Every Noble Knight

by Maggie Bennett

  ‘You’ll want to see Ethelreda and the children, I know,’ said Lady Hélène, smiling. ‘She can scarcely wait to see you after all this time!’

  Wulfstan’s first impression on seeing his younger sister was surprise at how she had matured from the young, lively girl of scarcely sixteen who had married Charles de Lusignan and produced a son six months later, named Piers for his lost uncle. There was also a younger brother and sister.

  ‘Wulfstan!’ she cried at the sight of him, and they clung together in a tearful embrace. He shook hands with Charles and allowed himself to be introduced to Piers, Norval and little Sofia, barely two years old. Ethelreda’s body was swelling with another child, and she looked tired; she confided her anxieties to her brother as soon as they were tactfully left alone.

  ‘Charles and his father are planning to join the Prince’s army when he sets sail for Gascony,’ she said, ‘and Lady Hélène and I will be fretting every day and night. Oh, Wulfstan, why does this enmity with France go on and on?’

  Trained as he was in the art of warfare, Wulfstan assured her that it was an honour and privilege to fight under the king’s flag and add lustre to the family name.

  ‘Spoken like a young, unmarried fool,’ she retorted. ‘Charles has no wish to go, but his father expects him to fight beside him. Dan Widget won’t be leaving, he’s much too useful as Oswald’s bailiff.’

  Wulfstan gave her the news of Mab Widget’s safe delivery of a daughter, and she clapped her hands. ‘Praise God! I must ride over to visit Oswald and Janet before the winter sets in, and call on Dan and Mab. Do you know if Friar Valerian was called to baptize the baby?’

  Wulfstan did not know, and she told him of how the Friar, now infirmarian at the Abbey, was skilled both as a physician and a spiritual counsellor. ‘I always call on him if any of the children are ailing,’ she said.

  Memories stirred in Wulfstan’s head. ‘Didn’t he attend to Oswald at a tournament years ago when we were but children?’

  ‘Yes, and he was with Oswald at the time of Crécy, though we don’t talk about that now,’ she said, lowering her voice as they remembered Oswald’s poor showing at Crécy. ‘He and Cecily cared for the monks at the Abbey when so many of them died of the plague,’ she continued. ‘They both escaped it by some miracle – yet we lost her in the shipwreck, coming back from—oh, Wulfstan, what sorrow for you, knowing she drowned after leaving you at Lisieux.’ She took hold of his hand, and he shook his head helplessly.

  ‘Yes, Ethelreda, she died because of me. It’s a burden I have to bear, and for that reason I must leave Hyam St Ebba for good. It’s no longer home to me. I shall go to fight in the Prince’s army.’

  Her face clouded over. ‘Perhaps you’ll find yourself alongside Charles and the Count. Heaven save you all!’

  Wulfstan did in fact find time to visit the bailiff’s cottage on the day before he left for Southampton. Having congratulated Mab and admired the tiny, squirming new arrival, he had a brief exchange with the happy father outside the bailiff’s cottage.

  ‘I hear ye’re not stayin’ long, Master Wulfstan, and I’m sorry for it, ’cause Sir Oswald could do with help at managing the estate. What d’ye think o’ Hyam St Ebba now?’

  ‘The place seems much the same, Dan, it’s the people who’ve changed,’ Wulfstan confessed to this family servant he had known all his life. ‘I don’t fit in anywhere now, and I’m reminded all the time that Cecily would be alive today if she hadn’t come with me to Lisieux.’

  Dan was silent, and gave him a curious look which made Wulfstan add quickly, ‘I’m sorry, Dan, I should have remembered, you must feel the same. I . . . I’ve even heard that you were blamed for surviving the shipwreck that took her. I’m sorry if that’s what people say about you, too.’ He felt his face blush crimson as the words left his mouth.

  Dan continued to regard him silently for a long minute, as if making up his mind about something, and at last he spoke.

  ‘Whatever people say don’t bother me, Master Wulfstan, and ye shouldn’t let it bother you neither, seein’ as our consciences be clear. We know that we wished no harm to your dear sister – and I can tell you, she died as she’d wanted.’

  Wulfstan stared. ‘What exactly do you mean by that, Dan? Why should she want to die?’

  ‘Ah, Master Wulfstan, I don’t know whether I should say. I’ve always kept it quiet.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, tell me, Dan, tell me; you can’t keep it from me now, whatever it is you know,’ Wulfstan insisted. ‘Why did my sister want to die?’

  ‘The fact is, Master Wulfstan, it wasn’t just ’cause o’ you that she went to France. I could’ve gone with ye just as well without her, and she knew that. No, she went to look for somebody else, somebody she’d loved and who loved her. She was unhappy being married to that old—to Jack Blagge, and after she left ye at the military school, I went with her to find this man. And we found him, just as we were about to sail back to England. He came aboard with us and she was happy again, more happy than I’d ever known her before.’ Dan’s eyes filled with tears at the memory.

  ‘Good God, Dan, what are you saying?’ demanded Wulfstan. ‘My sister was always a faithful and loyal wife, both to Master Edgar Blagge and then to his father. Are you telling me that she had a—that there was somebody else – a lover?’ He stumbled with embarrassment on saying the word.

  ‘No, never, she was a virtuous woman, and when they met again on the boat, they thought they’d have to part again when they reached Southampton – but the boat we were on, one o’ them flat-bottomed cogs, carryin’ wine casks too heavy for it, sank in the Narrow Sea, and took the crew with it. There was only me survived by the skin o’ me teeth, and I—,’ Dan’s voice broke as he said the words, ‘I was happy for her, Master Wulfstan. They didn’t have to part again, and she never had to go back to that old tyrant.’

  Wulfstan could hardly believe his ears. ‘And you were the only survivor, Dan?’

  There was a long hesitation before Dan replied, ‘No. She drowned and he wanted to drown with her, but he came up to the surface and I got him breathing again. I’ve told ye now, Master Wulfstan, and let it rest between us, for Cecily’s sake. But don’t blame yeself, whatever they may say.’

  ‘Thank you, Dan. You’ve been the best friend our family ever had,’ Wulfstan replied, awkwardly holding out his hand. ‘And for Cecily’s sake I shall never repeat what you’ve said. Only . . .’ He hesitated, and then asked, ‘Can you tell me the name of him she went to find?’

  ‘No, Master Wulfstan, nor where he went, for his sake. God bless ye, master, and give ye a safe crossing!’

  Dan’s strange story gave Wulfstan much cause for thought, and he pondered on it as he rode the faithful Troilus to Southampton. He had clearly not been told the whole of it, and he respected Dan’s reticence, without wanting to know more. Even so, he felt that a burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and there would be no need ever to visit Hyam St Ebba again. His aim now was to take part in military service under Prince Edward, along with Count de Lusignan and Charles, Eric Berowne and Jean-Pierre Fourrier. The young, untrained boys he had taken on chevauchée would have to stay at the Maison Duclair – except perhaps for Léon Merand who at twenty would be old enough to fight if he chose to forego his training. Wulfstan smiled happily to himself: this would be the adventure of a lifetime!

  Four

  1355–1356

  Delays due to shortage of available ships and trained soldiers hampered the Prince’s plan to invade Gascony that autumn; troopships carrying men, horses and weaponry left Southampton and Plymouth on different dates in September, and Wulfstan was among the last to embark, with Troilus. He had to wait for tides and weather before boarding a large, double-sailed cog crammed with men of the rougher sort on the voyage along the Narrow Sea, out into the Atlantic ocean and round the Bay of Biscay, to Bordeaux. He heard more foul oaths and blasphemies than at any time in his life, and tried to keep himself apart from his fellow
passengers, but found it difficult to be dignified while retching miserably with sea-sickness. He felt pity for Troilus and the other luckless horses, gasping for water and standing in their own excrement.

  The sight of the long quays lining Bordeaux’s inland harbour raised a cheer from all on board after a debilitating journey on the meagre rations of dry bread and brackish water, over which the men were actually fighting by the time they disembarked. They were met by a couple of officers who directed them to different locations: the majority went to tents and temporary wooden huts in a bare field beyond the city, while Wulfstan was beckoned up to the archbishop’s palace just above the main square, where the Prince was lodging. Troilus was taken to a stable with half a dozen other horses, and Wulfstan was summoned to appear before the Prince, who had heard that he had been trained at the Maison Duclair.

  Rapidly gaining confidence, he bowed low before the tall, handsome man who more than lived up to the legends that were already circulating about his strength and manly beauty. He had been only sixteen at the Battle of Crécy where he had acquitted himself well, and now, a decade later, he was his father’s dearest hope, the future King Edward IV, and England’s glory. He sat at a long table, flanked by the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury. Wulfstan confirmed his name, family and age, and while the earls raised their eyebrows at his youth, the Prince said that his five years at the military academy stood him in good stead. His ability to read and write in French and English, as well as being an accomplished archer and swordsman earned him a smile and nod of approval from the Prince, who welcomed him as an officer in spite of his tender years, and told him that he would stay in the palace until suitable billets had been found in Bordeaux for men such as himself. Wulfstan’s heart swelled and his eyes shone as he vowed to live or die in the service of King and country, under the flag of St George.

  He was shown to a dormitory in the palace, furnished with four wooden beds with horsehair mattresses and one wooden chest between the occupants for storing clothes. For Wulfstan it was an honour to sleep under the same roof as the Prince and his earls, but two days later he and another young Englishman, Robert Poulter, were directed to a house in the town, occupied by a widow, Madame Merlette, where they would stay until called upon to join the Prince in an exploratory chevauchée through Gascony and the adjoining duchy of Aquitaine. Wulfstan smiled at hearing that word again, and began telling Robert something of his own experience of ‘a ride on horseback’ in Normandy, but Robert seemed more interested in Madame’s daughter, Dorine, a fresh-faced girl of not more than fifteen years. With her mother and a serving wench she waited at table, bringing the young men freshly baked bread from her mother’s kitchen, with cheese, bacon and good bean soup.

  ‘Do you not think her pretty, Wulfstan?’

  ‘She’s very young,’ replied Wulfstan dubiously, thinking her hardly more than a child.

  ‘Ah, but her smiles are sweet, and cause me to daydream,’ Robert replied, touching the girl’s fingers as she collected their trenchers after dinner. When she retreated to the kitchen, his gaze followed her dainty figure in frank appraisal.

  ‘Let’s look at her in another year or two,’ suggested Wulfstan, not wanting to appear a greenhorn.

  ‘But who knows where we will be then?’ Robert speculatively narrowed his eyes. At twenty he considered himself quite the man-about-town, a connoisseur with no doubts about his own attractiveness to women. It was therefore a surprise when they found that Dorine’s smiles and blushes were directed towards Wulfstan rather than Robert, and when he realized this, Wulfstan too began to daydream. Unbidden memories of Madame la Gouvernante came back to him, though there was little resemblance between the woman and the girl, only that they were both female and had the power to stir a man’s imagination. Whether Dorine knew of her own powers they did not have time to discover, for on the fifth of October they set out with the Prince of Wales and his noble earls on the chevauchée.

  When all the officers left their billets to assemble before the palace, Wulfstan heard a boisterous greeting, a shout of, ‘Look, comrades, if it isn’t Sir Galahad! So you got here after all!’ And there to his delight were his former fellow trainees, Jean-Pierre Fourrier and Eric Berowne. With Robert Poulter the four set off in high spirits. It was a cold but clear autumnal morning with a freshening breeze that sent the gold and crimson leaves whirling down from the trees. There was much speculation about the Prince’s intentions as the march processed peacefully along the Garonne valley, the river on which Bordeaux stood. They entered land held by the French king’s lieutenant, the Count d’Armagnac, and marched through villages and farms; the Prince allowed the men to help themselves to whatever food they needed, but not to harm the people in any way. Even so, Wulfstan saw some excessive plundering of dairies, and thefts of hens and ducks from farmhouses they passed, eventually toiling up a steep path through woodland that came out on to a wide area of scrubland where they paused while the Prince held council with his earls; his idea had been to march deep into d’Armagnac territory, but after consultation he settled his army on the open plain, and sent out scouts to find out the Count’s whereabouts. A whole day passed before the scouts returned to say that the Count d’Armagnac was sheltering behind the walls of Toulouse with a large army to prevent the Prince from venturing beyond that city. The Prince cursed roundly, and was for going ahead to attack d’Armagnac head-on and scatter his army, and would have done so, had not his earls urged him against this course at a time when winter was drawing on with its cold and darkness; at length he was persuaded to return to Bordeaux and wait for spring. He felt humiliated, and his mood changed; he gave his troops leave to loot and plunder wherever they chose. Heavy rains soaked them and the ground became muddy, adding to their discomforts, and when they reached the town of Rejaumont the Prince ordered the people to turn out of their houses to let his troops luxuriate in dry lodgings, drink their fill of wine and eat whatever food they could find. Wulfstan was horrified to see women and children forced to stand outside in the pouring rain, but Robert said it was exactly what d’Armagnac would do if he invaded enemy territory, that is to say England.

  They were back in Bordeaux by the second week of December; the trees were now bare and their colours replaced by winter’s black and white, merging into a ghostly grey. Dorine welcomed Wulfstan with unconcealed delight – so much so that Madame Merlette ordered her to stay in the kitchen, to be replaced by a snub-nosed, button-eyed serving wench.

  ‘Our gracious lord and master is said to be spitting out more flames and smoke than St George’s dragon,’ said Jean-Pierre Fourrier with a grin. ‘I’m not sorry to be lodging outside the palace right now.’

  ‘Well, it was a weak ending to the chevauchée, you must admit,’ replied Robert. ‘And it means we’ll be holed up here until the New Year.’

  ‘With precious little cheer over the Feast of the Nativity,’ added Eric, turning down the corners of his mouth.

  Wulfstan said nothing. He was thinking of pretty Dorine, who threw a smiling glance in his direction on the few occasions when their paths crossed at Madame’s.

  The four friends were seated in a tavern near the centre of Bordeaux, and around them sat other young officers in the Prince’s army. The topic of conversation was general: the late start to the Prince’s invasion of Gascony via the seaport of Bordeaux made the chevauchée too close to winter, and some of the Bordelais were calling it a failure, a virtual defeat by the Count d’Armagnac, causing the Prince’s men to retreat (or to be chased?) back to their starting point in that fair city.

  ‘We’ve got the worst of winter to get through before setting out on a chevauchée again,’ observed Eric. ‘It’s not so bad for us, quartered in Bordeaux, but God help the poor devils in tents and wooden huts! I’ve heard the Prince has spread them out to towns forty miles from here. If we get a few hard frosts and snowfalls, they’ll be dying of cold.’

  ‘Yeah, their cocks’ll drop off when they unbutton,’ grinned Robert, tossing bac
k a large beaker of red wine, and reaching for the flagon to refill it. His face was flushed, and Wulfstan foresaw another evening of guiding his uncertain footsteps back to the lodgings they shared. ‘The Prince will see them taken care of,’ continued Robert. ‘They’ll have blazing braziers to keep them warm and for cooking – and they’ll be drunk half the time on the wine casks he’ll have sent up to them. Ha! The locals of Sainte-Émilion will have to lock up their daughters, but we shall have to behave ourselves here in Bordeaux. Don’t go swaggering around getting wenches with child and pissing in the archbishop’s gateway, or you’ll be sent to join our brothers-in-arms forty miles away!’

  Wulfstan nodded at the warning; anything would be better than being sent to join the kind of riff-raff he had sailed with, now kicking up their heels in rough winter quarters.

  As it turned out, the Feast of the Nativity passed very pleasantly for Wulfstan. The Prince and his senior commanders attended High Mass at midnight in the Cathédrale Saint-André, a huge, looming building close to the archbishop’s palace. All militia stationed in Bordeaux were ordered to attend, and the four young officers were there to receive the Sacrament. Wulfstan dutifully remembered his family and friends at Hyam St Ebba, though he had no desire to be with them. On the contrary, he suddenly espied Madame Merlette and Dorine sitting among their neighbours, and when the Mass had ended and he was invited to the palace to take wine with the Prince and his officials, he whispered to Robert that he was going back to their lodgings because he felt a fever coming on. Declining Robert’s reluctant offer to come with him, he vanished into the crowd surging out of the great doors, keeping Madame and Dorine in sight. When he caught up with them, he expressed surprise that they were alone, and offered to escort them safely home.