from Bosworth. Reveille was sounded throughout the encampment before dawn the following morning. Preston’s men rose to their feet and stretched stiff and aching limbs. The serjeant ordered Daw Oakley and Thurstan Freeman to buy some breakfast from the victuallers while Brother Ambrose performed a morning mass for Holland’s men, but apart from a handful of knights and squires attendance was low, being non-compulsory. Perkin Inglewood insisted on attending, but most of Martin’s new companions could not be bothered. Martin had attended mass every Sunday morning for as long as he could remember, but that had been at his parents’ insistence. He had never been one for singing, even less for sermons, and now he took guilty pleasure in not attending.
‘All right, you God-damned miserable bunch of idle whoresons,’ Preston snarled at his men when they had finished eating breakfast. ‘It’s time to start turning you into soldiers.’
‘What, all of us?’ moaned Newbolt.
‘Aye, that includes you, Newbolt. Just because you’ve survived one campaign, you may fall into the trap of thinking you know all there is to know about fighting, but the chances are there’s at least one Frenchman in Gascony who can prove otherwise. Come on, get a move on! Nails and blood! The fleet will have sailed without us before you God-damned sluggards wake up.’
Grumbling, Preston’s men gathered up their arms and followed him to an open patch of greensward adjoining the encampment. A platoon of men-at-arms were already drilling on foot nearby. They handled their spears with impressive proficiency, levelling them as they might to receive a mounted charge.
Preston’s men stood in a loose gaggle while the Serjeant stood before them. ‘Right!’ yelled Preston, to make sure he had their undivided attention. ‘When you lot of old washerwomen have finished gossiping, perhaps you might like to bend your ears in my direction. You might learn something that could one day save your wretched and worthless hides. I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now that I’m no tonsured scholar from Oxford and Cambridge like Brother Ambrose, but for those of you who haven’t already had the honour of serving with me before, I’ll have you know that I graduated summa cum laude from the School of Hard Knocks.’ He grinned. ‘You didn’t know I spoke Greek, did you, Conyers? For those of you not fluent in Greek, summa cum laude means I’m a nasty bastard who can snap any one of you in two just by batting my left eyelid… yes, what is it, Inglewood?’
‘Pardon me for interrupting, serjeant, but summa cum laude isn’t Greek, it’s Latin,’ said Inglewood. ‘It means…’
‘Were you born a pain in the arse, Inglewood, or do you have to work at it?’ asked Preston. ‘One word of advice: no one likes a God-damned smart-arse, all right? Now, where was I? Oh, yes. In addition to your so-called skill with the bow, eventually you’re all going to have to learn to use your swords; for those of you who don’t know, that’s the sharp, pointy bit of metal hanging down from your belts. But right now I wouldn’t trust most of you to shave your own pig-like faces wi’out giving yourselves a mortal wound. So we’re going to start with the basics: unarmed combat.’
The veterans groaned. Many of them suspected that this was just an excuse for Preston to beat the living daylights out of them.
‘Oh, yes!’ said Preston, grinning sadistically. He drew his short sword from its scabbard and tossed it to the ground a few feet from where he stood. ‘Right! Here’s the situation: you’ve used all your arrows and your bowstring’s snapped; your sword is broken and is about as much use to you as a gelding is to a mare on heat; some whoreson Irishman has pinched your dagger; and there’s some French devil charging towards you with every intention of thrusting his poxed spearhead clean through your gizzard. So what are you going to do?’
‘Run away?’ suggested Conyers, raising a laugh from the others.
Preston smiled tolerantly – he did not mind the occasional joke, if it kept spirits up – and waited for the laughter to die down, rubbing his bristly jaw as he thought for a moment. ‘Wrong, as usual, Conyers; but I’m glad you brought the subject up. Since we’re talking about running away, I’ll tell you all something now and not repeat it, but that doesn’t mean I want any of you to forget it,’ he said, his face growing dark. ‘If I see any of you running away in the face of the enemy, I’ll kill you myself,’ he told them grimly. ‘And if any of you are stupid enough to think I’m jesting or bluffing, then just ask Daw Oakley there. He’s seen me do it enough times before now, so he knows I’m not kidding. Understood?’
The men nodded dumbly, the new recruits chilled by the gravity of Preston’s tone.
‘Right!’ continued Preston. He had a way of saying ‘right!’ that made people listen. ‘No arrows, no sword, and no dagger. There’s some French whoreson charging at you, and you can’t run away because I’m standing right behind you. Luckily you’ve still got four deadly weapons on you. So who’s going to tell me what they are? Not you, Murray, I know you know already. How about one of the new lads? Tate? Kemp? Wighton? No?’
When no response was forthcoming, he tugged off his chain-mail gauntlets and tossed them to the ground, displaying a pair of calloused and grimy hands. ‘Two arms… and two legs. Not much use against a knight in full armour, I’ll grant you, but a lot of the time you’ll be up against peasant levies no better equipped than yourselves. So, who’s going to be our first volunteer? Who wants to be the evil, murdering French whoreson? Inglewood?’
Inglewood shrank back.
‘Perhaps not,’ Preston agreed, grimacing with distaste. ‘Come on, one of you bunch of field mice must be dying to stick your sword in my guts.’
‘How about if you have both hands tied behind your back?’ suggested Conyers, who had seen this all before and knew what was coming next.
‘Are you volunteering, Conyers?’
‘No, serjeant,’ the Yorkshireman replied hurriedly.
‘Then God-damned shut up,’ said Preston, and smiled. ‘I’ll tell you all what. I’ll turn my back on you so’s I can’t see you coming. Can’t say fairer’n that, can I?’
There were still no volunteers, the raw recruits suspecting that it might be harder than Preston made out, and the old hands knowing it was.
‘Drayton!’ exclaimed Preston, as if noticing an old friend in their ranks for the first time. ‘How about you? You like fighting, don’t you? I’ll wager you’re still smarting from that punch in the guts I gave you at Bosworth, eh? Want a chance to even the score?’
Drayton stepped forward reluctantly, toying uncertainly with a short sword that looked little more than a dagger in his massive paw. ‘What if I kill you?’ he asked unhappily.
Preston chuckled. ‘You won’t.’
‘But what if I do?’
Preston sighed. ‘Drayton, you have my full permission to try and kill me. In the event of my death, I absolve you of all responsibility, and these lads here can be witnesses to that, all right? Now come on, thrust that God-damned sword right through my back and out the front of my belly! It shouldn’t be too difficult for a big, strong lad like yourself. Run me through! Hang my gizzard out to dry!’ He turned his back on his men.
After a moment’s uncertain hesitation, Drayton raised his sword and charged. Without even so much as a glance over his shoulder, Preston side-stepped at the last possible moment, tripping Drayton up and wresting the sword from his grip as the big lad went down. Drayton rolled on to his back, and Preston put a booted foot on his chest, tickling his Adam’s apple with the tip of the sword. He made it all look embarrassingly easy.
‘All right, lad, on your feet,’ said Preston, helping Drayton up. ‘Not too bad, considering you’ve never used a sword before.’ He turned to the others. ‘Does anyone want to tell me what Drayton’s mistake was?’
‘He attacked you with the sun at his back,’ Brewster drawled laconically. ‘You saw his shadow.’
Preston nodded. ‘That’s it, Brewster. Spot on.’
‘But that wasn’t fair!’ protested Inglewood. ‘He didn’t have any choice in the matter!’
‘That’s because I deliberately positioned myself to my own advantage, boy,’ Preston told him, not unkindly. ‘That’s the first rule of combat: wherever possible, position yourself to your own advantage. When it comes to a pitched battle, it’ll be up to their lordships to select the battlefield, but there’ll be plenty of times when you can make a few decisions of your own. Height is another good advantage to look for. Can you gain the advantage of height over your opponent? A rock, a fallen tree-trunk, a slight slope in the ground; a few inches that could make all the difference between life and death: your life, his death. Do you want the sun in your enemy’s eyes? Will your shadow give you away if you try to sneak up on someone? Small details, but maybe vital. These are questions I want you to ask yourselves every time you reach for the hilt of your sword. And don’t any of you give me any God-damned nonsense about creeping up behind people being unfair. Leave the chivalry to your betters. Your job is to kill as many Frenchmen as possible, and I don’t care how you do it. Because believe you me, the French won’t treat you any more chivalrously if your positions are reversed.’
‘Is it true that when the French capture archers, they cut off the first two fingers of their right hands so that they can’t use a bow any more?’ asked Limkin Tate.
‘I’ve heard a rumour to that effect,’ admitted Preston. ‘Whether or not it’s true I can’t say. Churls like us aren’t usually taken captive. We aren’t worth ransoming, see? So if any of you are captured and only have two fingers cut off, you can count yourselves lucky.’ He smiled grimly. ‘And then you can start learning to use a bow left-handed, because I’m damned if I’ll accept the loss of two fingers as an excuse to wriggle out of doing your duty to your king.
‘But back to today’s first lesson: the best soldier isn’t necessarily the strongest soldier or the bravest soldier, it’s the one who shows some nous, right? So… who’s our next volunteer?’
No one stepped forward.
‘I’ll stand facing the sun, so that I can’t see your shadow this time,’ Preston offered cajolingly.
Still no one offered.
‘I don’t know what’s up with you lot, you’re the most lily-livered bunch of recruits I’ve ever had the misfortune to have to lead,’ Preston protested in disgust.
‘You said we should use our heads, serjeant,’ Conyers said sardonically, getting his second laugh of the day.
‘All right,’ said Preston, with a tolerant smile. ‘But we’d best be getting on, otherwise you won’t learn anything more, and believe you me, we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of all there is to learn. Come on, if someone doesn’t step forward, I’ll pick a volunteer; only this time, I’ll have the sword, and you can go unarmed.’
Martin stepped forward. ‘I’d like to give it a go, sergeant.’
‘Good lad, Kemp,’ said Preston. ‘Ready when you are.’
Martin drew his sword and charged, swinging the blade at Preston’s head. Preston ducked beneath the blow, catching Martin’s stomach against his shoulder. Then he straightened, tossing Martin over his shoulder. Martin landed flat on his back, winded. Preston helped him to his feet and handed him back his sword.
‘You all saw how I used his own momentum against him?’ Preston asked the others. ‘Stay low – think of it as a see-saw, and you’re the pivot. Got it? Watch again… another volunteer?’
‘Can I have another try?’ Martin asked ruefully. ‘I think I’m getting the hang of it.’
Preston stared at him in astonishment. ‘You are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you? All right, one more demonstration courtesy of young Kemp here, and then you can pair off and start practising amongst yourselves.’ He braced himself for Martin’s next attack. ‘Ready when you are, Kemp.’
Martin levelled the sword and charged, holding it low this time, ready to thrust it into Preston’s stomach. Preston side-stepped, but the sword-thrust was a feint, and Martin smashed the knuckles of his left hand into the serjeant’s face. Dazed, Preston staggered back.
‘How’s that?’ asked Martin, adding, ‘You did say we wasn’t to fight fair.’
‘Not bad,’ Preston mumbled thickly. ‘You’re learning fast. Class dismissed,’ he concluded, before collapsing.
Warwick and Holland made their way to Porchester Castle to pay their respects to the king first thing that morning. When Holland returned to his tent towards noon, he found Preston seated there, taking a break. Preston immediately rose to his feet and snapped more or less to attention. ‘Sir Thomas.’
‘Hullo, Wat,’ Holland replied absently, removing his cloak and folding it once before placing it over the back of a chair. ‘How goes the training?’
‘Not too bad, Sir Thomas.’ The doubtful tone in Preston’s voice did not worry Holland; he was accustomed to the serjeant playing down the ability of his men, so that he would not be disappointed when they came to fight. In the event, Holland usually found himself anything but disappointed with the results of Preston’s training. ‘One or two of the new lads are showing a fair bit of promise,’ Preston allowed on a higher note.
‘Good.’ Holland spoke vaguely, his mind on other things. He had every confidence in Preston’s ability to transform the rawest recruits into tough fighting men. ‘Tell me, Wat…’
‘Sir Thomas?’
‘Why are you clasping a dead fish to your left eye?’
‘The victuallers wouldn’t give me a steak, Sir Thomas.’
‘I see,’ said Holland, peeling away the fish to reveal Preston’s black eye. ‘That’s an impressive shiner you’ve got there, Wat.’
Preston grimaced. ‘I’m not as young as I used to be,’ he admitted ruefully.
‘Who amongst us is?’ acknowledged Holland, with a wry smile. ‘Who gave you that, then?’
‘One of the new lads, sir. Martin Kemp, of Knighton. The one Sir John Beaumont accused of rape and murder.’
‘Hmm. Tell me, Wat, what do you make of him?’
‘Sir John Beaumont, sir?’
Holland shook his head. ‘Nay, I suspect I have that one’s measure already,’ he said, with a grimace. ‘I meant the lad that hit you.’
‘Kemp, you mean? He’s a difficult one to make out. Some of the lads call him Sir Lancelot, on account of how he wears some lass’s coverchief – his lady’s favour, so to speak. He doesn’t have much to say for himself. He’s a fine archer, and not a bad wrestler – for a young ’un.’
‘Not bad with his fists either, by the look of it,’ added Holland, with a smile. ‘Keep me informed of his progress.’