‘It will eventually blacken and may drop off, my son, but not before spreading its poison throughout your whole body. Already it begins to smell of dead flesh.’
‘Thank you, good Friar. I believe that I was sent to you for this purpose. I shall tell my brother and sister of my decision, and absolve you from all blame if I should die.’
It was all settled. The Abbot, Sir Oswald and the Lady Ethelreda were told, and Wulfstan was lodged in the Abbey infirmary with Theobald Eldrige. An early date was fixed, and prayers were offered up at Masses held the day before and early in the morning of the day itself.
A scrubbed table was set up on trestles in the infirmary which had been cleared of all other patients, a clean sheet was spread over it, and on this Wulfstan lay down, wearing nothing above his waist. He was not given breakfast, for fear of him vomiting while the arm was being removed, and also to enhance the effect of the strong barley wine in a jug at his side, from which Theobald gave him frequent sips. On another table Friar Valerian placed clean towels, washed lambswool, two sword-sharp knives and a small saw. A fire was burning in the hearth, though it was a warm summer day. The friar stood at Wulfstan’s left side, with Abbot Damian behind him with his Prayer Book, and Theobald sat at Wulfstan’s right side. The friar handed him a wooden spoon with a white kerchief wrapped around it, to place between Wulfstan’s teeth for him to bite on when the pain got very severe. He gave his master another sip of barley wine, and took firm hold of his hand.
Just before he began, Friar Valerian sent up a silent prayer.
Blessed Saint Cecilia, intercede for me.
And then the Friar took up a knife and sliced it through the arm to the bone, about two inches above the demarcation line of withered flesh. As muscle was cut away from the bone, Wulfstan groaned through clenched teeth on the spoon, and Theobald murmured to him in a low tone.
‘I’m here, Sir Wulfstan, your squire Theo. Hold my hand, and bite hard.’
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner.
Side by side with Friar Valerian, the Abbot mopped up the brisk flow of blood with lambswool, and the friar reached for the saw.
‘The bone will be severed further up, to give me enough loose skin for a flap to fold over the stump,’ he explained quietly, and then there was no sound but the scraping of the saw against bone, backwards and forwards as if sawing wood, until it was through, and the severed arm thrown into a bucket. Theobald whispered encouragement, but Wulfstan was deathly pale, his eyes were closed, his mouth half open.
‘He’s fainted from the pain, Friar!’ his squire cried in alarm, but the friar was calm.
‘That will give him a respite,’ he answered, ‘and ’twill lessen the bleeding.’ He threaded a needle with the strong black linen yarn used for repairing monks’ habits, and dabbing away blood between every stitch, the skin flaps were completely sewn together. A large lambswool dressing soaked in salt water was placed over the stump.
‘That will have to be held in place and checked until the bleeding stops,’ ordered Valerian, ‘and then we can put on a tight bandage.’
Theobald Eldrige, flushed and perspiring, assured him that he would not leave Sir Wulfstan’s side. The Abbot murmured his thanks to the friar, and together they took wine, offering a cup to the squire.
‘We cannot rejoice too soon,’ said the friar. ‘We must wait to see if he runs a fever, or starts bleeding from the stump – or if pus forms in it, which God forbid.’
Abbot Damian nodded. ‘Thanks be to God thus far.’
And thanks to blessed Saint Cecilia who watched over us and guided my hands, Friar Valerian prayed silently.
Surfacing up from a red-hot glare of pain, Wulfstan slowly began to regain his senses. A cup of cold water was being held to his lips, and the sips were balm to his parched tongue. He heard voices as if from a long way off. One he knew was the friar’s.
‘Your dead arm has been severed from your living flesh, my son.’
‘May God be thanked that he has come through the ordeal.’ It was the Abbot.
‘I’m here at your side, sire, your squire Theo – take another sip of water.’
Wulfstan swallowed a gulp of water and coughed. ‘Thanks be to God,’ he croaked, as the realization dawned upon him that it was gone, that hideous unclean flesh. He was free from its curse, and in spite of the pain he closed his eyes in relief and thankfulness.
The friar told Wulfstan he must stay at the Abbey for at least a week, in case of bleeding or festering. During that week, Sir Oswald and Lady Janet Wynstede rode up to visit him, and Mistress Keepence walked up from Blagge House with Kitty and Aelfric Blagge, Cecily’s own children, born to her first husband, and now living with their Aunt Keepence and their embittered grandsire, who stayed away. Wulfstan became aware of an easy, friendly understanding between Maud Keepence and the friar, and assumed it was because she had willingly taken over Kitty and Aelfric and brought them up as her own after Cecily’s death.
Mercifully there were no complications, and Wulfstan made a steady recovery, thanks to his youth and natural vigour, the friar said. Each day he felt a little stronger, a little more able to respond to visitors; the wound stopped oozing blood, and the friar applied a bandage that wound fairly tightly around the upper part of his arm, which caused Wulfstan some discomfort – but to his incredulous joy he found that the chronic pain in his left shoulder was lessening. Without the dragging weight of the useless arm, it began to improve, and the friar gently rubbed the skin over it with oil of comfrey, which he prepared himself in the little pantry attached to the infirmary. He smiled and shook his head when Wulfstan eagerly announced the merciful disappearance of the pain.
‘Don’t rejoice too soon, my son,’ he warned. ‘You will never be quite free from it, but it will become easier. I will pray to my blessed patron saint, Cecilia, for her intercession.’
Cecilia. Wulfstan had heard of her as a virgin and martyr who had lived in second century Rome, and he noticed a softening of the friar’s stern features when he said her name. He mentioned this to Maud Keepence who nodded, like one familiar with a long history.
‘It’s true, she’s his patron saint – and he looked upon your sister Cecily as the embodiment of her on earth,’ she said in a low voice, her eyes smiling at a memory. ‘They met again on board that fated boat, only to be finally parted again.’
Wulfstan’s heart gave a leap, like a seeker on the verge of a discovery. He remembered Dan Widget’s words about Cecily’s last night on earth, the shipwreck which dragged her down into the deep. He gazed intently into Maud’s eyes.
‘When did Friar Valerian rejoin the brothers at the Abbey, Maud?’
‘When he returned from France, soon after we lost Cecily.’ She turned to him with sudden emotion. ‘Oh, Wulfstan, your sister was a good, virtuous woman, a faithful wife and mother – and Valerian was always true to his vows, for theirs was a chaste love, far above the earthly desires of men and women, a lifelong devotion. Let her rest in peace!’
Her voice rose, and Wulfstan begged her to be calm. He promised that he would never repeat what she had told him, but for which he thanked her. He now saw why Dan Widget had concealed the name of the other survivor of the shipwreck that had taken Cecily’s life; Friar Valerian had also been there, and his life, like Dan’s, had been preserved. Dan had wanted to protect her good name and the friar’s from the slightest breath of rumour, and for this Wulfstan was grateful; it explained the closeness he felt towards this man of God who had taken away his curse.
For now he could return to Beulah, his betrothed, with no need to be ashamed of the clean severance of an arm lost in the Black Prince’s service; it would be a badge of honour, a sacrifice to be displayed with pride.
Ten
1360
It was the first day of the year. The Feast of the Nativity had been marked by daily Masses in the Castle chapel, and a haunch of roasted venison in the Great Hall, but there had been very little festivity at Berkhamsted
without the Prince and his retinue of military men, and the weather had been freezing cold. Wulfstan stared moodily out at the rain now pouring down on the carpet of snow; the air was warmer at midday, but by the early dusk it would be freezing again, with the likelihood of more snow, creating treacherous ways for men and for horses. It would be foolish to walk or ride very far in these conditions, for fear of falling and risking injury to both man and animal.
From being a hive of activity, preparing for the new invasion of France, the castle now seemed silent and empty. Up until the end of October, victuals were being collected from the Prince’s residences: oat flour, salt pork, cheese and beans. New arrows and bowstrings were being made to replenish the armoury at the Tower of London; ash and yew, horsehair and hemp were sent by river to the port of Sandwich, and wheelwrights worked round the clock to make more carts, all over the south of England. There was much sewing and stitching of garments for the men of war, not only by sempstresses but also by noble ladies, and much polishing of armour. Wulfstan personally paid for a steel hauberk for Eldrige, and a padded gipon to go underneath it; the lad had been sorry to leave his master, but could not hide his joy and excitement at the prospect of fighting under the Black Prince’s banner, embroidered with his emblem of three ostrich feathers worked in silver thread against a sable background.
They sailed from Sandwich at October’s end. By order of the king, the front line was led by himself and a trio of his handsome, valiant sons: Prince Edward of Wales, the Black Prince, ahead of his brothers, the newly wed Prince John of Gaunt, named for the Belgian city of Ghent, where he had been born, and Prince Lionel. Next came the Duke of Lancaster, the king’s cousin, followed by Sir John Chandos and the Earl of Kent, still referred to as Sir Thomas Holland, a seasoned veteran of Crécy and Poitiers; in one of these battles he had lost an eye, and wore a white eye-patch. A genial man in his fortieth year, he was an object of much envy, for his beautiful Countess Joan was known as ‘the Fair Maid of Kent’, and Wulfstan knew of the Prince’s long years of hopeless love for her. Thomas had been a founder member of the Order of Knights of the Garter, for it was rumoured that at a ball given by the king to celebrate the fall of Calais, Joan, then the young Countess of Salisbury, had dropped her garter whilst dancing, and the king (who, though married to the queen, was said to be in love with Joan at the time) had picked it up and tied it around his own leg with the words Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame on him who thinks ill of it!), which became the motto of the Order. Wulfstan wondered what were the thoughts of the Black Prince, watching Sir Thomas take leave of his lovely wife and their children.
As well as Eldrige, Ranulf Ormiston was among the men-at-arms, and without their high spirits and good-humoured rowdiness, the castle seemed gloomy. Those left behind at Berkhamsted were not such as Wulfstan would have chosen. Apart from the bailiffs and servants, both men and maids, there was Hugh Baldoc, painstakingly writing with his healed right hand, and Sir Guy Hamald, in charge of the half-dozen guards left to protect the castle and its occupants. Sir Wulfstan Wynstede was generally liked for his fairness and feared for his sternness towards any shirking of duty. He tried to be on civil terms with Baldoc, but met with a surly response, and Guy Hamald’s over-familiarity amounted to insolence. Guy and his guards would boast to each other of their conquests among the maidservants, and lead the conversation round to Sir Hugh Points, then with grins and nudges tell of his daughter’s brief, passionate alliance with Wulfstan, who restrained himself from making any comment. He tried to ignore them, for he had been vindicated by the queen herself from any misconduct with the lady, but they still made fun of him; he was either cast as a lecher by some who said he had led the Lady Mildred into temptation, or as a callow youth who had not known how to respond to the lady’s bold advances. Either way he looked a fool, for by ignoring the insults he was condemned by his silence, and by denying them he gave Hamald and his friends more fuel for mockery, putting on solemn faces and saying that no insult had been intended, whilst laughing up their sleeves.
The news from over the Narrow Sea did nothing to raise his spirits. Having marched out of Calais in November, the king had arrived at Rheims shortly before the Feast of the Nativity, and laid siege to it. Reports were slow and sketchy, but it appeared that the citizens were determined to defend their city, and that the weather favoured them, being extremely wet and cold, matching the low morale of the king’s men.
Wulfstan thought yearningly of his sweet, betrothed young bride, trusting that she remained as lovesick for him as he was for her. He despised himself for letting the rain keep him away from her, yet he could not subject his docile mare Jewel to such difficult, dangerous riding, beginning in the dark and ending in the dark of a dismal winter day, with a one-armed man astride her. There could be no hunting, jousting, falconry or any outdoor activities in such conditions – which left indoor games and pranks to pass the time. There was dancing, accompanied by musicians with flutes and percussion, and a shortage of ladies led to plundering the kitchen of its smiling maidservants, some of whom were more willing than others. Wulfstan’s heart sank when he saw what would inevitably happen, and called upon the menservants to come up to the Great Hall and make sure that all the women were accounted for when the candles were extinguished and the revellers dismissed to their own beds and nobody else’s. The rules were kept as far as Wulfstan could see, but he asked Hugh Baldoc to oversee the menservants and prevent any misconduct on their part. Gone was the light-hearted gaiety that had brightened the castle when the Black Prince had been at home, but Wulfstan was determined to keep order and maintain the Prince’s household in his absence.
On a January day Queen Philippa arrived on a visit to the castle to enquire if all was well. She came in a carriage accompanied by a guard and a few of her ladies, and also a couple of empty farm carts. She took Wulfstan aside for a word about the food stores, confessing that she had heard from the king via special messenger that much of the army’s food had been stolen or spoiled by the weather.
‘I fear that if I cannot send out replenishments, they will steal from the peasantry and threaten to plunder houses and farms,’ she confided anxiously. ‘My son Prince Edward of Wales has given me permission to gather fresh supplies as you see fit.’
Easy words, but Wulfstan could not conjure up fresh supplies from muddy winter fields, and had no choice but to part with some of the castle’s dry stores of salted meat, oats, cheese and beans, and to instruct the cooks to practise strict economy. He began to frequent the store rooms himself, to see how much could reasonably be spared. The maidservants were overawed by seeing their master among them, giving orders to take this or that sack for the men to load on to the carts; they were either shy and silent or saucy and giggling, and one shapely young girl answered everything he said with such ready wit that he laughed out loud, and found himself smiling into her bright, dark eyes. When he called on her to help him sort out the victuals and pack them into sacks and crates, she needed no second bidding, and when he felt her soft arm brush against his by accident – or had it been deliberate, and if so, had it been his will or hers? – he felt his treacherous, amoral manhood rising against his braies; his hands longed to touch her, to stroke her pretty face, to cover her little breasts. He drew a step away from her, but could not avoid her sidelong glances, the smiles that invited him to do as he – and she – wished.
He struggled with his baser self, trying to bring Beulah to his mind, but she now seemed far away, and he could not visualize her face. All he could remember were her mother and father hovering near, stopping him from touching her, making him wait for years – whereas this girl was here at his side, tempting him, teasing him . . .
‘I don’t even know your name, girl,’ he muttered in a voice not his own.
‘Miril be my name, sire, and it be a better name than girl,’ she answered, looking up at him with such a saucy face that he had to laugh – he could not stop himself, and then he had to kiss her, and knew that it was onl
y a matter of time and opportunity before he took her in his arms and kissed her lips, her breasts, her whole delicious body . . .
‘Miril,’ he said.
‘Wulfstan,’ she replied with all the familiarity of an equal, as at that moment she was.
He made a superhuman effort, releasing her and muttering, ‘We must not be seen,’ as he turned towards the stone passageway where guards and menservants were heaving sacks out to load the two carts. Guy Hamald and another guard were carrying a large crate, and he grinned at Wulfstan in a conspiratorial and infuriating way.
‘Hurry up with your task, the Queen needs to be on her way before nightfall,’ Wulfstan barked. Hamald stared after his retreating back, and spoke to the other man in a low tone.
‘He’d better not try getting on his high horse with me, or he’ll be sorry for it, the one-armed lapdog of the Prince.’
Before she left, Queen Philippa called Wulfstan to a private interview with her in the room he used for record keeping and the castle’s accounts day by day.
‘The news is not as good as could be wished, Sir Wulfstan,’ she said, her kindly face tense with anxiety for her royal husband and sons. ‘You know they laid siege to Rheims, and hoped to enter the city before the end of this month – my husband promised to spare all their lives if they would yield – but my special messenger now tells me that he has lifted the blockade and is retreating from Rheims, burning and pillaging the suburbs.’
‘May God show mercy on them, Your Grace,’ answered Wulfstan in dismay, able to imagine all too well the despoliation of the countryside, the terror of families made homeless, their plight made ten times worse by the merciless grip of winter.
‘The King aims to reach Paris by a roundabout route,’ she continued, ‘and to lay siege to that city instead of Rheims within another month. The weather should be improved by then, and the days lengthening. With these extra supplies, the troops may not feel the need of such harshness.’ Her eyes were full of pity, but she was unable to make the slightest criticism of her husband the king. Wulfstan knew her to be a good, tender-hearted woman, who had knelt to the king after the Battle of Crécy, imploring him to spare the lives of the six brave burghers who had come to offer their lives if he would spare the town of Calais.
Every Noble Knight Page 14