Word order—Negative statements, commands, and questions often invert the typical subject-verb-object word order. "Ne care I nought," for "I don't care." "Swear thee now." "Why sayest thou so?"
Conjugation of verbs—As a very general rule, the first and third person singular are similar to our modern forms. I hear. He hears. Middle English differentiated between "thou" and "you," for the second person pronoun. Between equals, or to inferiors, "thou" was used. This informal second person singular adds an -est ending for many verbs. Thou hearest. When addressing a superior, "ye" or its plural "you" was used. This polite address, plus the infinitive and all other plurals typically use a -en ending: You hearen. To hearen. They hearen.
There are only two tenses, past and present. The past tense follows the same general rules: I heard. Thou heardest. He heard. They hearden.
There are of course many irregularities and complications, and grammar was never my strong point, so I'll recommend A Book of Middle English by J. A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre for those who'd like to take a further peek into the grammatical rules and a more extensive dictionary of Middle English.
When the characters in For My Lady's Heart are not speaking Middle English, I used simpler conventions. When they are speaking French, the universal court language of the time, I generally used the informal and polite forms of address, thou and ye. When the characters are speaking Italian between themselves, I used modern grammar.
FOR MY LADY’S HEART:
New Condensed Version
These old gentle Britons in their days
Of diverse adventures they made lays
Rhymed in their first Briton tongue,
Which lays with their instruments they sung,
Or else read them for their pleasance,
And one of them have I in remembrance,
Which I shall say with good will as I can.
But sires, by cause I am a burel man,
At my beginning first I you beseech,
Have me excused of my rude speech.
I learned never rhetoric, certain;
Thing that I speak, it must be bare and plain.
The Prologue of The Franklin's Tale,
from The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer
PROLOGUE
Where war and wrack and wonder
By sides have been therein,
And oft both bliss and blunder
Full swift have shifted since.
Prologue
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The pilgrims looked at the sky and the woods and each other. Anywhere but at the woman in the ditch. The Free Companies ruled these forests; her screeching might draw unwelcome attention. As she rolled in the wagon rut, grinding dirt into her hair, crying out pious revelations with shrieks and weeping, her companions leaned against trees and squatted in the shade, sharing a vessel of warm beer.
Remote thunder murmured as heat clouds piled up over the endless grim forests of France. It was high summer of the ninth year after the Great Pestilence. Now and then someone glanced into the dark woods. The girl had prophesied that their party of English pilgrims would reach Avignon safe—and though she was prostrated by holy ecstasies a dozen times a day, it was true that they'd not seen a suspicion of outlaws.
"John Hardy!" she moaned, and a man who'd just taken hold of the bottle looked round with dismay.
He drank a deep swig and said, "Don't sermon me, good sister."
The woman sat up. "I shall so sermon you, John Hardy!" She wiped at her pretty young face, her bright eyes glaring out from amid streaks of dirt. "You're intemperate with beer. God is offended with you."
John Hardy stood up, taking another long drink. "And you're a silly girl stuffed with silly conceits. What—"
A crash of thunder overwhelmed his words. The devout damsel threw herself back down to the ground. "There!" she shouted. "Do you hear the voice of God? I'm a prophet! Our Lord warns you—take any drink but pure water in peril of eternal damnation!" She startled back as a single raindrop struck her. "His blood!" She kissed her palm. "His precious blood!"
"Be nothing but the storm overtakin' us, you great fool woman!" John Hardy swung on the others with vehemence. "'I'm a prophet!'" he mocked in a high agitated voice. "Like enough she's a heretic in our midst! I'm on to shelter, before I'm drowned. Who'll be with me?"
The whole company was fervently with him. As they prepared to start on their way, the girl bawled out the sins of each member of the party as they were revealed to her by God: the intemperance of John Hardy, the godless laughing and jesting of Mistress Parke, the carnal lusting of the priest, and the meat on Friday consumed by Thomas O'Linc.
They ignored her, taking up the long liripipes that dangled from the crests of their hoods and wrapping the headgear tight as the rain began to fall in earnest. The party moved on into the sudden downpour. The woman could have caught up easily, but she stayed in the ditch, shrieking after them.
In the thunderous gloom the rain began to run in sheets and little streams into the road. She stayed crying, reaching out her hands to the empty track. The last gray outline of the stragglers disappeared around the bend.
A waiting figure detached itself from the shadows beneath the trees. The young knight walked to the edge of the rut and held out his hand. Rain plastered his black hair and molded a fustian pilgrim's robe to his back and shoulders, showing chain mail beneath.
"They won't listen to me," she sobbed. "They take no heed!"
"You drove them off, Isabelle," he said tonelessly.
"It's their wickedness! They won't heed me! I was having a vision, like to Saint Gertrude's."
His gauntleted hand still held steady, glistening with raindrops. "Is it finished now?"
"Certainly it's finished," she said testily, allowing him to pull her to her feet. She stepped out of the ditch, leaving her shoe. The knight got down on his knees, his mail chinking faintly, and fished the soggy leather out of a puddle. She leaned on his shoulder and thrust her foot inside the slipper, wriggling forcefully. He smoothed the wet wrinkles up her ankle. His hand rested on her calf for a moment, and she snatched her leg away. "None of that, sir!"
He lifted his face and looked at her. The rain slipped off strong dark brows and dewed on his black lashes. He was seventeen, and already carried fighting scars, but none visible on his upturned features. Water coursed down, outlining his hard mouth and the sullen cast of his green eyes. The girl pushed away from him sharply.
"I believe you're Satan Himself, sir, if you'll stare at me so vile."
Without a word he got to his feet, readjusting the sword at his hip before he walked away to a bay horse tethered in the shadow of the trees. He brought the stallion up to her. "Will you ride?"
"The Lord Jesus commanded me to walk to Jerusalem."
"Ride," he said "until we come up with the company once more."
"It's evil for me to ride. I must walk."
"This forest hides evil enough," he said harshly. "I won't have us tarry alone here."
"'Fear not, in the valley of shadow and death,'" she intoned, catching his hand. She fell to the sodden ground, her wet robe clinging to the feminine contour of her breasts. "Kneel with me. I see the Virgin. Her light shineth all about us. Oh...the sweet heavenly light!" She closed her eyes, turning up her face. Her tears began to mingle with the raindrops.
"Isabelle!" he cried. "We can't linger here alone! For God's love—move quickly now!" He grabbed her arm and pulled her up. By main force he threw her across the saddle in spite of her struggle. She began to screech, her wet legs bared, sliding from his mailed grip. The horse shied, and she tumbled off the other side. He jerked the reins, barely holding the stallion back from trampling her as it tried to bolt.
She lay limp in the grass. As he dropped to his knees beside her, she rolled feebly onto her back, moaning.
"Lady!" He leaned over her. "Isabelle, luflych—you're not harmed?"
She opened her eyes, st
aring past him. "So sweet. So wondrous sweet, the light."
Rain washed the mud from her face. Her fair blue eyes held a dreamy look, her lashes spiky with wetness, her lips smiling faintly. The pilgrim's hood had fallen open, showing a white, smooth curve of throat. He hung motionless above her a moment, looking down.
Her gaze snapped to his. She shoved at him and scrambled away. "You think of deadly sin! My love is for the Lord God alone."
The young knight flung himself to his feet. He caught his horse with one hand and the girl with the other, dragging them together. "Mount!" he commanded, baring his teeth with a savagery that cowed her into grasping the stirrup.
"I won't," she said, trying to turn away.
"Willy or nilly, you will!" He hiked her foot, catching her off balance, and propelled her up. She yelped, landing pillion in the high-cantled war saddle, clutching for security as he swung the wild-eyed horse around. The stallion followed him, neck stretched, the black mane lying in sloppy thick straggles against the animal's skin. The knight hauled his horse a few yards down the verge through the wet grass and mud. He stopped, facing stiffly away from her into the rain. "I'm not Satan Himself," he said. "I'm your wedded husband, Isabelle!"
"I'm wed to Christ," she said righteously. "And oft revealed the truth to you, sir. You take your way with me against my will and God's."
He stood still, looking straight ahead. "Six months," he said stonily. "You haven't been my true wife in that time."
Her voice softened a little. "To use me so would be the death of you, husband—so I've prophesied, often and often."
He slogged forward. The horse slipped and splashed through a puddle, sending water up, causing the knight's fustian robe to cling over the plated armor that protected his legs. The rain swelled into huge drops. Hail began to spatter against his shoulders, bouncing in pea-size pebbles off his bared black hair.
He made an inarticulate sound and dragged the stallion to the edge of the wood, stopping beneath a massive tree. Isabelle and the horse took up the protected space beneath the heaviest branch
She began an exhortation on the sins of the flesh and detailed a vision of Hell recently visited upon her. From this she went on to a revelation of Jesus on the Cross, which, she assured him, God had told her was superior in its brilliance to the similar sight described by Brigit of Sweden. When a hailstone the size of a walnut cracked him on the skull, he cursed aloud and yanked his helmet from the saddle.
Isabelle reproved him for his impious language. He pulled the helmet down over his head. The visor fell shut. He leaned against the tree trunk with a dismal clang: a faceless, motionless, wordless suit of armor, while his wife told a parable of her own devising in which a man who used ungodly maledictions was condemned to dwell in Hell with fiery rats forever eating out his tongue. The music of the hailstones pattered in tinny uneven notes on steel.
She had finished the parable and gone on to predicting what sort of vermin they might expect to find among the infidels when the storm began to lift, leaving the forest and the grassy verge steaming in greens and grays. Light shone on the watery ruts in two twisted ribbons of silver. Like a frost of snow, hail lay amid the foliage, already beginning to melt. The knight pulled off his helmet and tried unsuccessfully to dry it on his robe. Without speaking, he pushed away from the tree and began to walk again, tugging the horse through small lakes beside the road, his spurs catching in the muddy weeds.
Vapor rose from his shoulders. Isabelle plucked at her sodden robe, holding it away from her skin as she talked. She was describing the present state of her soul, in considerable detail, when he stopped suddenly and turned to her.
A breaking shaft of sunlight caught him, banishing the sullen shadows. He looked up at her, young and earnest, interrupting her eloquence. "Isabelle. Tell me this." He paused, staring at her intensely. "If outlaws were to fall upon us this moment, and ransom my life against—" The youthfulness vanished from his face in a set scowl. "Against this—that you take me again into your bed as husband—then what would you do? Would you see me slayed?"
Her lips pinched. "What vain tale is this?"
"Say the truth of your heart," he insisted. "My life for your vaunted chastity. What's best to be done?"
She glared at him. "You are a sinner, Ruck."
"The truth!" he shouted passionately. "Have you no love left for me?"
His words echoed back from the forest, enticement enough to outlaws, but he stood waiting, rigid, with his hand on the bridle.
She began to sway slightly. She lifted her eyes to the glowing clouds. "Alas," she said gently, "but I love you so steadfast, husband—it would be better to see you put to death before my eyes, than we should yield again to that uncleanness in the eyes of God."
His gaze did not leave her. He stared at her, unblinking, his body still as stone.
She smiled at him and reached down to touch his hand. "Revelation will come to you."
He caught her fingers and gripped them in his, holding them hard in his armored glove. "Isabelle," he said, in a voice like ruin.
With her free hand she crossed herself. "Let us make a vow of chastity together. I do love you dearly, as a mother loveth her son."
He let go of her. For a moment he looked about him in a bewildered way, as if he could not think what to do. Then, abruptly, he began to walk again, pulling the horse in silence.
A cool wind out of the storm caught the knight's dark hair, drying it, blowing it against his ears. The breeze faltered for a moment, playing and veering.
The horse threw up its head. Its nostrils flared.
The knight came alert. He stopped, his hand on his sword hilt. The animal planted its feet, drinking frantically at the uneasy wind, staring at the curve ahead where the road disappeared into deep woods.
There was only silence, and the breeze.
"The Lord God is with us," Isabelle said loudly.
Nothing answered. No arrow flew, no foe came rushing upon them from ambush.
"Get behind the saddle." The knight shoved his helmet down on his head and threw the reins over the horse's ears. As Isabelle floundered out of his way over the cantle, he mounted. She flung her arms about his waist. With his sword drawn he drove his spurs into the nervous stallion, sending it into a sprint with a war cry that resounded in volleys from the trees. The horse cannoned along the road with water flying from its hooves, sweeping round the curve at the howling height of the knight's battle shout.
The sight that met them was no more than a flicker of red mud and slaughter as the horse cleared the first body in a great leap. The animal tried to bolt, but the knight dragged it to a dancing halt amid the stillness.
He said nothing, turning and turning the horse in an agitated circle. The butchered bodies of their former companions wheeled past beneath his gaze, around and around, white dead faces and crimson that ran fresher than the rain.
Isabelle clung to him. "God spared us," she said, with a breathless tone. "Swear now, before Jesus Our Saviour, that you'll live chaste!"
He reined the horse hastily among the bodies, leaning down to look for signs of life as the animal pranced in uneasy rhythm, its hooves squelching wet grass and gore. The looters had done thorough work. "God's blood—they've been slain but a moment." His voice was tight as he scanned the dark encroaching forest. "The brigands are scarcely flown." He turned the stallion away, but at the edge of the clearing he doubled the horse back on the grisly scene again, as if he had not looked upon it long enough to believe.
"They died unshriven," Isabelle whispered, and murmured a prayer. She had never let go of her grip on his arm, not even to cross herself. "Swear now, in thanks for God's mercy and deliverance—you'll be chaste forevermore."
He was breathing hard, pushing air through his teeth as he looked at what was left of Mistress Parke.
"I swear," he said.
He yanked the horse around and spurred it away down the road in a gallop for their lives.
* * *
> Avignon intimidated and disgusted him. In the murky, baking streets below the palace of the Pope, he stood stoically as Isabelle prayed aloud before a splinter of the True Cross. Behind her back a whore with bad skin beckoned to him, striking licentious poses in the doorway, folding her hands in mockery, running her tongue about her dark lips while Isabelle knelt weeping in the unswept dirt. His wife had barely warmed to her devotions, he knew from experience, when the toothless purveyor of the holy relic grew impatient and demanded in crudely descriptive English that she buy it or take herself off. The whore laughed at Isabelle's look of shock; Ruck scowled back and put his hand on his wife's shoulder more gently than he might have.
"Leave these hypocrites," he said. "Come."
She stumbled to her feet and stayed near him, uncharacteristically quiet as they made their way through the crowds.
The shadow of the palace fell over them, a massive wall rising sheer above the narrow cobbled street, pocked with arrow slits styled in the shapes of crosses, the fortifications crowned by defensive crenels. Isabelle's body pressed against him. He put his arm about her, shoving back at a stout friar who tried to elbow her aside in passing.
She felt cool and soft under his hand. He was blistering hot in his chain mail and fustian, but dared not leave the armor off and untended as they moved from shrine to shrine, kissing saints' bones and kneeling before images of the Virgin, with Isabelle's tears and cries echoing around the sepulchers. Now this new shrinking, her snugging against him, fitting into the circle of his arm as she'd been used to do made piety even more difficult to maintain.
He tried to subdue his lustful thoughts. He prayed as they joined the stream of supplicants forging up the slope to the palace gate, but he was not such a hand at it as Isabelle. She'd always been a chatterer—it was her voice that had first caught his attention in the Coventry market, a pretty voice and a pretty burgher's daughter, with a giddy laugh and a smile that made his knees weak—he'd felt amazed to win her with nothing to offer but the plans and dreams he lived on as if they were meat and bread.
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