I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince

by Rosanne E. Lortz

  Later that night, I waited table for the prince, and after I had cleared the flagons, he bade me reveal my thoughts on the Genoese governor.

  “He was astonishingly foolish,” said I, “to enter into such a compact with the French with no word thereof to His Majesty.”

  “He was astonishingly shrewd,” said the prince, “to confess it without reserve when word of his deeds had flown abroad.”

  “You think then, that his original intent was not a stratagem to deceive the French, but an act of definite betrayal?”

  “Aye, I think that if Sir Walter Manny had not eyes in his head and ink in his pen, then a month’s time would have seen Charny’s flag on the ramparts of Calais and Aimery’s purse filled with traitor crowns.”

  “And thinks the king the same?”

  “Aye, I read as much in his face.”

  “Then why did His Majesty not beard this Lombard to his face?” I demanded, for the thought of Aimery’s double-dealing stuck in my craw like half-chewed gristle.

  The prince smiled at me with a look both sage and careworn, and it came to me then that though we had been the same age at our knighting, the experiences of the last four years had grown him up to a wisdom that did not come with years. “My father knows what mold of men his servants are, whether of honor or dishonor. And who can say whether the vessels of wrath are not as serviceable as the vessels of mercy? He has played us false, but he is found out. And with the help of God, we shall make him play us true or else smash him to pieces altogether.”

  I remembered the thought that had come to me when Aimery had first entered the hall. “I have seen this fellow before,” I said. “He was at Calais, and yet, I think that he was not of our company.”

  “Your memory serves you well,” said the prince, “We were outside the walls, and he inside.”

  “In the pay of the French?”

  “Aye, until they could pay him no longer. My father offered better pay, and so the Lombard-turned-French has turned English.”

  “Well, we shall pay him out his full deserts,” said I, with a vehemence that my voice had lacked for many a fortnight.

  “Is this the talk of a Benedictine novice?” demanded the prince with an air of mock piety, and he clapped me on the back with affection. “This Aimery must be truly wicked, my friend, to make you forget your intended vows. Methinks we are in danger of losing not only Calais, but also your immortal soul.”

  *****

  We made the crossing to Calais by night. The fog was thick about us, and we were muffled in great coats both to keep out the chill and hide our quality. Our identity and purpose must remain hidden even from Calais’s garrison if it were to remain hidden from Calais’s enemy. The prince had begged Roger Mortimer to second him on the expedition, and that noble had agreed ungrudgingly, bearing no rancor that the standard would not bear his pennant. Besides Mortimer, few others of note had embarked in our flotilla. The prince and Mortimer kept to the cabin in our ship, accompanied by one tall, heavily cloaked man, whom I took to be either Lancaster or Chandos. The rest of us were exposed to the elements for the voyage, and many of the men slept for the duration of the trip.

  It was early morning by the time we disembarked, and Aimery de Pavia was there—seemingly by happenstance—on the quay to receive us. “Welcome, friend,” he said loudly, recognizing the prince, but receiving him as a commoner. “What business have you in Calais?”

  “We are bound for Bruges,” said the prince assuming the role of merchant, “but my shipmaster has fallen ill, and without him we are no more than a pile of spars on a waiting reef.”

  “You’ve leave to put in here till he recovers,” said Aimery, “at least until the Feast of Epiphany.”

  “Gramercy, sir,” said the prince with a smile. “You are a prince among men.”

  We entered Calais in the guise of tradesmen. Our weapons we smuggled in with little difficulty inside some pallets of cloth. The prince took up some petty conversation with the governor, playing his part with alacrity. He bemoaned the falling price of wool, and roundly cursed the rising customs that threatened to beggar him. He complimented the governor on the efficiency of the wharf and asked to view the prospect of the city from the vantage point of the walls. “As you wish,” said Aimery, and in this manner the prince was able to see for himself the disposition of Calais’s garrison and the state of the defenses.

  Later, behind closed doors, the prince, Mortimer, Sir Walter Manny, and the tall, cloaked man whom I still supposed to be Chandos or Lancaster, met with the governor to discuss the details of how the ambush would be conducted. Charny, I learned afterward, had appointed the evening of the thirty-first to be the day of the exchange. As the sun rose on the first day of the new year, it would rise on a Calais that was French once again. But Charny, as the prince had averred, was no fool. He would need guarantees of Aimery’s good faith, guarantees that he was not walking into a trap. The first demand was Aimery’s son as hostage; Aimery was not an over-fond father and had already handed over the lad. The second demand was an inspection of the city one day prior to the exchange. Our reinforcements must remain well hidden if Charny’s suspicions were to be allayed.

  “There are too many of us,” I said, when I heard of Charny’s plans to scrutinize the city. “And the men—try as they might to card wool or loop fringe—are unmistakably martial. The game will be up before it has begun.”

  “Aye,” said the prince, “and since we cannot hide what we are, it seems we must hide altogether. What think you of this?” he asked, and pulled a folded parchment from his pocket. There in rough lines was a design for a secret compartment on either side of the gatehouse. “Half the men will be entombed here. The other half mixed in with Calais’s garrison or tricked out in peasant’s garb.”

  I took the drawing and examined it critically. “And Charny’s inspectors will be either so blind or so drunk that they will not notice these strange stone protuberances of such obvious novelty. Come, come! The stone will be three days old butted up against stone aged three hundred years—shiny, new hewn blocks lying side by side with mossy, timeworn walls. We would awaken less curiosity by building a great wooden horse to hide inside.”

  The prince smiled. “I own that I am much of your opinion.”

  “Then why this plan, highness? Was it your device?”

  “No, not mine,” said the prince, “but with whatever tools I am given, I will serve. And if Aimery proves as smooth-tongued as Sinon the Greek, then Charny will see no trap.”

  He set off to speak with Calais’s master stonemason, and I watched him leave with a furrowed brow. If the plan liked him not, then why did he pursue it? Was it Aimery’s artifice? Sir Walter Manny’s? I shook my head at this silly stratagem and murmured a silent prayer for Mary’s good favor. But as I said it, I blushed, for I could never implore Mary’s favor without hoping instinctively for Margery’s. And that were unseemly now, for I had determined that this trip to Calaiswas the last of my worldly adventuring. I would draw my sword one more time and then sheathe it altogether. The grapes my father planted had turned to wine, and it was a bitter draught, but I would drink it.

  *****

  There are many ways to die; and for each man, brave through he may be, there is one way that frightens him more than others. Some men fear drowning, to struggle uselessly as the briny deep abolishes breath. Some men fear fire, to smell the roasting of their own flesh in the searing pain of flame. But for other men, a greater fear is that of an untimely burial, to be shut away in the earth before the soul has sped. Pity these men, for the two days that they spent entombed in Calais were nearly enough to drive them mad.

  To construct our covert crypt, Aimery’s stonemasons had built a thin wall around the perimeter of the gatehouse. The necessity of camouflaging the newness of this construction had occurred to others as well as to me. Within the walls of Calais stood an ancient church whose belfry tower was in an advanced state of decay. Aimery’s workmen dismantled this tower sto
ne by stone and transported the pieces to the gatehouse. There they laid the blocks in place but left them unmortared, for when the time came, our exit must be swift.

  We talked but sparingly once the wall had gone up. It was dark outside, and inside the darkness was so thick that I could not see my hand before my face. The prince was on my left; I had taken good care to be near him so that I might serve him with water and victuals during our confinement. I knew not who was on my right, for the man spoke little and seemed not to understand me when I asked him his name and quality. However, I knew he must be a gentleman of note, for when I took out my bundle of food to serve the prince, his highness bade me serve the other man first. I did as I was told, and the man thanked me courteously in a voice that seemed familiar.

  I never saw the outside of our tomb, but the stonemasons must have done their work cunningly. On the thirtieth day of December, a half dozen of Charny’s men entered and inspected the town. They reckoned the garrison and looked over the town folk. They mounted every wall and scrutinized every tower. The new walls surrounding the gate house had been so cleverly faked to look like old work that Charny’s spies suspected nothing of the vengeance that lurked within. When they had finished their exhaustive examination, they returned to Aimery almost disappointed, like spaniels who have prowled the heather but found no birds to flush. From behind our stony screen, we could just hear their interchange with Aimery as he let them out the postern gate. “My master will be pleased,” said the leader and he gave Aimery the earnest money, a pledge of the twenty thousand crowns to be delivered the following night. “You will see us tomorrow when the moon rises.”

  The day passed slowly. Cramped and cold, the men grumbled intermittently. I wondered if those outside the wall could hear our muttering. “They must sleep,” said the man beside me, “and marshal their strength for the evening ahead.” Again, his voice seemed familiar, but again I could not discover the identity of the speaker. I would have known Chandos’s voice, and Audley’s deep croak was intelligible to any man.

  “Aye,” said the prince to the man on my right. As if on command, he repeated the words to the men about us, instructing them to lay aside their weapons and lay down their heads. “Sleep,” the prince bade us, and he would brook no argument. The place was confined, but we all managed to contort our bodies into some semblance of recumbency. One by one we dozed off into a warmth and comfort that only sleep could bestow.

  When I awakened, I saw a red sliver of light peeking through the mortarless masonry. The sun was setting. “Shall we arm?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” said the prince, but before the light had completely gone, he bade me fasten the points of his armor. It was a small space to buckle on plates, and I felt like a man trying to turn a somersault inside of a barrel. By this time, however, I was proficient in playing squire to his highness, for my lord was accustomed to be served by none but belted knights. I trussed his points with some small trouble, eased the embroidered jupon over his head, and received his gramercy.

  While I turned my fingers to my own cuirass, the prince looked beyond me to the man on my right. “Friend,” said he. “Shall I serve as thy squire?”

  “With all my heart,” said the unknown man, and stooping low, the prince performed for him the same office that I had just completed. He was a haughty man, my prince, and I wondered to see him serve another in this way.

  We were all addressed now to meet our foe. We need only wait for the moon to rise, bright and far-reaching as a coastal beacon.

  It was nearly midnight before the trap was sprung. In accordance with the agreement, sly Aimery had left the postern gate unlatched. A small French force slipped in, ready to raise the portcullis and admit the whole of their troop. From inside our makeshift masonry we could hear the grating squeal of the rising gate, strident and startling like the sharpening of knives on a turning stone.

  “Stand there!” cried one of the garrison, for not all of Aimery’s men had been apprised of the events that were to take place this night. Before the watchman could sound the alarm, a flock of arrows had buried themselves in his throat. Filing Frenchmen filled the courtyard inside of the gate. We could hear them tiptoeing and hushing one another, confidently unaware of the soldiery sequestered in the stones surrounding them.

  “God’s death! Let’s have at these bastards!” murmured one of ours, and the men began to champ and rustle impatiently like horses before a race.

  “Hold fast, or all is lost!” hissed the unknown man to my right, and the prince gave an order for no man to stir.

  “We must draw them in,” I breathed.

  “Aye,” said the prince. “It does no good to pull the lever before the foe is standing upon the trap.”

  The next three minutes abounded with stifled anxiety. The shuffle, shuffle of entering footsteps nearly unnerved me, but the prince seemed calm enough. “On my word of command, push forward with all your might,” he said, and this instruction shimmered through the ranks like a flash of lightning. I set my left shoulder against the flimsy wall and grasped the pommel of my sword with my right hand. “Now!” shouted the prince, and his voice was as black as thunder.

  “St. George and England!” cried the men, and giving a concerted shove, they toppled the unmortared wall with little more trouble than the Israelites had at Jericho. We were outside of our tomb. The moon shone clear; I could see it reflected in two hundred white eyes wide with surprise and terror.

  “St. George!” I roared in fury and dealt a mighty stroke upon the basinet that stared at me. The man crumpled like a wilted flower, and I kicked him out of my way to face another Frenchman. By now, the enemy had drawn their swords, but they were bewildered and beleaguered on all sides and thought of nothing but making a hasty retreat. One of the French captains began to shout some orders. He had reckoned our numbers and seen that their force was equal to or greater than ours. If they could make a stand, Calais might still be theirs. Two thirds of their force remained outside the walls, and a steady trickle of men continued to pour into the courtyard like wine from a spigot. The prince, however, was determined to put a stopper in the barrel.

  “To the gate! To the gate!” called the prince, and with a handful of us at his back, he pressed his way through the enemy hordes to the capstan that worked the portcullis. “Turn the wheel!” he shouted hoarsely. Two men bent their backs to work the winch. I warded blows with sword and shield, fighting side by side with my lord. The creak of cold armor, the clash of brand against brand, and the grunts of intensity all contrived to drive the archbishop’s rotting face, the flagellant’s bloody flail, and my father’s ghastly laughter out of my head. For the first time in months, I felt a kind of joyful freedom, like the feel of rushing wind upon the face.

  “’Ware the left!” called the prince.

  I wheeled to meet a new attacker, and met him foot to foot just inside the threshold of the gate. He was a ponderous fellow, with the strength of an ox in the swing of his sword. I barely deflected his blows with my shield. One penetrated my guard and, slicing through my pauldron, bit keenly into my left shoulder. “Aiee!” I cried, and struck out with all my might. Giant though he was, he stepped back beneath my onslaught, and in that moment the winch was unwound. The iron gate dropped to the ground. There my attacker lay, spitted through like a deer beneath the heavy portcullis.

  “The day is ours,” said the prince. The way was shut, and the invaders had been cut off from the rest of their force. Our men pushed the trapped Frenchmen together tighter and tighter till they were hemmed in on all sides. Dismay spread through their ranks like a ripple across a lake. Almost with one accord, they put down their swords and cried for quarter. Englishmen all around me scrambled to receive their submission. A noble prisoner would bring a noble ransom, and that could be the making of a poor man’s hopes. The prince left my side, no doubt in search of Aimery. The Frenchmen would have surely paid him off when first they entered. Twenty thousand crowns! And where was it now? Throughout the fight
Aimery had been invisible—perhaps secreting the money in hopes that his highness would have forgotten it.

  Some of our men, however, had little thought of prisoners and plunder. The French were still without the walls and a swift sally would send them into inglorious flight. “To me, to me!” cried one of our English comrades, “Avaunt!” I looked toward the wall of the castle and saw a man beckoning fiercely with his weapon. It was the man who had come so heavily cowled upon the ship; it was the man who had knelt on my right all those cold hours in our stony cell; it was the man whose armor had been laced by a prince. The portcullis was shut, but he had opened the postern gate. Tall and proud he motioned for us to follow.

  This was to be my last fight before I ended my days as a fighting man—all the more reason to leave reason to the wind; the French would remember the song of my sword before I sheathed it forever. “Lead on!” I called as I reached the gate. A dozen men-at-arms were at my back and at least as many archers. Following our unknown leader, we passed beyond the wall and onto the fen that surrounded the city.

  “St. George and England!” cried our little band, and though we were but few, our voices carried the fervor of Gideon and his meager three hundred. Already alarmed by the wreck of their plans, the French feared total disaster from our sudden sally. Their army, a noble force of a thousand men or more, turned tail and fled with all the dignity of a startled rabbit.

  This display of terror encouraged our small company. We gave tongue like a group of youthful hounds and pursued the fleeing French into the fen. You will remember that the terrain around Calais is mostly marshy. On the eastern side of the city, the ground is nearly impassable, so a causeway has been erected to allow safe passage through the quag. We had just approached the narrowing of the causeway, when the apparent rout lost its pell-mell momentum.