‘Is there anything I can do for you, Sir Wulfstan?’ he asked with a smile, and when his friend, feeling a little steadier after the wine, asked to be taken to see and untie Troilus, Robert gladly agreed, adding that he would then take the horse to the Benedictine monastery east of the field of battle, to offer him as a gift to the brothers; but when they reached the tree where the horse had been tethered, he was not there, and Wulfstan could not hide his distress. Robert sympathized, but said it was not surprising.
‘Stands to reason, a man who’s lost his own horse will be only too pleased to find another tied up and waiting for him,’ he gently pointed out, for he knew of Wulfstan’s deep attachment to his steed, a gift from his brother Oswald some seven years previously, before he had come to France and the Maison Duclair.
‘I can go and look for him among the fallen,’ he went on, ‘but first I’ll take you back to the camp.’
But Wulfstan absolutely refused to return to the camp, and insisted on going to look for Troilus on the field of battle. Hanging on to Robert with his right arm, and gasping with pain at every step, he managed to walk for several hundred yards, down to a shallow depression in the ground where dead and wounded horses lay in their own blood, flies buzzing over them, some twitching in death throes, some still crying out weakly, a sound more like a man in pain than an animal.
‘Oh, my Troilus, what suffering I’ve caused you,’ groaned Wulfstan, fearful of what he might find, and fervently hoping that the horse had escaped into the countryside around Poitiers.
They found Troilus, an arrow through his head and a deep wound in his belly from which his guts protruded. And Sir Wulfstan Wynstede, newly appointed a knight of the realm in his nineteenth year, eased himself down beside his faithful friend and wept aloud at such an end to a noble horse, and for all the innocent beasts around them who suffered because of man’s thoughtless cruelty.
Six
1356–1357
After such a resounding victory, there were many among the Black Prince’s army who wished he had progressed to the gates of Paris and entered the city in triumph, a conquering hero. He decided against such a gesture, for his men had gained so much booty, piled into their carts, that there was no room for more; and there was one trophy he dared not risk losing, and that was the King of France, who with the young Prince Philippe rode immediately behind him, treated with courtesy but not allowed to forget his captive state.
And besides, the Black Prince was tired after such a long campaign, and so were his men. There were some severely wounded who had to be carried on litters: men like Charles de Lusignan and Sir Wulfstan Wynstede, for whose sake the retreat to Bordeaux was slow, with frequent stops for overnight lodgings. The people had no choice but to supply them with bed and board, though they shrank back from them, fearful of being robbed or worse by their unwelcome guests.
Wulfstan was made as comfortable as possible, and shared the attentions of the Prince’s own surgeon; a sweltering fever set in after two days, and he muttered incoherently about Troilus, pleading for his horse to be brought to him so that he could serve the Black Prince. He was given infusions and herbal elixirs to ease his pain, and these clouded his wits further but gave him the respite of fitful sleep for short periods until pain stabbed him back to wakeful delirium.
They reached Bordeaux in early October. The French king and his son shared the Black Prince’s lodgings in the archbishop’s palace, as did Sir Wulfstan; Charles de Lusignan was also kept under observation there, and his friends shook their heads at the gravity of his condition. There was some disagreement between his attendants as to whether his injured leg should be sawn off above the knee, and there were those who advised the Prince that young Sir Wulfstan would recover more quickly without his lifeless, useless left arm. The Prince was reluctant to agree to either of these drastic measures, and the consensus of opinion for the time being was to wait and see how both of them progressed or failed to do so.
By mid-November Wulfstan began to improve; he became aware of his surroundings and marvelled at the comfort provided for him by the Black Prince, who visited him from time to time, bringing a gift of wine and words of encouragement. Some of the officers with families in occupied France began to leave Bordeaux, among them Jean-Pierre Fourrier; Eric and Robert wanted to return to England, but the sea voyage was difficult and dangerous in winter.
‘We’re thinking of crossing the country to Normandy and sailing from Calais,’ Robert told Wulfstan. ‘It’s the shortest route across the Narrow Sea, and we’d avoid the storms of Biscay. There isn’t much we can usefully do here.’
‘And the antics of the common soldiers, like the ones who nearly murdered the French king, are giving us all a bad name,’ added Eric. ‘They’ve emptied the fat purses they came back with, and they’re roving around in lawless bands, terrorizing the local people, helping themselves to farm produce and wine – and not only that. Respectable families are having to lock up their daughters when these conquering heroes appear over the horizon.’
Hearing this immediately alerted Wulfstan to the danger that Madame Merlette and Dorine might be in, and he longed to get up from his bed and visit them. Robert was again staying in lodgings with their former landlady, and told his friend that the mother and daughter were safe with him to protect them. Wulfstan was partly reassured, but remembered that Robert had been the first to notice Dorine in a lustful way, and being a drinker might lose his inhibitions one night and try to take advantage of her.
There came a dark day in early December when Charles de Lusignan’s condition began to deteriorate, and black areas on his injured right leg showed that the flesh was dying. The Prince’s surgeon at once prepared to saw off the leg above the knee, and the Count and the Dominican friar were present when the desperate remedy took place. Charles was given wine and sedative infusions of valerian roots, but he was barely conscious anyway. The huge unsuppressed groan that was heard by Wulfstan in his room and others in the vicinity was not from Charles but from his father as the bone-saw did its work, and an assistant stood by to cauterize the stump with a red-hot iron; the friar held up a wooden Cross and said prayers for Charles and his father. The next few days would decide Charles’s fate, whether he died or lived to recover, and Wulfstan’s thoughts were deep. Even if Charles survived he would be a cripple with a wooden leg, unable to fight under the Black Prince’s banner again; and similarly, Wulfstan’s left arm, even if the shoulder joint healed, was not likely to regain its former strength in the service of Edward the Black Prince who had so recently bestowed a knighthood upon him. What use as a knight would he be now? He was deeply disappointed with himself on this account, and confessed as much to the Prince when he came to speak with him after visiting Charles.
‘There are other ways of serving your country, Wulfstan,’ the Prince answered with a smile. ‘I have heard from Monseigneur Duclair that you can both read and write in French, English and Latin, and that you have some dexterity with numbers. If this is the case, let me appoint you straightway to assist my scrivener, for he has broken his right wrist and can’t use his hand.’
‘I shall be more than happy to serve you in that way, my liege, though I pray that my left arm will soon be healed,’ replied Wulfstan gratefully, but embarrassed and ashamed when his eyes filled with tears; this was no behaviour for a knight of the realm! But the Prince, knowing how close to death he had been, and the pain he had suffered, chose not to notice this weakness, and took his leave, appointing Wulfstan as assistant both to the scrivener and the Keeper of the Purse in the Prince’s household as soon as he felt able.
Ten days before the Feast of the Nativity Wulfstan happily presented himself before his Prince in that capacity; and at the same time his friend Charles de Lusignan was pronounced to be out of danger. Eric Berowne and Robert Poulter decided to travel north-eastwards to Calais, to sail from there to England. Wulfstan became anxious about Madame Merlette and her daughter, left without protection from lawless soldiers bored wi
th nothing to do but make trouble.
A week before the Eve of the Nativity, Wulfstan went to visit Charles in his room, and was shocked by the young man’s appearance, so thin, and his face scarcely recognizable, chalk-white and drawn; he nevertheless greeted his friend with pleasure.
‘Sir Wulfstan, old fellow! A pretty pair of soldiers we make now, me with one leg and you still hanging on to your arm! How are you? Have you been in much pain?’
Wulfstan glanced from Charles to the Count de Lusignan who spent practically all his waking hours at his son’s bedside; he looked almost worse than Charles, having aged ten years, haggard with guilt and bitter regret.
Wulfstan winced at being called Sir. ‘The pain is bearable,’ he said lightly, ‘though I wish the Prince had not been so ready to make me a knight, for I fear I may never serve him again as a soldier.’
‘Neither will I, Wulfstan, but we must thank God for sparing our lives.’
At this point the Count rose and strode round the room in great agitation. ‘I am blameworthy, Wulfstan! I talked Charles into going to war when he did not wish it or believe in it, having already lost my elder son Piers, his brother, at Crécy. Oh, may I be forgiven, though I’ll never forgive myself – what shall I tell his wife? What can I say to his mother? They were opposed to this from the start!’
It felt strange to Wulfstan to be addressed as if on equal footing with the Count. As a boy, his family had looked up to the owners of Castle de Lusignan as greatly superior to the impoverished Wynstedes. The horrors of Crécy and the death of Piers had levelled the social barriers between the two families, and Charles had married Wulfstan’s sister Ethelreda, to raise more de Lusignans. Under these changed circumstances, he attempted to offer some comfort to the Count.
‘Charles has survived, sir, and will in time recover his strength to assist you at running the castle estate,’ he said gently. ‘His sons Piers and Norval will grow up to be his . . . your inheritors.’
‘I hope you may be right, Wulfstan,’ said the Count in a voice choked with regret. ‘I’ll do all I can for him when we get home. I’ll send for that infirmarian at the Abbey, what’s his name . . . Valerian – to see Charles and give advice. Everybody speaks of his skill.’
Wulfstan was conscious of an echo in his mind at hearing that name from his childhood. Friar Valerian had come to the aid of the Wynstedes in their times of trouble, but had always disappeared again into his life as a mendicant friar.
With a few more determinedly jocular exchanges with Charles and his father, Wulfstan left them and walked slowly down the spiral stairs of the palace; he went out into the inner courtyard, breathing in the air of a cold but clear December day and thinking of another visit he soon had to make, to Madame Merlette’s modest boarding house. He had mixed emotions, longing to see Dorine again, yet fearing the meeting with her and her mother. It had been a whole year since that stolen kiss in the wintry garden when he had cut a fine figure in his military tunic and mantle. Now with his left arm bandaged to his side, and a constant pain in his left shoulder that sent sharp shocks down his arm, reflected in the frown lines on his forehead, he was much less impressive, and half afraid to appear before her. What would she think of him? What would she say? Would she be disappointed? There was only one way of finding out, and he walked resolutely down into the town.
His mouth was set in a straight line as he knocked at the door. A maidservant opened to him, she of the snub nose and button eyes. She gave him a suspicious look when he asked to see Madame Merlette, left him standing on the doorstep while she went to call her mistress, and returned to ask him to step into the kitchen as being the warmest room in the house. He followed her in, and stood by a window looking out on to the back yard, uncertain whether to sit down or remain standing. When Madame Merlette entered the room, he bowed to her. She did not offer him her hand to shake, much less to kiss.
‘Good day, sir,’ she said without smiling. ‘I’ve heard that you have a wound, a broken arm that it was feared might be lost.’
‘It is my shoulder that is broken, Madame, and my arm is affected by it. But how are you, Madame? And Dor-Mademoiselle – are you both well?’
‘We are well enough,’ she said. ‘Thanks be to God, we have no English soldiers taking up room in our home at present.’ Her voice was cold.
‘Oh.’ He paused, hardly knowing how to reply. ‘Master Robert Poulter has left you.’ It sounded unclear as to whether this was a question or statement of fact. ‘I have thought often of you and . . . you and your daughter.’ He winced as a stab of pain shot through his shoulder and down his arm to the useless hand. ‘I would have come earlier, had it not been for this injury. Is it possible that I may speak to Mademoiselle Merlette? I have a small gift for her, and also for you, Madame.’
‘Master Poulter tried several times to offer us gifts,’ she said stonily. ‘We did not accept them. We have no wish to receive plunder stolen from our own countrymen.’
‘Oh, this is not plunder, Madame, but honestly bought and paid for, I assure you.’ He had two rings of solid silver, one with a single opal set at its centre, intended for Dorine, the other with a garnet, for her mother. He now took them from his pocket, each wrapped in a little black velvet pouch, which he opened to show to her. She glanced at them briefly, but said nothing. He spoke again, hesitantly.
‘If I may speak with your daughter, Madame—’
‘I’ll fetch her, but she’s working and can’t stay here talking.’
She left the room, leaving him standing awkwardly. What could have happened since they last met, to turn her friendship and generosity to such cold disapproval? Several minutes passed before she returned, followed by Dorine. He caught his breath at the sight of the girl, now sixteen, and even prettier than he remembered. Her figure was maturing into womanly curves, but there was no smile for him, only a rather scared look. After a quick glance at Madame, he bowed to her daughter and held out his hand which Dorine warily took, also glancing at her mother as if for permission. He did not dare raise her fingers to his lips.
‘Mademoiselle Merlette,’ he said, releasing her hand. ‘I have thought of you often over the past year, and prayed for your health and . . . er . . . well-being. Madame tells me that you are well.’
‘No thanks to Poulter,’ broke in Madame. ‘And no thanks to the common soldiers who have been in here, drinking and behaving indecently. I have had to lock Dorine in her room on occasion, for her protection, for fear of her being ill-used by such rabble.’
‘Oh, I am so sorry to hear that, Madame!’ cried Wulfstan, at once outraged. ‘I thought that Robert . . . that Master Poulter would protect you both, as he told me he would. Did he not intervene?’
‘Poulter was all right when sober, but he was drunk nearly every night,’ retorted Madame. ‘And when he’d filled his belly with wine, he was as bad as any of them.’
Wulfstan was appalled. ‘I did not know of this, and he has left for England now, or I would thrash him for a liar and a lecher!’
‘And may all English riff-raff follow him there, the sooner the better! He tried to enter Dorine’s room on the night before he left, and I had to heave the drunken brute away from her door. Would that he had fallen downstairs and broken his neck!’
This was worse than anything Wulfstan had feared. He straightened himself up, causing a sharp pain to stab his shoulder. ‘I am deeply grieved to hear this – I apologize on behalf of my countrymen – and a man I looked on as my friend.’ His face was pale as he faced the two women. ‘If I can make amends in any way . . .’
‘Only to go away and leave us alone,’ replied Madame. He looked at Dorine who lowered her eyes. At sixteen she must be already disillusioned with the world of men, he thought. Her mother had spoken for them both.
‘I am sorry from my heart, Dorine,’ he said. ‘And I beg you not to associate me with any of these men – or with Poulter.’ He turned to Madame, pleading with her. ‘Will you allow me to visit again – and escort you
to the Mass on the Eve of the Nativity, as last year?’
‘We shall not be going this year,’ replied Madame. ‘We shall say our prayers at home, and ask the Lord to drive out all English and Gascon scum from our city of Bordeaux. Good day to you, Master Wynstede,’ she added, knowing nothing about his new status as a knight.
‘But Madame, dear Madame Merlette, I would protect you both from such scum!’
Her eyes were hard as she looked at him. ‘With only one arm? You’d hardly be able to defend a dog. Good day, Wynstede.’
His pale face flushed at the sneer, none the less painful because it was true, and had come from Dorine’s mother. Dorine herself had not uttered a single word.
The Feast of the Nativity was lavishly celebrated in the archbishop’s palace, and the Black Prince’s famed generosity was shown by the gifts he showered on those commanders who had fought at the Battle of Poitiers and the long campaign which had preceded it. The Duke of Lancaster sent a message of deep regret that he had met with unexpected military defiance among the men of Normandy and Brittany, and had been forced to remain there instead of marching southwards to meet his cousin; he received immediate pardon. The Prince’s newly appointed scribe and treasurer was privy to these messages, and knew that the administrative work still to be done would prevent his master from returning to England until the spring; and whereas this was a disappointment to many officers who wanted only to go home, Sir Wulfstan was delighted to work so closely with the Prince, greatly preferring this to life at Ebbasterne Hall. Discussions were going ahead for a truce with France, and negotiations regarding the amount of ransom to be demanded for the most important prisoners taken, the greatest prize of course being the French King John II and young Prince Philippe, currently staying in the archbishop’s palace and treated more like honoured guests than captives.
Wulfstan began to feel his natural strength and energy returning, although the pain in his shoulder gave him little respite; the surgeon advised him to exercise his left arm gently, but it had neither power nor feeling, and now seemed to be shorter than his right arm, which was constantly employed in his lord’s service, and his reward was the praise the Prince bestowed upon him.
Every Noble Knight Page 9
