I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince Read online

  “Tournez et vous defendez!” boomed a Frenchman. On the causeway in front of us, a large Frenchman seated on a magnificent bay was brandishing his sword. The bright moon reflected on his steel sending shimmers of light like darts across the pavement. His voice was imperious and his mien was masterful. Hearing his words, the fleeing French stopped in their tracks like runaway horses seized suddenly by the reins.

  “Allons, allons! Montjoy et Saint Denis!” they cried and swallowed their fear like a mouthful of pottage.

  A great part of their army had already crossed the horizon, but nearly a hundred men turned to face us; the odds were four to one and far greater than I liked. “Christ save us!” said one of the archers in the van. I despaired of victory, but determined to acquit myself as became a knight.

  As the enemy narrowed the space between us, our unknown leader stood a space ahead of us upon the causeway, fumbling with his basinet. At last he had it off, and I saw his bare face etched darkly in the night air. “Hold fast!” he thundered, anticipating the retreat that was sure to whelm our wavering line. “I am Edward of Windsor, your commander and your king. Do your duty as men, and we will prevail.”

  With a swift motion, the newly-revealed king stripped the sheath from his sword and tossed it into the bog. “We must keep the causeway,” he instructed, gesturing to the men-at-arms just where to stand. The causeway permitted no more than twenty men to walk abreast. If we held the causeway, then we would hold the enemy, for their fully armored men could not leave the road without sinking into the marsh. Half of our band was archers, however, and archers went unarmored. At a word from the king, they stripped off what little plate they wore and took up position in the fen. On tufts of grass, out of the way of our men-at-arms, they could shower arrows on the enemy’s flank.

  The French leader on the bay horse marshaled his men into a tight formation, and they advanced upon our resolute band. Calais had been theirs before it was ours, and they knew the dangers of the marsh as well as we. None of their knights or men-at-arms dared to depart the solid surface of the causeway. I hoped that they had not recognized the king, for although the revelation of his presence acted like an elixir to boost the courage of our men, it was also a fearsome responsibility. We were too small a bodyguard to be sure of his safety, and what if Edward should fall?

  There was no time to think. They were upon us. Hand to hand we began to trade blows. My left arm had grown wooden from the wound I had received earlier, and my breath came shorter and shorter. They would have overwhelmed us with little trouble, had it not been for our dauntless archers. Standing lightly in the marsh, the archers refused to waste a single shaft. The presence of the king had impressed upon them how necessary it would be to fight well, and the enemy suffered sorely from the accuracy of English arrows.

  The king fought like a lion. He warded and wheeled and hewed with ardor. I had never before been so close to him in battle, and I saw him now in all his bellicose splendor. But even a lion cannot hold back an unending horde of jackals. Slowly and painfully, the French bored a hole in the center of our line. On the left I had only five men with me to face two score. On the right I saw that the king was well nigh alone.

  Four men had surrounded him. I could not tell the quality of each, but one bore the crest of Sir Eustace de Ribemont. The king lunged with all the fury of a baited bear. His uncovered head looked strangely vulnerable in the moonlight, and I redoubled my efforts to push through the enemy and reach his side. “A rescue! A rescue!” I voiced to the night.

  No sooner had this prayer been uttered than I heard the pounding of hooves upon the causeway behind us.

  An instant later they had joined the fray, a hundred knights led by the prince himself. His keen eye made out his father instantly, and with a few judiciously delivered blows, he drove off the pack surrounding him. “Rise, Majesty,” he said, and dismounting quickly he helped the king to his feet (for the king had fallen onto one knee beneath the onslaught of our foes). “Take my horse,” said the prince imperatively. Kneeling down, he heaved the king up into the saddle.

  The battle had been lost a second time for the French. Their leader on the bay saw it. He would have fled if he could, but I blocked his path. I did not mean to harm his horse, but the truth of the matter is that I struck out blindly. The animal’s knees buckled under him like a nervous bridegroom’s. The knight toppled to the ground, slightly pinned by the fallen horse. An instant later I was bending over him with my misericordia at his throat.

  “I yield me to your mercy,” he said simply, and there was no anger and no shame to mar his voice.

  I helped him to his feet and took the sword that he offered me. It was a fine, Spanish blade, perfectly weighted, and as I examined it, I saw that I had taken a man of some rank as my prisoner. “What is your name?” I demanded.

  He smiled a little at my eagerness. “I am Geffroi de Charny, Sir Knight. I salute you for your courage; it seems that English valor has carried the day.” Then he begged me to unlace his helm for him, for his head was bleeding a little from the fall although I had done him no scathe with my sword.

  CAPTIVITY AND FREEDOM

  JANUARY – AUGUST, 1350

  10

  All of Calais was awake with the news. Torches filled the streets as the townsfolk trickled out into the proleptic dawn. The sun had not yet risen, but the portcullis rose proudly to admit the returning victors. At the front of the procession was the king, bareheaded and battered, mounted on the horse that had been so seasonably provided by the Prince of Wales. He was in none of his royal attire, but word spread fast that the king himself had led the party to rescue Calais from the craft of the enemy. “Huzzah for His Majesty!” shouted a brass-faced urchin, and the folk around him took up his cry.

  I saw now how the king’s hand had been everywhere in this enterprise. It was he who had come over on the boat so heavily cowled, he who had insisted upon the construction of the hidden chambers around the gatehouse, he who had directed that the men sleep and held them back till the ideal moment for discovery. His desire to give the glory and management of this undertaking to his eldest son had been overcome by his own insatiable desire for command.

  “I am glad to see you safe, Potenhale,” said a voice, and I saw that the prince, on foot, had come up beside me.

  “Not so glad as I was when I heard the hooves of your troop at my back. God’s life, but it would have gone ill with us if you had not come!”

  “Come now,” said the prince with gentle raillery, “If I had not come, my father the king would have yet prevailed. He bears a charmed life, I think, and one Plantagenet is more than enough to beard a score of Frenchmen.”

  “Nay, your highness,” said my prisoner who stood at my side, “If you had not come, I think there would have been one less Plantagenet and one more score to settle between England and France.”

  “Who are you, sir?” asked the prince, and he drew himself up coldly. Though he knew his own words to have been mere flippancy, it angered him to hear this Frenchman’s bluff comments about his father’s close encounter with mortality.

  My prisoner returned the prince’s stern gaze with frank consideration. “I am Geoffroi de Charny,” he replied, “prisoner of this good knight you see before you.”

  “Ah,” said the prince, “the leader of this wretched cabal.” He squared his shoulders and looked the prisoner up and down. They were much of a height, the prince and Charny, but while the prince’s younger sinews were taut with controlled intensity, Charny carried himself with the nonchalance of a man on a midsummer’s stroll. The prince’s jupon of blue and red was embroidered magnificently with thread of gold, but Charny’s green surcoat was as simple as an open meadow. I watched their eyes meet, waiting to see my master’s treatment of the prisoner so that I could modify mine accordingly.

  “You are accounted an honorable man, Charny,” said the prince, and his words swung sharply like a sickle through hay. “Tell me, how does this underhanded affair cons
ort with the sworn truce between your liege and mine? Have not the French given their oath to forbear lifting arms against us while this pestilence prevails? Or perhaps your knightly word is but a child’s bauble, easy to be tossed aside whenever you weary of it. Your master Philip will give you little thanks for today’s work.”

  “Had I accomplished what I set out to do, I think that my master would have little cause for complaint.” Charny’s tone was grave, but a trace of soldierly humor peeped out of his gray eyes. I saw that the stern tone of the prince’s speech had amused him far more than it had embarrassed him. “And as for my honor,” continued Charny, “I think it can bear more stains than breaking a truce I never negotiated or infringing a peace I never swore to uphold. The truce between our two lands was sworn while I was away; I had no hand in its making.”

  I shrugged in silent agreement with his reasoning. In sooth, he had not been present at any of the peace conferences, and what Philip’s vassals chose to do with their own men could not be strictly charged to Philip’s account. Philip could not be accused of truce-breaking, and neither could Sir Geoffroi.

  The prince glared angrily his lip curling like a wolf backed into a corner.

  Charny continued to pursue the subject. “Should you not be more distressed with the dishonorable actions of your Lombard governor, highness?”

  “How so?” demanded the prince.

  “Why, as matters stand,” said Charny, “I am accused of violating an oath which I never swore, while your governor has violated an oath which he declared to me with his own two lips. Aye, and with his two hands resting upon holy relics.”

  “But it would have been dishonorable for Aimery to deliver the city to you,” replied the prince, “for he has pledged his word to my father that he would guard and keep it.”

  “And yet it was just as dishonorable for Aimery not to deliver the city to me,” replied Charny, “for he had just as solemnly pledged that he would open the gates to my men.”

  The prince frowned. I could see his father’s blood begin to stir itself. “How now, Sir Geoffroi! Surely you must agree that the first oath is more binding than the second?”

  “Wherefore?” asked Charny calmly.

  “It was an oath of fealty made to a king,” replied the prince in exasperation.

  “And should an oath to a king take precedence over an oath to a humbler man?” inquired Charny. I pondered his words. It was true. An oath was an oath. Aimery was as honor-bound to fulfill his oath to Charny as he was to fulfill his oath to King Edward—unless the second oath could be proved unlawful in some way.

  The prince took up the same line of reasoning that my mind had laid hold of. “The oath to the king takes precedence, sirrah, because it was taken first, and thus it invalidates the second oath to you. Aimery could not lawfully swear to surrender the city to you because he had already pledged his honor to the English king to guard the city.”

  “But are you not forgetting,” said Charny, “that before pledging his honor to Edward to guard the city, he had pledged his honor first to Philip to guard it. Aimery was France’s servant before he was England’s.”

  The prince opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. The logic of Charny’s case was indisputable. “You are a hard man to speak against, Sir Geoffroi. If it were possible, I would rather agree with you than argue anymore.”

  “Why then,” said Charny in a conciliatory tone, “if Your Highness would agree with me, then let us agree on this: whatever the case, this Aimery de Pavia is a great rogue and not to be trusted.”

  “Amen to that,” said the prince. “I have firsthand knowledge of that. When I went to retrieve the ransom that you paid for his perfidy, he was busy concealing it in a secret storeroom—for safekeeping he claimed. I insisted that Sir Walter Manny was the best safe to keep such a sum, and forced him to hand over the treasure boxes on the spot. Twenty thousand crowns! It is a large sum to lose, my good sir.”

  “Aye,” said Charny, with a little bit of regret in his tone. “It is a large sum. I shall not see the like of it again in a hurry.”

  “A pity,” said the prince with a smile that could not help being triumphant. “For if Potenhale has his wits about him, he will not ransom you for less than that price. And where is that to be come by? From your roi Philippe? No, my good sir, I think you shall be with us for some while.”

  The king, in his ordering of events, had not forgotten to give orders for a magnificent feast to follow the hard fought hours of the night. And so it was, that while the town folk were rising from their beds to pursue their daily labors, the king and all his men were sitting down to eat with their nocturnal work accomplished. The king himself sat at the head of the feast, bareheaded except for a chaplet of pearls. At the table on either side of him sat the most prominent of the French prisoners, knights of worth who had been captured in the failed enterprise.

  With ironic hospitality, the king commanded the prince and all our English knights to serve food to the French captives before sitting down at our own table. “They thought to make servants of us tonight,” said the king. “Let them not be disappointed.” I smiled grimly as I carved the roast venison for our prisoners. Some looked ashamed as I placed a portion of meat upon their trencher, others declined the meat with ill grace, but Sir Geoffroi de Charny looked me boldly in the eye and gave me gramercy for the food.

  When they had finished eating, the king stepped down from his chair and greeted his honored guests one by one. He commended them for their bravery, albeit misguided, and saluted their conduct in arms. When he came to Charny, however, his kindly look vanished. His tone changed color like an autumn leaf, and he would not give the French captain his hand. “I have little reason to like you, Sir Geoffroi,” the king said coolly. “Last night you tried to steal from me what has cost me so much money and labor to gain. You thought to get it for twenty thousand crowns—cheaper than I did. But by God’s help, you have been disappointed.”

  Charny said nothing; there was nothing to be said. Edward continued on down the table of French knights to where Sir Eustace de Ribemont sat. Sir Eustace was close in rank to Charny, and though his reputation was not as brilliant, his name was at least known to the king. He was one of the four knights that had surrounded Edward on the causeway, just prior to the timely arrival of the prince and his party.

  “Ah, Sir Eustace,” said the king in a voice markedly different than that which he had spoken to Charny. “You are the most valiant knight I ever saw. I never yet found anybody, who, man to man, gave me so much to do as you did today. I adjudge to you, above all the knights of my court, the prize of valor.” With exaggerated courtesy, His Majesty removed the chaplet of pearls from his head and placed it on the brow of Sir Eustace. “I beg you to wear this for a year, Sir Knight, in whatever place you may go. And tell all ladies and damsels that I gave this coronet to you as a reward for your prowess. I release you from prison and ransom. You may leave tomorrow and go where you wish.” The king finished with a meaningful look at Charny. “But not so the rest of you. You must bide in our hospitality across the sea until such time as your natural lord makes free to ransom you.”

  *****

  The prince spoke true when he said that your husband would not be ransomed immediately. Indeed, it was well over a year before Charny returned to his homeland. In France, as well as in England, the ravages of the plague had lessened the number of laborers and raised the price of grain. Every nobleman’s estate was hampered, and a ransom of twenty thousand crowns was too costly to be come by without the help of the royal coffers. But any appeal to the French king must wait till the season of mourning had passed. The year 1350 saw the death of French Philip, and as the kingdom tottered unsteadily into the hands of his son John, Charny was all but forgotten in his gilded prison across the Channel.

  After our return to England, I made a pilgrimage to Canterbury. The plague had begun to abate in London and the surrounding areas, but though the plague had abated, my anxieties had n
ot. The triple witness of my father, the flagellant, and Bradwardine sat heavily on my heart. I had resolved to enter the cloister after the rescue of Calais. I would keep my resolution. When I reached Canterbury, the abbot consented to receive me as a novice. He instructed me to make my farewells and dispose of my possessions as best I might and so I returned to Windsor where the royal household was lodged.

  It was the prince who first told Charny of my plans. “I pity your reputation, Sir Geoffroi,” he said. “In a month’s time it will fly abroad that your captor in England is no more than a tonsured monk. What think you of this? Sir Potenhale means to leave my service and take vows at Canterbury cloister!”

  “Is this true?” asked Charny, a look of surprise showing clearly in his open countenance.

  “Aye,” said I, expecting some words of remonstrance. My noble prisoner, however, kept his thoughts to himself, and unlike others who had sounded the current of my intention, he had no hint of ridicule in his eyes. The seeming folly of my plans was not lost on me. I had just captured one of the premier knights of France. Fame and fortune awaited me with open arms. Now—only now—was I worthy of Margery Bradeshaw. And now—only now—must I take the step that would push her from me altogether. But if it were folly to thrust aside this worldly glory, it were a worse folly to ignore the promptings of my soul. I could not continue to wear the heavy mantle of knighthood while it sunk me deeper and deeper into the miry abyss of the damned.

  Charny refused to remonstrate with me, but as it came about, he was as concerned for my distress as is any abbot for the morals of his brethren. Later that evening, after the prince had retired, he sought out my company. I had gone up to the battlement to ponder my path. In former days I had shunned solitude, but of late I had acquired a penchant for it—what wonder when my thoughts were too ridiculous to be discussed, too foreign to be explained, and too incomprehensible to be understood. In the midst of my musings, Charny found me. He did not speak, but sat beside me as silent as the stone surrounding us. When he did open his mouth, it was not a question, but a simple statement about his past.