Lady Catherine de Valois's marriage to King Henry V of England is much more complicated than she had ever imagined. How will she navigate her loyalties, her life in a strange new land, and her blossoming feelings for a man she is supposed to hate?
...
Henry sat in his tent mulling over the information he had received from his advisors earlier that morning. The sun was now just beginning to rise over the once beautiful French landscape. Now his army's tents, men, horses, and wounded filled the acres of land- the beauty sucked from the ground the longer they fought in this siege. He opened the flap of his private tent to look out at his men around him, the smell and sizzle of bacon as many men were just beginning to wake up and make breakfast and prepare themselves for another day of battle.
He had been up for hours. This "Bastard of Vaurus" was becoming more and more of an issue with every passing day, always finding new torturous ways to taunt the Englishmen. Henry went back inside of his tent and lay on his cot to try to catch a few minutes of sleep before he went out to speak to the men of their plan for the day. But his mind was spinning from the conversation he had had with his advisors.
"They found 8 of our spies, your majesty," one of the military intelligence leaders, Matthew, had told him.
"What happened?" Not able to conceal the anger in his voice, Hal kept strong eye contact with Matthew. He knew sending spies to the city to gather intelligence was a calculated risk, but 8 of them being captured? The guilt was eating him alive.
"We aren't sure, your Majesty. But obviously the side of the city surrounded by the woodlands is just as well guarded as the side facing us. It's what he did with the spies that were captured last night that we must discuss and act quickly on."
Hal wasn't sure if he could handle what new sadistic method their enemy concocted, but felt the eyes of the group of advisors on him, so he nodded for Matthew to continue.
"All of their bodies have been..." Matthew struggled to put into words what he had seen late last night, " dismembered. Each body part is on a stake surrounding their wall facing us. The heads, arms, torso's of all our spies," Henry shuddered with disguise, "are placed just in front of their damned wall, like a spectacle. Our soldiers will begin awakening in just a couple of hours- what should we do?"
"We have French prisoners m'lord," one of the church advisors piped in before anyone else had a chance to speak, "we should do the same to their men as they have done to ours! Why should we show these French animals any kindness?"
"They are trying to scare our soldiers and you off your majesty," Matthew argued and cut off the church advisor, "have a few of our men go out and take this spectacle down before the soldiers wake up. We don't want them discouraged when we are only halfway through this siege."
Hadn't Hal at one point been capable of such evil as this Bastard has? Henry thought back to the last time he was here in France over a year ago, the morning the young boy's head was sent back as a warning from The Dauphin. He was sitting in his tent with Falstaff and was so infuriated and disgusted by this threat from their enemy that he had commanded Jon to have killed all the French prisoners they had, and spear their corpses by the river's edge as a message to the French. Jon had said something to him then, what was it?
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