To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [258]
‘Astorre means,’ Nicholas said, ‘that you should make friends as well as make war, so that when you eventually take over the land, the natives are nice to you. They are not going to be nice to us.’
‘Or Duke Charles,’ said Astorre gloomily. ‘So wait till the news gets to Roye. They’ll fight to the death, mark my words.’
‘Or surrender,’ Nicholas said, ‘to keep their hand in, as it were. Towns may fall flat from now on.’
‘Will you wager?’ said Astorre.
‘No. Well, small towns, perhaps. The Duke is in a state of entrancement, and planning to curvet into Nesle over the bodies tomorrow. But I don’t think the Duke will encourage anyone to do it again. Not if he can stop them, that is.’
Three days later, they set off for Roye. Before they left, Astorre took his employer into a corner. ‘That young fellow Henry.’
‘Yes?’
‘Oh yes. Don’t take that tone with me. That limb of Satan is the son of your friend Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren. You didn’t tell me.’
‘You didn’t ask.’
The single eye glittered, manfully keeping its temper. ‘Julius tells me that boy tried to kill your young Jordan. Julius tells me he stabbed you in Scotland. Julius suggests this is a boy who would benefit from first-class battle experience in the forefront of all our best actions. I thought I’d mention it.’
‘Julius is mistaken,’ Nicholas said. ‘And when I want you to do something, I shall tell you myself. I brought Henry here to be taught, but not in battle. You trained me. I still have the marks of it, damn you. Train him.’
Astorre grinned. ‘Doesn’t do to play favourites. I let you take what was coming, and you managed. But you were one of the lads, and when they finished kicking you about, they accepted you. This one thinks he’s a lord.’
‘So it may not work. But it’s worth trying,’ Nicholas said.
‘Is it?’ Astorre said. ‘If he can’t change, he’ll go back the same murderous brat. Worse than before, to blot out the failure. I’ve seen his face, looking at you and the rest of us. You want to watch your back with that one.’
‘That’s why he’s got his two handlers. Let them provide themselves with a good barkable dog, and lie at night with their sheep. They do the watching.’
‘I’ve told them. I’ve told them, too, to look out for the father. Sure as death, Simon will come when he hears.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Nicholas diplomatically. In his view, Simon would not be allowed to come when he heard. Nicholas knew who would come.
Determined as an irascible wasp, Louis of France completed the ordering of his dead brother’s fief and, riding north, proceeded to conduct two wars at once single-handed. Before he had even left for the Loire, he had ordered guns and men to be sent off to Angers. From Selles, he castigated the Clerk of the Treasury of War for failing to supply pay for the army in Picardy; from Montreuil-Bellay he sent the missives that dispatched the Grand Master of the Household to join the Constable against the Burgundians. When the news reached him of the massacre at Nesle, he was roused to a state of high fury, only surpassed the following day, when he heard that Roye had surrendered, and the Burgundians were advancing on Montdidier. In the King’s opinion, the Constable should be making no effort to hold minor forts such as these, but instead should be allowing the Burgundians to take and wastefully man them.
By the sixteenth of June, Roye had surrendered; by the twenty-fifth, the Duke of Burgundy was entrenched outside Montdidier which, far from resisting, very properly flung its gates open and was duly garrisoned by the Duke’s soldiers. Louis, learning of it, was highly gratified.
The next news was far more important. The Duke, apparently about to turn north into Normandy, had allowed one of his rasher captains to make an attempt on Beauvais which, half succeeding, had caused the Duke to bring his whole force across to support him. As from Saturday the twenty-seventh of June, the town had been invested by the Burgundians.
‘Well?’ had said Louis, pacing back and forth on his horseman’s legs. Beauvais was not Nesle or