Rebellion (5 page)

The queen knew there was a flaw somewhere in
this argument, yet oddly she was comforted by it, and by the conviction in de Brézé's
face. He was in his own way a visionary, untroubled by practicalities; one of a breed of
men who, like the Conqueror, was only truly at home on the battlefield. No woman would
ever own him and possibly no king or queen.

But he had paid, out of his own depleted
purse, for her ships and men.

She shook her head. She would have her
revenge on Louis one day. Certainly he would never own Calais.

She turned back to her general and managed
to smile. ‘It appears I am indebted to you,' she said.

‘No, my lady.'

She nodded. ‘I think I am. And tomorrow the
weather will change?'

‘It will, my lady,' he replied.

And it did. On the morning of 19 October the
sun shone and the wind blew in the right direction.

There was no time to discuss this turn of
fortune. All the men, horses, weapons and supplies had to be loaded on to the ships.
Then the anchors were raised and the sails filled with wind, and the first ship drifted
out into the sea.

The queen and the little prince stayed on
deck, watching the land of Normandy recede, and the wide, sparkling sea that would take
them to England to reclaim the crown.

The first
shots were fired
almost as soon as they were within sight of land. The cannonballs fell short of the
ships but made the waters choppy.

They advanced anyway, slowly, but were met
with a bombardment so intense that it caused the vessels to swerve. Yet none of them had
been struck and the queen still thought they should go forward.

De Brézé said something to the captain, who
shouted back at him in an accent so strong that the queen hardly understood it, but she
caught the words for ‘testicles' and ‘cow'. De Brézé cuffed him hard then seized the
wheel and began to shout himself.

‘That one is not for us!' he cried, as a
great cannonball struck the water some feet to the side, causing the boat to lurch. ‘Do
you hear me, you sons of whores? You pox-ridden, dung-eating lepers!'

He roared like a maniac when one of the
ships was struck, and the queen too cried out. Even from where she stood she could see
her ships retreating.

‘Tell them to come back!' she screamed.

The captain reappeared and tried to take the
wheel, and a furious altercation occurred. The queen set out towards them, but the boat
lurched again and she was flung back against the mast.

‘My ships!' she cried.

Seeing her difficulty, de Brézé left the
wheel and leaped down
from the deck to help her. The captain at once
began to turn the boat round.

‘No! No!' cried the queen and the captain
shouted back.

‘What is he saying?' she cried. She had
caught the word ‘curse'.

‘He says that you should go below, my lady –
for your own safety.' He took her arm.

‘Tell him to turn back at once.'

‘We are not retreating, my lady – if we sail
a little further up the coast they cannot fire.'

‘Is that where the other ships are
going?'

De Brézé didn't answer, apparently
concentrating on guiding her down the steps towards her cabin.

‘I must stay with him, my lady, he doesn't
know the coast.'

‘You do not know the coast.'

‘I know that we need to go further north. If
we can reach your garrison at Bamburgh, we can get from there to Berwick. I don't know
where we are now, but that was not your garrison. Excuse me, my lady – it will take more
than one man to navigate this ship.'

The queen had no intention of remaining in
her cabin. During her first voyage to England she had been trapped below deck until the
Duke of Suffolk had managed to find and rescue her. But she did want to return to the
little prince who was waiting for her there.

‘Who is firing at us,
Maman
?' he
said. The queen didn't answer him but held him tightly for a moment until he strained
away. ‘I don't like this ship,' he said.

The queen didn't like it either. Six days in
its stinking belly had convinced her that she never wanted to set foot on a boat again.
She did not say this, however, but took the little prince back with her to the deck,
where they clung to a wooden rail above the rudder. From there they stared anxiously at
the receding land. They could see no sign of the other ships at all.

She had come so close, only to be turned
away.

‘Where are we going,
Maman
?' said the little prince, but she couldn't reply. Already the waters
were less choppy, but it was difficult to turn north because the wind was blowing from
that direction, so they made slow progress. Then, as the land disappeared, the sky
darkened and the wind moaned.

‘Look,
Maman
!' cried the little
prince, pointing to the sea, which was churning to foam and already climbing the sides
of the boat. The queen could not help but remember the storm that had accompanied her to
England, when all her ships had been wrecked.

‘It is just a game, my little cygnet,' she
told him (for the swan was his symbol). ‘The wind and the waters are playing a
game.'

She knew she should get him inside, but she
had a horror of being trapped in her cabin like last time.

The boat rolled and lurched and they clung
to the wooden rail. All sight of their destination had gone. There was no sign of the
first stars that should have navigated them – it was as though they had been snuffed out
like so many candles. Then rain began, like a dense fall of arrows into the sea.

The ship juddered, then lurched horribly to
the right. The queen's breath was knocked from her as she was pressed against the
rail.

‘In,' she managed to say, but the little
prince leaned over and vomited copiously into the sea.

She clasped him, ignoring the vomit-stained
clothing, and began struggling back – not to the cabins, she would not stay there – but
to the deck.

She was flung backwards as she tried to
climb the steps and forced to crawl up on hands and knees. Then when she reached the top
the boat reared and plunged and both she and the prince were hurled to one side; her
ribs struck a wooden beam. She could just make out de Brézé by the wheel, but she
couldn't seem to reach him – it was like one of those nightmares where it was not
possible to move forward. She hauled herself along the beam,
the little
prince clinging to her side, and cried out three times to the Seneschal.

And he heard. He looked over his shoulder
once, twice, then shouted to the captain and left the wheel.

‘What are you doing, my lady?' he called.
‘This is not safe.'

She tried to tell him that she could not
stay below but he could hardly hear her. Already he had taken the little prince in his
arms and was manoeuvring her back inside. She clutched at him and made him stop. ‘I
cannot stay here – on this ship!' she cried, almost sobbing.

De Brézé tried to calm her. ‘This storm will
die down,' he said, ‘and then we will land.'

She clutched him harder. ‘Promise me!' she
said. ‘Promise me you will take me to shore.'

‘Of course,' he said. Once the storm died
down they could drop anchor and he would row her to land himself. ‘I swear,' he said and
she believed him.

‘We should have fired back,' she said
bitterly, but de Brézé said that the garrison would have more munitions than they – they
had to preserve all they had for the real war. ‘But I have to steer the ship,' he said.
‘Promise me you will stay here?'

Reluctantly, she nodded and released him.
But she remained at the bottom of the steps, listening to the cries of those above as
the foaming sea swept over the deck.

As de Brézé predicted, however, the storm
did die down. The waters became less agitated and the ship made some progress towards
the north. As soon as she could the queen left her shelter and peered out to where she
could see the first thin line of land, then made her way to de Brézé.

‘You said you would take me to land,' she
said.

De Brézé was drenched with spray. ‘There are
rocks, my lady,' he said. ‘Great rocks jutting out into the sea. We should wait until
morning.'

‘You promised!' she said.

De Brézé stared around. ‘We
don't even know where this is.'

But the queen was terrified of further
storms and afflicted by the fear that she would never see land again, or regain her
troops. Eventually de Brézé agreed to speak to the captain. After a long time he
rejoined her.

‘We will sail a little further,' he said,
‘and then I will take you. The captain will look for a more suitable landing.'

Within an hour a little boat was lowered
down the side of the ship and a rope ladder dropped after it. The queen descended with
some difficulty, de Brézé helping her, then the little prince was passed down to them
both.

‘Now, we row,' de Brézé said.

They sat behind him, watching the muscles of
his back pull and strain to shift the boat over the final stretch of water. When they
were still a little way from the sand he climbed out and waded, pulling them in.

‘Here we are,' he said, with a touch of
irony, for the beach was entirely deserted. The queen felt her legs give way as her feet
sank into the sand, but she did not stumble.

It was getting dark. A fine rain fell, and
all her clothes clung to her. But this was it. She had returned to England.

Beside her the little prince was quivering
like a dog. She hugged him but could feel no warmth. ‘Where is the ship going,
Maman
?' he said.

De Brézé turned. All three of them looked
where the little prince was pointing. The ship had turned fully away from them. It did
not seem to be heading along the coast, but retreating, turning back towards France. De
Brézé swore, softly and fluently, as they watched the ship disappear, leaving them on
the abandoned shore.

They slept that night in a cave that de Brézé
found, which was dry at least, if not comfortable. The queen was certainly not
comfortable. De Brézé spread out his tunic for her, denying that he was cold, and she
lay upon it, wrapping herself round the little prince. But the cold feeling soaked its
way through her flesh, to her stomach and her heart. She could not stop shivering. The
crackle of rain on rocks was like gunfire in her head.

When at last she did sleep she dreamed that
she was being rowed towards England in a tiny fishing boat. Her son was with her, and a
great wind blew up and tossed the boat about. She tried to tell de Brézé to keep rowing,
but it was not de Brézé, it was an old fisherman with one milky eye.

‘Why're you here?' he asked.

‘I have come back,' she said, ‘to reclaim my
kingdom. I am your queen.'

The old man grinned, showing broken teeth.
‘Queen of fishes,' he said.

She tried to tell him then that God had
appointed her queen, that she had fought many battles for her country and would fight
again. But it was difficult to make herself heard through all the wind and the spray
rising over the sides of the boat, and the old fisherman only grinned again.

‘Worm on a hook,' he said.

She could not believe he
had dared to compare her to a worm, and she opened her mouth to abuse him, but the storm
was so violent now that the little boat lurched and she had to fling herself across the
body of her son. The water seemed alive – a monstrous thing intent on their destruction.
She knew it would sweep them under and dash them against the cliffs. Then, as she lifted
her head, she realized that the land she could see was not England but France, and she
tried to cry out in protest, but the wind and the waves swept her voice away.