I Serve by Rosanne E. Lortz Read Free Book Online

that. When he had first laid claim to the crown of France the king sent out edicts to prepare for a future invasion. One edict demanded that all children, whether noble or common, be taught the French language; this ensured that our men-at-arms would be at home in a land with a foreign tongue. Another edict encouraged practice with bow and arrow. The king commissioned shooting games in each shire and awarded prizes to the archer most supremely skilled. Play with the quarterstaff was all but abandoned as the young men bent their backs to string the longbow. Farmers turned foresters, robbing the wild geese of their tail feathers and the wild beasts of their skins. Thanks to Edward’s edicts, the men of England had become masters of the longbow, and the muster of archers at Crecy more than doubled the men-at-arms standing behind them.
    As the enemy advanced toward us, the longbowmen would exercise all of their skill in bringing them down. When the enemy advanced too far for comfort’s sake, the line of archers would split in the center and form two columns on either side of our division. From there they could rake the enemy’s flanks while our men-at-arms waited for the French horse to close the distance for hand to hand combat. But it was the French who must close that distance; we would not advance. In front of our line, each man had dug a small pit about as deep and as wide as a man’s forearm. The French horses which survived the breast-piercing onslaught of the archers would have to contend with the foreleg-twisting trap of the pits.
    The sun was just beginning to ascend into the heavens when we ascended the ridge and found our place beside the prince. Grey clouds were forming in the north; they threatened to blot out the sun and water the land before the day was through. The men-at-arms had all dismounted as instructed; the prince, one of the few solitary figures on horseback, sat tall above the rest. He wore a suit of armor that I had never seen before, black and sharp like polished obsidian. His visor was up and I saw his eyes searching the field like a falcon wheeling above a rabbit warren. It was the same keen expression his face had born in
l’Abbaye-aux-Hommes
when he searched for the Conqueror’s tomb.
    “ They will not be here till at least midday, highness,” said the Earl of Warwick in a calm voice. Warwick was twenty years the prince’s senior. Accounted one of the best captains in the English army, he had been the king’s Marshall for the past three years. It was on account of this experience that he had been assigned to the prince’s division. The prince’s pennant with the Plantagenet lion was the largest banner over our company, but Warwick’s red pennant with the yellow bar held second place beneath it.
    “ Since we’ve time on our hands,” said the prince, “let the men sit and serve out something to break their fast. It benefits us nothing to fight on empty stomachs.”
    “ The storm will break on us sooner than Philip does,” said Chandos, looking up at the ominous clouds gathering in the north. “We shall all be a good deal wetter before the afternoon is out.”
    “ Highness,” said Warwick deferentially, also looking upward at the sky, “when you give the orders to serve out rations, let the archers also look to their bowstrings. A wet bowstring sends a weak arrow.”
    Shriven, supped, and posted at the ready, the English army waited on the crest of the hill for all of the morning and into the afternoon. The sky sent down fitful showers of summer rain while the lightning and thunder fought their own battle over the territory of the sun. The noise was terrible and a few horses were frightened. “The heavens themselves portend our conflict!” remarked Audley with irony.
    When the rain abated, the sun returned in glory, brighter for having been obscured a while. Our army faced east, and the light poured in from behind us; it illuminated the field of battle and shone full in the