I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince Read online

  When I returned to His highness’s tent, I found him playing at chess with Sir Bernard Brocas. The board and the pieces belonged to the prince and were a particularly treasured possession. They were of Moorish construction, carved ivory embedded in a base of gold. The pawns were the height of a grown man’s thumb, and the king weighed as much as a sling stone in your hand. The prince kept them in an inlaid box of rosewood and acacia, so ornamented that one might mistake it for a reliquary.

  It was a favorite pastime of his to play at chess. I had carried messages from him before to Chandos, to Audley, and to Sir Walter Manny, begging them attend his highness in his pavilion for a match. It was rare that a man could get the better of him. Chandos had done so once, and I knew that the prince acknowledged Bradwardine, the king’s chaplain, as his master in the game. But for most men, the prize of prevailing over the Prince of Wales was as unattainable as the golden fleece.

  I had seen the prince and Brocas play before and knew that Brocas was insurmountably outclassed. In the game of chess as well as the game of warfare, Brocas could think no further than two steps ahead. He was an impulsive man, quick to speak, quick to smile, quick to frown, and slow only in apprehending the consequences of his actions. This the prince had known since childhood. And since childhood, the prince had sought to remedy this defect in his friend.

  “Have a care, Bernard,” the prince said as I came in. “Do you not see that if you advance your pawn thus, you shall leave your knight exposed and my queen shall take him?”

  Brocas’s dark brows pressed against each other as he encountered the prince’s eye across the chess board. “Highness,” he said petulantly, “Methinks it is superfluous for you to ask another to play, since you mean to play for both.” He knocked over his king with a disrespectful flick of the fingers. “There, I have done. You have won, which is what you wished, and I have saved you a half an hour of your time.”

  “Not so long,” said the prince, triumph glinting in his eye like the sparks from a fire. With a few deft motions, he showed Brocas how victory would have been his in three moves.

  “Ah, Potenhale,” said the prince becoming aware of my presence. “You gave the lady my missive? What said she?”

  I was unsure at first where to begin, and a little bewildered by the presence of Brocas, but the prince bade me tell him everything and I saw that he kept no secrets from this friend of his childhood. My story stumbled over itself several times as I related to his highness each detail of the mortifying episode. I left out nothing besides the haughty manner in which Joan’s maid had received me.

  The prince was not overjoyed to hear my tale. He did not storm as his father would have done, but his displeasure with me was apparent in the curling sneer of his comely face and the harsh edge to his voice. “You have miscarried in the worst of all ways,” he said shortly. My shoulders drooped sadly, and I wanted to crawl backwards out of the tent like a dog who has received a cuff from a beloved master.

  “Don’t berate the poor man so,” said Brocas, who had recovered his good spirits at the same time that the prince had lost his. “Forsooth, what was he to do in such a pass? As a wise man once said, ‘Do you not see that if you advance your pawn thus, you shall leave your knight exposed and the queen shall take him?’ Well, here is your pawn returned to you, and it will do you as much good to berate him as it will do me to berate this chess piece.”

  I expected the prince to bridle at this, but he took the rebuke right calmly and gave me his hand in token of forgiveness. “So my letter is lost,” he said thoughtfully, “but you say that you have another.”

  “Aye,” I said eagerly, and fumbling in the breast of my tunic, I pulled out the scroll that Margery—beautiful Margery!—had put in my hands. The prince’s hands split the seal with haste. He leaned closer to the candles on the table, and I could see his lips forming the words that lay on the page though he did not speak them aloud. What manner of things had she written, the lady Joan? And how came it that her handmaid could produce a letter in answer to the prince even before her lady had received one?

  “Now God be praised!” the prince said after a moment, and his countenance metamorphosed completely from fire and brimstone to gentle rain. He quartered the letter with crisp, neat folds and placed it in his own tunic. My erstwhile unforgivable error seemed to be forgotten entirely. He gave me a golden guinea from his purse, clapped me upon the back, and called me a second Hermes. Then with a farewell to Brocas, he exited the tent stepping lightly over the threshold and whistling a merry tune.

  THE SURRENDER OF THE CITADEL

  JANUARY – AUGUST, 1347

  5

  Spring came to Calais bringing rising sap, shooting buds, and returning birds; but the one thing it did not bring was the termination of the siege. The high walls of the town loomed before us with the same impregnability they had possessed in September. It had been six months, and we were no closer to attaining the prize.

  The ladies had grown fretful and talked of leaving again for England. But there would be no leaving without the queen, and she was determined to lay her head down on the same pillow as her lord and husband. Philippa’s short, plump figure had grown plumper still in the past months. The prince confirmed my unvoiced suspicions when he noted that his mother was with child. She would allow none of her ladies leave her at such a time, though God knows that the experience was common enough to her. It was the twelfth child she had carried, and there have been more since Calais.

  Calais’s recalcitrance was wearing on more than just the ladies. The king’s mood was ugly, and all the nobles were on edge. When Calais’s governor had expelled the feminine and feeble from the town in early December, His Majesty had assumed that the end was near. He had only to maintain the siege and Calais would capitulate. The siege had been maintained, and yet the town still held out. It was incontrovertible, it was incomprehensible, but it was fact. The only explanation was that the town was still receiving supplies from somewhere.

  The blockade had not been breached by land, but the wall of wooden ships proved to be a porous palisade. Suspicious that the town might be receiving supplies from the sea, the king increased the numbers of galleys and cogs that lay across the harbor. Now barely a minnow could pass through the water without a cry of alarm and a hoisting of the sail.

  The king’s suspicions were well founded. The French for some time now had been smuggling in food at night in flat-bottomed barges. The increased vigilance on our part made their midnight runs impossible now. After the barge captains made several abortive attempts that nearly cost them their lives, they forsook the enterprise. No amount of gold was tempting enough to lure them back through the teeth of our English sharks. And so Calais was shut up as she should be, with a cordon drawn around her as tight as a tourniquet; the flow of life was cut off at last.

  Shortly after the cessation of the food-smuggling, the gates of Calais opened once more. This time a crowd nothing short of two thousand persons crawled out of the ramparts. It was the same sort of feeble folk as before—women, children, and old ones, all too weak to wield a sword or wind a crossbow. The siege had begun to pinch unbearably, and Calais had expelled two thousand more bodies with useless hands and hungry mouths.

  But the careless clemency with which the king had greeted the last group was spent. Calais had cost him too much money and too many months. Whatever debt the city owed him, these poor folk would now pay.

  “Shall we open the palisade?” asked Sir Walter Manny, hoping to let the town folk pass through unmolested.

  “In God’s name, no!” said the king. “They’ll gain no grain from this maneuver. Drive them back from the lines. They must re-enter the town and share the food and fortune of their friends.”

  The palisade bristled with archers, and they fired a few warning shots at the émigrés. That halted them. I saw them debating amongst themselves, though none in this ragged band seemed to hold any leadership. We fired again, and the volley sent them scurrying away. In a
moment’s time they were back at the base of the wall, looking up for succor like a hurt child clinging to his mother’s knees. But the gate which had opened to release them was no longer open to receive them. The cries or entreaties of the turned-out two thousand had no power to turn the winch that raised the portcullis. A man’s head appeared on the height of the gatehouse tower. He had come to address the refugees. The words he spoke were lost in the distance which separated us from the town, but the people below heard him well enough. A dreadful keening arose from the motley crowd and they held up their hands in supplication.

  “Their governor has refused to readmit them,” I heard Manny report to the king. “Shall I give the order for the palisade to be opened?”

  “God forbid that I should prove kinder than their natural lord,” replied Edward stonily. “There shall be no passage through our lines. They shall re-enter Calais or sink to shades in its shadow. Calais has tried my patience for too long—let her surrender when she will, there will be no quarter given to man, woman, or child. They shall all perish like these brutes.”

  As nightfall approached and the town folk saw that their governor would not relent, they turned about again and pressed toward our line. But the king’s word held firm, and warning shots from the archers repelled them like stones thrown at a stray dog. There was no choice for them but to keep their distance. Hungry, homeless, and hopeless, they lay themselves down to sleep in the limbo between the lines of battle.

  It was a wretched week that followed. Already weakened by the scanty rations in Calais, the trapped refugees now rooted in the mud like pigs, searching for any trace of vegetation that could be crammed into an empty maw. Their famished frames moved haltingly, and their eyes gaped dully like the sinkholes of the surrounding marsh. Most of the company lay down in a huddle till the weakness of hunger shut their eyes forever. But ever and anon a few frantic members of the company, those who refused to acquiesce to their inevitable fate, ventured toward the city or the palisade. From the city there was only silence, but from the palisade there was always a sharp-tipped volley of arrows, no longer just a warning, but actual measures of defense to keep the forlorn French from rushing upon our lines.

  The sight of this cadaverous company corralled by our lines sickened me to my stomach. I had seen death at Caen and death at Crecy, but this was something worse than death. One twilight, while the prince and I paced the lines, I heard the bloodcurdling, guttural groan of a refugee who had chosen the pain of the arrow over the pain of the belly. Nauseated by the sound, I turned to His Highness in appeal. “Think you that His Majesty will finally relent and allow them to pass?”

  “Nay,” replied the prince. “The only feast they’ll ever attend is a feast for the ravens.”

  “But why, in God’s name?” I demanded.

  “He is teaching these burghers a lesson, and the French remain stupid to all but the harshest of schoolmasters.”

  “But there is no honor in this!” said I. “You would not do such a thing.”

  “You think I would not?” asked the prince, and he cocked his head to the side a little, as if pondering the idea. “Perhaps you are right; perhaps I would not have given this order. But then, I have not spent a hundred thousand guineas to achieve this place. A man’s conception of what is honorable may shift a little when his purse is in danger of depletion.”

  “Then you admit it,” I cried out, “that to starve this wretched band is something short of chivalrous!”

  “Have a care, Potenhale,” said the prince. He drew into himself suddenly and the frostiness of his tone reminded me of my place. “My father is considered an honorable man by all, and peer to the greatest monarchs of Christendom; it is not for an obscure knight barely belted to question the judgment of a Plantagenet. Have a care, Potenhale.”

  *****

  It was not until the summer that Philip finally came, with a mighty force to relieve the suffering citizens of Calais. By this time, the French burghers had tightened their belts to the last notch. We had apprehended one courier from the town who (in a letter to Philip) lamented that the town folk had eaten every cat, dog, and horse within the walls; if succor did not arrive soon, they would be forced to partake of human flesh or else give up the city.

  Some of Calais’s couriers must have slipped through the English blockade bearing this same message, for Philip gave up his indolence and arrived at the end of July. Encamping his army on the marsh, he left nothing but a hill between his lines and ours. His first action was to request a parley, and—since the Holy See was always wont to intervene on his behalf— sent two cardinals to sound the current of English intentions. Edward bristled a little, as any Englishman would at emissaries from the Francophile pontiff. But he acknowledged himself favorable to a parley, and two tents were pitched on the wasteland between our two armies.

  Diplomats from both countries convened in the common ground. On our side were Sir Walter Manny and Henry, the grey-bearded Earl of Lancaster who had just quitted his post in Gascony to join us at Calais. On Philip’s side were the dukes of Bourbon and Athènes, as well as Geoffroi de Charny. You will note, milady, that this was the first time that I caught sight of your husband. At the time I did not mark it much—it was merely the faint outline of a man at a quarter league’s distance. But my later history with him caused me to recall this instance and inscribe it with a chisel on the walls of memory.

  Neither my master nor I was present at the parley, but the English emissaries were buzzing like hornets when they returned. I stood behind the prince’s chair in His Majesty’s tent while Manny and Lancaster told their tale.

  “We told them we could only conclude general terms of peace,” began Manny, “as Your Majesty authorized us—“

  “But God’s life!” broke in Lancaster. “They would have none of it. The Bourbon fool insisted that we must lift the siege entirely before they would even lisp the littlest offer of a truce.”

  “We remonstrated with them,” continued Manny, “and Sir Geoffroi de Charny hinted that Philip’s offer of peace would be an even trade of Gascony and Ponthieu in return for Calais and the surrounding country.”

  “—And this Charny said everything as solemn as an abbot,” seethed Lancaster, “as if Your Majesty does not already hold Gascony by right of inheritance and arms. Give us Gascony? Why, then, we’ll give him Paris as a present, since we’re to be making presents of land to those that already own it.”

  “And what said you to this offer?” demanded the king.

  “I made bold to say that it liked us not,” answered Manny. “I insisted that our most wise and puissant sovereign would never trade the sweet kernel of Calais for husks and chaff like Ponthieu.”

  “And France’s reply?” asked the king.

  “Since we would make no guarantees to lift the siege, their graces the dukes of Bourbon and Athènes would have given up the parley, but Charny begged leave to tender another offer for your consideration. To prevent the great loss of life which would inevitably occur should our two armies engage in battle, Charny suggests a trial by combat. Each lord would select four champions to defend the honor of his army. The winners would take Calais; the losers would withdraw.”

  “And what answer made you to that?” said the king.

  “No answer,” replied Manny. “I would know your good pleasure.”

  The king turned to his assembled council. “Lords, good sirs, what think you of this offer?”

  “Folly!” croaked Audley, and Chandos nodded his concurrence. It was rare to find the minds of these two out of concert with each other.

  “We have the advantage,” reminded Chandos. “Philip knows he cannot raise the siege, or why would he throw out such a fantastical offer?”

  “And yet,” interjected Bradwardine, “trial by combat has its merits.” Bradwardine was a cleric and the royal chaplain, but the king often used him for matters of diplomacy. Besides his abilities in church and court, he was renowned in all the Paris schools for his sharpnes
s of intellect. He was a prominent astronomer and a preeminent mathematician. The “Profound Doctor” was one of his nicknames and the sobriquet suited him entirely for he was as deep as he was learned.

  “What merits does trial by combat have?” demanded the king.

  “Four that I can foresee,” replied Bradwardine, and he began to itemize them on his fingers. “First, immediate termination of the siege; second, proof to the world which side divine justice has taken in this quarrel; third, reduction of the loss of life that a battle would entail; and fourth, relief for the miserable citizens of Calais.”

  “Three worthy reasons,” replied the king, “though your fourth deserves no consideration.”

  Bradwardine shrugged and folded his hands. “Then consider only the first three, but also consider Charny’s offer, for it is a sound one both for us and for the French. We cannot remain another winter in the field, and here is a way to end the siege swiftly.”

  “But Majesty,” expostulated Lancaster. “You are ignoring the drawbacks of such a proposal! Four of their knights against four of ours? The French peasantry may be of poor mettle, but their chevaliers are considered the best in Europe. Choose our champions as carefully as you may, they could still be outclassed. Nearly a year’s work would be lost and all in an hour’s time.”

  “Better to fight Philip in the field,” agreed Audley. “We’ll have our archers then and you know the work they did at Crecy.”

  One by one, the nobles voiced the same opinions as Lancaster and Audley. The prince alone remained silent, resting his chin on his gloved hand and listening intently to both Bradwardine and his opponents. Perhaps he disagreed with the prevailing current of opinion, or perhaps he merely wanted to learn in silence.

  The king listened to his nobles’ clamorous objections for a time, then silenced them with a wave of his hand. “Soft, soft,” he said. “I have heard you all and heard you well. But I would also know the opinion of another. Come now, what says the Prince of Wales? Shall we send out our champions or shall we wait in the field?”