We had asked the innkeeper to be sure and wake us at seven, but the wretched man forgot and did not call till past eight. Thus one of the most crowded and terrible days of my life began with Barak and I struggling hastily into our clothes, pulling on our boots, and hurrying breakfastless to the stables. When we rode out into Oyster Street it was already lined with soldiers, helmets and halberds brightly polished, waiting for the King. A sumptuous canopied barge was drawn up at the wharf, a dozen men resting at the oars. Out at sea the ships stood waiting, great streamers in Tudor green and white, perhaps eighty feet long, fluttering gently from the topmasts.
To save time we avoided the main streets, riding up a lane between the town fields to the gate. It was another beautiful summer morning, Saturday, the 18th of July. All around soldiers waited outside their tents in helmets and jacks and, occasionally, brigandynes, captains on horseback facing the road in burnished breastplates and plumed helmets that reminded me of that first muster in London near a month ago.
‘Is the King coming this way?’ Barak asked.
‘I would think he’ll go down the High Street. But they all have to be ready.’
‘Shit!’ he breathed. ‘Look there!’ He pointed to a bearded man standing to attention beside a mounted captain, halberd held rigid, frowning with solemn importance.
I stared. ‘Goodryke!’ Barak averted his head from the whiffler who had tried so hard to conscript him, and we rode swiftly past.
WHERE THE town streets converged at the gate there was a milling throng. Many were on horseback, merchants by their look. They were trying to get through, but soldiers were pressing them back. ‘I’ve to fetch five cartloads of wheat in today,’ a red-faced man was shouting. ‘I have to get out on the road to meet them.’
‘It’s to be kept clear for the King. No one enters or leaves till he has passed through. He’ll be here in a few minutes.’
‘Damn!’ I breathed. ‘Come, let’s get to the back of the crowd.’ I tried to turn Oddleg round, but people were packed too closely together. ‘He’s coming!’ A captain shouted from the gate. ‘Everyone stay where they are!’
So we sat waiting. Looking down the High Street, I saw behind the soldiers facing the road hundreds of townsfolk, some holding up English flags. Brightly coloured wall hangings and carpets hung from the first-floor windows of the houses, and there were even people standing on the roofs. I looked behind me at the crowd and saw, at the back, Edward Priddis and his father on horseback. They stared at me, Edward stonily and Sir Quintin balefully. I turned away and looked up at the walkway atop the town walls, crowded with soldiers. I patted Oddleg, who, like many of the horses in the tense crowd, was nervous.
A soldier on the walls cupped his hands and shouted down, ‘He comes!’ I pulled my cap forward to hide my face as the soldiers cheered. There was a sound of tramping feet and a company of pikemen marched in through the gate. A group of courtiers followed, in furs and satins, Rich among them. Then the unmistakable figure of the King rode slowly in, his gigantic horse draped in a canopy of cloth of gold. He wore a fur-trimmed scarlet robe set with jewels that glinted in the sun, a black cap with white feathers on his head. When I had seen him four years before he had been big, but now his body was vast, legs like tree trunks in golden hose sticking out from the horse’s side. Beside him rode Lord Lisle, stern as when I had seen him at the Godshouse, and a large man whom I recognized from York as the Duke of Suffolk; his beard now was long, forked and white; he had become an old man.
Cheers rose from the streets, and a crash of cannon from the Camber sounded a welcome. I risked a glance at the King’s face as he passed, fifteen feet from me. Then I stared, so different was it from four years before. The deep-set little eyes, beaky nose and small mouth were now surrounded by a great square of fat that seemed to press his features into the centre of his head. His beard was thin, and almost entirely grey. He was smiling, though, and began waving to the welcoming crowds, tiny eyes swivelling keenly over them. In that grotesque face I thought I read pain and weariness, and something more. Fear? I wondered whether even that man of titanic self-belief might think, as the French invasion force approached, what will happen now? Even, perhaps: What have I done?
Still waving, he rode away down the High Street, towards the barge that would take him to the Great Harry.
HALF AN HOUR passed before the King’s entire retinue had entered the town and we were able to ride out. From the seafront more cannon resounded as the King arrived at the wharf. Beyond the gate the soldiers lining the road were now falling out of line, wiping sweat from their brows.
‘Christ’s blood, he’s aged,’ Barak said. ‘How old is he now?’
I calculated. ‘Fifty-four.’
‘Is that all? Jesu. Imagine the Queen having to sleep with that.’
‘I prefer not.’
‘That I believe.’ He ventured a smile and I smiled sadly back, glad the ice was broken.
We crossed the bridge to the mainland and rode quickly to the little town of Cosham. There one road continued north, past Hoyland and on to London, while another forked left to Portchester Castle. We halted. Barak said quietly, ‘Let’s ride on, get home.’
‘No. I am still going to Portchester. An hour to ride there and back, an hour or two at the castle. I’ll try and catch you up tomorrow.’
‘I’m still not coming.’