I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince

by Rosanne E. Lortz

  “Aye, more than you know,” said I. Sir Geoffroi had been the truest of friends, never moreso than on the battlefield at Poitiers. The Earl of Kent had no knowledge of the deed my hand was poised to do that day. He could not see the lance head on a level with his neck. He did not understand that when Sir Geoffroi let down his guard that day, it was to guard Holland’s own life, and—what is more!—to guard the soul of an insignificant knight from Herefordshire. The flagbearer had fallen so that Sir Potenhale’s honor might stand. Sir Thomas Holland did not know the thanks he owed to Sir Geoffroi de Charny.

  Through the creaking of pulleys and lapping of waves, I heard a voice calling my name. I made my adieus to the Earl of Kent and gave a curt nod to Margery. She dropped her eyelids like a washerwoman worn out from a day’s labor. I strode quickly down the wharf until I found my friends stationed by the largest of the cogs.

  “Come, Potenhale,” said the prince crisply. “The tide has turned, King John is aboard, and the shipmaster says we must embark.”

  “Your cousin Joan is still disembarking,” said I. “Perhaps you wish to greet her ere we depart.”

  The prince looked at me quizzically. “And miss the tide? Nay, Potenhale, I’ll not dally here to exchange pretty pleasantries. We have been away from our dear England too long. The sooner that we can bring King John face to face with my father the better. We shall see what terms France is willing to give us, now that we have lopped her lilies a little.”

  *****

  At home in England, the king arranged our arrival with as much pomp as a Roman triumph. An honor guard of twenty earls and barons met us at the harbor and rode beside the prince on his path to the city of London. Playacting also formed part of the pageant. On one leg of our travel, five hundred men dressed in green sprung from the forest in mock ambush. The prince, much to King John’s confusion, attacked these actors with gentle, good-natured blows, whereupon the men “surrendered” themselves to the all-conquering Prince of Wales and congratulated his latest conquest in France.

  When we reached the gates of London, the mayor came out to meet us surrounded by guildsmen from every trade bedizened in the insignia of their guild. The narrow streets were made narrower still as the inhabitants of every house came out to watch our procession. In the avenue between the goldsmith shops, two glittering birdcages dangled, each one holding a fair damsel to scatter gold and silver leaves on the cavalcade below. We passed St. Paul’s cathedral; instead of Flagellants, the bishop himself came out to meet us, and a procession of patriotic clergyman. At the palace of Westminster, many, many lovely ladies showered their attention on the prince and he received praise from all quarters. There was dancing, hunting, hawking, jousting, and feasting, just as in the glorious days of King Arthur’s reign.

  The presence of so many fine French knights in England, albeit as prisoners, provided an excellent excuse for a series of tournaments. I gained honors at Smithfield and Windsor, though none of the awards for tilting moved me like the red glove which I had been awarded at a previous tournament. None of the applause from the stands exhilarated me since the face I wished to see in the crowd was across the channel in Gascony.

  Though my master, Prince Edward, invariably gained the highest honors at these tourneys, there was another young man, also wearing the Plantagenet lion, who distinguished himself above his peers. “By all the saints,” said Audley, watching John of Gaunt unhorse his opponent, “he is the very image of his highness, the Prince of Wales, the day we landed at Crecy.”

  Young John was sixteen now, dark-haired and long-limbed like his brother, his father, and their progenitors. His beardless jaw was set with the same indomitable hauteur, and his eyes glinted with the same insatiable hunger for glory.

  “I hear His Majesty’s ready to send the boy to his marriage mass,” said Roger Mortimer knowingly.

  Audley raised an eyebrow. “Lancaster’s daughter?”

  “Aye, little Blanche,” replied Mortimer. “Lancaster, of course, is pleased with the match.”

  “By all the saints!” said Brocas in mock despair. “I had my eye on the maiden for myself. Lancaster has no sons—or at least none on the right side of the kitchen door. The earldom will fall to whomever Blanche weds. A pretty prize, that!” He turned to me and demanded my attention. “Think you, Sir Potenhale, that it is right for a callow youth like John of Gaunt to marry and get children before seasoned warriors such as ourselves have bedded a bride?”

  I shrugged.

  “Ask your friend, the prince,” said Mortimer. “He’s of an age with you both. Tush! The man’s a monk. He rejects every matrimonial alliance that his father and Parliament propose. Will he ever marry?”

  Brocas and I exchanged glances. “Indeed,” said Brocas jocularly, “when King John offers to give him his daughter with France as a dowry, he’ll enter the banns as quickly as an arrow flies. But until then, no. The man is wedded to the sword.”

  “A pity,” said Mortimer with a shake of the head. “For if he’s to be king someday, it were well that he should have sons of his own.”

  *****

  The prospect of King John offering his daughter’s hand with France as a dowry, was appealing, but highly improbable. King John, while he still reclined in his gilded cage in Bordeaux, had agreed to sign a preliminary truce. Now that he was in England, the talks of permanent peace protracted over several months. Our English demands were not unreasonable. King Edward forbore from pressing his claim to the French crown. Instead, he asked only for the restoration of Ponthieu and Guienne, the dowry that Eleanor had brought to his Angevin ancestor. In addition to the land, he also required four million florins of ransom. If the French agreed to these terms, King John would be returned to them.

  King John, after multitudinous cavils and conditions, formally accepted the terms a year after his arrival in England. His own country, however, was even less ready to render up the ransom than he was. You yourself could relate the state of affairs in France at this time far better than I. Beset behind and before by the intrigues of Navarre and the outrages of rebellious serfs, the dauphin and the French assembly balked at ratifying the treaty. King John was left to languish in England while his son strove to keep the Paris guildsmen from proclaiming Charles of Navarre the new king of France.

  The delays had exhausted Edward’s patience. Since the French assembly would not conclude the peace, he resumed his plans for war. Sending Lancaster on ahead to Normandy, Edward put together an invasion army. He publicly announced his route and objective; the dauphin heard it and trembled. Edward Plantagenet intended to land at Calais and march to Rheims where he would compel the bishop to crown him king of the country of France. Your French kings have all been crowned at Rheims. With the holy oil of Saint-Rémy on his brow, Edward’s authority could be denied by none.

  The prince provided a large company to take part in the campaign. Contracting heavy debts to the merchants of London, he mustered nearly fifteen hundred men. Chandos, Audley, and I accompanied him. I was nearly thirty years old at the time; my lightning bolt crest had begun to be known by a few, and I took on two squires who desired to serve under a seasoned knight.

  What more shall I tell you of this campaign? It was only a year ago that we landed. Lancaster, the king, and the prince commanded the three divisions of the army. We rode like devils to Rheims and found that the dauphin had fortified it against us. We tried a siege; Rheims held out. The miserable weather in France and the insurrections of the peasant laborers had left scant crops for the taking. The men complained and despaired till Edward abandoned the siege. Frowning at our failure, Edward swung southwest in a path like the curve of a scimitar.

  My company passed by this very village of Lirey not a day’s ride away. Sir Chandos wished to stop here, for he had heard of some relic worth seeing in the vaults of Lirey’s church. The king, however, had no time for such detours. He ordered the columns on, and I thank the Holy Trinity that you were not harmed by our soldiers.

  We ha
lted at Auxerre while King Edward negotiated with the Duchy of Burgundy. Roger Mortimer died there, killed on a foraging raid. Burgundy paid us off, to keep us from invading his county, and the king rolled out maps and charts to plot our next move.

  With characteristic reluctance, the dauphin had refused to come meet us in the field, so the king determined to draw him out from his den. Edward brought the army north to Paris. The dauphin, who had only lately quelled the uprisings in the city, set fire to all the suburbs lest we English should take shelter in them. We camped in the charred rubble outside the city. Tumultuous Paris was in no condition to withstand a siege.

  Unfortunately, our army was in no condition to lay one. The worn-out men woodenly waited beneath the walls, in as much danger of starvation as those we hoped to starve. We lingered there to no avail; the dauphin still declined to meet us in the field.

  Frustrated, King Edward marched our bedraggled battalions south to Orleans. The March weather, which till now had been as fair as any could wish, turned ugly with the ferocity of a wolverine at bay. A violent hailstorm raked our ranks followed by a night as cold as death. Our bruised, emaciated horses fell by the road, and some men died in their saddles. Much of the baggage train was abandoned.

  “How much longer can we go on?” I cried in despair. We had been seven months in France. We had taken no great towns. We had fought no pitched battles.

  “Patience, Sir Potenhale,” said Chandos calmly. I had interrupted his devotions to the Holy Virgin. His dark silver hair fell forward over the shoulders of his blue surcoat. “His Majesty has met reverses in this campaign, but we are still a great enough force to be reckoned with. Have patience. The dauphin will either fight or come to terms.”

  As usual, my old master had wisdom on his side. When we reached Orleans, we found an embassy from the Holy See awaiting us. In her accustomed capacity as intermediary, the Church had arranged a peace conference just north of the city at Bretigny. For twenty-one days conditions were batted back and forth like balls in a tennis court. In exchange for complete sovereignty of the territory of Guienne, Edward agreed to give up his claim to the French crown and to renounce his hereditary rights in the counties of Normandy and Anjou. The city of Calais he refused to part with, and the dauphin grudgingly let it stand as an English enclave in the midst of French-controlled territory. Edward generously agreed to reduce King John’s ransom to three million florins, in consideration of the famine, unrest, and marauders that were currently crippling the French treasury. The peace was concluded at last.

  I returned with the prince to England to assure King John that his deliverance was at hand. He had been three years in our country and had many adieus to make. The summer had nearly passed by the time we brought him from London to Canterbury—for the prince longed to lay an offering on the holy martyr’s shrine—and from thence to Dover where we took ship for Calais. The removal of garrisons and the transfer of territories took several more months. In October the first installment of the ransom arrived. King John rode out of the gates of Calais, a free man once again.

  Edward sailed home, devoid of the crown he had come to assume, but assured that he would never be required to pay fealty for the southwestern quarter of France. The prince and all his retinue crossed the channel soon after. I begged leave to remain longer in France. The prince granted my wish, and so here I am come to Lirey at last.

  You must pardon me, dear lady, for the length of the tale I have told. I heard the bell toll for Compline some time ago. My sole excuse must be that I have only done what you asked. You bade me to begin with my knighthood, and I did not wish to omit any instance that would illuminate my relationship with your husband. Will you take my gift? It is my dearest remembrance of him.

  THE SACRED CLOTH

  DECEMBER, 1360

  16

  The afternoon light had disappeared completely by the time the knight finished his tale. Jeanne de Vergy’s eyes had never wavered from his face as she listened in rapt, almost reverent attention. She took the box that he offered and removed the ragged piece of the Oriflamme from it. The candles in the apse illuminated the fire in the fabric and it burned a brilliant orange as it must have on the day of its last battle four years ago. “You have come a long way to bring a scrap of cloth to a dead man’s widow,” she said softly.

  “What better way to honor him,” said the knight, repeating his words of three hours ago, “than to give the one he loved the most the thing that he honored the most.”

  “I think,” she said slowly, “that you have mistaken him, even as your master the prince did. I am not the one he loved the most, and this is not the thing he honored most.” She paused a minute. “You have given me your treasure and remembrance of him, Sir Potenhale. It is meet that I should give you a glimpse of mine.”

  She rose from the bench where they sat and approached the reliquary that occupied the niche. Reverently, she removed the box from the wall and opened the lid. She raised the object inside and unfolded it.

  The knight looked openmouthed at the sheet of linen that she had laid gently over the pew. The face of a thousand Byzantine icons, stared out from the light-colored fabric, the piercing eyes, the weary brow, the kingly hair and beard. Below the face was an impression of the man’s entire body, hands clasped modestly over his groin and legs pressed tightly together. The traces of ghastly wounds could be seen on his hands and feet and the dark henna color of blood long since dried.

  The knight crossed himself instinctually and fell to one knee before the cloth. “It is our Lord,” said he, “the face of Christ that your husband saw in Smyrna!”

  “Aye,” said she. “You remember! Before he abandoned the Crusade and took ship, Geoffroi met an old priest in Smyrna who lay upon his death bed. The priest was by himself. His flock and his brethren were too terrified of the Turks to stay in the city. You know my husband—he would not leave a dying man to die alone. He stayed with him to the end. In the waning hours of his life, the priest revealed that he was a descendant of Joseph of Arimathea, the Jew who owned the tomb where Christ was laid. With him, however, the line of his fathers would perish; and having no heir, the old priest entrusted into my husband’s keeping the cloth that you see here. It is the very shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded. It is the very blood from the wounds that our Savior bore. And it is the very likeness of our Savior—impressed upon this shroud when he was resurrected, when the apostles found naught but the grave clothes in an empty tomb.”

  “I see such suffering in His face!” cried the knight.

  “He suffered so that you might not,” said the woman.

  “And yet such love upon his countenance!” The knight sighed. “And has it been granted to me to see such a marvelous vision of our Savior? What man could see this shroud and not believe in the love of God for Adam’s race?”

  “What man, indeed?” said the wife of Geoffroi de Charny; she folded the cloth and replaced it in the reliquary.

  The knight watched her silently, then beckoned to the smaller box on the pew. “And what of the Oriflamme?” he asked. “You were right to spurn it. It is of no account beside such a relic as that you have shown me. Shall I cast it away?”

  “Nay,” she said looking at the tattered remains of the royal ensign. “It has some value. It is a symbol of the place my husband attained in this world through the love of his Savior Jesus Christ. He loved God, and God loved him. He served God, and God rewarded him for it. He feared God, and God made him secure from his enemies. He honored God, and God gave honor to him.

  “Come, Sir Potenhale, you shall keep this cloth, as a reminder of the other cloth that I keep. Keep it, and remember that if you ask of Him, you will receive much from Him. If you pray to Him for mercy, He will pardon you. If you call on Him when you are in danger, He will save you from it. If you pray to Him for comfort, He will hold you in His bosom. Believe totally in Him, Sir Knight, and He will bring you to salvation in His sweet paradise.”

  When the l
ady had finished speaking, she took the orange cloth that was in the box and bound it about Sir Potenhale’s arm. And ever after, though he was a knight of lowly parentage, he wore the wreck of the Oriflamme about his arm as proudly as if it were the symbol of the Garter Knights, and as reverently as if it were the grave clothes of Our Savior Jesus Christ.

  Jeanne de Vergy would have kept him longer. She entreated him to stay till the new year. But Sir Potenhale had performed his duty to the dead and must be back to render duty to his living prince. He tarried for the night in the wayside inn, and on the morrow departed again for Calais.

  *****

  “Ho there, it’s Potenhale!” said Lord Brocas waving jovially from an upper window at the weary traveler entering the streets of Calais. Sir Bernard’s merry, chestnut curls framed his face, and his face glowed warmly in the December air.

  “Well met, Brocas,” said Potenhale with a smile. “I did not think to find you in France, but in England with the prince. Have all his highness’s friends left him alone at Christmastide?”

  “Nay, it’s the other way around,” said Brocas. “He would have left me alone at Christmas—but I followed him here to Calais, like a faithful hound despite all his kicks and curses.”

  “What brings the prince to Calais?” asked Potenhale, dismounting and handing off his horse to a servant.

  “You’ve not heard the news?” asked Brocas. He smiled gleefully like a young boy who has all the sweetmeats to himself. “Come up, come up, and I shall tell you all.”

  Potenhale entered the house, which he recognized as belonging to Sir Walter Manny, and removed his travel garb before searching out Brocas. He had been riding in the cold, wintry air all day, and he entreated Brocas to let him get warm before he filled up his ears with nonsense.

  “You’ll wish you’d listened sooner when you hear what ‘tis,” said Brocas knowingly, “for the news concerns you as well as his highness.”