“I see Dick!” Mousehole Aellen gabbed at Blacky Godwyn.
“Sea Dick,” Godwyn hawked spit.
They were guarding the entrance to the royal pavilion, erected on a fallow field outside Lynn’s wooden walls. Town and pavilion were surrounded by John’s host of crownmen and routiers: rings of tents and workshsops, parks of wagons and horselines, a dozen siege engines, impromptu pens of pigs, sheep, and cattle. The consistent camp racket complimented nature’s static. The droning crash of Wash waves blended with beastly caws from a murder of crows intermixed with stoop necked buzzards upon the roofs of Lynn’s walltowers. Gulls circled warily above. A score of impaled traitors were being flayed by kindred carrion birds and hungry hounds. Lynn’s mayor was unrecognizable under fluttering black feathers and piercing beaks.
The air was thick with musk, waste, rot, and ash. From Suffolk to Yorkshire much was the same. King John hoped to block King Alexander at Cambridge, then the Scots Fox didn’t show up on Ermine Street and John occupied the crossroads at Peterborough. Growing more manic by the day without sight of Alexander, John sent Sir Oliver, Fawkes the Brute, and the Magnificent Bastards into Norfolk and Suffolk. They raped and pillaged, murdered and tortured, trampled, burned, and destroyed from Norwich to Bury St. Edmunds, even dropping off supplies to Harcourt at Framlingham.
Meanwhile, King John rampaged northward through the Fens of Cambridgshire and Huntingdon into Lincolnshire, desperately searching for the Scots Fox. Unfortunately King Alexander was already north of Lincoln, now with Count Herve du Nevers as additional escort to Wild Wilhelm van Holland. The French lord, having broken the siege of Windsor, followed the king at a safe distance then bolted for Lincoln when John veered east to Peterborough. Hearing of King John’s advance, Lords Gant, Lacy, and Ropsley scattered into the wooded hills and dales of the shire. A livid John hunted the rebel lords, ransacking and ravaging their estates throughout the shire.
Legate Pandulf sent word Lords Mowbray, Warrene, and Forz were reaving around York and the Scots Fox had joined them. King John continued north, but the Scots were already moving on, so the king hounded the Yorkshire rebels until they took refuge in Mowbray’s marshy Isle of Axeholm. When word arrived from Sir Oliver the Scots Fox avoided John by crossing the Wash at Lynn, the king decided to show them the Crown’s displeasure.
Captain Dick Fitzjohn ignored the crownguards as he stepped into the large rectangular tent. His mail covered-hardened leather gambeson and seal oiled leather pants and boots were covered in salt crust and sea grime. Obsidian hair and beard were thickly tangled over leathery skin and horizon stretched eyes. He was shorter than John, lean and muscular, resembling his long dead grandfather King Henry. There was a cold savagery about Dick that was distinctly un-Plantagenet, a shark fed on bastard blood.
Master Sergeant Thoryn Beefeater blocked his advance with a hand on Dick’s chest and another on a dirk, “No weapons.”
Dick stabbed Thoryn with annoyance, then rustled the stout man’s belly, “Never missed a meal, have ye Beefy?”
Thoryn ignored the desire to shove the dirk under Dick’s chin up into his skull. Instead, he nodded at the weapons rack. It was crowded with a head shaped hammer, a war sickle, a broad sword with a lion head pommel, another with a handguard molded into fierce birds of prey, a third sword’s pommel was emblazoned with a backwards Plantagenet lion, a fourth with handguards resembling rebecks.
“They’ll be waiting for you.”
Dick unbuckled, handing over his belt laden with a falchion, dirk, a flaying knife, and hand mace. “Done feeling important or should I milk ye?”
Dick reached for Thoryn’s groin as he snatched the belt of weapons and headed for the rack. “Oh, come now, Beefy, show me yer udder.”
“Go pester your pa or I’ll give you the horns,” Thoryn grunted.
While Dick’s eyes adjusted he was assaulted with the stinging scent of sweet sweat, sour wine, taper smoke, boiled eggs, corny feet, and wet dog. Michelle le Picardy, Captain of the Free Lancers, was acting out a tall tale. Lucien Lionsblood of the Magnificent Bastards was pouring ale into John’s shakey gold cup. Claude van Hauk was admiring the silver and gold spread across the royal cupboard. Sir Oliver Fitzroy watched Claude suspiciously. Lord Savaric de Mauleon was restringing his rebeck. Lord Fawkes de Breaute had Lady Margie of Devonshire in his lap, his hand plunged up her skirts and her face tucked in the groove of his neck. Sir Russell Kingsword was sharpening his sword. Fat, grey, Legate Gaulo snored in his chair. Bishop Peter was pretending to listen to Picardy while skimming a parchment. Squire Jonathan Dunkeld swayed with boredom behind John’s padded chair.
King John was brooding.
On the far side of the inner chamber, Chancellor Ricardus Marsh, Chambersteward Ralfus de Neville, Herald Pete de Rivalis, the Brute’s cleric Passelewe, and several other high clerks crowded around a trestle table. It was covered in piles of parchments and surrounded with open chests of pipe rolls, books, and twined documents. Bollocks lay beside Beckett, Arthur, and Braose; the dogs gnawing drool over meaty bones.
“Lucien and Fawkes will remember this, they were there too, so then Lupescar . . .”
Dick shoved passed Michelle, claiming two peeled boiled eggs from the silver bowl on the round table in front of the king.
“Mon Dieu!” The Free Lancer looked mortally offended, “Who do you think you are?”
“A bloody pirate,” Oliver nodded, getting up and making for the cupboard.
“My sea lion!” John shoved himself up with a hiss, limping for an awkward hug.
Margie gasped and shuddered, hiding her face with her hand, then whimpering.
“Captain Dick Fitzjohn,” Peter announced, mostly for the benefit of Michelle.
Gaulo woke up with a jolt, “Cosa? Cosa?”
“Tis another of John’s sons, his bastard sea lord,” Peter explained in Latin to the Italian.
“Ah,” Gaulo nodded, hiding a yawn with his heavily jeweled hand.
Once the pretense of familial love was exhausted, Dick said through spits of egg, “Yer Court’s rather sad these days.” He eyed the prelates, “a bunch o’ mercenaries,” Michelle and Claude, “grim reapers,” Lucien watching carefully, “a magnificent bastard,” Savaric, “a rapscallion,” Oliver pouring a cup of ale, “a rogue bastard,” Fawkes “a brute,” then Russell, “and one honest man.”
Russell stared at his feet to hide the grin.
Fawkes shrugged, withdrew his hand, and let Oliver smell his glistening fingers.
“Cheeky,” Lucien grinned.
“I resemble that remark,” Savaric admitted as he tuned up.
“Cosa?” Gaulo demanded and Peter amended Dick’s assessment.
“He’s lying to ye,” Dick assured Gaulo, who didn’t understand a lick of Anglo-Norman.
Peter grinned politically with eyes hardened to disdain.
Oliver handed Dick a silver goblet brimming with froth, “From one bastard to another.”
“My Crown lords are quite taken with our business,” John shrugged.
“Ye look like a revenant,” Dick surmised.
John’s hair was thinning bald, the silver fading limpid grey; his skin pale and liver spotted, exposing blue veins. Exhausted and blood shot eyes cratered inside black holes and the royal paunch spilled over his jeweled belt. Kingly robes were stained and musky. His breathing was fast and shallow, his hold on Dick haggard, the limp pronounced.
“Says the Court fop,” John chuckled, “but tell me quick, how goes the war in the Channel?”
Dick swigged down some ale, “Mmmm, sheep piss.”
“Horse piss,” Fawkes corrected.
Dick’s vision distanced beyond thick linen walls with golden lions, “Froggy recalled most o’ ‘is ships, leaving Tadpole with Monky’s Black Fleet and a score o’ his own. They hold sway ‘tween Dover and the Thames but the rest o’ the coast is ours.”
“Splendid, splendid,” John patted Dick’s back.
Lucien laughed, rubbing at his eyes, “Froggy, Tadpole, Monky, I like this one.”
He was Lionsblood, a bastard nephew of John, raised by his innkeeper mother in Aquitaine’s mountainous frontier with Iberia. Taller than John but shorter than his legendary father, with the swarthy skin and ink sheen hair of his mother, Lucien possessed the unmistakable jaw, cheekbones, and nose of Richard Plantagenet. More importantly, Lucien had his father’s bloodlust. At an early age he started riding with the Gascon Whoresons throughout Occitaine, ranged with the Free Lancers across France, crossed the Pyrenees to fight Moors and divisive Spaniards among Los Deprevados, and was then hired by his father’s favorite routier Lupescar. His education complete, Lucien formed the Magnificent Bastards.
“I nary came to wax o’er the waves,” Dick drained half the ale, belched, and shoved the rest at Claude van Hauk, “Tis pisswater, you’ll enjoy it.”
“Oh? What brings you to us then?” John wondered as he limped back towards his chair, “Dunkeld, fetch us a morsel!”
“Sire,” his hostage squire bowed and sighed for the kitchens.
“Lamprey stew, boy!” Oliver heckled.
“I brought ye these,” Dick pulled two thin pipe rolls strapped to his sleeve, leaned over the table and offered them to John.
Peter reached out, “I’ll take those.”
“I’ll take yer fingers,” Dick snapped, placing them in his father’s trembling hand.
Peter’s eyes flared assassination.
John muttered under his breath and squinted at one of the rolls.
“I kin tell ye what’s in that one,” Dick offered, “Tis from Hubert.”
“He gave it to you?” John waved the roll.
“Aye.”
“Yet you said the Black Monk and Louis hold the sea about Dover,” Peter snarked.
“Tadpole and Monky hold sway,” Dick nodded and shrugged, “I swayed t‘other way.”
“Go on then,” John chuckled and pulled at the cap.
“Dover’s full o’ famine and rot. The walls are a crumblin’, one o’ the towers is Tadpole’s.” Dick sliced down to the truth, “They won’t last long less’en ye set someone upon Tadpole.”
John grunted as he scanned the parchment.
“You give Prince Louis too much credit,” Claude van Hauk dared with his Flemish tinge.
“And your father not enough,” Michelle le Picardy piled on with his almost Flemish French.
“And ye hunt too far a’field to find a stag,” Dick didn’t care, “Much less a Tadpole.”
Oliver laughed. Savaric plucked the lively melody to ‘Gamecocks and Fleet Foxes’. Bollocks farted and the bulldogs growled. John’s eyes were watering from concentration. He blinked hard, handing the letter to Peter.
“And what of this one?” John waved the second.
Dick spit egg, “Tis from Rome by way o’ Bordeux.”
“Roma?” Gaulo caught the sound of home.
“Twill be in Latin,” John sighed, fobbing it off to Peter, who gave it to Gaulo despite an obvious desire to keep it.
“How’d you come upon it?” Peter asked, clothed in a purple velvet jerkin beside’s the cardinals scarlet velvet robes.
“Philly d’Arundel gave it a me at Portsmouth,” Dick explained, “One o Rapscallion’s pirates brought it over.”
Savaric strummed emphatically, winking at Dick; who picked up the bowl of eggs, handed them to Michelle and sat on the table.
“A gull tol’ me Uncle Longsword’s at Norwich wit’ ‘is Bigod kin,” Dick kicked mud onto the rug, “Tain’t far a’field.”
John rolled his eyes and ground his teeth, “Russell said as much.”
“I did,” Kingsword agreed, shifting from wet stone to oil rag.
“And I sent his boy Shortsword to parley, I can do no more.” John sighed, “Where’s my morsel?”
Dick pulled scrimshaw from his boot and a carving knife from his sleeve, “Ye mean won’t ye stubborn bastard.”
Dick scraped into a groove of the sculpted ivory.
“I may be stubborn, lad,” John wriggled his ankle with a wince, “but you’re the bastard.”
“Fair and true,” Dick agreed, tossing the piece to his king father.
John admired a beast with the head and front paws of a lion and the body of a shark. Gaulo cried out, the parchment shaking violently in his hands. He made the sign of the Cross even as his head wobbled and throat moaned rapid Italian laments. Bollocks lifted his suspicious head and growled. Peter responded in calming Latin, resting a light hand on the legate’s forearm.
John’s hand curled around the ivory.
“Il Papa e’ morto! Il Papa e’ morto!” Gaulo covered his face, nearly dropping the letter.
“Non,” John muttered, knowing enough Latin to gather the truth.
“Innocent is dead,” Peter confirmed.
“Non, non, non,” John refuted, squeezing the sea lion so tight it broke.
Savaric tamped down the strings. Russell shut his eyes and turned his chin as if waiting for a blow. Oliver patted his belly and stared through Thoryn at the entrance. Claude and Michelle squirmed in their seats. Lucien watched John. Fawkes shoved Margie off his lap and smacked her arse hard as she scampered off in humiliation. The clerks stopped their scrawling and organizing to gaze quietly. Dick grimaced at the broken scrimshaw.
Margie was sobbing somewhere.
“Non! Non! Non!” John threw the broken scrimshaw on the rug, stood with a snarl and hobbled passed Dick. He cursed in a torrent of French and Occitan, pulling at his beard and smacking at the air.
Peter soothed Gaulo enough to make sense of his avalanching Italian.
“My lord, the cardinals have chosen a new pope already, one of their own. He’s taken the name Honorius as a symbol of fielty to Innocent. He’s vowed to fulfill Innocent’s planned crusade.”
“What about me?” John swiveled and snarled, “What about England? Who is this Honorius, what is he to us?”
Peter asked Gaulo, who babbled, shoved the letter into Peter’s hands, got up and headed across the pavilion beyond a partition. He prayed morosley as Peter read rapidly.
“The cardinals chose the Vatican Chamberlain, Sencio Saveli. This says he is of a like mind with Innocent, was his closest advisor, that . . .”
John perched on the pause, “Oui? What? What?”
“John, please bear in mind. . .”
“Tell me!” John’s eyes raged, his hands fisting and clawing, fisting and clawing.
“He was Kaiser Frederick Hohenstaufen’s teacher and still counts him as a friend.”
“Rape my mother with a cow leg!” John spat and Lucien couldn’t help but laugh.
Fawkes’ brow raised in consideration.
“Am I to trust a pope who supports Phillip’s ally, the rival of my cousin Otto?” John ranted, “Methinks not! What kind of honor is that? He betrays me, I say, betrays England!”
“Sire, this says nothing of . . .” Peter attempted.
“Alone again!” John kept yanking on his beard, limping about in a tight circle, “I’m alone, surrounded by rabid wolves, constantly biting when I turn to leash another! Kill them all, oui, so simply said. Kill them all and be done with it, more so now than ever, and quickly before the excommuncations are lifted.”
“I can come back at a better time,” Jonathan Dunkeld held a pot of bubbling stew.
“And when might that be, boy?” Dick rolled his eyes and stabbed the carving knife into the wood between his legs.
. . .
A grey misty morning crawled out of the darkness. The camp was helter skelter and hustle bustle as Sir Russell Kingsword barked orders at crowntroops, the mercenary captains roused their routiers, Master Sergeant Thoryn Beefeater organized the Crown baggage, and the clerks oversaw loading the Court documents.
King John slipped a foot into Dunkeld’s cupped hands to mount his steed, then stopped and staggered, yanked down scarlet hose and squatted, purging a yellow greenish flow from both ends. He’d stayed up most of the night fretting over plans, contingencies, possibilities, and paranoias. Having finally agreed to lay down in the small hours through a fusillade of admonishment, he was overcome with a bout of flux. He took no comfort from sharing the ailment with Oliver, Lucien, Peter, and Michelle; who devoured the lamprey stew with him.
Dunkeld curled his lips in disgust at the nastiness soaking into the dirt and grass.
Dick watched with tight lips and balled fists, but sympathetic eyes. “I told ye those lampreys lacked a proper cleanin’.”
John groaned, wiping his mouth with the back of his purple sleeve.
“Ye should stay and rest,” Dick recommended, “Send the host onwards if ye must. I kin wait a few tides t’ be about yer business.”
“Non!” John disregarded with draining determination. “I need you prowling the coast, sweep the Black Monk away, net any word from Rome and bring it straight to me: Lincoln, York, then back south to Corfe before Christmas.”
John swept a doleful, tired, look at Dick, “Tell no one, none of it, promise me again.”
“Aye for the t’ird time,” Dick rolled his eyes and headed for the open gates of Lynn.
. . .
From horseback, King John watched Lynnmen testing the wet sands of the Wellstream estuary with their long poles. The ones in the distance disappeared in the mist. It was low tide and four miles of riverbed were exposed and crossable with care, crabs scittering here and there. A cold, briny October wind blew in from the Wash, grey sky foreboding stormy weather. Gulls dipped down, sniping at the smaller crustaceons and tidal leavings.
The king moaned, leaning forward in his saddle and nearly falling, were it not for Sir Russell beside him. John was ghostly pale from the leeching, shivering and feverish, stinking of diarrhea. Gout stabbed molten pins in his ankles and elbows, while his tummy gurgled and squirmed.
“Easy there, m’lord.” The Kingsword reached out, bracing him with a helping hand.
“We shouldn’t have trusted that damned Jew doctor,” Sir Oliver tried mollifying the king, clenching his own belly, “Just another reason to burn Lynn.”
John managed a weak chuckle, “Twasn’t he that ate the lampreys. Just kill the cooks.”
Fawkes grunted atop Slutbucket, glancing over at one of his platinum haired twin knights.
Eldrich turned his horse about and spurred the beast towards the wagons, shouting, “Mort, bring your griffons, we’re off to find the cookwagons!”
Rapscallion rode up the river bank to the small gathering, “The guides say the crossing can be made, but twill be slow going till the mist clears.”
“What say you, uncle?” Lucien Lionsblood queried with a queasy scowl.
John squinted at Lucien. It was the first time the Magnificent Bastard referenced their kinship. Somehow, John didn’t like it.
“The baggage and siege trains, the crownmen and Welsh Dragons will cross here,” King John commanded tiredly, “Fawkes and Oliver take charge. Claude’s Hawks & Hounds will bring up the rear.” The king glanced westward along the road leading into the marshy Fens. “Savaric, take your Rapscallions, the Whoresons, and Free Lancers ahead to Wisbech and secure the bridge.” The king looked back to Fawkes and Bastard Boy, “We’ll meet you at Long Sutton.”
“Wise choice,” Peter agreed as Gaulo’s wagon house rolled towards them.
“For certes,” Savaric spurred his horse on towards Michelle le Picardy.
“I have to get down,” King John announced urgently, wincing and grabbing at his stomach.
“Dunkeld,” Russell swiveled in his saddle, calling for the royal squire.
Jonathan Dunkeld gritted his teeth and slid off his palfrey.
“Oh, oh, damn,” King John hissed as the stench spread through them all and shitewater dripped down his saddle and robes, “Bugger, never mind.”
. . .
“Sam, go see what’s holding us up,” Ned, Underscribe of the Crown Court, ordered.
Samwell sighed and gingerly scooted off the back of the wagon. His feet sank into the wet riverbed. Thunder rolled through raven black clouds. A biting cold rain started pelting them and a salty wind stabbed from the Wash. Walking towards the head of the train, Samwell flinched as an apple core struck him in the back of the head.
“And be quick about it,” Ned guffawed.
Sam fumbled the hood over his head with his good hand, keeping the fingerless one tucked close to his chest. The bandages were soiled and stank.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Harry, Underclerk of the Exchequer, taunted as Sam passed his wagon.
The baggage train was roughly in the middle of the Wellstream. They’d crossed dozens of little rivulets and bypassed pools, the guides always leaving a stick with a rag wrapped about it in the soft quicksand. The column stopped several times, but never for very long. This time, they’d been waiting almost half an hour.
Samwell didn’t mind checking. It was a chance to get away from the clerics reveling in his misery. He looked down at the bandaged nub. He was learning to write with his left hand but it was slow going. I’m ruined. I should have gone with Robert when I had the chance.
He passed wagon after wagon, open and enclosed. They were filled with clerics, grooms and maids, cooks and washer wenches, as well as everything King John might wish to use for pleasure or official purpose. A herd of cattle, several herds of sheep, and pigs were milling about. Everything was bogged in the wet sands, softening as the rain continued pouring down on them.
Samwell noticed the wagon wheels sinking into the river bed. They needed to move before the entire train became stuck. At the head of the column, three wagons were all sunk up to their axles. Ricardus Marsh, Ralfus Neville, and Pete de Rivalis heckled servants laboriously unloading the royal wardrobe, cupboards, and chests; taking them to other wagons starting to sink as well. Another three wagons had tried veering to the left and become bogged, while four were stuck to the right. Oliver and his sergeants were watching and waiting atop horses across one of the wider rivulets.
Samwell suddenly felt a coldness wash over his feet. He looked down to see water flowing towards the Fens in an ever widening path. More thunder rolled overhead, the wind whiplashed, and the rain fell harder.
“Tisn’t good,” Samwell mumbled to himself. He took another look at the rivulet, dividing the column from Oliver. It was filling rapidly. Before and behind him, water an inch or so deep was flowing past the column. He walked around the wagon he was standing beside, to get a better look at the Wash.
“Christ,” he quivered as cold fear skittered down his spine. “Where’s Moses when you need him?”
A short, frothy wave of water rushed towards them.
“The tide’s coming in!” Thoryn Beefeater shouted as he rode back up the line.
Blacky Godwyn got off the chamberlain wagon, rushed forward, grabbed the lead horses’ bridles and heaved. Mousehole Aellen whipped them harder, while Bollocks barked. Thoryn berated the high clerks until all three joined the servants pushing the back of the wagon. A fresh wave crashed through the train. The pigs were screeching and sheep bleating, the cows mewing. A wagon sank deeper on one side and fell over, people and supplies spilling into the water.
Soon enough, the briny tide was halfway up Samwell’s shins. He joined in pushing the wagon with his shoulder. The wagon rocked as successive waves overcame them. Each time screams, shouts, and cursing escalated. The water was almost to Sam’s knees. Finally, the wagon lurched forward.
A horse headbutted Godwyn and he stumbled back a few steps, tumbling into the rivulet.
“Har! Har!” Mousehole laughed.
Godwyn tried laughing too, but swallowed seawater instead. His eyes bulged as he slapped his hands ineffectively against the water.
“Aell . . . en . . . Ae . . llen!” He gurgled and disappeared.
“Godwyn!” Aellen stood on the jostling wagon as the horses reared and sank in the culvert. Aellen lost his balance, toppling forward and between the rear horses. The axle and harness caught his body, but his head splashed into the water. Bollocks fell awkwardly from the wagon, whimpering like a motherless pup.
Nate Fitzroy emerged from the small door behind the wagon seat, apparently having slept through the quagmire, “This not funny anymore, Ralfus! Ralfus? Bollocks!”
Nate jumped in the water and splashed after Bollocks.
Falmouth shoved past Sam, dragging Pete de Rivalis, who was muttering, “I can’t swim, I can’t swim, I can’t swim.”
“Sam! Help us!” Ralfus shouted, as Ricardus handed him a small heavy chest that he nearly dropped in onrushing water. The chained Chamberbook hung from his waistbelt in the briney froth.
“For God’s sake, help!” Ricardus pleaded.
John’s bulldogs, Beckett, Braose, and Arthur were paddling in circles.
“Hey!” Thoryn’s horse dipped in soft sand, there was a loud crack, the horse screamed and Beefeater went down under the beast.
. . .
The royal entourage rode through Long Sutton to the north bank of the Wellstream. The rain was still pouring but had slackened a bit. Everyone was soaked. A score of crowntroops, clerics, and servants were sitting on the banks and milling about aimlessly.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Bishop Peter demanded.
“Wath it look like?” Sergeant Falmouth hocked snot.
Petite Margie of Devonshire was crying hysterically, her pink dress coated in mud. Samwell looked up with meek, doleful eyes, then simply stared back out at the Wellstream. Chancellor Ricardus was lying on his back, covered in mud, an arm folded over his eyes. Chambersteward Ralfus was vainly trying to dry the pages of his Chamberbook with a wet rag. Herald Pete looked up at his father with unfocused eyes. Nate stumbled up the riverbank with a humbled Bollocks. There were scratches up and down the young man’s arms, neck, and left cheek.
“I saved Bollocks for you, Lord Peter.”
“What’s going on, where’s Savaric, where’s Oliver and Fawkes, where’s the baggage train?” King John demanded weakly. His vision was useless at a distance, “Peter, tell me what you see. Where are they?”
“Christ,” Peter hacked.
“Tis never good when you call on Jesu, damn it, someone tell me what’s going on!” King John raged tiredly, wincing and holding his stomach.
“It appears, m’lord, well . . .” Peter was at a loss of words for once.
“They’re stuck in the middle of the river, sire,” Sir Russell admitted, “God have mercy.”
King John groaned, “Non.”
He spurred his horse down the river bank, galloping across the muddy riverbed.
“M’lord, wait, tis too dangerous!” Peter cried out.
Russell grunted, spurring after the king, a handful of younger kingsmen in tow.
In less than a mile the brackish water lapped at the horse’s bellies. Gradually, they passed individual soldiers and servants, then small groups, all soaked, muttering, shivering, shocked, wading tiredly shoreward. Finally, they rode up to Savaric and his triplet knights: Beauregard, Beaudelair, and Rambeau with a useless right arm. King John stood in his stirrups, awed at the tragedy before him. Wagons were half buried in quicksand and rising waters. Others were bowled over, and some were floating into the Fens. The arm of a mangonel shot skyward at an awkward angle. Clothes, documents, tapestries, everything was drifting on the waves. Soldiers, servants, horses, mules, sheep, pigs, dogs; they were drowning or drowned. All of it was happening unto the grey horizon.
“Papa! Papa!” Oliver came wading up to the royal entourage, soaked to the bone, “The storm came and the tide rushed upon us . . . the panic was unstoppable.”
“Son! My God!” King John muttered, “Non!”
“M’lord, you really must return to shore,” Savaric said as he offered Oliver a hand up into his saddle.
Once behind Savaric, Oliver burst into tears, “I’m sorry father, so sorry. We saved as much as we could!”
Claude van Hauk splashed towards them on his horse, a dozen hawkmen in tow, “Ruined! I’m ruined! 456 men, 312 horses, 7 dog packs, and a score of hawks and falcons! This is going to cost you, King John!”
“Are you certes you’re captain of the Hawks & Hounds?” Savaric scathed, “You sound like a chamberlain! Perchance if you’d been helping your men rather than counting them drown, more would be alive!”
“We can’t all sing a song and earn high office!” Claude snapped.
A clutch of horsemen were splashing slowly but steadily towards the king.
“Who’s coming upon us?” John squinted, grimacing as he stood in the stirrups.
“Tis Lord Fawkes,” Savaric didn’t have to check. The man was fearless, delving his brutemen back into the Wellstream again and again. Behind Fawkes were his cleric Passelewe, the twins Edmond and Eldrich, and half a dozen brutemen.
“Is that. . .” Russell noticed a large corpse in a Plantagenet surcoat folded over Slutbucket’s rump.
“Thoryn,” Oliver moaned.
John was ignoring them, staring at the wagon spilling smashed, crashed, and opened barrels of silver pennies. Some men weren’t too afraid to stop and shove coins in their clothes. His personal and state treasures, the Crown wardrobe, his grandmother’s imperial crown and garb from Germany, personal documents, Court documents, the Wash was claiming it all. A wave washed over them, the horses stumbling against the pushing tide.
“Majesty, we must get you back to shore,” Russell urged.
“Aaaahhhhh!” King John screamed and clutched at his chest, “God, it hurts.”
Then the King of England fell into the Wellstream.
. . .
The rain was a thick drizzle, the wind whipping them with frigid disdain.
“We have to stop moving,” Sir Oliver pleaded with Bishop Peter, “Tis killing him.”
“Tis his choice,” Peter shrugged as the moribund column slogged along the muddy path towards Newark. After the Wash Away, they spent an evening in Swineshead between the Witham and Welland Rivers, then made their way inland for Lincoln. At Sleaford, John stopped for two days. His condition worsened, the flux draining John’s body as Innocent’s passing and the Wash Away sapped his spirit. The storm lashed and roared, an unforgiving torrent turning the air to arrows and roads to creekbeds. This morning John shocked his entourage by croaking they’d continue west to Newark and then Nottingham instead of Lincoln. He’d recover in comfort and security before finishing off the Midlands traitors.
“He’ll die if we don’t do something now!” Oliver shouted, then winced at the lingering cramps from the bad stew.
John was a husk huddled on a saddle, clutching his chest, enfeebled and unresponsive. He’d barely spoken since the Wash Away. What the barons, the pope, the French, the Welsh, the Scots, and Irish could not do, the Wash accomplished in a day.
“I’m not dead yet,” He moaned weakly then nearly fell off the saddle.
“Enough!” Oliver screamed. “Father, you’re coming off the horse.”
Peter and Lucien eyed Oliver then the king.
“Tis about time,” Sir Russell muttered.
John said nothing and didn’t resist when Oliver dismounted, then pulled the king from his saddle. Resting in his bastard’s arms, King John watched as his simpleton son, Nate, and Russell Kingsword construct a litter from willow branches, cloaks, and blankets. John’s head pounded as if Fawkes was beating him with Smashface. His whole body trembled; wether from the cold, fever, or alcohol urge John wasn’t sure. His throat burned from wretching bile, stomach roiled and bowels knotted from flux and lack of wine. His arse burned from chronic purging, saddle sores, and the piles. John’s chest felt like it lay under a millstone. Lightning nails of gout stabbed ankles and knees, wrists and elbows.
It hurt to be.
The mere thought of moving was agony beyond words.
The rain lashed and clouds roared.
John thought of his father, Henry, how he spent his final years bitterly fighting his own sons and imprisoning his wife; how he died of flux, abandoned by all of them, the news of John’s defection the mortal blow for the first Plantagenet King. John thought of his brother, Richard, how the Lionheart was his own worst enemy, yet his adversaries respected and admired him; how Richard forgave but never trusted John’s perfidy, then died from an infected arrow wound, leaving their inexperienced nephew Arthur with the right to the Crown. John thought of his mother, Eleanor, how she always forgave Richard but tongue lashed John even when he saved her from Arthur and the Lusignan’s at the Miracle of Mirabeau. Having served as Richard’s truest councilor and staunchest supporter, Eleanor took the veil after Mirabeau and retired to Fontevrault Abbey rather than serve John. He thought of his nine year old boy, Hal, so open hearted and innocent, eager to laugh yet afraid of the dark; heir to a kingdom riven with war, famine, plague, and wolves in man skin. The King of England thought of Philippe Capet and how he once told John, when they were princes and erstwhile allies, of his own father’s nickname for the Plantagenets.
John coughed a chuckle.
“What’s so funny, Papa?” Oliver bent close to hear John’s rasp.
“The storm, tis my family calling me to Hell.”
“Papa,” Oliver consoled disconsolately.
“Devil’s brood,” John whispered.
“We’ll have you warm and dry in Newark very soon, m’lord,” Peter promised from the saddle, “Savaric is clearing the way and will have everything ready when we arrive.”
I’m so tired of fighting.
King John looked from his son, to Lucien, up to Peter. He stared up through the dark clouds then mumbled something. Oliver pitched his ear lower to catch the whispering. No one spoke as the thunder laughed.
Oliver looked up at them and shuddered, “Papa wants to draw up his will.”
“I’ll write it, m’lord,” Peter volunteered, “But first let’s make it to Newark.”
. . .
King John was lying abed in the bishops chamber of Newark Castle. Gusting rain lashed the closed shutters, the braziers sputtering at whisps of cold infiltrating the room. Bishop Hugh richly decorated it, but the kingsman occupying the castle wasn’t used to such finery. He kicked out the bishops servants and brought few with him. The rugs were caked with dirt, the sheets and bed curtains soiled and frayed, wax creeped down candelabras onto cupboard, sideboard, and the floor. The furniture was dented and scratched.
Earlier, Abbot Croxton bled and leeched John, easing his pain and fever slightly with willow bark, honey, and elderberry tea. Bishop Peter de Roches, Sir Oliver Fitztroy, Lord Savaric Mauelon, Lucien Lionsblood, and Croxton were seated around the large four poster bed. Chambersteward Ralfus de Neville stood behind Peter, who just finished writing the king’s will.
John lifted a shaky, pale, liver spotted hand, rasping, “I would . . . speak with . . . Peter . . . alone.”
Peter handed the long sheet of vellum to Ralfus, who rolled it up with care then collected his portable scribblers desk off the Rock’s lap. The others shuffled out the door. Peter and John stared silently at one another. Alone, Peter took John’s hand into his own, refusing to show the disgust he felt at the clamy skin and weak grip. The king burned fever warm, smelled sickly sweet, and was pale as a snow covered headstone.
“There is more you would have me do,” Peter knew and John blinked slow confirmation.
“You are . . . the only . . . one I trust. . . truly. . . my rock. . . Hal . . . such a sweet . . . boy. . . soft hearted . . . eager . . . to please,” John shifted his shoulders and Peter adjusted the pillows, then took his hand again.
“I will take good care of him,” Peter promised, “Raise him as if he were my own.”
John squeezed Peter’s hand, “He needs . . . scars. . . be hard. . . he is . . . smart but. . . must be strong . . . to collar all . . . the wolves.”
“He will be iron itself,” Peter promised, but linen is so much more malleable.
“So young. . . his Crown. . . must be. . . protected . . . all costs,” John’s eyes flashed stern.
“For certes,” Peter agreed, “When we are through with the traitors they will despair at the mere thought of rebellion. We will drown Louis in the Channel and reclaim the entire Plantagenet Realm.”
John’s chin and brow nodded, “Protect him. . . from all. . . the wolves. . . crusade. . . we must keep. . . pope . . .on . . . his shoulder.”
“We will give Honorius no cause to doubt us,” Peter guaranteed, Cardinal Peter de Roches rolls off the tongue quite nicely.
“The bastards . . . make them . . . useful . . . beyond . . . far beyond . . . Court,” John coughed deeply from his chest, his entire body convulsing. He seemed to fade into the bedding.
“We shall brook no rivals,” Peter agreed, Longsword will make a good martyr for Cross or Crown.
“Mum. . .” John gasped, “his Mum. . . Isabelle. . . cannot . . . remarry. . . have Savaric. . . install her . . . at Fontevrault or . . . La Reole.”
“No nunnery will refuse her,” Peter pontificated, nor will any lord.
John’s eyelids slid closed, but the king pulled them open with ebbing determination. He squeezed Peter’s hand again, running yellow fingernails over Peter’s wrist. “My rock. . .”
“My king. . .” The Rock refused to cringe.
. . .
Newark’s great hall was crowded with sleeping, snoring kingsmen and crownguards, whores and routiers. Sergeant Falmouth and a few others clung to consciousness, nursing cups of ale at trestle tables by the dais. Herald Pete de Rivalis found Samwell curled into a ball along the wall close to the hearth. He nudged the cleric in the ribs with his foot.
“Huh? What?” Samwell opened bleary eyes, “Oh.”
“Come with me,” Pete demanded quietly.
Samwell knew better than to question why. He got up, massaging the aching right stub through the wrapping. His dirty robe and undershirt were still damp, but at least they were warm. His nose was running and throat soar, the cough making it worse. Pete led him up the stairs to the solar, where Lord Fawkes, Sir Russell, Captains Van Hauk, Michelle, and Lionsblood, along with Squire Dunkeld and Chambersteward Ralfus sat staring at eachother and sipping wine. Nate was passed out on the floor, wrapped up in a rug and cuddling Bollocks. They continued into the small solar, where Lord Savaric was strumming a melancholy chord, Chancellor Ricardus copying a proclamation, and Legate Gaulo relishing the last morsels of a roast chicken.
Pete opened the door to the bishops chamber, nodded at his father, urged Samwell in and shut the door. Bishop Peter was standing by a brazier a few feet from the bed, his arms crossed over his chest, observing King John’s medical treatment. The king was asleep, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his open mouth. Abbot Croxton was old, bald, and fat; his white habit spattered with mud and blood. He muttered to himself as he inspected the hollow brass needle inserted into the crook of John’s elbow. Cat gut attached to the end of the needle fed blood into a brimming bowl sitting on a stool beside the bed. John’s night shirt was unlaced, a half dozen swollen leeches clung to his pale chest.
Samwell knew little about medicine, but he’d never heard of bleeding and leeching twice in one evening, nor at the same time. He knew better than to question why. Croxton slid the needle from John’s vein and placed it on the stool while a stream of blood worked its way down the king’s arm. The abbot took two leeches from the smaller bowl on the stool and placed them on either side of the puncture. He picked up the leech bowl and placed it on John’s belly, took hold of a burning taper and lowered the flame close to one of the leeches. It cringed, Croxton squeezed it free, placed it in the bowl and moved on to the others.
Croxton’s young acolyte gathered the blood bowl and needle, then headed for the door. Samwell let him out. When Croxton was done with the leeches, he picked up the bowl and waddled over to Peter.
“Tis not a question of if, but when,” Croxton advised.
Peter nodded and stared at Samwell to let the abbot out.
“Your grace,” Samwell trembled before Peter, clutching his stub to his chest.
“You will stand vigil until the morn,” Peter bored absolute eyes into Samwell’s fright.
“Oui,” Samwell’s reluctant eyes flitted over the fading king.
Left alone, Samwell wasn’t sure what to do. He stood there, afraid to move, for a long time. The storm outside was growing worse, thunder booming in the distance, sleet slapping against the shutters, wind whipping around the tower. The miserable march from the Wash Away, the trauma of almost drowning and seeing so many slip under the water, the constant throbbing ache of his ruined hand, they demanded their toll. He arranged two chairs into a crude bed beside the king’s, said a prayer for John, Robert, Nate, and himself, then curled into a ball and shut his eyes.
Out of the bliss, Samwell was wading through infinite icey grey water under a bleak grey sky. He was weighed down, carrying something on his back, holding a limp forearm with his good left hand. Samwell looked over his shoulder, realized he was carrying Robert, and stumbled to his knees. The water rushed up past his waist and a frothing wave spilled salt water over his face, in his throat, down his chest. He struggled to get back up, to keep Robert on his back, then another heaviness crashed down on him. Another hand flopped down and smacked against his face.
Samwell coughed water from his lungs, the panic rising from stomach to chest. He pushed with all his strength up into a hunched crouch, peered up and saw Ned, Harry, and Thomas piled atop Robert. He took a step forward but the sand gave way, his foot sinking into the morass. A left hand lifted from the water, parchment skin and brittle bones, gripping Samwell’s robe. John’s decaying, emaciated head rose from the water, nose melting, one eye blood red and the other oblivion black. His mouth opened, the lamprey tongue squirmed out, and the world shook at the soul shattering sound. . .
Samwell jolted awake, the room rumbling from thunder overhead, shadows and light flashing across the walls as lighnting cracked, water streaming through the shutters. John was gasping, eyes emitting terror, right arm reaching up, fingers curled into a claw. Samwell trembled, paralyzed with fear, eyes locked on the king. Darkness engulfed them, thunder rolled, lightning blitzed the room again. John’s arm sprawled over his chest, mouth agape, eyes empty.
Samwell wasn’t sure how long he stared at the shadow shrouded corpse, clutching his stump. He forced himself up, stumbled to the door, fumbled it open, and stepped into the dimly lit small solar. Gaulo was snoring, Ricardus slumped over a pile of parchments, Savaric curled about his gittern, but Peter sat there staring at him.
“The king is dead,” Samwell mumbled.
Peter kept staring at him. Samwell fidgeted. Lightning crackled Savaric awake. Nate was crying in the solar beyond the othe door. Oliver was cursing him to be quiet.
“Long live King Henry,” Peter ordained.