"No, not here," he said. "I need to secure London behind me, and keep it safe out of his hands. Let him have such as he can take of the ports, he will not get Dover, nor will he have the goodwill of the seamen or the men of the Weald. We go back to London."
And back to London we went, leaving Rochester to be re-occupied by the king's army, and even sacrificing Tonbridge, for Gilbert of Clare returned with Earl Simon to the city. Not to sit in the Tower and wait to be attacked, but to re-order and enlarge his army with all the trained bands of London, ready to move again with an impregnable city at his back, before King Henry should have any chance to settle or enjoy his scanty hold upon the coast.
Thus those two armies, at last dressed for battle and no longer postponing, began to move together in the early days of May, the king returning from the coast to the town of Lewes, where Earl Warenne of Surrey had a strong castle, and Earl Simon marching south from London to intercept him. Now no one sought to avoid, but rather each observed, by way of scouts, the course his enemy took, and guided his own force to strike forehead against forehead.
No man can say for certain, but for my part I believe it was Edward who had decreed that attack upon Northampton, while proctors and agents still talked conciliation and issued safe-conducts. It accords well with the tenor of all he did at this time, for his every act shows that he did not consider himself bound by any considerations of honour or good faith in dealing with those he held to be rebels. And I think also that it was Edward who now thirsted to dash against his enemies and destroy them. For Earl Simon had said rightly of him that his hatred unbalanced his judgment. Not that we dared build upon that, for if there was one thing certain about Edward, it was that he could learn. Not that he would therefore hate less, but that he would be better able to control and channel his hate to do the greatest and most terrible harm to those he hated.
It was a temperament Earl Simon did not know, except by rote, for it was out of his scope. Though he used the word freely when he blazed against pettiness and inconstancy, I doubt if he ever hated any man, for in all innocence—no, I do not like that word for him!—in all purity he never found, of his own measure, any that were hateful, but only such as he reverenced, willing to sit at their feet like a scholar guided by his master. But they were legion whom he knew how to despise.
It was the eleventh day of May, and a Sunday, when King Henry's army reached Lewes and camped there. We were at Fletching, ten miles north of that town, in the forest country above the valley of the Ouse, and by our forward scouts we knew when they came, and their numbers, which were certainly greater than ours. It mattered not at all that it was so. The middle of May is not summer, yet in our camp by night there was a warmth upon us like a benediction and, as I think, it arose from a most rare essence, the unity of some thousands of minds at one and at rest.
Three bishops we had with us, of Worcester, London and Chichester, one of them as near a saint as mortal man can reach outside the canon, and he the most intimate and faithful friend of the demon-saint who led us. But that was not our secret. The great calm of ordinary, well-intentioned, reverent and humble blessedness was upon us, of mortal men doing what they devoutly believed to be right and true. There is no other grace needed, for this grace comes of God, without benefit of pope or priest. And I well remember that night, after so long, for the absolute peace of the spirit that lay upon it.
I went out between the camp-fires, muted and turfed by reason of the dry weather and the thick brushwood, up to a little spur of the downs that lifted out of forest into the sky and was roofed over with stars, and there I said my office in the utmost calm, without fear or hope, both impurities, aware only of this blessedness.
In resignation of soul that was pure joy, I made my prayers for my lord, and for my country, and for my love, and from all three I was far distant, and yet I felt them very near. And it seemed to me that I saw them all the more clearly from this small hillock in the far south, as though the starlit air between touched my eyes into clarity beyond mortal, so that my love swelled in me into such grandeur that I could hardly contain it, and it welled into the night and made itself one with the silence and the calm. Then, believing myself alone, I said aloud the first, best prayer. And one in the shadow of the trees behind me said: "Amen!"
I turned about, and he was there in the darkness of the trees, seated upon a bank of turf that clambered into the knotted roots of an old beach-tree. And so still that I had not marked him when I came, though there he had surely been in his own solitude, apart even from those three holy men who upheld his spirit and blessed his cause. By his voice I knew him, and by the shape of him, like a part, a buttress, of the great tree, or a bastion shielding the wall of a city. He could walk by then, leaning upon a staff, or with a page's shoulder under his hand, but not for too long, and as yet could not sit a horse without pain.
"I ask your pardon," he said, "for intruding upon your devotions. I could not move to leave you without disturbing you."
"My lord," I said, "next to God and Llewelyn, there is no creature in heaven or earth I would so willingly trust with my prayers as you. This night I could believe I have been heard as compassionately there as here."
His voice in the great starry spaces of the night was low and still and utterly assured, for we were all come to this marvellous stay, as upon a rock. Very seldom in a lifetime can men be so sure of what they do, and of their resignation and rightness in undertaking it.
"You know," he said, "as every man here knows, that this matter is now come to the issue. There is nowhere further to go, for beyond this point, if he will not bend, we cannot."
I said that I did know it, and was at peace with it. And I said, in some wonder, that this must be the mark of a holy war, that it brought its soldiers to a high certainty of peace.
"Yet while we have life," he said, "and have not clashed forehead against forehead, I must still strive even for the world's peace. Tomorrow I propose to send to the king by Bishop Berksted, and make one more attempt to sever him from those who misuse and delude him. Then if that fail, there is no way to go but forward into battle. Master Samson, I have given some thought to your situation. If we march on Lewes, you will remain in the service of the bishop. I will place you officially in his household, and his hand and your own clerkship will protect you if my fortunes go awry. Very loyal and serviceable you have been to me, and I have been glad of you, but this quarrel is neither yours nor your lord's, and I would have you clear of blame."
Such was Earl Simon, at the crisis of his greatest obligation still able to give care and thought even to the least. I thanked him for his kindness, but said I could not accept his provision for me.
"Thus far I have come with you," I said, "at my lord's will, and the rest of the way I will go with you at my own. Though I began as a clerk, I can take the cross like any other man and, if you will use me, I can use a sword. I could not go back and look Llewelyn in the face again if I forsook you now. He is bound in his own person, but free in mine, and what he cannot do, I can, in his name as well as my own. But for my man Cadell, if he will accept it, I welcome your good thought. I will write some lines to my prince, and send them tomorrow by Cadell, if you will furnish him a safe-conduct, for by way of London he can still reach Wales safely. And I will have Llewelyn keep him there this time, and not return. After tomorrow," I said, "if the news be good, I will carry it back to my lord myself. And if not," I said, "I shall be troubled with messages no more, and it will be all one to me who carries him word of my death."
"Either you are very well prepared for dying," said the earl drily, "or your faith in my cause is great. Or it may be both," he said, musing. "Who am I to tell?"
"I can think of worse ways to die," I said, "than in your cause and your company. And whatever, the outcome, I will not turn my back now."
I had thought he might be angry at being denied, for he was not used to being crossed, and indeed he had the right to give orders and dispose as he saw fit now that we were in the field. But he did not refuse me. A moment he sat silent, thinking, and then, dark as it was, I saw him smile. He reached out a hand to me, and said:
"Will you lend me your arm back to my tent? The way downhill is harder going than the climb."
So leaning on me he raised himself, and with my arm under his on the lame side, and his staff helping him on the other, we descended to where the bedded fires loaded the night air with their green earthen scent, and the low murmur of voices and stirring of movement from company to company made a forest quickening, like the awakening of bird and beast before the dawn. Patient beside his tent the young earl of Gloucester waited for him, and took him from my arm to bring him within. But for some long, sweet moments of that night I had heavy and vital upon my heart the greatest man ever I knew, and but for one the best and dearest, and on May nights I feel that weight yet, and am back in the forests of Fletching, in the days before the battle, with the stars above debating secretly my life or death, and the fate of England.
CHAPTER IX
When the morning came, he did as he had said. In council with his barons he composed a letter to the king, assented to by all, and had it sealed with his own seal and Gloucester's. It was a letter altogether devout and courteous, but unyielding, declaring the unswerving loyalty to the king of all those consenting to it, though they were resolved to proceed to the utmost against his enemies and theirs, the evil counsellors who deformed his government and urged him to injustice and unwisdom. This letter was carried by a number of knights and clerks, and the embassage was led by the bishop of Chichester with a party of Franciscan friars. The bishop was entrusted with the matter of argument, and the elaboration of the letter, for the earl was still willing to discuss amendments and adjustments, as he had been all along. Only on the one great thing he was adamant. The Provisions were sacred, for he was bound by oath to them, and could not break his troth. Yet the Provisions themselves could by agreement be modified, and it was his proffer that they should be considered by good and wise men, theologians and canonists, whose recommendations he promised to accept.
This was the mission of the party that set out from Fletching on the twelfth day of May, and rode down the valley of the Ouse to the king's camp at Lewes.
It was middle evening before we saw them returning. The day most of us spent in resting, and refurbishing weapons and harness, and the earl and his captains in their own grave preparations, considering in detail the lie of the ground, and the nice balance between the advantages of surprise and caution, between going to them and waiting for them to come to us. As for me, I wrote my despatch to Llewelyn, thinking to do all words could do to bring him close to me, and acquaint him even with the curious, sweet and ominous calm of my mind at this pass, for greatly I desired to have him share what otherwise I thought, for all his generosity, he might grudge me. But in the end I used less words and balder than was common with me, and set down only the bare bones, and after some struggles with myself and with these intractable letters I let it remain so, trusting him to read on the vellum between the script what had not been written. And I delivered the letter to Cadell, and gave him his orders as though this was a day like any other, and nothing of great moment toward. He was young and of easy condition, and he made no demur, as willing to go as to stay, and of that I was glad.
The earl came out of his tent when they brought him word that the bishop's company was in sight below in the river valley. He had Gilbert of Clare at his elbow, and others of his young men came to gather at his back as he stood and waited. For young they were all, many newly come into their honours, recently knighted or expecting knighthood on this field of battle. His was the party of the future. Only his bishops and officials were of his own generation, and perhaps half of the feudal following of archers and men-at-arms. And even some of those young men who had abandoned him, like Henry of Almain, had done so with rent hearts and deep grief, unable to hold out against Edward.
I think there was not a man among us who expected anything to come of the bishop's embassage, and the sight of his face as he dismounted, grave and very weary, made much clear before he spoke. Behind him the knights also dismounted. They bore two scrolls for the earl's reading. He took them without a word.
"I bring you no comfort," said Bishop Stephen heavily, "but the comfort of something worthy at least attempted. The king refuses all further dealings, and rejects what he has been offered. I have done my best, to no avail. They have stopped their ears against reason. To the word that reverend and wise men should arbitrate, they reply with fury and scorn. They are the nobility of England, are they to submit their affairs to the judgment of clerks? They are themselves the experienced and the wise, are they to be charged as evil counsellors, enemies of the crown? The first of the scrolls you hold, my lord, is a challenge to battle, on behalf of all the king's captains, sent to you by Richard, king of the Romans, and the Lord Edward."
"Who, no doubt," said Earl Simon with a shadowy smile and a certain resigned sadness, "was loudest and fiercest in his defiance and rejection."
"I fear you will not find the terms of his challenge moderate. And had you chosen other words, he would still have found another means of discovering offence in them, for he wills to be offended."