A Knight There Was

by Mary Ellen Johnson

"Of course not. We are knights, Harry. We dream of fine horses and magnificent battles. We dream of being feted by ladies with golden hair and rosebud lips."

  Matthew suddenly remembered Margery Watson, who was neither a lady nor in possession of golden hair. Nor would he describe her lips as rosebud, whatever that meant. But she had been intriguing all the same.

  "I am pleased your dreams are peaceful." Not that Harry could imagine anything bad happening to Matt, in sleep or otherwise. Like their father, Matthew was indestructible, akin to the forces of nature. Harry cleared his throat, his fingers unconsciously tightening upon the reins in his hand. "Promise me something, Matt."

  "If I can."

  "Prince Edward and his squires were knighted following Crecy, were they not?"

  "Aye, Harry. Everyone knows that."

  "And the prince plans to totally crush Jean le Bon this time, does he not?"

  "How can he fail?"

  "I know you would like to be knighted on the battlefield, but if Prince Edward moves to do so, would you wait until you and I might be knighted together?"

  Matthew turned to his brother in amazement, barely suppressing his first impulse, which was to box Harry between the ears. "Jesu! Do you realize what you ask? To be knighted on the battlefield means a thousand times more than some formal church ceremony. Why would you think to deprive me of something so important?"

  "Remember when you were seven and you left Cumbria to serve as a page in Prince Edward's household? Remember how I cried and begged you not to leave me?"

  Matthew nodded warily. "What has that to do with anything? We were children."

  "I remember it well. You said I mustn't fear, that someday we would serve together. You said, 'I will wait for you. We will be knighted together and fight wars together and we will never be separated again.' Those were your very words."

  "You will not trap me with ancient promises, Harry. You were so upset then not even Father's threats could silence you."

  "All those months you were gone, I would say 'Matt will soon be back. And when we are grown, we shall do everything together, just as he promised.' It was the only thing that made life bearable.'"

  Matthew ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. "I do not even remember exactly what I said. I merely thought to calm you. Please do not hold me to words so thoughtlessly given."

  "If you are knighted on the battlefield, Father will hold that up to me until the day I die. 'Look at Matt,' he'll say. 'Now there is a real man, and what are you? Just a back-door knight.'"

  "Father was knighted in the customary manner."

  "But no one doubts his courage, or his skill. I shall never be knighted on the battlefield, but I can be as good a fighter as most. I just canna be as good as you. I beg of you. Do not make life more difficult for me."

  Voices from their childhood welled up in Matthew's memory. "Do not let them hit me, Matt."

  "Can you do it for me? 'Tis so much easier for you."

  "Do not tell Father I forget to feed my hawks."

  "Do not tell Father I was in the garden."

  "Do not tell Father I fell off my horse."

  "Do not tell Father..."

  Harry leaned across his saddle to place a hand on Matthew's arm. "Please?"

  Around them riders chattered about mundane things. Ahead snaked the endless train undulating toward London–and beyond that to Matt's glorious future.

  "You ask too much!"

  Harry's eyes filled with tears. "Father will never let me live it down. I want him to be proud of both of us, and I can prove myself to him, I know I can."

  Undone by Harry's tears, Matthew stared at his stallion's mane. When Harry was upset, it was hard to deny him anything. Mayhap he was right. When he became a knight, William might change his demeanor. And if they were knighted together, a measure of Father's good will could very well transfer itself to Harry. Still, to be knighted on the battlefield—

  His fist clenched on his thigh. They might not even engage the French. A truce could be negotiated while the English were still in Bordeaux. The Black Prince might not knight anybody. But he might, and Matthew wanted to be one of the men chosen. His gaze swept the line of knights, the green hillside and the brown rope of highway. The colors no longer seemed so bright, the day no longer bursting with such promise.

  Matthew inhaled deeply. He felt something slip inside him, but this was his brother after all...

  "All right," he said, finally, "I shall wait. But I will not like it."

  Chapter 9

  Poitiers, 1356

  Much of the 1355 campaign had been a blur to Matthew Hart, yielding only scattered impressions. Through chroniclers wrote that the plundered land, which had not known "war of a long season," had been bountiful before the English arrival, Matthew could think of nothing complimentary to say about France. Compared to England, it was an ugly country. Beyond Bordeaux, with its miles of vineyards, rolling hills stretched seemingly forever toward the jagged Pyrennes Mountains. Matthew remembered the scattered forests only for the villagers he'd flushed out of their huts and caves; he remembered the plat pays, typical of so much of France, for the peasants he'd chased across their bleakness.

  Matthew's most vivid memories were of fire. Fire and rain. He recalled countless windmills, their revolving vanes ablaze with flames, standing above the surrounding destruction like flailing skeletons, crumbling to ignite the grasses below. He had helped torch innumerable villages, wheat fields, even monasteries.

  And the rains, how could he ever forget them? December's skies had been as relentless as a biblical deluge, soaking bones, transforming discomfort into sickness, turning roads into dangerous morasses.

  He remembered endless river crossings with overloaded pack horses slipping on muddy banks, urged like squeamish maidens into treacherous currents swollen by the rains. Dwindling supplies. Empty bellies. When the horses could not find drinking water, they had been given wine.

  Drunk horses. Exhausted men.

  By Christmas, 1355, the English were safe and warm in Bordeaux. According to the standards of Maximum Damnum—total destruction—Edward of Woodstock's campaign had been a success. But measured by Matthew's criterion, it had not. They had not fought another Crecy. They had engaged peasants and the bourgeoisie, not true knights. The campaign had yielded much booty, but Matthew had come to fight a war, not loot and pillage.

  After setting out on their second campaign in the summer of 1356, Matthew had high hopes. So far, however, it had been a mirror of their first with booty laden baggage trains and only marginal skirmishes.

  Circumstances changed with the waning summer. Finally, the French King, Jean le Bon, decided to engage. Possessing a much smaller army, Prince Edward had hoped to combine forces with Henry, Duke of Lancaster, but when that failed, retreated toward Bordeaux. With the French fast upon them, Edward allowed no rest, no matter how rocky the terrain or dense the forest. The pace was grueling. The English traveled four hundred miles in little more than forty days. No one complained for all knew they must outflank the French.

  In mid-September the English approached Chauvigny, near the town of Poitiers, or "Peyters," as Prince Edward called it. Scouts galloped into camp with word that Jean le Bon had blocked their exodus southward to Angouleme.

  "We must fight now," Matthew Hart told his father, who, as a member of the war council, was privy to all decision making.

  "We cannot fight," William responded grimly. "We do not have enough men and those we have are exhausted. Somehow, we shall have to slip through their lines."

  But even as Prince Edward raced to outmaneuver the French, even as Matthew spent another rigorous day and night in the saddle, he prayed they would not evade Jean le Bon's grasp. No matter how great the odds, Matthew was certain the English would triumph.

  * * *

  By Sunday, September 18, 1356, Prince Edward knew he had no other choice. Five miles out of Poitiers, he called a halt and readied his men to make a stand.

  C
ardinal Talleyrand of Perigord begged both sides to avoid bloodshed on God's most holy day. While the Cardinal attempted to mediate a permanent truce, Edward ordered his men to dig trenches and fashion stake-filled pits along the line of hedges that would shield the archers.

  Matthew decided the fortifications strengthened an already near perfect defense. The English were encamped on the crest of a wooded slope and the surrounding terrain was hilly. In addition to the copious undergrowth, marshy patches bordered on the River Miausson, at the foot of the hill. The slope opened onto a wide field, dissected by one narrow road—the only route by which the French could attack. In fact, the English were protected on all sides—left and right by steep drop-offs, at their back by woods so densely treed that a man on horseback could not effectively maneuver.

  Cardinal Talleyrand's mediation failed. Believing the Black Prince could not successfully resist the overwhelming odds against him, Jean le Bon demanded the impossible. "I will accept only unconditional surrender from Edward of Woodstock, as well as a hundred of his knights."

  Keeping his expression appropriately sober, Matthew Hart inwardly rejoiced. On the morrow we will face the French. And my life will never be the same.

  * * *

  Assembled with the rest of Edward's troops, Matthew waited for their prince to speak. When he thought about the inevitability of combat, his heart raced, yet he tried to etch every moment, every impression, in his memory.

  A cloudless cerulean sky intensified the colors of nearby vineyards, which were beginning to brighten to gold and rust. The slightest breeze brought to Matthew's nostrils the scent of leather and animals, the morning cook fires, and the musty, almost indefinable odor that marked fall's arrival. Above the wooded hill behind which Jean le Bon's troops were encamped, one sparrow hawk struggled upward before soaring toward the sun.

  The green and white of the archers' tunics, the crimson and gold of Edward's banner, the beasts and animals and plants upon the knights' shields, all seemed almost unbearably vivid.

  Prince Edward strode to the center of his men, dressed in the black armor that was his hallmark. "God has decreed that on this day we will fight the French," he began. "Just as you know we are outnumbered, you also know our cause is just. Your king, my father, has an inherent right to the French throne, to the very ground upon which we stand, and by the Grace of God, after this day his claim will be more secure."

  Bareheaded, Edward moved among his troops. A breeze lifted a strand of golden hair and a corner of his jewel-encrusted jupon.

  Matthew thought, I will tell Harry that our prince looked as fine as the saints illustrated in a Book of Hours, and we knew we could not fail with Edward of Woodstock to lead us.

  "I will not say that victory will come easy," Edward continued, "but, God willing, it will come. We are Englishmen, the finest soldiers in all the world. No matter should we face a legion of devils, we would prevail. Nor will Our Blessed Savior or St. George forsake us in our hour of need. Englishmen in London, York, Chester and Canterbury will hold up their heads and walk proud after this day, for the battle of Poitiers will wrap each of us in glory."

  Next to Matthew, Lawrence Ravenne muttered, "More likely in a shroud." Throughout the campaign Matthew's brother-in-law had been plagued by boils on his backside and his mood was just as raw. "How can we face sixty, or even thirty thousand French, however many there truly are? 'Tis one thing to be brave, quite another to be foolhardy."

  Matthew glanced at his father, standing off to one side with other members of the war council. He could not interpret the expression on William's face, but he caught Sir Thomas Rendell's eye, (Throughout the campaign Matthew kept wondering about Lord Rendell's resemblance... to whom? The answer kept eluding him) and when Rendell winked, it reinforced his conviction that his brother-in-law's talk of shrouds was mere doom-saying.

  Shouts drifted from the open ground in the valley below. Time was running out.

  Edward stood straight and tall. "A thousand years from now, this day will be discussed and harkened back to as England's finest hour. And though our children and great-great-grandchildren will die, our memory will live forever."

  Matthew clenched his fist inside his steel gauntlet. God has granted me this day, this first battle, and should I fight in a thousand such, none will surpass this one.

  As Edward continued speaking, he seemed to grow, to assume proportions larger than life and dimensions beyond humanity. He was not plain Edward of Woodstock, but a symbol of royalty, of England itself. Matthew was pleased with that image, for it was something Harry would enjoy.

  "Remember that I will never disappoint you," Prince Edward said. "I will never call upon you to do what I will not. My arm will be stronger than the strongest, my danger greater, my bravery the courage of ten thousand lions. You will never see your prince defeated. Nor will you be defeated. We are Englishmen, and that makes all the difference."

  "We are madmen," Lawrence Ravenne muttered, "and the French sun has baked our prince's brain."

  But not even such blatant cynicism could mar Matthew's excitement. This is what life is all about, he thought, following his prince to the small hill from which they would view the battle. This is why God created us. For this very moment.

  For Poitiers.

  * * *

  A cavalry of three hundred French knights raced up the narrow road toward the saw-tooth formation of English archers. The cavalry was to act as a single spearhead which would crash through the hedges. After scattering the yeomen, the remainder of the French, positioned below and on foot in three separate battalions, would attack at predetermined intervals.

  Trumpets blared; drums beat in time. "Montjois St. Denis!" the French cried, galloping forward, three abreast. Their destriers strained across the open field, across rows of bleached corn stalks and harvested wheat. Behind the hedges, English yeomen fitted arrows into bowstrings and drew back their bows.

  The morning sky darkened as a cloud of arrows arched overhead, guided by keen eyes and silent prayers to St. Sebastian, the martyr of arrows. The French continued straight toward the numerous gaps in the English line, but horses began shying away from the rain of death. Some crashed into the vineyards. Others bucked free of their riders, putting the fallen knights in even greater danger.

  Matthew watched the French charge crumple into chaos. Blood gushed from countless wounds—animal blood, human blood, blood as red as the leaves of the turning vineyard, as red as the wine made from the clumps of grapes that still clung to its vines. Unsheathing their long knives, English foot soldiers crept from behind the hedges and pinioned the helpless Frenchmen, slitting their throats.

  Situated more than a mile away, unable to see the devastation of his cavalry, Jean ordered forward his first battalion of foot soldiers, under the command of his eldest son, the Dauphin Charles. The battalion, which also contained three of France's four royal princes, began marching toward the English line. More trumpets; more drums mixed with screams and shouts and the thunder of war.

  Along with his father, four hundred reserves, and Prince Edward, Matthew surveyed the French soldiers. Having reached its zenith, the sun caught the armor from six thousand men-at-arms. Below, the English archers had re-formed behind the hedges and were now waiting for the enemy to approach.

  "They are on foot!" Lawrence Ravenne shaded his eyes against the sun's glare. "The pomp of France, indeed! They look more like peasants than knights."

  "But they are much better armed," countered William Hart.

  Matthew's gaze never left the oncoming army—row upon endless row, rippling like wild barley grass in the wake of a running horse. Scouts said King Jean held two more battalions in reserve, the last larger than Edward's entire army. Matthew's mouth felt dry.

  Soon, he thought. A measure of fear tempered his excitement.

  "St. George!" The English yeomen yelled, loosening their arrows.

  Marching up the path, the French narrowed their ranks to four abreast. Arrows struck harm
lessly against their armor. Toward ragged gaps in the hedges they marched, dodging rider-less horses, stepping across the wounded or dying, meeting foot soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. French knights stabbed with their shortened lances or hacked with battle axes and swords, forcing the English back toward their own archers.

  The sun edged westward. Mortally wounded soldiers sprawled on top of bodies already beginning to stiffen. The hillside was slick with blood. Matthew heard the ring of steel upon steel. The cries and screams, chroniclers later wrote, sounded all the way to Nouaille Abbey and the dense darkness of the Bois de St. Pierre.

  Led by an inexperienced Dauphin, the French eventually began to give ground, but the retreat was measured in inches.

  A sudden shout of triumph exploded from English throats as the Dauphin's standard was seized. Whereupon, the French quickly shepherded Charles and his brothers from the field.

  The English needed time to rest and regroup. Bow quivers were nearly empty while jagged gaps in the hedges showed like the yawning jaws of a canine. However, under the command of Philippe d'Orleans, brother of the king, France's second battalion was already moving forward. If this attack proved as devastating as the first, Prince Edward would have to commit his pitifully small reserves. Who would then face King Jean's battalion?

  Matthew told himself, We cannot lose, but he had no idea how they could win.

  On horseback, the Duc d'Orleans and his men came into view. A hush fell across the English line. From the battlefield, the wounded and dying screamed for help and water or the ministrations of a priest.

  Matthew watched the French near the point where they would dismount. Upon meeting the blood-soaked, limping, cursing, weeping remnants of their foot soldiers, the Duc's battalion seemed to hesitate en masse, then, as if of one mind, retreated in the direction of Chauvigny and the departed dauphin.

  "God's nails!" Prince Edward cried. "What are they doing?"

  "'Twould appear they are leaving the battlefield," William Hart said. "But I canna believe six thousand men would ride away without striking a blow."