I Serve (33 page)

By the time our army had reached Gascony and set up a base in Bordeaux, the first signs of the winter chill had already appeared. Whatever was to be done must be done quickly before the weather circumvented our purpose. The day after our arrival the prince swore an oath before the nobles of Gascony that as the king’s deputy he would observe the rights, liberties, and customs of all citizens of Guienne. Then, assured of his commitment toward them, the Gascon nobles and merchants wholeheartedly committed their vassals and goods to the prince. A council of war commenced.

Warwick was for striking northward against the domains of King John; but the Captal de Buch insisted that since the Comte d’Armagnac was the one who had violated the borders of Gascony, the Comte d’Armagnac must be the one to feel the fury of the English (and Gascon) army. The prince agreed that the interests of the Gascons must be put first. In two weeks he found his army augmented by four or five thousand Gascons ready to press forward into the territory of d’Armagnac.

The army, once it passed over the border of Gascony, was separated into three parallel groups by its commander. Nine years ago the prince had watched his father’s army march from the Contenin to Calais, and he had not forgotten the manner of its marching. Fanned out along the Garonne River, our army cut a wide swath through d’Armagnac’s territory, burning and plundering everything in our path. The three armies, marching side by side, met town after town, castle after castle, stronghold after stronghold. Most were taken and destroyed with barely half a day’s halt.

One town, a place called Bassoues, belonged to the archbishop of Auch. The town surrendered as did the others, but the prince would allow none of the army to enter it for plunder. “We fight against France, not the church,” said he. The prince put a small sum of money into the hand of Sir John Chandos and bade him enter the town to seek supplies. The prince knew that Sir John Chandos was a pious man, and that the property of the church would suffer no scathe from his intrusion.

In one incident, the prince resolved to spend the night in a captured citadel. The soldiers were so eager to fire the town the next day that they applied the torches before the prince and I had awoken and taken to horse. “
Allons
!
” shouted Brocas rushing into my room. “Hurry if you don’t want to be roasted!” I had barely time to throw on my clothes and snatch up my sword before the fortress was filled with smoke. It was a Gascon company who had fired the town, and the prince minced no words when he berated the company commander for his incompetence. From this time forward on the campaign, he always made a point of sleeping in the field, and I roundly cursed the Gascon stupidity that forced me to sleep inside of a tent when there were beds enough to be had in the cities.

Wherever we went we met with only shallow resistance. The Comte d’Armagnac had hidden himself away in the fortified city of Toulouse. Aware of the prince’s arrival in Gascony, he had provisioned and garrisoned Toulouse to withstand all assault. The prince was unwilling to besiege such a well-fortified city, so he continued his depredations on the countryside. The Comte would be a shabby suzerain indeed if he did not come out of hiding before all of his fief was in flames.

Carcassonne, though not as wealthy as Toulouse, was as populous and prosperous as the English city of York. The prince spent two days there laying siege to the castle before he gave up and set fire to the town. The destruction of Carcassonne failed to adequately stimulate the Comte so we pressed forward toward the even richer city of Narbonne.

The people of Narbonne fled from us as if from a crowd of lepers. They quitted their thatch-roofed homes and retreated into the castle, sending frantic messages to their liege to succor them. These cries finally produced a response. D’Armagnac, who would not encounter us on his own strength, had received reinforcement from King John. He exited Toulouse and drew near to Narbonne to draw off our army from thence. “He’s left his den at last,” said the prince eagerly. Casting Narbonne aside as a boy does with a nut he cannot open, we turned about to face the Comte D’Armagnac.

Though the Comte had spent much time marshalling his forces, those forces had spent little time marshalling their courage. Our alacrity in accosting them dismayed them; they took refuge behind the river and cut down all the bridges to prevent us from crossing. It took us a day to repair the bridges, and when we crossed, we found that they had drawn back even further into a little town. We advanced and camped for a whole day in front of the town waiting for our adversary in full battle array. No one came. On the morrow we entered the town and found that the French had withdrawn yet again.

When it became apparent that the Comte’s men would do no battle with us, the prince called a council to decide our course of action. “It’s nearly Christmastide,” reminded Chandos, “and the weather’s been louring of late.”

“
Aye, highness,” said the Captal de Buch regretfully. “Let’s retire till spring, and if those
bâtards
of D’Armagnac will meet us then, we’ll have a proper battle.”

The prince acquiesced to their wisdom, and we returned to Bordeaux for the winter. Although the Gascons were happy to see the Comte D’Armagnac punished for his depredations, the prince’s extensive raid had done little to improve the English holdings on the continent. Lancaster’s foray into Normandy had been as ineffective as ours. Realistically, the expedition had commenced too close to winter to accomplish anything significant. But the new year held brighter promise. The king approved of the prince’s plan to wait in Gascony till spring. And so we stayed.

The winter months passed slowly. While the weather was too unpredictable to stage a large-scale assault, dry spells often afforded opportunities for swift sallies. Raiding parties led by the Earl of Warwick, by Sir John Chandos, or by the Earl of Salisbury crossed into French territory and illuminated the night sky with their fires. On one occasion, when the prince’s warband approached a small town, the inhabitants sent out a bishop to buy us off with a chest of gold.

“
What do I want with your money?” the prince replied in scorn. “The king of England, by God’s grace, is rich enough to supply for my needs. I will not take gold and silver for such a cowardly arrangement. No! I will do what I came to do—to chastise, discipline, and make war on all inhabitants of this duchy who are in rebellion against their father! If you men of Guienne will not recall your former allegiance, I will make you recall it by force of arms.”

It was a grand speech, gallant in its defiance. But for all that, I was wondering if it were not better to take the bribe. The prince’s coffers had run very low indeed; and though he boasted that his father was well able to supply us, that boast carried more bravado than verisimilitude.

A rainy spring followed the cold winter and we continued to wait for the weather to clear. One day in early May, a ship put in at Bordeaux bearing orders from King Edward. That was not all the ship bore. I stared openmouthed at the emissary the king had sent— Thomas Holland, the Earl of Kent. While the prince, the Captal de Buch, Chandos, and Audley closeted themselves with His Majesty’s letter. I was left to see to the accommodations of the bearer.

“
So, Potenhale,” said Holland, walking beside me a little unsteadily. “I see you have not quitted your master’s service.”

“
Certainly not,” I replied. “I shall always remember my duty to him.”

“
It is well you have a good memory, sirrah,” retorted Holland. “I hope you have not forgotten that drubbing I gave you at Windsor.”

I looked up at him sharply. His fleshy form no longer inspired the same dread it once had. I remembered the prickly drops of sweat sliding down my face and the sticky apprehension in my mouth when he had first challenged me to joust. I had no such tremors now. I folded my arms across my chest. “Yea, I remember Windsor right well, my lord. You had the advantage of me then. But if you would deign to break lances with me again, I will show you what mettle has been forged in me. You will not take my horse and arms so easily this time, even with such a jade’s trick as an unlaced helmet.”

Holland looked me up and down. I had come into my full height since the tournament at Windsor, and though I was an inch or two shy of the prince’s stature, I was reckoned tall by many. My shoulders were as broad as Holland’s but knit with younger sinews. My arms and legs gleamed like pillars of bronze. I wore a black scalloped tunic with my silver chevron emblazoned across my taut chest.

“
Ha!” said Holland scornfully, but I sensed a note of hesitation in his voice. “An’ we had time to fight a tourney, I would remind you how it feels to be unhorsed. But we must be about the king’s business, not our own. Leave me, boy. I must rest.”

I learned the contents of the king’s letter later that night. In it Edward had enjoined his son to make no move from Gascony until Lancaster had time to receive reinforcements in the North. Then Edward desired the two commanders to muster their men, advance toward each other, and meet in the center of France where the two armies would fuse together like bars of molten steel. Our instructions beyond this point were uncertain. Possibly our united forces would then march on Paris. Or possibly we would encounter King John and best him in the field with a second Crecy.

At the end of the letter the king hinted that he himself might be coming to join Lancaster and to take charge of the expedition. “What response will your highness make to that suggestion?” I asked.

“
A most filial response,” replied the prince. “I shall write how my heart yearns for his presence, and yet deplores the thought of him suffering such care and trouble. I shall lament the hardship he will undergo and express fervent prayers that his health would not suffer in this campaign.”

“
Will that stop him from coming?” I asked.

“
Who can tell?” answered the prince.

*****

It was not until the middle of the summer that our plans matured. Lancaster had roused himself in Normandy and was bringing his force down to the Loire valley. The Gascons and we would go up from Bordeaux and meet Lancaster near the city of Orleans.

Edward, as it turned out, had been distracted by affairs in England and could not cross the Channel to join the army—although he continued to promise his presence later in the season. The prince showed no improper emotion at the receipt of this news, but I doubt not that his highness was glad of his father’s absence. The autumnal raiding party of the previous year had given him little chance to prove his mettle as sole commander. The summer boasted greater promise.

Holland, having no such pressing affairs in England, had remained with our company in France. “If it pleases your highness,” he had said to the prince, “I shall lead a company in the summer campaign.”

I listened eagerly, waiting for the prince to refuse him. But my master received Holland’s service with equanimity, or even enthusiasm. “Aye, it pleases me well,” said the prince. And thereupon, he set Holland over a company of two hundred men-at-arms. It was a sound tactical move; Holland had proved himself many times to be an able commander of men. But the matter did not please me. I could not stand to see his highness give preference to Holland, the man who blocked my matrimonial desires like an iron portcullis.

As in the previous expedition, our English army was augmented by an even larger force of Gascons. The Captal de Buch would have joined us at their head; however, spies brought word that the Comte d’Armagnac had mobilized his forces once again. “Viper!” boomed Audley. “He’ll come slithering into Gascony the moment we turn our backs.”

“
And for that reason,” said the prince firmly, “de Grailly must stay behind.”

“
But your highness!” pleaded le Captal de Buch, his moustaches wagging in pathetic remonstrance. His excitement over the upcoming campaign was second no man’s. “Have we not fought together these many months? Are we not brothers of the sword?” His eyes brimmed over with tears at the thought of the prince leaving him behind in Bordeaux.

“
Aye, we are sword brothers,” replied the prince kindly. “Yet you are also the seneschal of Gascony. You must serve where you are called, not where you wish. My heart is sore to forego your company, but you must remain at your post to deal with d’Armagnac when we are gone. It would be a pretty folly to report to His Majesty that we had moved our forces to the Loire valley, only to lose the heartland around the Garonne.”

I saw then that the prince rejected the Captal de Buch’s company for the same reason that he had received Holland’s. He had found the place where each man might best serve, to the end that he himself might render better service to his father.

Once we received word that Lancaster was on the move, the prince struck north immediately. In the raid of the previous year, the prince had tolerated some of the natural disorderliness of the men—not so on this expedition. In words as firm as granite, he commanded the men to keep to their ranks. “I forbid any man to wander about the countryside unarmed,” said he. “At all times, you will keep the armor of leather and steel upon your breast, and the armor of penitence and the Eucharist upon your soul. At all times, you will be ready to fight those who have rebelled against the rightful rule of my father. And at all times, you will live in worldly honor so that dying you may enter eternal honor.”

I took the prince’s admonishments to heart. There was a comfortingly familiar ring to them. Here were the same precepts that Sir Geoffroi de Charny had enjoined me to follow. Here was the code that keeps the soul of a fighting man in brighter polish than the soul of a monk. As the pace of our northward journey increased, I increased the frequency of my confessions and strove to purify my mind of evil desire.