I Serve (2 page)

2

If you would hear of my knighthood, you must first hear of my passage to France, for the one turns upon the other as tightly as a door upon a hinge. It was the fifth of July, 1346, when we set sail, an army of wooden-hulled castles bound for Gascony and France. The forecastle of each fighting cog was crammed with vibrant pennants, high-mettled horses, and eager Englishmen. Our king had determined to be master of your France, but the sea proved to be its own master. Almost as soon as the fleet weighed anchor, the wind began to breathe heavily like a thickset man climbing a hill. The ruffled water pushed back against the coast, and the cogs could make no southwestern progress.

Originally, the king had designed to go down from Cornwall and round the tip of Brittany. Our fleet would carry us southward along the French coast till we reached the sun-kissed lands of Gascony. The ships would enter the sheltered mouth of the Garonne River, and we would disembark on the wharfs of Bordeaux. Gascony was the ideal landing place, for at that time, Gascony was the only piece of the continent still honoring its sworn fealty to our English sovereign. A small expeditionary force led by the Duke of Lancaster had already landed there and was awaiting our arrival. Once the king’s army united with the garrisons of Gascony and with Lancaster’s men, we would fall over the border into France with all the power of a mighty waterfall. Then let the usurper of France lift his head in astonishment! Then let the house of Valois tremble for its ill gotten gains!

The sea, however, seemed to be on the side of French Philip. For five days we tossed about like butter in a churn. Whenever the perseverant pilots took the ships a league or two beyond land, the watchful waves cast us back on the coast of Cornwall. Our English king was a masterful man, but he knew when to cry
Deus
li
vo
lt
and let circumstances have their way. “If the wind will take us to Normandy,” said he, “then to Normandy we will go.”

So the plan for Gascony was abandoned, and having submitted ourselves to the will of the sea, we found a calm southeasterly passage to the coast of the Cotentin. This beachfront, jutting out from Normandy like a gnarled thumb, boasts the second shortest crossing between our lands. It is a place well acquainted with launches and landings. On a shore not far from this one, the Norman duke William once readied an invading army bound for Pevensey, Hastings, and the English crown. Now, eight generations later, his Plantagenet descendant had returned to be a conqueror in his own right.

It was mid July, but the water of the channel was still as cold as a mountain spring. The cogs had all beached, and upward of fifteen thousand men were clamoring to disembark. They were not the only creatures champing at the bit. Untrammeled at last, the mettlesome steeds were half-crazed from the cramped conditions aboard the ship. But before the shore could be fully attained, a foot-wetting awaited them.

“
Here, boy!” said my lord Chandos. “Take my horse!”

“
Gently, gently,” I breathed, patting the heaving withers of my master’s destrier. I had been Sir John Chandos’s squire for a year now, and the horse knew me well, a friend from frequent saddlings, combings, and feedings. I guided him firmly into the boiling surf, keeping a soothing hand on his neck all the while. Once on dry ground, he ceased his nervous plunging and waited quietly while I brought my own nag onto the sandy shore. I was one of the first to disembark; I waited on the strand for some time as the rest of the bellicose passengers splashed their way to the beach.

The crowded docks at Cornwall had given me no leisure to survey the full scope of our company. Here the empty shore of the Norman coast displayed them to their full advantage. I saw scores of archers tromping loudly through the surf, holding their longbows above their heads to protect them from the wet. The men-at-arms sang out lustily as they stepped onto dry ground, thanking the Holy Trinity that they had reached terra firma at last. The knights came ashore in full battle gear having donned their crests at the first sight of land. The flamboyant reds and yellows on their coats-of-arms sparkled as brilliantly as the salt water surrounding them.

Once each ship had surrendered its inmates, we crossed the dune that separated the sea from the countryside. The roar of the surf grew fainter, and the hubbub of men grew louder. I saw that many were beginning to unload their packs.

“
Shall we arm ourselves and ride?” I asked eagerly, for in those days I knew as little of strategy as a boy brought up in the monasteries. I knew only that we had come to fight the French, and now that we were in France, I wished to do battle.

“
Nay, nay,” said my master Chandos patiently. “We must settle our forces and pitch camp first. We’ll not go riding off into French territory willy nilly without drawing up into proper formation and sending out a scouting division.”

“
Indeed,” I nodded sagely, trying to conceal my inexperience by assenting to what must have been common knowledge.

“
And then there’s the little matter of finances,” said Chandos with a gleam in his eye. “It’s many a fancy farthing to collect an army of this size. His Majesty must see about raising some of the gold before we find ourselves up to the neck in gore.”

“
But surely it would have been easier to raise the money in England?” I asked puzzled.

“
For any ordinary tax, yes,” said Chandos with a shrug, “but this shield fee is just as well paid on foreign soil as not. It is a tax the nobles will not grudge, for it can only be demanded of them once in a king’s lifetime.”

The shield fee, as you may know, is the sum that each English knight, baron, or noble owes to our king when his eldest son receives knighthood. Edward, the young Prince of Wales, was in our company and had not yet felt the accolade upon his shoulder.

I had seen the prince several times from no great distance, for my lord Chandos was on familiar terms with the royal household. He was a dark, comely youth, taller than me by nearly a head. He was young to be made a knight, a fact I knew full well, for it had been borne in on me since birth that the prince and I were of the same age. But he was a prince and a Plantagenet—and at the same age his father had been crowned king of England. A man of lowlier parentage might expect to wait four more years to receive the spurs, or even longer if it were not a time of war. A man of my parentage might never be knighted at all.

“
It will be a great thing then for the prince to be knighted,” said I, a little enviously, “if His Majesty can turn such a profit off of it.”

“
Mind your tongue!” said Chandos, in response to my pert words. “It is a great thing to be knighted no matter the circumstances or the compensation. I’ll warrant a pup like you would give your eye teeth for such a chance.”

“
Lord! And give up being your squire? Not I!” I spat on the ground in mock contempt, but he and I both knew the truth. I would give up far more than my eye teeth for the accolade and the spurs.

The knighting took precedence over setting up camp. The king and his nobles mounted a small hill that straddled the seashore and the countryside. The Earls of Warwick, Northampton, and Arundel were there and Sir Walter Manny, the king’s favorite baron. They stood solemnly on the hillside, making a wide circle to encompass the ceremony that was to come. The men-at-arms and lowlier folk waited below, uninvited to the ceremony. Chandos, as usual, followed in the king’s train. And strangely enough, he bade me accompany him, insisting that my presence was necessary to carry his shield and a certain important scroll.

I hefted the shield over my arm and pocketed the scroll in the breast of my jerkin. As other squires looked on brimming over with youthful jealousy, I bore my lord’s shield to the crest of the hill. And thus it came to pass that I stood no more than ten paces away when the king unsheathed his sword to knight his firstborn.

Edward, our king, was in the height of his powers in the year of the invasion. Both the salty breeze on the prospect and the prospect of imminent conquest had combined to augment his handsome virility. He was thirty-four years old, tall, fierce, and majestic.

Kneeling on the ground before him was a younger copy of himself. The lithe, long-limbed Prince of Wales had none of the Flemish softness that characterized his mother Philippa. He was made of the same stern stuff as his father and his Plantagenet ancestors, rods of iron that could smash their enemies into pieces like shards of pottery. Men of this race do not kneel to others and so it was a remarkable sight to see his royal highness with head bowed and knee bended before his king and father. It has been fourteen years since the day of the prince’s knighting, and since then I have only seen him kneel to one other.

In days of peace the ceremony would have lasted far longer. The prince had spent years in preparation for knighthood, and it seemed a pity that it should pass in an instant, like a puff of smoke, like a ripple in water, or even like a violent sneeze. First, there should have been the ceremonial bath. The warm, scented water would purify his body while two older knights instructed him in the purity of heart a knight must possess. Then, there should have been the vigil. Throughout the darkness of the night, he would prostrate himself before the light of the chapel’s altar in humble prayer. And on the morrow, in the great hall of Westminster, he would walk fearlessly through a staring crowd of gentlefolk to receive a stately tap with the flat of a sword.

To be knighted on the fields of France was another matter. It was all over in a moment. The words were said, the tap was given. Two grizzled knights, my master Chandos and his boon companion Audley, advanced to buckle the ceremonial golden spurs onto the prince’s heels. And then arose the newest knight in Christendom, Edward of Woodstock, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, and Prince of Wales.

“
You are a knight now,” I heard the king say to his son, “And as such, you may confer the same honor on those whom you will.”

“
Aye, highness,” said Sir Walter Manny, whose counsel was respected by king and commoner alike. “And besides conferring this honor upon your nobles, you must also set about creating a household of your own warriors. A royal must have none about him but belted knights; no half-fledged squire should wait attendance upon you.”

The prince nodded in compliance, and Chandos advanced toward him. “I have a list of half a dozen young lords who would be grateful for such preferment.”

I removed the scroll from the breast of my tunic. This was my moment to come before the royal notice! The prince extended a gloved hand, and at a word from my master, I deposited the scroll inside his open fist. He gave me a simple gramercy and I resumed my place behind my master, an insignificant caterpillar in this grand assembly of butterflies.

“
They are worthies all,” the prince commented dryly, his eyes overglancing the list presented, “of good parentage and suitable age. Let them advance in turn.” At a word from Chandos, the stage was set to admit another initiate into the inner circle of chivalry.

William Montague, the young Earl of Salisbury, was the first to receive knighthood from his royal highness. A slim youth of fair complexion, he was two years the prince’s senior. His father, the old Earl of Salisbury, had served the king well both in France and at home. The previous earl had been a formidable captain in the war against the Scots. For his valiant service, Edward had given him the Isle of Man as a reward. The old earl did not enjoy his new domain for long. When he returned to England, he jousted poorly in a tournament at Windsor and fell in the lists. He never recovered from his wounds. The Isle of Man, as well as the rest of Salisbury’s estates, passed into the hands of his young son, William Montague. That was two years before the present campaign. Now, in a quiet way, the new earl was rapidly earning the respect that his father had accrued with a lifetime of arms. It was rumored that the king had a brilliant marriage in store for him.

The second to receive knighthood was Roger Mortimer. This youth, much of an age with Salisbury, was grandson to the infamous Mortimer who seduced the mother of our king. On account of his progenitor’s perfidy, Mortimer’s lands and titles had been stripped from his house when he was still in the cradle. His own father had died just a year after his grandfather met the noose. Fortunately for the kingdom, young Roger’s character was cast in a more honorable mold than that of his forbearers. Now, at the age of eighteen, he was beginning to restore the honor that his grandfather had tarnished, and he would eventually reclaim the title Earl of March with his valorous exploits in France.

The prince was not thrifty with his accolades, and several more youths entered the halls of knighthood that day. Like Salisbury and Mortimer, most of them were already lords in their own right. They had their own households to attend to, their own vassals to manage, and their own companies to collect.

“
Highness,” interjected Sir Walter Manny once again. “May I be so bold as to nominate some squires worthy of an accolade from your hand? They are of good but lowly parentage. You have left most of your own household in Cornwall, and it would be fitting for our newly knighted prince to elevate some new knights to serve as his attendants.”

Overhearing these words, I stifled my overwhelming desire to fall on my face like the prophet Isaiah and cry out “Here am I!” I was a squire, and my parentage was lowly enough. My father was a plain man-at-arms who had never felt the accolade. My mother was a waiting lady, of poor but honest means. To become a knight of the prince’s household was a boon I could hardly hope to receive, but even so I dared to hope it—until Chandos frowned and shook his head at Manny.