I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince Read online

  I SERVE

  A NOVEL OF THE BLACK PRINCE

  BY ROSANNE E. LORTZ

  Copyright © 2009 by Rosanne E. Lortz

  Cover by Masha Shubin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher and/or author.

  Publisher: Anno Domini

  ISBN-13: 978-0979214547

  ISBN-10: 0-9792145-4-8

  For you should be certain of and hold firmly to the belief that you have no other course of action to take except to remember that if you love God, God will love you. Serve Him well: He will reward you for it. Fear Him: He will make you feel secure. Honor Him: He will honor you. Ask of Him and you will receive much from Him. Pray to Him for mercy: He will pardon you. Call on Him when you are in danger: He will save you from it. Turn to Him when you are afraid, and He will protect you. Pray to Him for comfort, and He will comfort you. Believe totally in Him and He will bring you to salvation in His glorious company and His sweet paradise which will last forever without end. He who is willing to act thus will save his body and his soul, and he who does the opposite will be damned in soul and body. Pray to God for him who is the author of this book.

  --Geoffroi de Charny’s closing instructions to knights from The Book of Chivalry

  Table of Contents

  THE WOMAN IN THE CHURCH 1

  THE LANDING OF THE CONQUEROR 4

  THE PRINCE’S SERVICE 18

  THE IMPREGNABLE FORTRESS 29

  THE SURRENDER OF THE CITADEL 40

  SICK AT HEART 49

  THE DUST OF DEATH 59

  A TRIAL OF VALOR 70

  A KNIGHT’S TREACHERY 83

  CAPTIVITY AND FREEDOM 96

  AT THE STAKE 106

  TRUE KNIGHTS AND TRAITORS 118

  THE RETURN OF THE CONQUEROR 129

  THE FALLEN FLAGBEARER 139

  PEACE AT LAST 151

  THE SACRED CLOTH 159

  THE WOMAN IN THE CHURCH

  December, 1360

  1

  It was an unusual sight these fifteen years and more to see a man traveling the road alone—especially a solitary Englishman in the heart of the French countryside. But the peace treaty had recently been signed at Bretigny, and on paper at least there was friendship between the people of the lion and the people of the fleur-de-lys.

  The traveler looked about thirty years of age, with a well-knit frame that sat easily in the saddle. One glance at his arms proclaimed that he was a knight, but his arms were not as recognizable as his rank. The shield showed a silver bolt of lightning across a sky black with thunder, or to put it in tournament cant, a field sable emblazoned with a chevron argent. It was not a famous crest. A herald of some worth might look this emblem over and still fail to tell us the chevalier’s name. The solitary condition of the rider also spoke to his humble estate. No squire accompanied the knight. He led no packhorse and carried only a small bundle pillion.

  The road from English Calais had been quiet as a cloister. It was near Christmastide, and the winter wind had begun to breathe upon the fields. The knight had many friends in Calais, but he had declined to stay Christmas with them. When they pressed him, he confessed that a burden bore heavily upon his soul. Even though the war had halted, he had a personal quest that lay unfulfilled. He would not explain the nature of the quest, but folk whispered that it had something to do with the small cedar box that he carried carefully wherever he went. It must be a relic, they said, and his quest must be a pilgrimage. Perhaps he was bound for the pope’s palace in Avignon, or even for the Holy Land. Others claimed that his quest was of a less spiritual nature. They had heard him ask after the whereabouts of a certain lady—one Jeanne de Vergy. Assumptions ran rampant about the relationship between the two. The knight was known to be unmarried, and though he had at one time paid court to an English maid, perhaps he had re-sworn his homage to this French Jeanne. Although both sets of speculations would prove spurious in the end, they were true in some small measure. He did treasure a cedar box and he was seeking the aforesaid lady.

  Jeanne de Vergy lived in the hamlet of Lirey, a village to the south of Calais that sat on the outskirts of Troyes. The knight was accustomed to travel, and though the weather had grown chill, the road was not hard. Towards the close of the sixth day he entered Lirey, and chancing upon a roadside inn, he accosted a local gossip to ascertain his destination more exactly.

  “Lady Jeanne has a house in the southeast corner of the village,” said the host of the inn. “But you’ll not find her there. Not while there’s candles left to burn in the church vestry. She spends all day on her knees in front of that sheet in the gold box. Pious, you think? Maybe—but not if you hear the bishop talk. A clever fake, he calls it—the work of some godless charlatan! And if the lady’s not to blame for foisting it on the church, at least her husband is—God rest his soul!”

  The knight crossed himself in silence at the mention of the dead. Then, bestowing a groat upon his loquacious informer, he betook himself to the church at the center of town. The plaza outside the church contained a few suspicious onlookers, their curiosity and animosity piqued by the stranger’s presence. They were wary to approach the knight, but by means of another groat judiciously dispensed, he induced a young villager to look after his charger. While the French folk gazed inquisitively, he removed the cedar box from the bundle behind his saddle. Then, like one of the Magi that Saint Matthew writes of, he went gift in hand into the dwelling of Christ.

  The walls of the little church stood weightily in the old Roman style, with narrow slits for windows that barely admitted the fading light of the wintry afternoon. The seating in the nave would accommodate few. The altar beyond the transept was small. However, a costly triptych painted with gold and vermillion gave evidence of a wealthy donor in the parish. The knight passed beyond this screen into a forest of burning wicks. The corridors of the sanctuary had been silent and gray, but beyond the altar the walls of the apse glowed like a phosphorescent sea. Arranged around a small niche, the candles illuminated an honored reliquary. It was fashioned of dark wood and richly inlaid with gold and ivory.

  Enchanted by this glory, the knight barely noticed the worshiper kneeling on the flagstones. There was little enough to notice. She was a drab, unprepossessing creature with eyes nearly larger than her face. These eyes were her most intriguing and most attractive feature. Her pupils flickered in the candlelight, but the gaze never wavered from its rapt contemplation of the reliquary.

  “Lady,” said the knight softly, after his own eyes had adjusted to the hazy glory cloud that overspread this place, “Are you Mistress Jeanne of Vergy?”

  The bright eyes turned to him and without rising she answered aye.

  “I bring a great treasure,” said the knight proffering the small box he carried.

  “A treasure?” she repeated, and her tone changed to one of warmth and welcome. “The Lord will bless you and cause his face to shine upon you. He is worthy of all treasures a man can give.” She rose, took the box in her hands, and started to place it before the reliquary. The knight shifted awkwardly before her fervor, and his words fell out in a torrent.

  “Nay, there are other treasures better fitting for the Lord of heaven and earth,” said he. “The treasure I bear is of little value to any save one. The widow of Geoffroi de Charny is the proper one to receive this gift. And you, if I mistake not, are she.”

  She looked puzzled, almost disappointed that the box in her hands was a gift for her, instead of a tribute to the gold-encrusted
reliquary in the niche. He bid her open the box. She loosened the catch and lifted the lid.

  Out fluttered a strip of orange satin embroidered with golden stars. The edges were slashed jaggedly as if it had been cut from a larger piece of cloth. Here and there it was speckled with dark red, the dew of a battle long past. It was a tongue of flame torn from the mouth of a dragon. It was a handful of fire wrested from the hearth of the gods. “How came you by this?” she demanded, and staggering a little, she sat down on a nearby pew. “This was his. This was his! Were you there when he met his end?”

  “I was there, I was close by—would to God that I had been far from that place! I was not the one to strike the blow, but even so, it was my hand that killed him. Afterwards, I returned to the place where he lay. I took the thing he most honored to place in the hands of the one he most loved.” The knight inclined his head lower to speak to the lady, for though she was of middle age, she was as small as a yearling doe.

  “But you were his enemy! France’s enemy! You say that he was slain by your own hand. Why should you come all this way to bring a scrap of fabric to Charny’s widow?”

  “Exactly for that reason, lady—because you are Charny’s widow, and whatever was Charny’s, that I shall honor, for I loved Charny as I have loved few other men.”

  “What is your name, sir knight?” she demanded almost disbelieving, for her husband was beloved of few Englishmen.

  “Sir John de Potenhale,” the knight replied.

  “Ah,” said she, and knowledge lit up her face like a paper lantern. “He was your prisoner.”

  “Aye, yet also my liberator,” replied the knight. “My enemy and my prisoner, my counselor and my friend. Your husband was all these to me and more.”

  “He spoke of you once or twice,” said the lady, “but not enough to satisfy a woman’s curiosity. Come, you must tell me your story. An Englishman that knew my husband—knew him and loved him—bears a story that my ear longs to hear.” She motioned to the wooden pew begging him to sit down and commence the tale.

  The knight hesitated a little. “It is a long story with many threads. Where would you have me begin? Shall I tell you of the day I first met your husband?”

  The lady smiled and shook her head. “No, you must begin as he would have had you.” Her companion looked a little puzzled. Surely he must know which day Charny had held as significant as birth, as sacred as baptism, and as solemn as death. She prompted him with a question. “Where is it that the story of a knight must start?”

  “With his knighthood,” replied the man, and setting himself down upon the wooden pew he began his tale of arms, of death, of love, and of honor.

  THE LANDING OF THE CONQUEROR

  JULY - AUGUST, 1346

  2

  If you would hear of my knighthood, you must first hear of my passage to France, for the one turns upon the other as tightly as a door upon a hinge. It was the fifth of July, 1346, when we set sail, an army of wooden-hulled castles bound for Gascony and France. The forecastle of each fighting cog was crammed with vibrant pennants, high-mettled horses, and eager Englishmen. Our king had determined to be master of your France, but the sea proved to be its own master. Almost as soon as the fleet weighed anchor, the wind began to breathe heavily like a thickset man climbing a hill. The ruffled water pushed back against the coast, and the cogs could make no southwestern progress.

  Originally, the king had designed to go down from Cornwall and round the tip of Brittany. Our fleet would carry us southward along the French coast till we reached the sun-kissed lands of Gascony. The ships would enter the sheltered mouth of the Garonne River, and we would disembark on the wharfs of Bordeaux. Gascony was the ideal landing place, for at that time, Gascony was the only piece of the continent still honoring its sworn fealty to our English sovereign. A small expeditionary force led by the Duke of Lancaster had already landed there and was awaiting our arrival. Once the king’s army united with the garrisons of Gascony and with Lancaster’s men, we would fall over the border into France with all the power of a mighty waterfall. Then let the usurper of France lift his head in astonishment! Then let the house of Valois tremble for its ill gotten gains!

  The sea, however, seemed to be on the side of French Philip. For five days we tossed about like butter in a churn. Whenever the perseverant pilots took the ships a league or two beyond land, the watchful waves cast us back on the coast of Cornwall. Our English king was a masterful man, but he knew when to cry Deus li volt and let circumstances have their way. “If the wind will take us to Normandy,” said he, “then to Normandy we will go.”

  So the plan for Gascony was abandoned, and having submitted ourselves to the will of the sea, we found a calm southeasterly passage to the coast of the Cotentin. This beachfront, jutting out from Normandy like a gnarled thumb, boasts the second shortest crossing between our lands. It is a place well acquainted with launches and landings. On a shore not far from this one, the Norman duke William once readied an invading army bound for Pevensey, Hastings, and the English crown. Now, eight generations later, his Plantagenet descendant had returned to be a conqueror in his own right.

  It was mid July, but the water of the channel was still as cold as a mountain spring. The cogs had all beached, and upward of fifteen thousand men were clamoring to disembark. They were not the only creatures champing at the bit. Untrammeled at last, the mettlesome steeds were half-crazed from the cramped conditions aboard the ship. But before the shore could be fully attained, a foot-wetting awaited them.

  “Here, boy!” said my lord Chandos. “Take my horse!”

  “Gently, gently,” I breathed, patting the heaving withers of my master’s destrier. I had been Sir John Chandos’s squire for a year now, and the horse knew me well, a friend from frequent saddlings, combings, and feedings. I guided him firmly into the boiling surf, keeping a soothing hand on his neck all the while. Once on dry ground, he ceased his nervous plunging and waited quietly while I brought my own nag onto the sandy shore. I was one of the first to disembark; I waited on the strand for some time as the rest of the bellicose passengers splashed their way to the beach.

  The crowded docks at Cornwall had given me no leisure to survey the full scope of our company. Here the empty shore of the Norman coast displayed them to their full advantage. I saw scores of archers tromping loudly through the surf, holding their longbows above their heads to protect them from the wet. The men-at-arms sang out lustily as they stepped onto dry ground, thanking the Holy Trinity that they had reached terra firma at last. The knights came ashore in full battle gear having donned their crests at the first sight of land. The flamboyant reds and yellows on their coats-of-arms sparkled as brilliantly as the salt water surrounding them.

  Once each ship had surrendered its inmates, we crossed the dune that separated the sea from the countryside. The roar of the surf grew fainter, and the hubbub of men grew louder. I saw that many were beginning to unload their packs.

  “Shall we arm ourselves and ride?” I asked eagerly, for in those days I knew as little of strategy as a boy brought up in the monasteries. I knew only that we had come to fight the French, and now that we were in France, I wished to do battle.

  “Nay, nay,” said my master Chandos patiently. “We must settle our forces and pitch camp first. We’ll not go riding off into French territory willy nilly without drawing up into proper formation and sending out a scouting division.”

  “Indeed,” I nodded sagely, trying to conceal my inexperience by assenting to what must have been common knowledge.

  “And then there’s the little matter of finances,” said Chandos with a gleam in his eye. “It’s many a fancy farthing to collect an army of this size. His Majesty must see about raising some of the gold before we find ourselves up to the neck in gore.”

  “But surely it would have been easier to raise the money in England?” I asked puzzled.

  “For any ordinary tax, yes,” said Chandos with a shrug, “but this shield fee is just as well p
aid on foreign soil as not. It is a tax the nobles will not grudge, for it can only be demanded of them once in a king’s lifetime.”

  The shield fee, as you may know, is the sum that each English knight, baron, or noble owes to our king when his eldest son receives knighthood. Edward, the young Prince of Wales, was in our company and had not yet felt the accolade upon his shoulder.

  I had seen the prince several times from no great distance, for my lord Chandos was on familiar terms with the royal household. He was a dark, comely youth, taller than me by nearly a head. He was young to be made a knight, a fact I knew full well, for it had been borne in on me since birth that the prince and I were of the same age. But he was a prince and a Plantagenet—and at the same age his father had been crowned king of England. A man of lowlier parentage might expect to wait four more years to receive the spurs, or even longer if it were not a time of war. A man of my parentage might never be knighted at all.

  “It will be a great thing then for the prince to be knighted,” said I, a little enviously, “if His Majesty can turn such a profit off of it.”

  “Mind your tongue!” said Chandos, in response to my pert words. “It is a great thing to be knighted no matter the circumstances or the compensation. I’ll warrant a pup like you would give your eye teeth for such a chance.”

  “Lord! And give up being your squire? Not I!” I spat on the ground in mock contempt, but he and I both knew the truth. I would give up far more than my eye teeth for the accolade and the spurs.

  The knighting took precedence over setting up camp. The king and his nobles mounted a small hill that straddled the seashore and the countryside. The Earls of Warwick, Northampton, and Arundel were there and Sir Walter Manny, the king’s favorite baron. They stood solemnly on the hillside, making a wide circle to encompass the ceremony that was to come. The men-at-arms and lowlier folk waited below, uninvited to the ceremony. Chandos, as usual, followed in the king’s train. And strangely enough, he bade me accompany him, insisting that my presence was necessary to carry his shield and a certain important scroll.