VIII

goodness’ sake: a suit of armour that’s easy to walk in. It has a thousand joints that move as I do, every which way. Over it there’s a tabard of white cloth of gold with the red cross of St George the Dragonslayer on my chest.
    And best of all, back in England, Catherine has a new child in her belly. God smiles indeed. This time, it will be a boy who lives.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  VIII   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    On my first night in the field there is a downpour. As darkness falls and the trumpets sound for the watch-sentries to take up their positions, teams of pavilioners are still struggling to stem leaks in the officers’ tents.
    One of my largest pavilions – the walls six foot high and double-layered – is up and secure, but still I can’t relax. I call for a horse to be saddled up and, wrapping myself in a hooded cloak, I set out for a tour of the camp. Just like Henry V: on the rain-soaked night before the Battle of Agincourt, he toured his camp to raise the morale of his troops. I have brought my History of Henry V – the translation I made myself – packed in one of my trunks. I intend to keep it to hand.
    The rain has extinguished campfires; the dark is inky, the tents looming hulks with the occasional glow of a light within. In front of me, the lantern-bearers squelch through the mud and step low, suddenly, as a foot goes into a water-filled rut. Rain drips off the front of my hood; my legs are soaked already and the damp is seeping through the thick lining of my gloves.
    The camp is pitched to a design I perfected myself: a square plan, with two main ‘streets’ dividing it, each thirty paces wide, intersecting in the middle in a cross. It is a little city, and the largest tents have signs outside like taverns; they swing and creak in the wind and provide running points for water. ‘The Chalice’ is home to the chaplains, ‘The Gauntlet’ to the master of the armoury. ‘The Beds’ is where the surgeons are bedding down, and one of Wolsey’s collection of pavilions goes by the name of ‘The Inflamed House’ – which is a stretch for any place in this weather.
    Further towards the camp’s perimeter, ordinary men are huddled in the rain, getting rest as best they can. Some are sitting wrapped in small sheets of canvas, like old women in shawls. Others have collected branches and made rudimentary huts. Pale faces appear as I pass.
    “I am in the same condition as you, tonight, comrades!” I call to them.
    A moment’s hesitation; realisation; then they scramble out and stand to attention.
    I stop in front of a man who has emerged from a well-constructed shelter. “Your officers would do well to take advice from you, my friend – you are expert, I see, at shifting for yourself in any weather.”
    “It’s all in knowing how to make your hut, sir,” he says. “I’m snug as a small pig in there, sir.”
    “Good man. And you?”
    His neighbour is squeezing a woollen cap nervously in his hands, sending a fair trickle of water, unnoticed, onto his feet. “An Englishman is not afraid of the damp, sir.”
    I ride on, my horse stepping carefully through the mud. At the outer edge of the camp, wagons are stationed in a protective circle, interspersed with artillery. The soldier guarding the nearest wagon kneels as I approach. I jump down from my horse and squelch over to him.
    “Get up, man. You’re wet enough as it is. What’s in these wagons?”
    “These, Your Grace? Bows and bowstrings, sheaves of arrows, demi-lances and whole spears. Oh, and stakes to drive into the ground in front of the archers.”
    “For the French cavalry to skewer themselves on.”
    The man grins. “That’s it, sir.”
    I make my way to the nearest gun carriage. “This is called an organ, isn’t it?”
    The man guarding it opens his mouth; then, finding no words come out, nods.
    It is a many-barrelled piece, for firing grape shot through a breach in a city wall, or at a body of troops.
    “And this?”
    “The bombard, Your Grace, sir,” says another man. He holds up several layers of canvas for me to see.
    I run my hand over the smooth metal of the cannon. The bore is enormous; looking down it by lantern-light is like peering into a cave. “How much gunpowder for this monster?”
    “Eighty pounds to charge it, sir.”
    “Your skill,” I say, looking round at them, “is worth more than the whole Jewel House to me.”
    The same Jewel House that, incidentally, I have brought with me: a fortune