Title: Crossing the Water
Fandom: Henry V
Rating: G
Length: 491
Summary: The night before the battle of Agincourt, King Henry pauses to gather his thoughts

He stopped and shut his eyes, pausing to calm his churning mind as it evaluated plans of attack and counter-attack; too many thoughts piling in at once and no possibility to bring in any order.  He forced him mind to go elsewhere and let the murmur of the Welsh voices around him take him back to Monmouth, to the place of his birth.

He could see the grey stones of the castle, the darkness inside it, feel the coldness of the stones.  He remembered a fair, with the bright colours of the stalls and of the wares the peddlers were selling.  He saw the men in their caps, no difficulty to remember them, for many of his soldiers still wore them with pride.

Similar stones to those in the castle had formed the Monnow Bridge, with its gatehouse built on top.  He recalled pretending to defend the bridge with his brothers, not letting the enemy through the gateway, imagining the iron portcullis being brought down to protect his men.  He smiled at the childish enthusiasm, knowing now how an army could easily have forded the river, without need to resort to the bridge.

Not so the Wye, where a wooden bridge led from the town towards the border with England.  He thought he and his small brothers had once planned to march across it, leading an army to glory.  From the bridge they could see the Forest of Dean, the tall trees verdant and plentiful.  But, he reflected, mindful of the comments of some of his commanders, not as good as the Welsh yew, which provided the wood for their longbows.

He remembered the Wye as a peaceful river, flowing under the bridge.  He thought of it as having been blue, with occasional silver ripples as the salmon leapt upstream.  To his childish mind Monmouth, with the Wye on one side and the Monnow curving round from the other, had seemed protected by the flow of blue water, an island of peace and safety.

But they had never stayed long.  They would leave behind the blue of the Wye to cross the River Severn.  Far more powerful, it seemed to sweep all before it.  The water was always grey, if not brown, where the river churned as the incoming tide met the waters coming down from further north.  This was not a river of safety, but one which spelled death and destruction for the unwary.  At one time it would appear narrow and inviting, mud banks visible on either side, yet but hours later the waters would be rolling down and anything on those banks would be underneath the cold wet darkness.

And now he had crossed an even greater expanse of water, with more men than he had ever imagined in his childhood games.  And as the waters grew bigger, so did his responsibilities.  There was no more time for memories, there were plans to be made for the morrow.