Marpasse was up as soon as the first grey light began to spread above
the hills, and it was possible for them to see their way. Denise had
passed the night, lying with her head in Marpasse’s lap, and sleeping
soundly despite her promise to remain awake. Marpasse had smiled, and
let her sleep, trusting to her own ears and eyes to warn her of the
approach of any peril.
They were on the move while the land was still half in shadow, for
Marpasse was as eager as any man to let Earl Simon know the truth about
the King. Standing and looking back on Lewes as the dawn increased,
Marpasse could gauge how cheaply the King and his captains held their
enemy. There were Gascons too with Henry, and the Gascons should have
known what manner of man they had to deal with in Earl Simon. Yet the
green slopes of the downs, gleaming with dew as the golden light of the
dawn began to play on them, were utterly deserted. The King’s host lay
snoring after its debauch, without a single troop of horse to patrol the
hills. Only on the hill that was afterwards called Mount Harry could
Marpasse distinguish what appeared to be a solitary sentinel. And he,
too, was lying like a grey stone on the hillside, asleep at his post
while the sun made the east splendid.
Marpasse clapped her hands.
“The fools!” she said; “come, there is no time to lose. We ought to bear
more yonder towards the west. They will be on the watch for us. I know
of one man who will have been awake all night.”
She looked at Denise and saw her redden.
“Give him one kiss, heart of mine,” she said, “for a man fights the
better with his woman’s kiss upon his mouth.”
“Then, it will be the last, Marpasse,” she retorted.
“Bah, have you had him killed already!”
“It will be the last whatever happens,” said Denise sadly. “Do you think
that I would let him make so poor a bargain.”
Marpasse would have taken her to task for showing such hypersensitive
self-consciousness, had not a horseman appeared above the crest of a low
hill, and come galloping down into the freshness of the May morning.
Marpasse looked at him as he came up, and the man’s face shone in the
sunlight. He was out of the saddle, and standing by Denise, as though it
was not easy for him to keep his hands from touching her.
Marpasse laughed, and looked brown and joyous.
“You see, lording,” she said, “I have brought her back fresh as a white
may bough.”
None the less the may bough had a rich colour. Marpasse turned her back
on them, and looked intently towards Lewes.
“Lording,” she said, “I give you while I count fifty. There is no time
to lose, for the King means to fight to-day.”
Whether she wished it or not, Denise found her hands in Aymery’s. He
stood and looked into her eyes, and neither of them said a word.
“Ten,” quoth Marpasse.
Aymery’s face came nearer to Denise’s.
“My desire,” he said, “if I live through it, I would have your heart for
mine.”
Denise had gone red at first, but she was as white now as her shift.
“Lord,” she said, “I cannot.”
“Bah! Twenty!” called Marpasse.
Aymery’s eyes were like the pleading eyes of a dog. He remembered what
Marpasse had said to him. Yet despite her vigorous counsel the great
love in him made him reverent.
“Why _cannot_?” he asked her simply.
She looked up at him and her eyes swam with tears.
“Because of—of the pride in me, because of all that has happened.”
“Fool, kiss her! Thirty!” murmured Marpasse.
Aymery still held Denise’s hands. Yet he was looking beyond her towards
the town hazy with the golden mist of the morning.
“It was I who brought it on you,” he said.
He felt Denise shudder, and the impulse mastered him, he drew her to
him, and kissed her upon the mouth. She did not resist, but her mouth
was cold, and her eyes troubled. Gaillard’s shadow seemed to come
between them.
“Forty,” called Marpasse, “and a buxom age for a woman.”
Aymery let go of Denise’s hands. He stood with bowed head, looking into
her face.
“Whatever God wills to-day,” he said, “remember the words that I have
spoken.”
“Fifty,” trilled Marpasse. “I will see to it, lording. Up on your horse,
my gallant. They are all in a drunken sleep yonder at Lewes, and there
is not a man of them on the watch.”
She turned, and glanced sharply from Aymery to Denise. And the wet,
passionate trouble in Denise’s eyes betrayed to Marpasse how things were
tending. It was best to leave the tenderness to ripen of itself that
day, for none but a woman understands a woman’s heart.
Aymery was in the saddle. His man’s face had grown tense and keen, the
face of the strenuous fighter who puts softer things aside. And Marpasse
loved him for that hawk’s look of his, and the way he spread his pinions
to the wind.
“Simon is marching through the Newick woods,” he said; “if he can but
come in time, he can seize and take the ground that pleases him.”
He looked down at Denise, and Marpasse understood the look.
“Ride, lording,” she said, “leave us to follow.”
Aymery drew his sword, and kissed the blade.
“Denise!” and wheeling his horse he went away at a gallop.
De Montfort had the news soon after dawn that May morning as his host
came streaming through the woods of Newick. Sending forward a company of
knights and men-at-arms under young De Clare and William de Monchesny,
Simon followed on with the main body, climbing the narrow coombe that
led to the chalk ridge running westwards from Lewes town. The vanguard
had found Marpasse’s solitary sentinel still asleep on the hillside, and
they woke him roughly, and laughed at his gaping and astonished face.
Meanwhile the main host gained the ridge, and pouring on steadily in the
morning sunshine, did not halt their banners till they could see the
bell tower of the Priory of St. Pancras.
Simon, who had been carried in a litter through the Newick woods because
of a wrenched tendon in the leg, mounted his horse, and rode out in
front of the ranks. Standing in the stirrups he spoke a few brave words
to hearten his men, pointed to the white cross he wore, and commended
himself and the host to God.
“God, and the Cross,” the shout came back to him.
Some knelt, others prostrated themselves, with arms outspread, and
kissed the earth. The King would have to fight an army of zealots that
morning.
De Montfort soon had his battle in order. He divided his host into three
main bodies, each holding one of the promontories or spurs into which
the chalk ridge broke on the side towards Lewes. On the northern spur
that stretched towards the castle stood the Londoners under Nicholas de
Segrave. Young Gilbert de Clare had the centre, and with him were John
Fitz-John and William de Monchesny and the pick of the Barons’ host. On
the southern spur were De Montfort’s two sons, Guy and Henry, and with
them Humphrey de Bohun and John de Burgh. Simon himself remained with
the reserve, and he had called about him some of the men whom he could
trust to the last blow, men whom he could weld together, and hurl like
rock into the fight, to beat back a charge or to tear a passage. Aymery
and Waleran de Monceaux were with Earl Simon, knee to knee, and speaking
hardly at all. To deceive the King, De Montfort’s litter was packed with
certain London merchants who had plotted against the cause, and set with
the Earl’s standard on the higher ground towards the west. There also
was stationed the baggage. Young William le Blund had command of the
guard.
The Barons’ men, resting in their places after a nine miles’ march, and
quietly making a meal, were able to watch at their leisure and to their
own comfort the scurry and alarm in the town and Priory below. The
King’s host ran to arms amid infinite confusion. Trumpets blew, bells
rang, banners went tossing hither and thither like bright clothes blown
abroad by the wind. Something suspiciously like a panic had seized some
of the less disciplined troops camped about the Priory. Knights and
captains who had scrambled into their battle harness, had to ride in
among their men and beat courage into them with the flat of the sword.
Prince Edward, who had the flower of knighthood with him in the castle,
was the first to take the field. They came pouring out from the town and
the castle, a gorgeous cataract of heavily-armed men, surcoats ablaze,
shields flashing gules and or, azure, argent, and vert; pennons jigging,
banners aslant from gilded banner staffs. Their van curled like a
brilliant billow carrying the masts of many ships, and flecked with
steel for foam. The great, grotesque war helmets were like the masks of
strange creatures called up by a magician’s wand. Their trumpets rang
out cheerily, sending a thrill through the hearts of Simon’s men. The
Londoners, who faced this mass of lords and knights, and burly
free-lances, began to talk too much, and to give each other orders.
Denise and Marpasse were with the baggage behind De Montfort’s standard.
They had climbed into a waggon, and could see a great part of the field
stretched out before them. Dark columns were pouring up from the Priory,
and Marpasse, who was watching them, caught Denise by the arm.
“Look yonder, they have hoisted the Red Dragon.”
The whole of Simon’s host had seen it also, for a long sullen roar rose
like that of a wave breaking upon shingle.
“What does the red banner mean?”
“Mean!” and Marpasse bit her lips in her excitement; “death to all, no
prisoners, and no quarter if the King wins. That is the song of the Red
Dragon.”
Denise said nothing. Marpasse glanced at her with a sudden, sidelong
stare.
“You will not grudge him that one kiss,” she said, “for to-night we may
go a-searching for dead friends by torchlight.”
The two dragons of war were trailing their coils nearer to one another.
The King’s red banner came tossing up the slope, he himself riding
before it, holding his shield aloft with the lions of gold thereon.
“Simon, _je vous défie_!”
That was his cry that morning, a cry that his men took up, and screamed
at the silent masses that watched and waited on the slopes above. The
royal host was flushed now and confident, trusting in their numbers and
in the great lords whose banners blew everywhere.
Edward the Prince was the firebrand that morning. He was pricking his
horse to and fro like a mad boy, and his lips were bloody under his
great helmet. For he had the Londoners before him, those Londoners who
had thrown offal and foul words at his mother. The son had taken a vow
to wipe out those words with blood.
Trumpets rang out on the King’s right. Edward threw his spear into the
air, caught it, and stood up in the stirrups.
“Death to the dogs! At the gallop, sirs, come.”
He was away, a splendid and furious figure, with many thousand horses
trampling at his heels. The iron ranks roared, and rocked and thundered.
Those who watched saw a tossing sea of horses’ heads, a whirl of hoofs
tearing the grass, a mist of slanted spears, a confusion of grotesque
heads bending behind painted shields. The mass plunged in on the
Londoners like a rock that falls with a deep sob into the sea. There was
no submerging of that mass of steel, and flesh, and leather. It went in
and through as a fire leaps through dry corn, terrible in its red ruin,
unquenchable and splendid.
Marpasse, on her waggon, caught her breath, and held it. Simon’s left
wing was wavering. Its spears went down in long swathes, and did not
rise again. Black puffs of panic started out from the rear of the shaken
mass, and spread like smoke over the green hillside.
“The Londoners have had enough! The fools always suffered from too much
tongue. Dirty dogs, run, run, the devil is at your heels.”
She had hold of Denise’s arm, and Denise drew her breath in with a
short, sharp sound, for Marpasse’s nails had made blood marks under the
skin. But Marpasse never so much as noticed that she had hurt Denise.
Her heart was a man’s heart as she watched the Earl’s left wing
streaming away in rout with the mailed knights and men-at-arms scudding
through it, and spearing the burghers as they ran. Away down the slope
of Offham Hill, and across the level towards Hamsey and Barcombe went
the tide of slaughter. The flying Londoners trailed a fatal lure for
Edward the Prince that morning. The paradox proved true in the main,
that by running away they won Earl Simon the battle, for Edward hunted
them for a league and a half, wiping out the insults they had thrown at
his mother. And while he trampled the Londoners into the grass, and
drove many of them into the river, Earl Simon won the battle of Lewes,
and taught Prince Edward a lesson in the self-restraint of war.
The reckless assurance that possessed the King’s army betrayed itself in
an incident that followed the routing of Simon’s left wing. A crowd of
women had followed on the heels of Edward’s lords and gentlemen, their
lovers of the night before. The women had come out prepared to enjoy the
battle as a spectacle, and perhaps to gain their share of the plunder.
Some of them were mounted on mules and palfreys, others went on foot.
And no sooner had the Londoners been driven off the field than these
bona-robas came laughing and shouting up the hill, waving their
kerchiefs and making a great to do. Most of them followed in the track
of Prince Edward’s victorious banners, though a few spread themselves
abroad to plunder the dead.
Marpasse and Denise had a distant view of all that happened after the
flight of the Londoners down Offham Hill. They saw the massive centres
of the two hosts come to grips, and stand like two bulls with locked
horns, neither able to budge the other. Then Earl Simon’s genius gleamed
out. Reinforcing his right wing with the reserve, he fell upon the left
of the royal army under Richard, King of the Romans, crushed and
scattered it in rout. Turning, he fell furiously with his flushed troops
on the exposed flank of the King’s centre, broke through their ranks,
and gave Gloucester’s men their opportunity.
From that wild mêlée the royal centre streamed away like ragged clouds
driven by the wind. The green hillsides were covered with savage and
furious figures, charging, and counter-charging with a riot of colour
and glittering harness that sank slowly towards Lewes town. Henry, who
had had his horse killed under him, and was wounded, was dragged away in
the thick of a knot of desperate men, and carried off at a gallop to the
Priory of St. Pancras. The battle was over as a struggle between two
great masses of men. It dwindled into a series of scattered episodes,
and of wild scuffles that rose suddenly like small dust storms, and then
dispersed. A few of the sturdier spirits fought it out before they
surrendered, happier in their valour than the King of the Romans who
took refuge in a windmill and was besieged by a mocking and exultant mob
till he delivered up his sword to Sir John de Befs. The fighting flowed
in scattered trickles down to Lewes town, the west gate was taken by
assault, though the King’s men held out in the castle and in the Priory
of St. Pancras.
Now those about De Montfort’s standard were so taken up with watching
the rout of the King’s army that they were caught open-mouthed when one
of the last episodes burst on them like a thunderclap. There was a
shout, the scream of a trumpet, a quivering of the earth under the
thundering hoofs of galloping cavalry. Prince Edward was riding back
from the slaughter of the Londoners, assuming the battle won, having
spent precious hours in hunting down mere lads amid the windings of the
Ouse. He and his men burst in among the waggons and the baggage, hot and
bloody, their horses covered with sweat. And since Simon’s standard and
litter were there, they thought they had him in their hands.
Young William le Blund was cut down under De Montfort’s banner, and his
men slain and scattered. The servants and camp-followers fluttered and
flew like frightened chickens in a farmyard. De Montfort’s litter was
overturned, and the London merchants dragged out by the heels, and put
to the sword despite their babblings and their protestations. It was
shouted abroad that Simon was hiding somewhere amid the baggage, and the
camp was turned into chaos, men tearing the loads out of the waggons,
thrusting their swords into trusses of fodder, yelping like dogs about a
fox’s hole. The women who had followed them shared in the scramble. And
since that traitor Simon was not to be found, the whole rout took to
plundering the baggage, not troubling to discover that the battle had
been lost down by Lewes town.
Marpasse had dragged Denise out of the empty waggon, and set to at once
to pull bales out of a cart.
“Play the game.”
She had to scream at Denise because of the uproar.
“Play the game. Swear, curse, be one of them.”
Denise fell to, and helped Marpasse. The big woman had whipped out her
knife, and slit the sacking of the bale she had dragged down over the
tail board. The bale contained nothing more than rolls of white cloth.
Marpasse spat on it, and swore, for other men and women were crowding
up.
“White bibs for the fools, curse them! May Simon’s corpse be a bloodier
colour.”
She seized Denise by the wrist, and dragged her off as though to hunt
for richer spoil. But in the thick of the scramble she ran against the
chest of a white horse that came out from behind one of the waggons.
Marpasse saved herself by holding to Denise.
The rider on the white horse broke into a shout of laughter.
“Great, fat sheep, where are you running?”
And Marpasse stood open-mouthed, for it was Isoult, Isoult in a man’s
hauberk, and red surcoat, her black hair bundled up under a steel cap.
“Black cat!”
Isoult reached down, caught Marpasse by the cloak, drew her in, and
kissed her.
“You big brown devil, how I love the smell of you. And sister Denise,
too, with all the fun of the fair.”
She tossed her head and laughed, and shouted to a knight on horseback
who was watching his men scrambling over a coffer full of plate.
“Lording, come you here. I have found your red head for you. Though you
will not be wanting her now, unless you would like a touch of my knife.”
The knight turned in the saddle; he had taken off his great helmet, both
Denise and Marpasse knew him at the first glance.
“Gaillard!”
Marpasse took Denise by the hand, and kept very close to Isoult’s white
horse.