I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince

by Rosanne E. Lortz

  The prince handed back the sheaf of papers with a smile. “You should have given this book to Potenhale two years ago—he had great need of that defense.”

  I blushed, for I had never told the prince the part that Charny had played in my change of mind.

  “But, tell me,” the prince continued. “Do you treat of those who have gone before?”

  “Aye,” said Charny, “I speak of many worthy knights in my book.”

  “Ah,” said the prince. “And who, do you say, was the worthiest of all knights?”

  “Judas Maccabeus,” replied Charny without hesitation.

  “Wherefore?”

  “Because in him alone could be found all the good qualities of a true knight. He was wise in all his deeds. He was a man of worth who led a holy life. He was strong, skillful, and unrelenting in effort and endurance.”

  “Is that all?” asked the prince.

  “Nay!” said Charny, waxing enthusiastic upon the subject. “He was handsome above all others, but without arrogance. He was full of prowess, bold, valiant, taking part in the finest, greatest, and fiercest battles and most perilous adventures that there ever were. And in the end, he died in a holy way in battle like a saint in Paradise.”

  “I daresay that the Romans he fought against were worthy knights as well,” replied the prince archly.

  “Not truly, said Charny with warmth in his tone, “for they did not conduct themselves with true belief, trust, and hope in Our Lord. And besides, they fought to oppress a land that was not their own.”

  “So,” said the prince slowly, and I was minded of the deliberate way in which his father would frame questions. “Are you saying that it is unworthy of a knight to fight for a land that he does not hold? That the only worthy knight is a knight who fights to protect his homeland?”

  Charny smiled enigmatically, but I saw that he grasped the crux of the prince’s question. “Nay, highness,” he said. “A knight may make war to defend his own rights or the rights of his lawful master.”

  “Then why should you fault these Roman knights, who fought only to maintain the rights of their emperor against Maccabeus? In truth, there is no reason to say that the Romans were any less peerless than the Jewish knights.”

  I listened to the skillful interplay of their conversation and saw that we were no longer talking about the ancient province of Judea.

  “Ah,” said Charny, “but the rights of your Roman emperor must be examined. Did he indeed have just claim to the land, or was he merely a usurper, attempting to take by force what was not rightfully his?”

  “The story is so old,” said the prince, “that it is hard to winnow out the grains of truth. But for the sake of our discussion, let us suppose that the emperor was descended from the old king of that country, and that the Maccabees were from another line entirely. Yet because the emperor was far away and Judas Maccabeus near, he presumed to take the crown for himself. Are not the emperor and his knights, justified in invading that land and plucking the crown from the usurper’s head?”

  Charny smiled at the prince’s thinly veiled description of the state of affairs in France. “But highness,” said Charny, “let us also suppose that this emperor was of another race. True, he was descended on his mother’s side from the old king of Judea, but he had not been raised in that land. He had his head full of other countries and conquests. Would not the people of the land be justified in wishing for a king who had lived among them? For a king who would honor their customs and maintain their ancient privileges?”

  The prince’s brows came together sternly. I remembered the first conversation between the prince and Charny, and how Charny had bested his highness in the debate over Aimery’s perfidy. Then he had forborne to press the point, allowing the prince to retire gracefully without a total rout. Now he again showed his breeding by deferring to his highness.

  “Perhaps the right of the matter remains to be proved, your highness,” said Charny. “We know that God defends the right. If the emperor makes free to invade Judea again, we shall see whom God will defend.”

  “Agreed,” said the prince. “And now, God speed you, Sir Geoffroi. I shall pray to the Holy Trinity for your safety.”

  “And I for yours,” replied Charny. They embraced in farewell, the prince bedecked in silk and seed pearls, and Charny in his simple green tunic.

  “Well, Sir Potenhale,” said Charny to me, after the prince had left us. “If it were not for lack of two things—the French countryside and my sweet wife Jeanne—I would regret this stay in England not at all. You have been a most generous captor.”

  “And you have been a most charitable captive,” said I. “I have much to thank you for. You have shown me many things.”

  “I would that I could have shown you Christ Himself,” said Charny.

  “You have shown me the path to seek Him,” said I, “and that is as much as any man can do.”

  “If we meet again,” said Charny, “I fear that it will be on the field of battle. I shall pray to the Holy Mother for your safety.”

  “And I, for yours,” said I. “The Lord be with you, Sir Geoffroi.”

  “And with your spirit,” he answered.

  *****

  Those were the last words I ever exchanged with your husband. He departed for France immediately afterwards. In the months following, I received news of him several times.

  “Have you heard?” exploded Brocas impulsively one day. “Have you heard what your Sir Geoffroi has persuaded King John to do?”

  “What is it?” asked I, as eager to hear as Sir Bernard was to tell me.

  “Why, he has stolen our king’s notion of the Order of the Garter and made plans for a French order to imitate it!”

  “But surely they do not use the garter as their symbol?”

  “Nay, they call themselves the ‘Order of the Star.’ But you see how it is? These Valois kings cannot rest with taking the kingdom of France from our liege—they must also take every new idea that comes to him.”

  “And Charny is a member of this new order?” asked I.

  “Aye,” said Brocas. “They say the idea for it was his. He has written a treatise on knighthood as the rule for this new order.”

  “He showed me somewhat of that book before he left. It has much practical wisdom for being good knights.”

  “Ha!” said Brocas scornfully. “That is well, for King John has desperate need of good knights now. You’ve heard how he executed the Comte d’Eu last year, the Constable that Holland captured? Ah, he was a valiant man. King Edward gave him leave to take ship for France to collect the money to pay his ransom. But when he arrived to pay his respects to King John, that mighty monarch had his head hewn off. John claimed that the Constable was plotting with England to restore to us the territory of Guienne. But many men—and not just Englishmen—think that King John only wanted the Constable’s title to give to his new favorite, Don Carlos de la Cerda. His own people mistrust him. Navarre plays on that mistrust. Aye, King John has need of good knights right now, for if King Edward doesn’t contrive to dethrone him, his own people will.”

  The next news I had of your husband came nearly a year after his departure.

  One cold February morning the prince entered my quarters precipitately; I saw that he had something to tell me. “Have you heard any news of Aimery de Pavia since Calais?” asked he.

  “Nay, highness,” said I, remembering the name of the man with the sharp, shiny face, “though it would seem that you have.”

  “Aye,” said the prince, “and of our friend Sir Geoffroi as well.”

  “Is Aimery still governor of the town?” I asked, wondering whether Aimery had been so foolish as to double-deal with Charny again.

  “No, no,” said the prince. “My father would not tempt Aimery with such a responsibility a second time. True, Aimery did clear himself of treason by revealing the plot—but trust can only go so far. He was paid off and dismissed before we left Calais. My father gave him a small castle
upon the coast of Normandy. There he enjoyed the fruit of his double dealing with English crowns lining his pocket and an English mistress hanging about his neck.”

  “Does he enjoy it still?” I asked.

  “Nay, and that’s the news I have to tell you. It seems your Charny takes a breach of honor most seriously—either that, or he will not allow a personal affront go unavenged. King John made Sir Geoffroi his deputy over all of Normandy when he returned—a difficult county to govern, full of many English sympathizers. A month ago Charny discovered Aimery’s presence in his demesne. He planned a night raid upon the place, this time the object being to seize the man and not the city.

  “They say that Aimery was sound asleep in his mistress’s arms when they took him. Charny’s men rode him naked through the streets and over twenty leagues to their headquarters. I do not know what speech passed between the two of them. Doubtless Sir Geoffroi reproached the Lombard over his perfidy at Calais. Perhaps Aimery protested that he had had no choice but to reveal the plan. But in the end, Charny struck off Aimery’s head, quartered his body, and put it on display.”

  “And are you sorry for it?” I asked.

  “Not one whit,” replied the prince. “There are few men that deserve such an end, but Aimery was one of them. I should have done the same in Charny’s place.”

  “Indeed,” said I. “So you would have.”

  *****

  Navarre had played us false once, but the king still had high hopes of bringing him over to our side. Lancaster continued his negotiations. Once Navarre turned, war would be inevitable and immediate. In view of this, the king began to make spiritual preparations for a new campaign. Accompanied by the prince and many of his nobles, the king pursued apilgrimage throughout the holy sites within the kingdom.

  We went first to see the Holy House of Our Lady of Walsingham. The building there is a replica of the home where the angel first told Mary that she was with child by the Holy Ghost. Nearly three hundred years ago, the Madonna appeared to an English lady at Walsingham and recounted the tale to her. The shrine was built to commemorate that appearance. A statue of the Virgin with her Child marks the exact spot where her holy feet stood. Sir Chandos made especial prayers at that place, for the image of the Virgin was always close to his breast.

  In Suffolk, we went to St. Edmund’s Bury. The abbey there houses the grave of good King Edmund; he was killed by the Danes long before Norman William came to English shores. Many holy miracles had taken place at his tomb, though we did not witness any during our stay there.

  At Reading, we viewed the cathedral and beheld a fragment from the very cross of Christ. “It looks much the same as any other wood shaving,” remarked Sir James Audley impiously.

  “Hold your tongue!” said Chandos. He reverenced the reliquary before us, and I followed his example with joy and trembling.

  “But is it not strange,” asked Audley doubtingly—for he, like many others of a cynic’s humor, was given to unbelief—“that such an inconspicuous sliver of wood should find its way all this distance from the Holy Land into merry England?”

  “The Lord works many wonders,” was Chandos’s reply.

  “Aye,” said William Montague, the Earl of Salisbury. “Indeed He does. I have heard that the very shroud in which Christ was buried in has found its way to France—so it is no hard thing to believe that this piece of the holy rood could be brought to our own land.”

  “And how do they know it is His shroud?” demanded Audley.

  “They say it bears the marks of his passion,” responded Salisbury.

  “Humph,” said Audley suspiciously.

  “I would that I could see the cloth!” said Chandos.

  “Mayhap you will,” said the prince with a smile, “for we shall be in France ere long. Once we take the crown off King John’s head, you can search for relics at your leisure.”

  After Walsingham, Suffolk, and Reading had been visited, we went at last to Canterbury. The tomb of Thomas the Martyr at Canterbury had always held a special significance for the prince. He had visited it often, and I had often accompanied him there. It was Thomas the Martyr who had first ordained the day of the feast of the Holy Trinity. The prince himself was a passionate devotee to the cult of this martyr and the cult of the Trinity; it was the name he glorified after every battle. We venerated the Martyr’s tomb inside the church, kissing the flagstones upon which his blood had spilled and thus finished our pilgrimage at the holy site of Canterbury.

  Canterbury is located in the English province of Kent. The lady Joan, as you may remember, brought the title of Kent to her marriage with Thomas Holland, and it was in that county that she held most of her estates. When the king learned that Sir Thomas and his lady were at home, he halted the royal pilgrims to break their journey there.

  Joan received us graciously. Her beauty had not diminished, and one could see from the roundness of her garments that she was great with child and soon to be delivered. She had two lads already by now. Their eyes were bright with excitement to see such magnificent guests, and the prince and I took them out of doors to the stables to show off the fine horses that we had ridden upon.

  The eldest of the boys was godson to the prince, and his highness, as was fitting for a godfather, brought a pretty present for the child. It was a wooden dagger, gilt with gold and inlaid with precious stones. Little Thomas had no sooner seen the gift than he seized it with two hands and began to brandish it wildly. His brother, little older than a baby, soon received the full brunt of the blunted blade upon his head and began to cry plaintively.

  The prince, taking the crying child into his arms, chastised his young godson roundly. “How now, Thomas! You must not strike your brother who is so much smaller than you!”

  “But I am to be a knight!” replied little Thomas cheerfully. “I must learn to strike hard no matter how small my enemy. I will be the greatest knight in all the world just like my father.”

  “Oh?” asked the prince curiously. “Is your father the greatest knight in all the world?”

  The lad cocked his head thoughtfully. “It seems to me that he is,” said he. “For he has a great, loud voice such as a knight should have. And I have seen him cuff one of the servants so hard that the man could not rise. I should like to be as fine a knight as my father.”

  “And should your mother like that?” the prince inquired, treading—I thought—on perilous ground.

  “Nay,” said little Thomas with a giggle, “for women know nothing about fighting. She says that I shall not be a knight at all, but shall stay always with her and keep her company.”

  We had shown the lads our horses by this time; the prince lifted both the boys onto the saddle of his mount and led them benevolently around the courtyard. “Look there, Potenhale!” said the prince gaily. I lifted my eyes up to the house and saw a lady walking toward us with hair of red and gold.

  “God give you good den, sirs!” said Margery.

  “Well met!” I replied, and I became acutely aware of the soft red glove that I held always in the bosom of my tunic. I wondered if she still had the mate to it, the glove that a charlatan monk had left in the stands of a long ago tournament.

  “My lady sends word that the feast is prepared. I am to take the young gentlemen from you so that you may wash and go up to the hall.”

  “No, no!” cried the young Hollands, unwilling to leave the saddle of his highness’s jet-black charger.

  “Leave me the lads a little longer,” said the prince winningly. “I shall bring them to their mother safe and sound in a quarter hour’s time. But there is no reason to keep Sir Potenhale. Prithee, lady, as he is a stranger here, of your kindness show him the path to the hall.”

  “As you wish, your highness,” Margery said, and curtseying deeply she led me away.

  We had no sooner left the courtyard behind than she addressed me abruptly. “I see you are not dressed in holy orders today, sirrah.”

  “Nay,” said I, sensing the tremulous
ness in her tone, “though when you saw me in them three years ago, I was indeed trying them on for size. At the time, I had thought to become a monk. But soon after I repented of it and refrained from taking the Benedictine vows.”

  “And what caused you to refrain?” asked she.

  “It was not the hope of your favor,” said I shortly, “since you’ve given me little enough cause to hope for that.”

  “Then what?” asked she.

  “Someday I shall tell you, perhaps,” said I, and lapsed into silence. We walked on past the storehouses and the plum trees.

  “Did you send Sir Geoffroi to press your suit for you at Winchelsea?” she asked after a little space.

  “Aye,” I replied, unashamed to admit as much, “I sent him. I trust that he used every means of persuasion with you?”

  “Indeed, he did,” she replied.

  “Then a man can do no more,” said I.

  “Nay,” she answered, a little sadly, it seemed.

  We walked on.

  I could bear it no longer.

  “Margery!” I cried, and I seized her about the waist. “For the love of Christ, I must speak again though it is to no avail! Do you not love me?”

  “Aye,” she said and her eyes brimmed over with tears sparkling like cut gemstones.

  “Then wed me!” said I, pressing her to my breast.

  “But—what of my lady?” she said mournfully.

  “I will ask her to free you from your service,” said I. “She will not refuse such a boon.”

  “You are right,” said Margery. “She is too kind to refuse me. And for that reason, I will not ask. I love you much,” said she, “but that does not make me love my lady any less. What kind of faithless wench would you have me be to abandon my mistress in her hour of trial?”

  “If it were only an hour of trial!” I said exasperatedly. “But nay! It is a lifetime of misery that your lady undergoes. Her husband is a brute, and her home is a hell—and yet, God knows why two should languish there instead of one! Her trouble is too great. You can do naught to help her.”