Chapter  5      Squires for Knights

 

 

 

The lord formed up his mesnie alongside Baron Stephen's.  His eldest sister's sons rode behind him.  The banneret grouped his men in two-by-two formation behind his cloth, a formation the knights held only in the loosest interpretation.  The mesnie moved toward the courtyard gate, the horses converging on the opening like fluid through a funnel.  Thomas sought to ride alongside the banneret, but was roughly rebuffed.

"To the rear, young Thomas," said the banneret.  "Let these knights pass before you!"

"Sir," said Thomas evenly, "after twelve years a servant and a squire in this house, I have earned the right."

"You may one day show yourself a knight in battle young Thomas, but until then, let these proven knights advance before you, as is their right."

Thomas's mind whispered many times faster than the action around him.  Even as he began to anger, he also began to think, a habitual blessing.  The trouble with living amidst the values of chivalry is you recognize right, even when the blood is up.  Conscience wrecked the will.

He urged his horse to the side and stopped, fuming inside.  The banneret had also stopped, effectively halting the general egress.  They were beginning to attract attention, but Thomas did not care much.  One part of him knew he had been too audacious and that the banneret's behavior could have been worse, given the circumstances, but by God's Beard!  The old man did not have to be that cold!  I bested you at swords this spring, he shouted silently.  Now, you strike me back!

Only a close friend could have interpreted the slight tightening around the young knight's eyes as anger.  Other than that small betrayal, his exterior remained placid.

What right!  Let these knights pass?  And what am I if not a knight!  Mentor, you shall see who is a knight these next few days!

Satiating his temper with this silent diatribe, Thomas consciously relaxed his eyes and smiled an apology.  The banneret nodded in return, which he certainly was not obliged to do, and resumed his stern passage forward.  There were no hard feelings.  Thomas eased back in his saddle, his composure regained, and let his horse slip through the scatter of mounted knights until he joined his companions in the rear.

"A little too warm near the front, Knight Thomas?" asked James Beaumont, leaning forward to bridge the noise.

Of course he would be there, and of course, he would say something.  You may as well expect a dog not to scratch if you thought James would let such an opportunity pass.  What a dog he would have made.  It was not so much his words that offended, nor even the tone.  It was his wide grin and the double row of white, even teeth in a jaw that projected a little too far and a little too pointedly.  It was the kind of jaw that invited a fist.  Give him horns, thought Thomas, and he would look just like one of the painted imps on the drape of a minstrel play.  Yet, at the same time, Thomas could feel the frustration propelling his tormentor.  It must be terrible to always feel the need to prove oneself, to be best, to exceed all others and at the same time see so many ill-conceived attempts dashed to the mud.  But whatever lay beneath James, it was James's exterior with which he had to deal, and that exterior easily provoked anger.

"I say, was it a little too warm at the front?" James repeated, in case Thomas had not heard the first time.

"A little warm in front," answered Thomas, "a little breezy back here.  It is hard to decide where to place my horse."  He made deliberate reference to the shiny black he sat astride.  After all, Beaumont's covetous glances were not hard to miss, and any weapon in this kind of warfare struck fairly.  The black stood a full half hand taller than Beaumont's bay and this rankled James as effectively as any insult he could hurl.  Thomas sidled close to heighten the effect.

"Ah," said Beaumont, doing his best to ignore the horse by resting his right hand on the sweep of his new hauberk, "It looked to me like the banneret helped you come to a decision on that."

"A little advice on etiquette, James.  You would have done well to listen."

Beaumont laughed and kicked his horse forward into the drive of knights.

Thomas let him ride on without further exchange.  Arguing with Beaumont, he had learned long before, was like wrestling in a pig pen.  Even though you might win, you came out dirty.  Even the foulest fart will draw up the chimney in time.  Let him pass.

Finally, the way through the gate lay clear for them.  As he and Cyril trotted their horses through, Thomas looked back.  Stewart was in the doorway, and he waved toward the boy.  Stewart raised his hand in response.  Poor little fellow.  He looked as unhappy as Lovel, who lay at Stewart's feet with his head on his paws.  Somehow, they seemed alike.  Lost dogs.  Maybe the next campaign would put them together.

Then he was aware, once again, of the cheers and shouts from the household and the sergeants and squires outside, the chapel bell, the drums and horns and whistles, flapping flags, and the sound of iron shod hooves on packed earth.  And the excited voices of the girls.  Cheval!  Cheval!  Knight!  Knight!  They cried.  They smiled and waved colorful scarves from the windows of the manor.  A side benefit, he thought with satisfaction, these young ladies, who barely looked at a squire but would gladly audition for a knight in the stable at midnight.  Even a landless fifth son could expect some comfort, if not marriage.  His mind dwelt on this for only a few brief seconds, for the surrounding tumult prompted action, not thought.

The double mesnie rode heavily down the road until clear of the village, which gave them resounding tribute also.  The mesnie stopped just beyond a crossroad.  The retinue of squires, stewards, pack horses, and palfreys stopped, also out of sight of the town.  The knights wanted to rid themselves of their hot and heavy armor and mount easier riding palfreys.  It was some distance to the coast.  The show over, the veterans chose to ride in comfort, and not to be out of place, the younger knights followed suit.

On the crossroad, two men pulling a heavy cart stopped to watch.  The smaller man, a boy really, clearly and unashamedly gawked.  The older man leaned against his cart and watched the transformation with an altogether different expression, more like nostalgia than curiosity.  Thomas recognized them, of course.  The older man was one of the most sought-after blademakers in the country, an eccentric who chose to stay out of the main stream, and who accepted orders for custom weaponry as if he were doing his patrons a favor.  The other was his apprentice.  The smith had been places.  That showed in his eyes.  Thomas was not certain if the smith's attention was focused on him or his horse.

"Thomas," said Cyril.  "Which of these boys are our squires?  I can not find anyone to help me with my armor!  My coat already looks like unbleached linen.  What a mess."

Thomas laughed.  "Do not worry, Cyril.   You will still dazzle the French!"

Normally, Cyril would have joined in with humor, but he stood in the middle of the road, a new knight with soiled clothes and no squire in sight.  He was truly distressed.

Thomas saw the smith push himself off the cart with a smile and motion to his apprentice to grab one of the cart tongues and start pulling.  The cart rolled heavily, making deep ruts in the soft dirt.  They turned down the road toward Norbury.  Both men put their backs into the effort, and in a short time, the apprentice was compelled to stop looking over his shoulder.

"Knight Cyril," said Thomas, "allow me to be your squire."

Cyril turned and nodded with a smile.  "And, in turn, I yours, Knight Thomas!"  Cyril braced himself while Thomas removed the other's sword and belt, and hoisted the hauberk high over his head.

Thomas glanced up the road and shook his head.

Knights were bent double all over the road as squires pulled at the lanky mail hauberks, slowly working their inebriated knights out of their armor, rather like snakes shedding skins.  Some of the knights had put on a little weight as the summer waned and their mail not only showed more space between the links but exhibited a more difficult proposition for removal.  Unless the squire was exceptionally tall, and few were, the mail snagged firmly into the quilted tunic beneath and the shirt beneath that, so that with a few desperate jerks, many squires found themselves seated on their backsides, half covered with sweaty mail, facing half-naked, drunk, ill-tempered knights.  Multiply these activities by forty knights, with suitable idiomatic variation, add shouts, curses, laughter and muffled threats from a few knights stuck half in and half out of their armor, and you have the makings of a most unmilitary spectacle.  Thomas smiled despite himself.  The scene brought home the simple truth that they were all but men.

Some knights removed their armor with efficiency and dignity, to be sure.  Foremost among the dignified, was the banneret.  The lord, his eldest sister's sons, Baron Stephen, and the marshals all had experienced attendants, and their hauberks soon lay across their pack horses, neatly bundled and tied.  Such contrast only heightened the comedy.

The banneret frowned at the confusion of new knights, but refrained from comment or intercession.  As undignified as they may be, only experience would teach them.

"Lucky we are not near a village or word would travel," said Baron Stephen to the lord.

"It will travel anyway."  The lord watched a few moments longer.  "Marshal!" he shouted.

A broad shouldered man with two days growth of beard stepped away from an evidently humorous discussion with two other knights.

"Yes, my lord!"

"See if you cannot strike some order here.  Send a couple of your squires down the line to help these able men with their equipment."

The marshal nodded and hurried off.  Within seconds, a squad of experienced squires moved down the line to help the dozen or so knights who were still in despair.

As the squad moved down the train, Thomas stretched his arms over his head and let Cyril pull his armor off.  It came away easily.  Fortunately, neither he nor Cyril had indulged too heavily in drink, unlike many of the knights around them.

"We are awash in ale soaked knights," said Thomas without condemnation.  "They will float halfway to the coast!"  He looked about.  "Have you seen our good friend, James?"

Cyril scanned up the road.  "He has found help from Stephen's court."  He pointed to activity two dozen yards up the road.

"I would have been glad to have helped him," said Thomas.

"That is probably what he was afraid of."

Thomas grinned and crouched beside his hauberk, which lay on a patch of dry grass.  He stretched the garment at full length, smoothed the links, and folded the arms and coif toward the middle.  He then rolled the metal fabric along its length until he had a tight roll.  This, he maneuvered into a length of heavy serge and laced the whole assembly tightly with a long, leather thong, ending up with a flexible cylinder nearly three feet long.

Thomas hoisted the bundle to his shoulder.

"Heavy stuff, this double mesh."

Cyril picked up a similar bundle.  "Two and a half stone if its a pound," he agreed.  "Still, I would rather have it than not."

"No question there."

For a moment, they looked at one another, seeing a reflection of themselves.  The armor was heavy and their swords well edged.  This was real.  On the road and at hazard.  Death and glory and fear of dishonor.  The reality of their position sank another notch deeper, but still, they were only words.  They had yet to experience what the words described.

"Well," said Cyril vacantly.  Thomas made to listen, but Cyril had nothing more to say.

Thomas silently conveyed his understanding, then he tossed the bundle over the saddle of his black destrier and tied it down.  He loosened the two saddle girths a notch.

"Breath easier, big friend," he whispered to the horse.  "We will see a lot of each other these next few days."

The war horse moved his head until he could see who was whispering, but by then, Thomas had turned away.

The squad of squires reached them, having put to rights the men to the fore.  The marshal of their own mesnie joined them, followed by three young squires from Stephen's mesnie.  The squires approached with a reticence bordering on timidity.  They were young, one about sixteen, the other two barely fourteen .

"Where is Beaumont?" the marshal asked Thomas.

"You passed him."  Thomas indicated a group of knights from Stephen's mesnie.  Beaumont stood among them, his accoutrements packed and stowed.  The marshal located James and grunted with a note of disapproval at his sudden familiarity with the other knights.

"These are your squires, Thomas, Cyril.  They have access to supplies and palfreys."  He took hold of Thomas's and Cyril's arms in a fatherly way.  "I am sorry we have put you on the road without proper squires, but this whole affair came up too quickly for anything else."  He turned to the squires.  "Obey these knights and accompany them into battle.  They can teach you much."

"Yes, sir," said the eldest squire.  The others mouthed the words but no sound came out.  Such shyness.  One almost wondered if Stephen whipped his boys.

"Then, I will leave you to it," said the marshal.  "By the way," he paused in afterthought, "you did better than some of your more experienced peers a few minutes ago.  Keep the dignity of the household and it will keep you."  Without giving them time for response, he started back up the road.

"Thank you," called Thomas.

The marshal merely raised his hand in acknowledgment and continued walking.  He stopped beside Beaumont, and with apparent abruptness, ordered him back to his place beside Thomas and Cyril.

Beaumont said something to the knights, grabbed the bridle of his destrier and worked his way down the road.  The knights he had been talking to smiled after him and one made a gesture of tucking his tail between his legs.  James would be in foul temper.

As James approached, from the other direction, so did the contingent of men-at-arms, sergeants, pack horses, wagons, and everything a mesnie of forty three knights and nobles would need for a journey which could last several months.  They made a dusty racket.  Thomas surveyed them.  Farm boys, mostly, with a few elders who had some battle experience thrown in for seasoning.  They were ill-kempt, dirty, ragged and generally ignorant of anything more refined than third-picking wine.  Two of the wagons bristled with crude-looking iron weaponry, but if more than a dozen of the sergeants knew how to use their weapons with any more distinction than a wood cutter, Thomas would have been surprised.  It was nigh on winter and time for shoring up against the cold.  Experienced labor could be put to more profitable use here than on a Normandy battlefield.  The lord and the baron were no fools.

The sergeants drew to a stop behind the mesnie just as the knights were preparing to mount up.  Word came down from the front that the break would extend a quarter hour longer to give the sergeants time to square themselves, then the march would be on.

The new squires produced decent palfreys, as promised, and Thomas mounted his to get the feel of the beast.  The animal quickly proved itself better built than the saddle.  Thomas lengthened the stirrup leathers, which helped things a bit, though an uncomfortable lump under his right buttock would not go away.  It felt like a knot had worked part way out of the saddle frame, under the leather.  It wanted a good blow of a hammer.

"I will be back in a shake," he said to Cyril.  Attending to the saddle had the added advantage of avoiding Beaumont's brewing temper.  Beaumont had the habit of mulling over an embarrassment, building it into something it never was.  Soon, at some provocation, he would storm.  The weather signs were out, and all who knew him avoided him.

Thomas jogged his mount in the right hind quarter and trotted down to a wagon he recognized as belonging to a blacksmith.  The stoker bin of the wagon was stacked with charcoal.  Stephen had apparently supplied most of the support group, while the lord supplied the fighting men-afoot, such as they were.  He did not know the smith.

"Smith!" he yelled into the crowd of seated ruffians.  A squat, strong shouldered fellow with thinning hair, and a leather apron over a prominent rum belly, rolled himself onto an elbow facing Thomas.

"'Oo wants 'm?"

Thomas liked the fellow's straightforward way.  He counted himself equal to the class he served, a healthy attitude.  "I do," he shouted as loud as before.

"What for?  I am restin'."

"This saddle is poking me in the buttock."

The fat man looked bemused in a loutish way but said nothing.  Thomas was, after all, a freshly minted knight from another household.  What loyalty could the smith have toward him?

Thomas dismounted, rubbing his backside for effect.  He produced a silver penny from his belt pouch.  "Is not a knight's buttock worth a penny for a hammer whack to seat a knot?"  Of course, it was gross overpayment, but this day, he felt largesse aplenty.

"Oh, a knight's buttock, is it?" answered the smith, rolling with the humor, his eye on the penny.  "That is a different matter altogether."

The crowd rumbled with low laughter.

The smith pushed himself to a sitting position.  It was rare to find a knight who could avoid taking himself as serious as death, especially when he was as young as this one was.  He had to smile.

Thomas bowed to the smith, flourishing an imaginary hat.  "It is for the honor of the realm," he said with solemnity.

"Well," replied the smith with a groan as he hoisted his bulk onto two sturdy legs, "if we are dealing with king's honor and knight's comfort, 'oo am I to resist?"

Accepting the penny with what he pretended was noble grace, the smith dug out a peening hammer and, having Thomas hold the saddle off the horse's back to keep from jarring the animal, he covered the saddle leather with a cloth and struck four light blows.  The seat suddenly became smooth and unmarred.

"There!  Smooth as a kid's ear."

The smith's breath could have knocked over an ox, the essence of onions and garlic, fermenting deep in the fellow's tremendous gut.  Thomas leaned back into the breeze.

"Many thanks," said Thomas, rubbing the saddle with admiration.  He remounted.

"I do not know how long it will take, but you will be back," the smith said.  "That knot will work its way out again, sure as Jack Frost's around the corner."

"Well, why did you think you were along on this trip?"

The smith waved.  "Keep your stock of pennies."

Thomas returned to the mesnie as the first ripples of movement began to filter down.  For the past half hour, broken clouds had been gathering into a gray mass of low-hanging fluff.  The air acquired a cool dankness that bespoke of approaching winter, and more immediately, of rain.

He, Cyril, and Beaumont stood in their stirrups to get a view of the activity ahead, but could see little except movement of horses and colorful clothes flowing like molasses onto the road.  In a few moments, the movement reached them, and they found themselves crammed in between the knights ahead and a sizeable contingent of squires, valets, war horses and pack horses in tow, behind them.  These were closely followed by the sergeants and their supplies.  After a few minutes, the contingent stretched out comfortably and there was room to move about.

Thomas turned and scanned the faces of the squires until he spotted the youngster given to him, the sixteen year old.  He motioned to the boy, but he was daydreaming.  A squire riding beside the boy noticed Thomas's movements and nudged the lad.  With a start, the boy saw what was needed.  He could not have moved faster had he been prodded with a sharp stick.  In a few seconds, he had expertly maneuvered his horse forward until he rode abreast Thomas.

"Sir?" he asked anxiously and without preamble.

"What do they call you?"

"Burke."

"I am Thomas.  Are you a squire?"

"I am now!"

"I see."  Thomas paused to assess.  "Burke," he said, "I will be needing my oilskin in a few minutes, I think."  He indicated the sky.

"Yes, sir!"  The boy dropped back to the pack horses, and positioned his mount alongside the appropriate pack.  Leaning against the back of the horse, the boy expertly unfastened the cover of a haversack and drew out two bundles.  A quick retying of the cover, and the boy returned.

"You handle your horse well," commented Thomas, taking the oil skin.

"Thank you, sir."