I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince Read online

  “The enemy has come out to us at last,” the prince said with gentle irony. “Shall we give battle or allow them to pass through our ranks?”

  “Let them pass, let them pass!” said the king with a smile. “What harm can these poor folk do?” The expulsion of these town folk had cheered him like the first break of sunlight after the gloom of a storm. He was disposed to be generous.

  “Part ranks!” shouted Manny, as he galloped toward the palisade. The soldiers made a gap for the now-homeless French folk to pass through. Their departure augured well for the siege; the hour was surely at hand when the famine in Calais’s belly would gnaw through the ties that bound her to Philip.

  “We shall hold Christmas in Calais!” said the king, and when the army heard of his words, they gave three cheers for His Majesty’s soon-to-be triumph. But like so many of our fondest hopes, this prediction fell afoul of fate. His Majesty’s Christmas was to be spent in the field. There were still many months to come before Calais would capitulate.

  *****

  The prolonged camping at Calais threw the men together in far closer quarters than they had been during our march across France; the enforced idleness of the siege magnified petty disputes. Tempers began to rub raw like a horse which has been too long in saddle.

  It took some time before I felt the oppression of the ceaseless siege. At first, the excitement I had at joining the prince’s household colored the whole world with leaf of gold. As a belted knight, I was no longer the invisible squire that merely fetches, carries, and curries the horses. I attended the prince wherever he went and, although I was still a subordinate, could converse on easy terms with his coterie of friends. William Montague, the earl of Salisbury, was a general favorite with the prince and could always be counted upon for a game of backgammon. Roger Mortimer was a particular friend of Salisbury’s and though he lacked the bonhomie of the earl he had a sharper mind for debate. And then there was Sir Bernard Brocas, the curly-haired jester of the group. He never failed to make the prince laugh or amuse him out of his fits of seriousness. Besides these three, there were others that surrounded the prince. Sir John Chandos and Sir James Audley brought their graying heads to the prince’s table, and the king himself occasionally supped with his offspring.

  There were a few men, however, who were not welcome at the prince’s table. Of these, Sir Thomas Holland was one. I had not been raised near the court, and it was no easy matter for me to distinguish between men who were great and men who merely wished to be. The difference between deserved dignity and odious pretension was, for the most part, lost on me. Yet, even I could see that Thomas Holland had grown overbold since his capture of the Comte d’Eu and the Comte de Tancarville at Caen. The clink of golden ransom in his purse had procured for him a fortune far higher than that to which he was born; and the adulation for this feat had worked on him like heady wine.

  Holland was a big, bluff man, some twenty years older than I. He was coarse of feature and expression—though many women found him handsome and artful enough. His father had been a baron in Lancashire, beheaded during the tumultuous reign of the second Edward. Holland himself was a belted knight and in younger days had seen battle near the Euxine Sea. It was there that he had gained the scar that cut across his brow and had lost the sight of his left eye.

  When he returned from the east, Holland sought employment as seneschal to the Earl of Salisbury. Here he was competent. But his days with the Teutonic knights had whetted his taste for battle, and this avocation for violence could not be satisfied in the managing of meadows, manors, and rent rolls. When King Edward made his first sortie into Flanders, Holland enlisted with drawn sword. When King Edward engaged the French at Sluys, Holland thrust and parried aboard ship. And when King Edward turned to fight the enemy at Crecy, Holland commanded a company in the prince’s division.

  Embroidered with Holland’s colorful storytelling, his capture of the French Constable at Caen had become the stuff of legend. He had cornered the two counts outside the gatehouse and chased them up the stairs of an enemy tower. A battalion of French archers rained down arrows from up above, but he had brushed their shafts aside like drops of water and continued the pursuit. When he reached the landing at the top of the tower, they had both turned on him like lions. Two of the mightiest knights in France—or the world for that matter—had encountered him with drawn sword. But Holland was undaunted! A second Roland was he! Blow for blow he met them, turning their swords like a mighty anvil, till at last he forced them to their knees. Then they pleaded for their lives—like runaway serfs begging not to be returned to their master. And Holland being a merciful man did not put them to death as they deserved, but instead, brought them before his lord and master King Edward.

  So spread the story of Holland’s fantastic feat. The Constable could have disproved the story had he seen fit, but he only shrugged generously and allowed Holland to have his glory. Many thought Holland’s newfound swagger to be as savory as a mouthful of sand. Of these, William Montague was one—Montague who treated the whole world as a friend and yet found no friendship in his heart for Holland. The earl had grown to manhood with Holland as his father’s steward, and it liked him not that Holland should salute him now as an equal. “God’s life!” I heard him mutter to the prince, “How much better for all of us if this fellow had been taken by the Comte d’Eu instead of the Comte by him.”

  The prince himself treated Holland with a cold courtesy. It was meet that prowess be honored but unsuitable that pretension be humored. One day as we rode outside the walls of Calais, looking for any sign of weakness, Holland came alongside the prince and saluted him.

  “God give you good morning,” replied the prince with a curt nod. He would have ridden on, but Holland urged his horse forward to have speech with him.

  “Your highness played the man right valiantly in Ponthieu,” said Holland in an avuncular tone. I had been but newly admitted into the prince’s retinue, but I bridled at the sound of such familiarity. “You fought like a bonny lad, and I was right proud,” continued Holland. “God knows that this campaign has been the making of both of us.”

  “It may have made you, sir,” said the prince coolly, “but it has made me nothing other than what I was born to be.” His beardless chin jutted out with indomitable defiance, and the hauteur of his bearing compensated for the sinews that his youth yet lacked. Holland flushed angrily, and his horse fell back into line beside me. I rejoiced in his confusion, and adopting my master’s demeanor, shot a frosty glance at him.

  “The Prince of Wales is a right haughty lord,” Holland observed. I could see that he did not remember me from Caen or Crecy, and knew me only as the prince’s attendant. To him, I was but a newly belted knight of obscure origins.

  “And well he should be,” said I sharply. “Not only is he heir of both England and France, but he has also proven himself the most puissant knight of the realm. You call him haughty, but he has good reason.”

  “If he has good reason,” Holland quipped, “then why does he keep a churl like you about his person? Answer me that!”

  My face flamed hot, for I knew well how clumsy and unfit I was for his highness’s service. “As to that, I cannot answer, for the prince chooses whom he will and takes whom he desires.”

  “Does he indeed?” mocked Holland. “It is a fortunate man that can choose whomever he will. The prince, I think is not so fortunate—at least not in the matter of women. I’ll wager that there’s one there he desires that he cannot take.”

  The prince had never spoken to me of the fairer sex, and I knew not whether Holland was speaking from certain knowledge or simply throwing darts at random. I was inclined to think the latter. “Methinks your words are something too insolent,” I replied hotly.

  “Softly, softly, young sir,” said Holland, in a voice calculated to incite me further.

  I swallowed hard, trying to keep my wrath inside of me. Images fluttered in my mind like washing hung on a line. I remembered st
anding side by side with Holland with my back against the tower while the Frenchmen shouted to him from above. “Softly?” asked I. “Softly, you say? As soft as the blows you delivered at Caen when the Comte d’Eu yielded before your mighty prowess? Aye, you were a rare paragon of valor that day, when you strove so doughtily to climb a set of stairs and receive the surrender of two of the best knights in Christendom!”

  “Insolent pup!” cried Holland, and he would have sprung at me had the prince not been so near. I half-regretted my words as soon as they left my lips. For though the French counts had rolled into Holland’s hands like ripe berries from a bush, that was not to say that he would have gone to no trouble to obtain them. Whatever else Holland might be—rude, belligerent, and self-serving—he was not in the least cowardly.

  “Have a care, Potenhale,” said Holland, crowding my horse with his own and snarling through clenched teeth. And with that he pulled away, leaving my anger to age and ferment like wine in oaken barrels.

  *****

  Fortunately for me, I soon found pleasanter thoughts to dwell on than my rancor at Sir Thomas Holland—for what could hold more pleasure than thoughts of a beautiful woman? Among the ladies that had crossed over from England in Queen Philippa’s company was Joan of Kent. She has a part to play in my tale, so it is necessary that I should tell you somewhat of her ancestry and upbringing.

  Joan was a granddaughter of the first Edward, and thus a cousin to our own king. Her father was Edmund of Kent. He had remained faithful to his unfortunate half brother, the second Edward, when most of the nobles had decamped to Edward’s wife Isabella. That French she-wolf, along with her lover Mortimer, soon contrived to rid the world of her husband.

  It was through Isabella that Joan’s father Edmund also met his end. First, she imprisoned him claiming that he disbelieved in his brother’s death and was plotting to restore him to the throne. Then she ordered his execution. Edmund was beloved, however, and none besides the queen wished him dead. For five hours he waited at the block because no one would handle the axe to be his executioner. Isabella raged and cursed but still no one would cut off Edmund’s head. At last, she sent to the Tower for a convicted murderer, and, in return for a pardon, he agreed to sever the head of her brother-in-law Edmund. Little did she know that in less than a year’s time, her own son would ask her to answer for the deaths of his father and his uncle.

  All men know how the third Edward removed his mother from power and slew her lover Mortimer. It is less well known how he befriended those whom she had cast down. Edmund of Kent had left three fatherless children, the youngest of which was barely out of the womb. Edward himself had just produced his first son, and his tender young wife Philippa offered to nurture her husband’s cousins along with her own babe. And so it was that Joan of Kent became a member of the king’s family, to be raised alongside her royal cousin as befits the granddaughter of a king.

  The first that I saw of Joan was when the prince bade me bring a message to her. “You shall find her in my mother’s tents,” said he, and he produced a scroll that I was to deliver into no hands but her own.

  “But how shall I know her?” I asked, for I had never laid eyes upon the lady, and I feared that I would somehow miscarry through ignorance.

  “How shall you know her?” the prince repeated, and he laughed as if I had voiced some monumental stupidity. “She is accounted by all to be the fairest lady of England, and if you know her not by that, then God help you!”

  I traced my way through the maze of tents to the royal pavilions that belonged to Queen Philippa. Winter was coming on apace and the sharp wind had chased all the royal ladies indoors. I stepped into the anteroom of the pavilion and begged an inquiring damsel to see the lady Joan. “Who are you, sir?” she demanded with an arched eyebrow, and I blushed fearfully and mumbled something about my service to the Prince of Wales. “Ah!” she said with her hauteur unabated, and she floated away with such a fluid motion that I could discern no steps in her stride.

  I waited for some minutes, gazing with wonder at the delicate tapestries that hung the wall of the tent. The first panel showed two men fighting. There was a great disparity in size, but the smaller man had beaten the giant and was wounded in the attempt. “Marhault is slain,” I read in the stitchery. In the second panel the wounded man was traveling to a new land, and there a woman with hair of red and gold sat by his bedside and applied a cordial to his lips. “Isolt, the healer,” said the caption. More and more pictures followed. The man, having been healed, returned home on a ship, but his king bade him sail back again to the strange land whence he had just come. He took the woman into his ship and together they shared a cup of wine. The warrior’s king received the woman, and wed her to himself with a great marriage feast…. But in the panels that followed, I saw her not with the king, but with the man whom she had healed.

  Footsteps sounded in the room behind the curtain. I skimmed through the pictures in a hurry, seeing that the woman with the red-gold hair returned to the king while the warrior whom she had healed departed for another land. The last panel showed a tower above the sea, and on the sea below, a ship approached….

  “Do you like my tapestry?” asked a clear voice, and I turned sharply like a man caught in some shameful act.

  “It is all folly,” the voice continued, “for Tristan was never meant to have the lady.”

  “Yes,” I said with a sheepish grin. “But it is noble folly, for I have never seen anything so beautiful.”

  The voice originated from a little woman, plump and coming on to middle age. Her face was simple and complacent like a tame spaniel, but this simplicity did not extend to her dress. Pearls embroidered her close-fitting bodice and the cut gems on her sleeves twinkled like stars. I stared at her a moment, convinced that she must be some great lady. But I could see that she was no Joan of Kent, for she was of no more than average beauty. My errand was not to her.

  “Please, lady,” I said. “I have an errand to the lady Joan.”

  “So I have heard,” said the lady. “You bring a message from my son.”

  “Aye, Majesty,” said I as I fell to one knee, for with those words I comprehended that I was in the presence of Queen Philippa.

  “Come, sir,” she said, and stretched out her hand. “Give me the scroll. I will bear your message and give you gramercy for it.”

  I swallowed. “I thank you for your kindness, sweet lady, but your son has commanded me to place this letter only in the hands of the lady Joan.”

  She looked at me with surprise. “Methinks you are bold, sir, to rate the commands of your master above the commands of his mother. Nevertheless,” she said, with soft words that displayed fixity of purpose, “you will give the letter to me. The lady Joan is my attendant and will not complain of it—that I promise you.”

  There was little to do but comply. I delivered the scroll into Her Majesty’s plump hand and with a gracious smile she left me. I hung my head, ashamed that I had failed to carry out the prince’s commands. Still, I determined to have one more look at the tapestry, for my eyes had barely brushed over the last scene when the queen had entered.

  In the tower above the sea, the warrior lay on his bed—but whether sick or dead I could not tell. Below the cliffs, a ship had nearly reached the beach, a ship with a white sail. And on the ship was the woman with hair of red and gold. She had come to see her warrior once again, but was she too late to heal him?

  As my eyes feasted on this picture, it seemed that the tapestry itself had come alive, for two of its panels parted and a girl stepped out of its borders.

  “Sir Knight!” she whispered in a soft voice. “Come hither, at once.”

  She was lithe and slender as a flower stalk and her hair flamed red and gold like a field of poppies. The prince had said that Joan of Kent was the fairest maid of England, and my mind misgave me that this might indeed be she. I followed her awkwardly into a little room behind the curtain. The closet was small and narrow, and she drew very c
lose to me so that I could catch her murmurs. “Speak low,” she warned me, “for we must not be heard.”

  “Are you the lady Joan?” I breathed.

  “No,” she said, and she laughed as if my question had been a fine joke. “I am called Margery, but I serve the lady Joan. You are the prince’s man, are you not?”

  “Aye,” said I. “He sent me with a message for Lady Joan, but the queen took it to deliver to her.”

  Margery scowled; a sharp line shot between her brows as when marble is struck by a chisel. “Aye, she’ll deliver it,” said the girl scornfully, “as willingly as the French will deliver up Calais. You were a pretty fool to give it to her.”

  My blood ran hot to hear these words, and my hand fingered the sword belt that sat on my hips. “I could not well refuse it to her,” I said defensively.

  “Nay, and since you’ve failed in your commission from the prince, you cannot well refuse to undertake a second commission from the lady Joan.” She placed her arms akimbo as she said this, and I could feel her breath warm on my face.

  If she had been a man, I should have been angry with her, but as it was, my only wish was that she should not be angry with me. “I shall do any honorable service that the lady requires,” I said, trying to bow, but there was barely room for it.

  “Sweetly said, Sir Knight,” said Margery, and producing a scroll from her sleeve she placed it in my hand and closed my fingers around it. “Guard this well, for it is worse to lose a lady’s letter than a gentleman’s.”

  I flushed to the roots of my hair. She treated me like the veriest page boy, and yet, if her face did not belie her, she could be no older than I!

  “Why do you linger?” she demanded. I dropped my eyes to the floor. There was no answer to be made. I tucked the scroll into the breast of my tunic and looked about me sharply as I lifted the flap of the tapestry and left the women’s pavilion.