THE LANDING OF THE CONQUEROR JULY – AUGUST, 1346
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 volt 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.
“Nay, Sir Walter,” said my master. “Let be, let be!”
“Aye,” said Audley, agreeing with Chandos as was his wont. “No more knightings!” Audley’s voice was as harsh as a crow; his black humor made him easily distinguishable in any crowd. He was a short, stocky man with close cropped hair. The grey which had started to tinge my master’s black hair had already liberally sprinkled Audley’s sandy head. Both Chandos and Audley were of the older generation. They had fought the Scots under the second Edward; they would fight the French under the third Edward.
“Wait until the men have matched their mettle against the French,” said Chandos.
“Then’s the time to be noticing worthy squires, for then’s the time they’ll prove their worth.”
“You hear these two old bloodhounds?” said the prince to Walter Manny. “There is no gainsaying their wisdom. I’ll rest my sword a little, and when I use it again for a knighting, there shall be blood upon the blade.”
Sir Walter Manny shrugged but made no protest. It was in his nature to think of the lower ranks, for it was out of those lower ranks that he himself had once climbed. Sir Walter had come over from Hainault with Queen Philippa nineteen years earlier when first she wed our king. In those days Manny was no more than a humble meat carver. His was the hand to bring the venison and veal to the royal table, to separate the pheasant thigh from the pheasant breast, and to keep the royal trenchers fully laden. But though his birth promised no advancement, his competence and fidelity augured great things. The young king Edward soon paid heed to his wife’s careful carver; he noted him, knighted him, and nurtured his advancement. Sir Walter proved himself an able soldier in the wars against Scotland. Sir Walter proved himself an able sea captain in the skirmish off the coast of Sluys. And Sir Walter would soon prove himself an able field commander in the invasion of France itself. But the invasion, as yet, was hardly underway; the knighting was finished, the fighting had yet to begin.
“Come,” continued the prince to the men surrounding him. “We’ve tarried long enough upon this hill. With my father’s permission, we’ll adjourn these ceremonies and repair to camp. I’ve a mind to eat my first supper in this land of our Norman fathers. Mortimer, Salisbury, have you stomach?”
“Aye, highness,” said the young Earl of Salisbury with a ready smile.
The prince fell into step with these two companions, and the rest of the company slowly wended its way down the hill. The newly made knights stepped gladly into the prince’s pavilion, while I trudged heavily to Chandos’s quarters, bearing a shield that was not my own.
*****
The seashore camp rose with the summer moon and set just as quickly. On the following morning, we rolled up every ell of canvas and sought out more comfortable quarters. The nearest town was Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue, easily visible from the prospect where the prince had been knighted. Here was our first glimpse of the French!
We advanced upon the city in martial array. The inhabitants had spotted the high masts of our beached ships. Our coming was expected. The governor of La Hougue had hastily collected a small force of men, but they scattered like dried grass before the blast of our mighty army. We took possession of the town with scarcely a drop of bloodshed; indeed, most of the town folk had deserted the place at the first sign of our landing. That night we lay in more comfortable beds than we’d had on ship or in the field.
Both the governor and the few remaining French were anxious and assiduous to please; I found to my pleasant surprise that I could swagger about the streets like a grand milord ordering whatever I wished and taking whatever I desired. The men-at-arms were wild with excitement at this capture of a French citadel. By nightfall they had ransacked
every house, opened every coffer, and extorted from every citizen. The looting fever did not leave me untouched. I joined a company of English soldiers pushing their way into an inn. A frightened Frenchwoman begged us not to hurt her children. I saw two tousled urchins hiding behind the wood counter. “Open your strongbox!” shouted one of the soldiers. She fumbled with the keys at her waistband and, trembling, deposited them in his hands. The soldier shared out the coins to all in our troop with quickly snatched, uneven handfuls. I placed them eagerly inside my purse, a leather bag that was nearly always empty.
It was my first taste of plunder, and it was sweet as honeyed cakes. I wanted to go up and down all the streets, enter all the houses, threaten all the villagers, open all the cabinets. But Chandos kept me busy running errands throughout our stay in La Hougue. I had messages to carry to detachments of soldiers, reports to bring to His Majesty’s headquarters, and victuals to procure for my master. One handful of silver coins was my only memento of La Hougue.
When we left the town on the following day, one company of the army stayed behind. At first, I thought that Edward meant to garrison the place and keep a foothold on the Norman coast for transport or retreat. But I had scarcely gone half a furlong before I saw-and smelled-the reason for the company’s delay. They had orders to destroy the place; La Hougue caught fire like a row of hayricks, the first casualty of France’s folly in resisting our most puissant monarch.
As we began our southeasterly march, raiding parties fanned out over the countryside cutting a wide swath of destruction. After the smoke of La Hougue was behind us, the king had given orders that no town was to be burnt, no churches sacked, and no women or children harmed on pain of life and limb. The king’s officers, however, turned a blind eye to the enforcement of these decrees. I never saw one of our English arraigned and convicted for crimes against the peasants. It was popularly understood that any resistance on the part of the French abrogated the king’s concern for their life and property. And as every village was sure to have a few resisters, every village was in danger of sword and torch. More than once the noontime sky glowed as red as sunset.
I rode out with Chandos every morning, and he, as often as not, rode escort to his highness. Our band was nearly always the first to break camp and assume the vanguard.
The prince was but a new knight, but he had been playing the soldier since he could first hold a sword. He commanded his company with ease and confidence, commandeering cattle, loading wagons with provender, and spreading fire as freely as seed corn.
We continued our southeastern course through Normandy and then turned eastward sharply before entering the county of Anjou. As the prince and his company were riding out that day, we reined up sharply upon a small outcropping. All around us waved fields of yellow broom. “Look!” said Audley loudly. “It is your highness’s flower.” The prince smiled wryly. He reached for one of the taller shrubs, carefully maintaining his seat on his black charger. His fingers seized the yellow broom; he snapped off a single blossom and tucked it jauntily into the top of his basinet.
I looked questioningly at Chandos.
“It is the planta genista,” said he, “the yellow broom. The house of Plantagenet derives its name from these yellow flowers. Here Geoffrey of Anjou fixed the sprig of broom into his hat-just before fixing his interest with Maud, the Conqueror’s granddaughter.
And now the heir of Anjou has come to claim his rightful inheritance at last!”
We marched a fortnight at easy stages preoccupied with pillage till the easterly road took us at last to Caen. I had seen London while in Chandos’s service, but even so, I was
unprepared for the splendor of the city that stood upon our path. London may have been larger, but Caen was of a surety more magnificent. The river Orne divided the city in two parts, like a chain of braided silver across the waist of some magnificent monarch. On the westerly side stood the citadel, two ancient abbeys, and a few small suburbs; on the easterly side lay the heart of the city, replete with handsome houses and glittering gold.
The citadel, we knew, was impregnable. Built by the Conqueror before he conquered England, Caen’s castle was one of the strongest in France. Our great-grandfathers had seen the inside of these walls and had good reason to prize their prowess. Four generations ago, the English had held Caen; but like the rest of Normandy, Caen had been ceded away in the reign of John Lackland. The strength of the castle was now a weapon in the hands of our enemy.
To speak of the citadel’s strength, however, was to say little of the city’s. Caen itself was unwalled, with no natural defenses save the river and a bothersome but passable marsh. Separated from the main city by the Orne, the castle could give little aid to the citizens that sat in its shadow. The Orne proved a faithless friend to the French in another way; as our army approached the vicinity of Caen, our ships-which had been trailing our progress through any accessible waterway-anchored just off the outskirts of the city, waiting like birds of prey to engorge themselves with looted valuables.
I was in the van with the prince when Caen was sighted. We could have halted and waited for the rest of the army to draw up-indeed that was what Chandos advised-but instead, the prince quickened our pace, and we entered the west side of Caen at a headlong gallop. The sight of Caen had excited his blood, and the prince was hot for battle.
I was eager for the coming encounter but also anxious. Here was our first real battle. We had met the French before now, but all of those minor skirmishes had been like practice in the tilting yard. Who knew what lay behind this perimeter of houses? We would ride down upon them, rein up, and what then? The melee would be joined and I would kill or be killed in turn. I had crossed swords with half a dozen men in the course of our raids, but the enemy was always outnumbered, and the kill had never been left to me. The furious pounding of my horse’s hooves was echoed by the frantic pounding of the heart in my chest. The wind blew full in my face, and my mouth was dry with apprehension.
But contrary to expectation, the western half of Caen was as empty as a drunkard’s purse. The inhabitants had either cloistered themselves behind the high walls of their castle or crossed the bridge to the main part of the town. Our company scoured the streets but found no sign of soldiery. We regrouped out of range of the castle’s archery for new orders.
“Highness,” said Chandos, anxious to avoid pressing forward to the bridge without support from the main army. “We’d best secure this side of the river.”
“Aye,” said Audley.
“There’s the two abbeys,” said the prince, looking up at the spires that adorned the skyline. “We shall set up a headquarters there and wait for my father the king to advance.”
“Well chosen, highness,” said Chandos and at a word from the prince, we entered the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, while Audley and another contingent secured the sister building, the Abbaye-aux-Dames.
The streets outside had been silent enough, but their silence was the outside kind that allows a man’s shouts to slice cleanly through the air. The silence inside the abbey was different. It swallowed up your voice with stone and drowned your words in their own echo. The abbot had not fled to the citadel with the rest of the town folk. He met us as we entered and asked the peace of the Lord upon us.
“Amen,” said the prince, and he crossed himself. “And may the Lord’s peace return
upon this house. Is there lodging here for Englishmen?” “Aye,” said the abbot simply.
“There is lodging here for all who call upon His name whether master, man, or beast. The brethren will minister to your needs.” He clapped suddenly, and there appeared two men in the Benedictine habit. “Give them whatever they require,” he told his followers, and with a courteous inclination of the head he was gone.
Chandos sent me to the stables to seek accommodation for our horses. The abbot’s words had reached the Benedictine ostler before me, and I had little to do but bid him make ready to stable our mounts. I besought another errand, but Chandos had none for me, and with my time my own, I crossed the cloister with rapid strides to explore the interior of the church.
The closest door to the church opened into the transept. On either side of me stood small chapels, full of paintings and carvings, one of them housing lit candles before an ornamented tomb. I wondered briefly whose body the chapel housed but was distracted by my desire to see the full prospect of the church. I walked forward to where the arm of the transept joined with the body of the nave. Behind me the rounded arcade shot up straight and simple, with columns that reached toward a vaulted heaven. Before me the altarpiece stood stately and substantial, demarcating the holy of holies from the pews of the lowly worshipers. Above me the light from the clerestory windows sifted down gently, a glory cloud of golden dust that bathed the stone in color and set my face alight.
“The only thing wanting is a heavenly choir,” said a voice beside me, and turning I saw that his highness had come in beside me with footfalls too noiseless to notice.
“Aye, highness,” I said and bowed a little awestruck, for I had never had private conversation with the prince before this time. He was tall, of his full stature then at sixteen years of age, whereas I would not reach my height for another four years. He was still in battle dress, as was I, and the cascading light from the clerestory illuminated his armor while his face appeared dark.
“Shall we explore the apse?” the prince asked. I mumbled a quick assent, and following his easy stride, circumambulated the altar piece. Here the windows clustered thickly like a bunch of ripe berries. The ornate moldings and rose windows proclaimed that the apse had been constructed later than the main body of the building, perhaps as recently as twenty years ago. The prince led the way, examining the carvings. I followed a step behind in respectful silence. He did not walk aimlessly, however, and as we peered into each vaulted corner he looked about sharply as if he were searching for some especial treasure.
“It is not here,” said the prince shaking his head. “What do you seek, highness?” asked I.
“The Conqueror’s tomb. This was his church, you know. He built it with the same
stones as that citadel yonder. And he came here to be buried when he met his final hour.”
“It was an inauspicious funeral, if I remember the story aright,” said I. “Aye,” said the prince, and he caught my eye with something of a smile. “The monks
could barely lift the great man’s corpse, he had grown so corpulent in later years. And the mourners had no sooner begun to wet their eyes, than cries of ‘Fire! Fire!’ filled the air. So all the citizens of Caen went out to save their city from flames, and King William might bury himself for all they cared.”
“But the monks stayed behind!” I reminded him. “They stayed behind to put him in his coffin.”
“Pity the coffin was so small!” said the prince, and at that we both laughed aloud, for we both knew the story-that when the monks had gone to place the Conqueror in his stone sarcophagus, they found that his bulk had not been reckoned with, and the box had
been hewn too small. The fire put them in a great hurry, however, and instead of taking the sensible course of waiting for a stonemason to mend matters, they tried to force the body into the opening. William’s flaccid body had burst open, sending out such a great stench that it chased away all whom the fire had not frightened. Thus was the ignominious end of the lord of England and Normandy.
But though we might laugh at the crass nature of his departure, it did nothing to diminish the achievements of his life in our eyes.
“There was a small chapel off the transept,” said I, remembering where I had first come into the church, “with candles and a stone box. Perhaps his tomb lies there.”
We retraced our steps and found the place; the inscription on the tomb confirmed my supposition.
HIC SEPULTUS EST INVICTISSIMUS GUILLELMUS CONQUESTOR, NORMANNIAE DUX, ET ANGLIAE REX, HUJUSCE DOMUS, CONDITOR, QUI OBIIT ANNO MLXXXVII1
The words proclaimed that we had found the Conqueror at last. The box was bare besides this, no effigy, no scrollwork, no evidence of his greatness besides this simple listing of his titles and achievements.
“He is as alone now as at his burial,” said I. “A pity his lady could not be buried nearby so that at least his tomb might have company.”
“Ah, but she is!” said the prince. “This whole abbey is his tomb, and the sister abbey, the Abbaye-aux-Dames that lies across the way, is the tomb of his lady Matilda. They were cousins, you know, on his father’s side. Some say he bullied her into marrying him, and threw her to the ground by her hair until she consented. But others say she chose him of her own accord, and it was her father who disliked the match.”
“Cousins?” said I. “I wonder that the pope did not forbid it. If they had lived now, ‘Consanguinity!’ would be all the cry in Avignon and a king’s ransom required before the ban could be lifted and the banns pronounced.”
“It was the same in William’s day,” said the prince, “though at that time Peter still ruled from Rome instead of Avignon. The pope tried to negate the nuptials, but William was a determined man. He would have whom he would have, be she cousin or no. When the pope insisted on the mortality of such a sin, he paid the pope a princely price. You are standing in the portals of his penance. This abbey for him, that abbey for her. And with these two edifices their sin of marriage was effectually effaced. If we step over yonder to
l’Abbaye-aux-Dames, you may see where she lies buried.”
Before we could pursue this course, however, a messenger strode swiftly in and fell on one knee before the prince. “His Majesty is encamped outside the town, your highness, and bids you attend him at a council of war.”
1 Here is buried the most undefeatable William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, and King of England, and the builder of this house who died in the year 1087.
“Send him my compliments and assure him of my prompt arrival,” replied the prince, and almost before the messenger had departed, the prince disappeared as noiselessly as he had entered leaving me alone in the great vaulted tomb of Guillelmus Conquestor. I did not stay long by myself in the church. There was still a battle to be fought and a city to be taken. And when Caen had capitulated, there was the rest of France. King William might lie at peace in this church, but King Edward and all his men would remain at war until France finally yielded to her rightful king and lord.
*****
The inhabitants on our side of the Orne had fled, but the Caen on the easterly side of the river showed no signs of yielding. Word trickled over that the Comte d’Eu had recruited militia from the surrounding countryside. These raw locals along with a small company of knights were prepared to wage bitter resistance against our troops. As Constable of France, the Comte d’Eu was a powerful noble, second-in-command only to the king.
Philip of Valois had finally taken our invasion seriously enough to raise something of a defense, for Caen was too rich a plum to let fall into English hands undisputed.
The attack was slated for sunrise. I had spent the evening furbishing Chandos’s harness and inspecting the gear for ourselves and our mounts. The blackness passed anxiously, for myself and others in the camp, and it was still night when we rose to meet the day.
The king and all his nobles heard mass before the sun showed its florid face, and the army, which had encamped in the fields outside Caen, drew up in marching order. Our greatest impediment was the river, and we expected to struggle hard to gain the crossing points before we could engage the enemy within Caen.
To our surprise, however, the enemy was not in Caen, but had come over the bridge to meet us. Ranged in battle formation on the western side of the Orne, there stood nearly four thousand men; no more than a thousand looked to be knights or trained men at arms.
Our men numbered four times their total force, and as we saw their motley band, our formation grew tighter, our pennants waved higher, and our spirits rose.
We were still three furlongs away when their line began to waver. A shout went up from our men, and their line disintegrated completely. A frantic Frenchman wearing blue with golden stars-presumably the Constable-rode up and down their fleeing ranks. He cursed them roundly and adjured them to hold fast, but it was to no avail. These French were no soldiers; they were farmers, shepherds, and vinedressers. Their spirits had shriveled within them at the first sight of us, and now they dispersed in a crazed rush to cross the river and return to the eastern half of the town.
Our own commanders gave us free rein. We charged forward trying to reach the head of the bridge and cut the fugitives off from the gatehouse. Knights, archers, and men- at-arms rushed madly into the fray, hacking down the fleeing French with indiscriminate blows. Separated from Chandos by the swirling mob, I dismounted my horse in the melee. Once on the ground the tide of moving bodies swept me along. My eyes focused in on the blue surcoat with golden stars; I pushed toward it dealing blows to the right and left. Before I knew where I was headed, the blue surcoat had disappeared and I found myself at the foot of the gatehouse.
The bottom of a tower is a good place to be as long as there are no archers above. I set my back against the wall and held my ground against all comers. To my left stood a big Englishman with a neck like a bull. He had one eye with a jagged scar across the lid and nothing but the white of the eyeball inside. His shield showed the map of England
surrounded by a silver border. A troop of a dozen men or so ranged themselves round about him, and I saw that he must be a baron of some small standing.
The fugitives were frantic now, with passage across the bridge being their only hope of survival. I blocked blow after blow with my shield, slicing at men who came too close or beating them down with the pommel of my sword. “Have at them, boy!” grunted the man with one eye. “Skewer the bastards!” He lunged and panted like a mastiff, snarling all the while out of the corners of his mouth.
The battle was all in our favor. As more and more of our men reached the gatehouse, the sloping banks of the river ran red with blood. “Shall we give them quarter?” I asked, seeing a few Frenchmen fall to their knees with their hands above their head.
“Quarter?” bellowed the big man. “We give no quarter!” He spat as he said this, tripped a
fleeing Frenchman, and sliced cleanly through the back of his neck. I shrugged wearily and hitched up my shield, anxious for the butchery to end.
“Sir Thomas!” said a voice from a place above.
“Eh?” said the big man, looking about him in bewilderment. His men shook their heads in confusion. None of them had called his name.
“Sir Thomas!” sang the voice again. “There, in the tower window!” said I, and a flash of blue and gold peeked out. “Who knows my name?” bellowed the big man. “Who calls me?” “It is I, the Comte d’Eu,” said the man in blue. “And I, the Comte de Tancarville,” said another voice, slightly higher pitched, from within the recesses of the window.”
“You are Sir Thomas Holland, are you not?” said the Comte d’Eu. “We fought with
you in Prussia. You were with the Teutonic Order then.” “Aye, in Prussia!” replied Holland, dropping his jaw in amazement. “I recognize your
voice. You are Raoul of Brienne. You saved my skin more than once from the infidel.”
“And now I’m asking you to save our skins from your infidels,” replied the Comte
d’Eu, the honored Constable of France. “They seem resolved to slaughter us all without regard for rank or quality. Come up to us in the tower so that we may surrender to you and save ourselves alive. For even prison is better than the dishonorable death that awaits us below.”
“It shall be done!” said Holland, saluting the window with exaggerated courtesy. He ordered his men to cut a path to the tower door, and once there to guard the door below while he ascended. “Let no one pass, either F