“Love carries the sword,” said Marpasse, and laughed and kissed Denise.
“I can never look him in the face again.”
“Bah, grey goose! There will be wounds to be healed. A woman’s hands are useful when the trumpets are hoarse and tired.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
On the evening of Tuesday, the 13th of May, the Barons lay amid the woods about Fletching, knowing that they were to march on the morrow to offer the King battle outside Lewes town. All hope of peace had gone, and both parties had thrown away the scabbard. Henry believed that he had Earl Simon at his mercy, for the royal host far outnumbered the Earl’s, and where De Montfort could count in part only on burgher levies, the King and his favourites had the flower of the foreign mercenaries in their pay. Henry had refused to listen to the Bishops of London and Worcester, who had come from the Earl. God was delivering Simon and his turbulent following into the royal hands, and the King was not to be cheated of his opportunity by the tongues of meddlesome priests.
As the evening sun sank towards the west, the Barons’ host gathered and stood to their arms with the fresh green of the May woods spreading a virgin canopy above their spears. It was no gorgeous pageant so far as pomp and circumstance were concerned. There were many banners and pennons brilliant in the evening sunshine, but the bulk of De Montfort’s army was made up of the lesser gentry, and their retainers, and the burghers of the towns, plain men, but men who were in grim and sober earnest. Many of them had never fought in their lives before, and Gaillard, and such gallants in the King’s service, laughed when they spoke of the herd of hogs they were to chase through the Sussex woodlands. But the stocky, brown-faced men of the English towns, and the English manors were not to be trampled on so easily. Men who could fell timber, and handle the scythe, the bill and the hammer, were tough in the arms, and sound and strong at heart.
The Barons’ host went on its knees that evening, its lines of steel seaming the green woods. Lords, knights, gentlemen, yeomen, burghers, knelt with their shields before them, their swords naked in the grass, their heads uncovered. Between the ranks of these silent, steel-clad figures came the Bishop of Worcester, and many priests with him, chanting as they came. The whole host was confessed, absolved, and blessed under the oak trees of the Fletching woods. It was as though the heart of England was shrived that day, before the national ordeal of battle.
“Holy Cross, Holy Cross.”
Men came running and shouting through the ranks, carrying bales of white cloth which they spread on the grass, and tore into hundreds of strips. Every fighting man was to carry the White Cross on his breast. And in the midst of it all Earl Simon and a great company of lords and gentlemen came riding through, wearing the White Cross on their surcoats. Swords and spears were tossed aloft, and the heart of the host went up in sound like the long roar of a stormy sea.
Under a great oak tree De Montfort knighted many of the younger lords and gentlemen, among them Robert de Vere, John de Burgh the son of the great justiciary, and young Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester. Then he and his sons and his captains went everywhere, heartening their men, bidding them rest and eat, and keep strong and lusty against the morrow.