Every Noble Knight

by Maggie Bennett

  Wulfstan stared back at him, at first completely mystified, but then the realization dawned upon him that the Prince had been jesting with him from the beginning of their interview, and now laid a hand on Wulfstan’s sound right shoulder.

  ‘My mother is well acquainted with the lady in question, and has sent her home to her old father to try out her story on him, the lying little hussy. Meanwhile, Sir Wulfstan, there is much work to be done, and I shall need your services more than ever, starting now. Are your quills ready sharpened?’

  Eight

  1359

  ‘The holy monks must have been praying for fine weather!’ exclaimed Sir Ranulf Ormiston, and indeed it was a perfect May morning for a royal wedding. A huge crowd was assembling before the king’s palace at Reading, where the banner of St George fluttered from a flagpole on the roof.

  ‘The sun itself will be outdazzled by so many princes and dukes,’ he grinned as he and Sir Wulfstan Wynstede rode up the avenue. ‘What with the king and queen in their royal robes and crowns, and his grace Prince John bedecking himself as bridegroom on his wedding morning – peacocks on parade!’

  Sir Wulfstan nodded. ‘Yes, it’s a good time to bring all the family together. There’s our Prince Edward of Wales over there with his brother John, and Prince Lionel. And look at their little brothers! The youngest can be scarcely four years old – but there he is, gambolling with his little sisters, all dressed up for the great day!’

  ‘The bridegroom looks happy with his parents’ choice for him, as well he might! The Lady Blanche has a good pedigree, co-heiress to the Duchy of Lancaster, and only her father and elder sister stand between her and her inheritance – and our excellent Prince will be looking to claim the lot in due course!’

  Sir Wulfstan frowned. He disliked Ranulf’s over-familiar tone when speaking of the royal family, but what he said was probably true. The nineteen-year-old Prince John of Gaunt, fourth surviving son of King Edward III, was known to be as ambitious as he was handsome, and now here he was dressed in a gold gipon open to the waist to show a gold-embroidered shirt and white silken braies, with a white fur cloak which swirled around as he moved. By contrast his elder brother Edward, the Prince of Wales, was dressed in his usual sombre black, relieved by silver trimmings and embroidery. He wore a coronet upon which three black ostrich feathers waved, reflected in the embroidery on his gipon, the fleur-de-lys which was his heraldic symbol. He waved to Wulfstan. ‘Come and join the festivities, noble knight!’

  They had reached the resplendent crowd of guests, and were hailed by acquaintances, among them Theobald Eldrige, now in the service of the king as a soldier. He was delighted to meet his one-time leader of a chevauchée from the Maison Duclair.

  ‘I only went back there for a year, Sir Wulfstan,’ he said, ‘and then went home to help my father – but now with talk of war, I decided to improve my skill with the longbow. There’s going to be some great jousting here after the wedding – no better way of keeping bored soldiers up to the mark, don’t you . . . oh.’ He gasped and cut himself short when he saw the tucked-in sleeve that replaced Wulfstan’s left arm, strapped to the side of his otherwise strong and healthy body under his clothes. ‘I’m . . . er . . . sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Theobald, there’s more than one way of giving service,’ Wulfstan said with a half-smile. ‘At Berkhamsted Castle I keep myself well occupied by serving the Black Prince as scrivener, treasurer and as his envoy, a sort of itinerant visitor to his estates.’

  ‘And you ride a horse, I see,’ said Theobald, anxious to make amends for his tactlessness.

  ‘Yes, with the help of my two legs and a very strong right arm, I can mount her and dismount without assistance.’ Wulfstan said nothing about the after-effects of his wound at Poitiers; the two vertical frown lines between his eyes gave him a stern appearance which added to his authority at the castle, whereas in fact they were due to the almost constant pain he endured in his left shoulder, but which he had become adept at concealing.

  Ranulf broke in on their exchange with a knowing grin. ‘Look over there, gentlemen, see, Earl Thomas of Kent, one of the king’s finest soldiers, and his wife they call the fair maid of Kent – the most beautiful woman in England, with virtues to match, or so ’tis said. He’s a much-envied man, is old Thomas Holland of Kent!’

  Wulfstan glanced very briefly at the group, but did not want to stare; his eyes had fallen on another lady of the court, the Lady Mildred, now wearing the wimple and hair-concealing pointed headdress of a married woman. She was big with child, and her eyes were weary; across the crowd she caught sight of Wulfstan, and they both quickly looked away. How far away and long ago his days at the court now seemed, and how brief their romance! The fact that he had no feelings at all towards her now, except for a kind of pity, led him to conclude that he had never truly loved her at all. And now there was Beulah . . . the very thought of her brought a secret smile to his lips, which Ranulf noticed.

  ‘Oho, Sir Wulfstan, I see that you still admire the Lady Mildred! Can it be that you have an interest in the burden she carries?’

  Wulfstan glared. ‘Such an ignorant, ill-mannered question does not even merit a reply,’ he replied coldly, turning away to talk with Theobald and catch up on each other’s experiences in the four years since the adventure of the chevauchée. Theobald had returned to his family home in south Hampshire to assist his father in running their estate, but he was eagerly looking forward to joining in the jousts which were to be part of the wedding celebrations for the next two days.

  ‘We need to keep in training for the next invasion of France!’ he said, then again remembered Wulfstan’s lack of his left arm. His embarrassment was saved by the Prince himself, who strolled up at that point to speak to Wulfstan. He was flushed and seemed somewhat agitated; his breath betrayed his indulgence in wine.

  ‘A word with you, Sir Wulfstan,’ he said, making a beckoning movement with his head.

  ‘My liege,’ Wulfstan replied with a bow.

  ‘D’you see that lady over there, the sweetest of all women, smiling at my brother John the bridegroom, but with never a smile for me?’

  Wulfstan looked at the lady who had been pointed out by Ranulf, but hardly knew what to say.

  ‘Don’t you see her, the Countess of Kent over there talking to my sister? Look at her, Wulfstan, beside Thomas the Earl of Kent, and their children. An angel here on earth!’

  Wulfstan now fixed his eyes on the Kents, and saw that the Countess was indeed beautiful, smiling and talking to the princess while her husband the earl regarded her with satisfaction, the mother of his five children.

  ‘She is just as you say, sire.’ Wulfstan could sympathize with the Prince for his lost love, married to one of his warrior noblemen, a virtuous wife who would never stray from her husband and the children she had borne him. The Prince continued speaking, as if in a rage.

  ‘Today I am to watch my younger brother John marry the Lady Blanche of Lancaster, while I, a warrior prince of the blood, cannot claim my own true love, my own Jeanette,’ he said, as if it were Wulfstan’s fault. ‘May you be spared the pangs of suppressed love!’

  Then to Wulfstan’s relief he turned away to talk with the bride and groom and help himself to another beaker of mead.

  With the ceremony over, there was a feast at the palace, and the young men were impatient to begin the tournament, in which the king’s grown sons and members of his standing army were inviting all comers to compete with blunted lances to unhorse their opponents.

  ‘Make no mistake, the king’s on the lookout for new military men, and before this year’s over, there’ll be a new invasion of France!’ said Ranulf, and the young men’s eyes brightened. Wulfstan knew this to be true; the two-year truce between England and France made in the March of 1357 had run out, and the king was known to be preparing to make a further claim on French territories held by the English crown. This royal wedding might well be the last celebration for some of the valiant men,
royal, noble or commoner, who would win their spurs at the tournament, and Wulfstan knew himself to be an object of sympathy. Ranulf and Theobald certainly thought it a shame that such a proven knight and military hero should now be reduced to a pen-pushing scribe, adding up columns of figures, a task just as well performed by an older, retired soldier. And yet . . . was he sorry to be out of the combat when it took place? He sometimes worked by the light of a midnight candle, to complete documents for the Prince who had come to realize his worth – so much so, that he trusted Wulfstan with further duties, making him responsible for collecting dues from the many estates owned by the Prince: thus he became a tax collector, a character notoriously unpopular since biblical times. He visited landowners in their manor houses, merchants who rented town houses and practised trades in premises on land owned by the Prince; even a few monasteries held land that was his from birth.

  Thus Sir Wulfstan had become a familiar figure in the shires, riding straight-backed, long-legged, controlling his mare with the reins held firmly in his right hand. When he arrived at great houses he was usually received as a guest by owners wanting to ingratiate themselves with the Prince, while others complained at what they considered unjust demands upon their incomes. Wulfstan treated them all the same, judging each case on its own merits and always aiming for fairness. He was never tempted to accept bribes, neither did he bargain; each householder got his rights, according to the size of the estate, and changes of family situation, births, bereavements and marriages. Yes! He did enjoy his life as the Prince’s envoy, and had no desire to go to war again: his ever-painful shoulder and withered arm were constant reminders of the dangers as well as the glory, even in victory. So he threw himself into his triple duties, and his standing with the Prince rose steadily higher.

  And there was Beulah. Sweet, gentle, pious Beulah, who at seventeen seemed quite unaware of her beauty, and the effect it might have on a man. She was a younger daughter of a landowner who maintained his income by judicious farming, and though Greneholt Manor in Hertfordshire was modest by the standards of the usual great houses of landed gentry, the estate was well managed, and Sir William Horst thought nothing of getting down to ploughing, hay-making and harvesting with his tenants who farmed their own strips in the great field set aside for that purpose. He allowed them to own, or share ownership of a pig, a goat and a few geese, as long as the livestock did not stray on to their neighbours’ vegetable patches. Sir William and Lady Judith Horst reminded Wulfstan of his own parents at Ebbasterne Hall in his childhood, true country dwellers with no pretensions; like his father, Sir William shared the management of the estate with his bailiff, and Lady Judith had worked with the nursemaids in caring for the children, as his own mother had done. Consequently they were respected by their tenants, though on occasions they could also be feared, for their morality was stern, and being regular attendants at Mass in the parish church of St Mary Greneholt, they frowned upon ungodly sins of the flesh, especially fornication and drunkenness, and wrongdoers did not go unpunished.

  Beulah had been brought up to share her parents’ piety. Her clothes were neat, practical and modest, and her light-brown hair was tied up in a white twisted scarf around her head, out of sight. Yet notwithstanding these precautions against vanity, and protection against lechery, Wulfstan was drawn to her modest beauty at first sight when she shared the dining table with her parents and their important visitor from Berkhamsted Castle, and found himself suddenly thinking about her as he went about his duties, and as he settled down to sleep at night he would remember her soft brown eyes that had looked at him before she had modestly lowered her head. Two years had passed since the disastrous affair of Lady Mildred, during which time he had avoided any entanglement with womankind because of his accursed left arm, as hideous as it was useless. He could have no designs on shy, modest little Beulah, but just to think about her, and on occasion to look upon her, gave him a special delight, a lifting of the spirit he had not experienced before. He began to think of reasons why he should ride to places reasonably near to Greneholt, and while in the vicinity, to pay a call at the manor and tell its occupants of new trends in farming; for instance, while he talked with Sir William about matters concerning the estate, he would offer to obtain for him some seeds of a new, recommended crop of wheat or barley – or a new device for scaring birds away from the growing crop. Once, he brought Lady Judith a present of dried figs from abroad, and every time he came to the manor, Beulah would hear of his arrival and come to curtsey to him as Prince Edward’s envoy. When he caught her eye she blushed and turned away, but as the days and weeks went by, she began to return his smile; and then one sunny day in June while riding through the Hertfordshire countryside, he admitted to himself that he loved her, though without expecting any return of love. Dear, sweet, virginal Beulah! She would never know his hateful secret, but he could at least allow himself to dream . . .

  But he under-estimated the sharp eyes of her parents and their vigilance to guard their daughter from the lechery of men and those who would dishonour her.

  After the excitement of the wedding and the tournaments that followed the feasting, the Black Prince returned to Berkhamsted with his knights, and found an occasion to speak privately with Wulfstan as they rode, dismissing Ranulf with a wave of his hand.

  ‘You know already the rumours of renewed warfare with France,’ he said, and Wulfstan nodded, for his friends had talked of little else. ‘So let me tell you of what has been brewing on the other side of the Narrow Sea. That fellow the dauphin, an older son of King John of France, has set himself up as regent, to rule in his father’s place – a sickly creature by all accounts.’

  Wulfstan nodded. It was acknowledged that the king of France had left this son at home during the campaign that had culminated at Poitiers, because he was heir to the throne in the event of his father’s death. Now with his father imprisoned in England, he had ruled over France for two years.

  ‘There are reports that he is raising an army, a mixed bag by my spies’ accounts, of men-at-arms, archers with their silly crossbows, no match for our longbows, and as many mercen­aries as he can get to accept his money. He has not yet paid a quarter of his father’s ransom, and my father questions his patriotism – does he wish to keep the king in captivity, so that he can continue to wield power as regent?’

  Wulfstan nodded assent, as he was expected to do. He already knew much of what the Prince now confided in him, being scrivener at Berkhamsted, and thought he could guess what was coming next.

  ‘My father the king is losing no time. His sheriffs are collecting stores of necessary victuals for an army, and the royal arsenal at the Tower of London is making and storing new weaponry. All our best men are to be mobilized, and the dauphin will get the shock of his life before this year is out!’

  Wulfstan winced at the words ‘our best men’, for he could play no part in the coming invasion. As if reading his thoughts, the Prince went on, ‘You will be left in my place at Berkhamsted while I’m away. There is a good household of servants and cooks, mainly women – and out of doors there is an excellent bailiff, under-bailiff and reliable grooms; but I’ll leave you a handful of guards to call upon if there is any trouble, and your word will be law. Our friend Hugh Baldoc will assist you as scrivener, for he now has a tolerable right hand. My mother the Queen will be the official head of the household, but I hope you will not have to appeal to her. I know you, Wulfstan, and believe that I can trust you to look after my favourite royal residence. What have you to say?’

  Wulfstan was trying to marshal his thoughts together, to give his Prince a proper answer. He knew about the proposed invasion of France, but his own promotion was an honour he had truly not expected.

  ‘Well, Sir Wulfstan Wynstede, what have you to say?’ repeated the Prince, smiling.

  ‘I thank you, my liege, and will gladly serve you with all my heart,’ he managed to affirm. ‘Will I . . . Will you continue to use me as envoy to your estates?’

/>   ‘Certainly. Who else could do it as well? There will be less time to spare, you will simply collect their dues without accepting hospitality – and you had better not be away from the castle for more than two nights at any one time.’

  Then I shall still be able to see Beulah, thought Wulfstan.

  ‘You do me high honour, my liege.’

  ‘Well and good. Now, I intend to move down to Northbourne Manor with my senior commanders, to oversee the prepar­ations for men and provisions. My father will remain at Westminster until we sail, probably a couple of months later.’

  ‘Very good, my liege,’ replied Wulfstan a little breathlessly, for his head was whirling as he tried to absorb all that the Prince was telling him.

  ‘I’m asking a great deal of you, especially as you have not left my service for a single day since we returned from France.’

  ‘Er . . . even so, my liege.’

  ‘So I’m setting you free for a month before I move to Northbourne. Hugh Baldoc will have a chance to show his skill, and we shall all have to see how we fare without you. I’ve appointed an under-bailiff to do the rent collecting, while you visit your family at Hyam St Ebba, with one of my archers, Theobald Eldrige as your squire. It’s about time.’

  And more than time since I visited my brother-in-law Charles at the Castle de Lusignan, thought Wulfstan.

  ‘How does that suit you, Sir Wulfstan Wynstede? Let’s agree on the month of June for your escape from the grindstone, eh?’

  The Prince was smiling, and Wulfstan could only smile back.

  ‘I thank you, my liege.’

  And had he not been sitting astride a horse, he would have bowed.

  The interview with Sir William Horst, by contrast, took place in that gentleman’s study.

  ‘Pray be seated, Sir Wulfstan. As envoy of the Prince of Wales, and honoured by him for valour in the field of battle, I’m fully aware that you take precedence over me. Yet I dare address you as an equal in a personal situation such as we are in.’