I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince

by Rosanne E. Lortz

  “It was with de Nogaret’s pope, Clement the Sycophant, that de Molay had to deal. When the conference commenced, the Grand Master found that Clement had the same wish that Boniface had earlier expressed, namely, to join the Templars and Hospitallers into one. But in addition to this, he had a second demand: Philip the Fair must be the Grand Master of the new, combined order. De Molay disagreed and denounced the proposal vehemently. As a lay leader, the king had no right to control a religious order. De Molay also questioned the king’s motivations. The Templars were one of the richest societies in the world. As master of the order, King Philip would be able to control the nearly limitless wealth that lay in the vaults of the preceptories.

  “De Molay and Charny spent three months in Paris as the Grand Master argued with Pope Clement over the matter and entreated him not to remove the papal blessing from the order. Almost—almost—Clement seemed persuaded. But whenever Clement showed signs of forgetting his lines, Guillaume de Nogaret lurked in the wings to prompt him with the words from Philip’s script. Whenever the pope saw the wisdom of de Molay’s protestations, de Nogaret dipped his spoon into the vat of rumor and ladled the malodorous accusations onto the pope’s trencher.

  “In the summer of 1307, de Molay demanded that the pope make an inquiry into the scandalous rumors that surrounded the Templar order; he saw that unless the rumors were dispersed, the order assuredly would be. De Nogaret, perhaps afraid that such an inquiry would reveal the groundless nature of the gossip, acted decisively to end the discussion. Using the pen of Philip, he ordered a mass confiscation of Templar property throughout France. The command was kept secret until it was carried out. One by one the preceptories were surprised by a force of Philip’s ruffians. They stove in the gates, overpowered the knights, and rushed straightway to the money vault. Any Templar found within French domains was incarcerated on charges of blasphemy and perversion.

  “Jacques de Molay and Geoffroi de Charny had been delayed in Paris as guests at a funeral for one of the king’s cousins. When the preceptories were seized, these two men were seized as well. Philip imprisoned them in Paris and set his jailers to work on de Molay. If he could discredit the Grand Master by obtaining a confession of heresy or sodomy, he could discredit the whole order and thereby justify his seizure of the Templars’ assets. By means of the rack and the strappado, the jailers extracted a confession from de Molay. He denied the charges of sodomy but admitted to blaspheming Christ and trampling upon a crucifix during one of the Templars’ ‘secret ceremonies’. This simple admission was not enough for Philip, however. He brought de Molay out of the prison walls to make a public confession and then ordered him to draft a letter commanding every Templar Knight to admit to the same acts.

  “Pope Clement heard these tidings with horror. Convinced of the Templars’ guilt, he condemned Jacques de Molay, Geoffroi de Charny, and many other high ranking Templars to imprisonment for life. De Molay now realized that all was lost. Desperate to clear the name of his order, de Molay recanted all of the false words they had pried from him. In the face of new tortures he denied all accusations. Nothing that de Nogaret tried could alter his new stance. Charny was as immutable in his protestations as de Molay, and together the two of them were condemned to death, the death of a heretic.

  “While awaiting the day of his execution, Jacques de Molay called down the curse of God upon all those who had judged his case. Clement, Philip, and Guillaume de Nogaret were the foremost named in his imprecations. When they brought him out to the stake, and tied him side by side with my uncle Charny, he repeated his words against them. They say that his last words were vekam adonai—‘Revenge me, Lord.’

  “A week after de Molay’s death, Guillaume de Nogaret also departed this world. A disease came upon him suddenly, and when they found his body one morning, the face was horribly distended, the tongue straining from the mouth as if someone had tried to wrench it from the dead man’s throat. Thus, the advocatus diaboli was punished, and in a fitting manner for one whose tongue had stirred up all manner of troubles.

  “Pope Clement was the next to feel the Templar’s curse. In the style of Pope Urban, he called a Crusade to retake the Holy Land from the Mamluks. But the Lord was unwilling to use such an unholy instrument to effect His holy purposes. The month following de Molay’s death, Pope Clement died of sickness. As his body lay in state and awaited funerary rites, a great thunderstorm arose and lightning struck the church that housed him. The building caught fire as easily as men catch the plague, and Clement’s body was consumed almost entirely by the flames.

  “King Philip the Fair determined to carry on with the Crusade that Clement had called; but before he took ship, he fell from his horse in a hunting accident. Death followed on the heels of this fall, and before the year was out the king of France was no more. Philip left behind him three sickly sons who soon went the way of their father. The rest you know—how their cousin Philip of Valois assumed the throne and how his son John now holds it. Some might say that it is due to de Molay’s curse that the English now seek the throne of France. For assuredly, if Philip or his sons had lived, your king would have no claim now to the French throne.”

  “Then God be thanked for the Templars!” said the prince with a smile, and I awoke as if from a trance. The prince’s comment had no such effect on Holland who had snored loudly throughout the latter half of Charny’s tale. John of Gaunt’s attention had flagged as well. Long before the death of de Molay, the young lad had darted out onto the deck to play with a dog that the sailors had brought on board.

  “So much for my story,” said Charny wryly, gazing at the Earl of Kent’s sprawling form. “I intended it more as an apologetic than a soporific, but I fear that the latter has resulted.”

  “He sleeps from his wine, not your words,” said the prince. “Potenhale and I have kept awake, however. You tell your story well, Sir Geoffroi, and what is more, I believe it. It is not beyond imagination that a French king should practice so cruelly on innocent subjects. My great-grandfather hardly believed the superstitions about the Temple Knights, and my grandfather was loath to drive them from our shores when Philip the Fair demanded it. I am sorry that the Templars do not still live, for they were fine knights and keepers of Christendom.”

  “But come,” continued the prince, “it is time that we followed the example of Sir Thomas. The Castilians may be upon us in the morning, and it is not meet that we should be weary for the battle.” I signaled two servants to remove the inert body of the sleeping earl, and we retired severally to our sleeping quarters aboard ship.

  *****

  The Spaniards were not sighted in the morning, and the king continued to make merry aboard his ship. The minstrels were still warbling when afternoon came, till a sharp cry was heard from the crow’s nest. “Ship in sight! She looks Castilian.”

  The music halted abruptly. “Are there more than one?” demanded the king.

  “Aye, one, two, three, four! So help me God, I can’t count them all!” Brusquely, the king ordered the trumpeters to signal the remainder of the English fleet to fall in line. Then wine was fetched, so that the knights might refresh themselves before the battle. After drinking, they began to lace on their armor and attach their helms.

  The Spaniards had the wind with them, and had they wished, their glutted sails might have pulled them southward to avoid our fleet. But Don Carlos de la Cerda was no coward; he bore down on us as eager for battle as we. As the Castilians neared, we saw that the forecastles of their ships were much higher than ours. This gave them an advantage, for they could bombard us from above when the ships were locked in close quarters. They had laid in a great store of stones and iron bars while they were in Flanders for exactly that purpose. Fortunately, however, their crossbowmen were no match for English archers. By dint of clever shooting, our archers could force the Spaniards to take cover behind their parapets.

  The king, meanwhile, had transferred ships to the more formidable flagship, La Salle du Roi. Im
petuously, he bade the helmsman ram the first Spanish ship that approached. It was like a clap of thunder when the two vessels met. A great shout went up as the Castilians lost their center mast. Their crow’s nest castle toppled into the sea carrying half a dozen men with it. The English flagship was well joined and strongly made, but the shock of the impact split one of the seams. A voracious leak gulped in the ocean water. The ship had received its death sentence.

  Knowing that it was conquer or sink, the king bade his men grapple with the next available Spanish ship. The grappling hooks sailed through the air like the talons of an eagle and latched onto the side of the enemy ship. The king’s men lowered the plank; then, swarming aboard in a fury of desperation, they flung every single Spaniard overboard. No quarter was given. The spoils of war became the king’s new battle station, and not a moment too soon. Leaving La Salle du Roi to founder, he crossed over to the captured ship and prepared to stage a new attack.

  My ship, meanwhile, had encountered much the same peril. The prince had ordered us to grapple with a much larger Spanish ship. We had neared at too great a speed and hit the enemy’s hull jarringly. Wide gaps opened up in our larboard seams too big for the carpenter to staunch. The king had solved this same problem by taking the Castilian ship and letting his own vessel disappear beneath the surf. We sought to do the same.

  As our ship sunk lower and lower into the brine, however, there was less and less of a likelihood that we would be able to board the Spaniard. The enemy’s bulwarks already towered high above us, and as our hull filled with water the disparity between the elevations of our decks became even greater. With arrows and missiles pelting us from above, we could not climb the steep sides of the Spanish ship to save ourselves from drowning in our own.

  Fortunately, the other English ships were not unaware of our plight. “A rescue! A rescue!” shouted English voices from the other side of the Castilian craft. “Lancaster to the rescue!” Henry, the Duke of Lancaster, had maneuvered his ship parallel to ours on the far side of the Spanish attacker. Once he threw over the grappling chains, the Spaniards facing us were distracted and rushed across their deck to repel the new danger.

  “Climb!” bellowed the prince, and seizing John of Gaunt by the collar, he forcibly propelled his young brother up the side of the enemy ship. So low was our ship in the water that my feet began to get wet before it was my turn to ascend the side. We reached the gunwale none too soon, for of our own ship nothing but the masts was still visible.

  “England and St. George!” cried the prince, stepping firmly onto the Spanish deck. We drew our swords with that cry on our lips.

  Surrounded on both sides, the Castilians fought fiercely, but they were no match for the combined forces of Lancaster and the Prince of Wales. Every man of them was thrown overboard, and the prince took possession of the new ship. The prince’s brother acquitted himself remarkably well in the affair. He drew his sword like the rest of us, and though it was doubtless his first combat, he did not hang back against the railing. He was shoulder to shoulder with the prince and I when we fought our way through to Lancaster’s party, and he was ready to keep hacking with all his might. “Enough, enough! These are friends!” said the prince as his brother continued to fight even though the battle was over.

  “God’s wounds!” cried Lancaster, catching one of John of Gaunt’s fierce blows upon his own sword. “Here’s a fierce cockerel in your highness’s train.”

  “Aye, a cockerel who does not know which hens to peck,” said the prince a little harshly.

  “I beg pardon,” said young John with a blush, and he put away his sword now that he saw the fighting was over.

  “Nay, beg no man’s pardon,” said Lancaster heartily. “I like your spirit, sirrah. An’ you were not the king’s son, I would engage you to be my man.” John’s face flushed again, this time with pleasure. Lancaster clapped him on the back and invited him aboard his own ship for the remainder of the fray.

  “Watch him well,” said the prince sharply, for his father had entrusted to him the care of his younger brother.

  “As I would my own son,” said Lancaster.

  The prince set his coxswain at the wheel of the newly captured Castilian and turned her head toward battle. We grappled another ship, this time without injury to our own, and took her with little loss. As we slipped loose from our second prize, the sun slipped below the horizon. The sky began to grow dark. The Spaniards had lost fourteen of their fleet and with them their stomach for battle. Don Carlos ordered his ships to crowd sail; they sped to the southwest. The gathering darkness prevented pursuit, and we cast anchor until dawn.

  On the next day, the king sent his sharpest eyed scouts into the crow’s nests. They scanned the sea and saw nothing but sparkling water in every direction. The Spaniards had disappeared. “They have had enough of our English hospitality,” said I with a grin.

  “Aye, they are back to Castile with their tail between their legs,” said the prince.

  There was little hope that we could catch them and so the king ordered the fleet to put in again at Winchelsea. The queen, who had watched the battle from the soft downs of the shore, was much comforted to see her lord return safely. “I have ordered a banquet,” said she, “with wine and dancing to welcome my victorious husband and his lords.” The king gave her gramercy and the men-at-arms cheered; I was as pleased as any, for a banquet would give me the chance I needed to see Margery and perhaps have speech with her.

  *****

  The prince, as was his wont, bedecked himself for the banquet with as much splendor as the lilies of the field. He wore a yellow tunic, cut square at the neck and richly embroidered with birds and beasts in thread of gold. The tunic sheared off sharply at the middle of his thigh and beneath it he wore hose of brightest blue. Your husband, in contrast, had attired himself again in his plain green tunic. Its full fabric cascaded below his knees and it was gathered about him with a simple leather belt.

  “Come, Sir Geoffroi,” said the prince observing our guest’s attire. “I will lend you this chain and enameled belt for the feast.”

  “Gramercy for your kindness,” said Charny composedly, “but I will dress as I am. My dress sorts well with my station and I will not alter it through vanity.”

  “Nay, you are too modest,” replied the prince, “or your station is higher than you know. You are the premier knight in France and guest to the king of England. You cannot dress too grandly.”

  Charny shook his head and I saw that his mind was made up. “A knight’s dress is in his courtesy, his courage, and his skill at arms. These are his show to the world, and it is in these that he displays his true quality.”

  “You should have been a monk,” said the prince disdainfully.

  “Mayhap I should have been,” said Charny simply, but he would not be goaded into wearing the golden chain or the enamel belt.

  In the banquet hall, the prince sat at table beside his father and mother while Charny and I had seats at a lower table. Holland was on the other side of the hall with the lady Joan at his side. Margery came in later to take a seat at her lady’s right hand.

  I do not know how he came to notice—perhaps my eye followed her too closely as she moved across the room—but the meal had scarcely begun before your husband asked me Margery’s name. “She is called Margery Bradeshaw,” said I with a sigh. “She is waiting woman to Joan, the Lady of Kent.”

  “She is passing fair,” said Sir Geoffroi with a smile, and I smiled back to have his approbation.

  “She is indeed,” said I and colored a little. “Though perhaps you think her dress too rich to be seemly in a maiden.” For Margery had bound up her red hair with a gold fillet and her dress had a jeweled brooch below her throat.

  “Nay,” said Charny with a laugh. “I think you misunderstand me as completely as your master. I am no anchorite in a hair shirt and bare feet. I am merely for modest dress in men and not this overweening ostentation that speaks nothing of a knight’s true qua
lity. Leave adornment to the ladies for it is their proper pleasure. Men take up arms for war; women cannot do this. Men treat widely in society; women stay mainly in the home. And therefore, a woman should pay special heed to her apparel, her jewels, and her adornment, for it is through these things that she receives recognition. But a man receives recognition through his achievements. Those are his ornaments, his jewels, and his folderols. Fear not,” said Charny, “I think your lady-love dresses most becomingly.”

  “She gave me a favor once,” I said excitedly, and with barely an invitation to continue, I told him the whole story of the tournament and my disguise.

  “And have you spoken to her since?” Charny inquired.

  I hung my head. “Nay. At first, I had thought to enter the cloister and so thought a woman’s company no place for me. And then, after you persuaded me that my soul would be best served as a knight, I thought to address her again. But she has turned as cold as a Virgin of lead, and whenever we meet by chance, she will not smile upon me or engage my eye.”

  “And are you so weak in the sinews that you fear aught of that?” asked Charny. “Come, come, Sir Potenhale. On the causeway at Calais you leaped in front of a fleeing horse and brought horse and rider to the ground with one swift blow. I have the scar upon my head to prove it. You are the favorite retainer of his highness, the Prince of Wales, and a valiant combatant in this latest sea battle with Castile. Does such a man tremble to hold converse with a maid?”

  I nodded miserably.

  “Then I shall play Pandarus to your Criseyde,” said Charny. “I shall away to the lady and convince her so well of your good parts that she will never wish to part with you again.”

  Before I could protest, he had risen to his feet and sought the other side of the hall. I saw him exchange some good natured pleasantries with Sir Thomas and seat himself opposite the earl and the ladies.