A Knight There Was Read online

  A Knight There Was

  The Knights of England Series

  Book Two

  by

  Mary Ellen Johnson

  Published by ePublishing Works!

  www.epublishingworks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61417-912-2

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  Please Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2013; 2016 by Mary Ellen Johnson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Meet the Author

  Foreword

  In The Lion and The Leopard, the first in my five part Knights of England series, I introduced readers to Maria Rendell, she of the tragically romantic or romantically tragic nature, and the Rendell family. I also shared my version of the doomed reign of Edward II.

  In A Knight There Was, we meet Margery Watson, illegitimate daughter of Maria Rendell's son and a peasant woman. Caught between two worlds, that of the nobility and that of the commoner, Margery falls in love with someone who is antithetical to everything she believes in—a callow, naïve and endearing (at least to me) knight named Matthew Hart.

  In the age of that most magnificent of medieval kings, Edward III, England is at the height of her power. Edward III, likened to a second Arthur, is a warrior king (the very opposite of his unfortunate father, Edward II) and well beloved. He and his son, the Black Prince, preside over a series of stunning wins against France in the beginnings of what history refers to as The Hundred Years' War.

  But this is also the time of the Black Death, which plants the seeds for the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 (detailed in Book 4, A Child Upon the Throne).

  Some notes about the real characters you will meet in A Knight There Was. Edward of Woodstock, our fabled Black Prince, was never called The Black Prince until many years after his death. But since Edward is universally known by that moniker—and there are so darned many Edwards floating about—it made sense to differentiate him thus. Neither was his wife, Joan, contemporaneously referred to as "the Fair Maid of Kent," though all agreed she was a beautiful woman. I very much admire Edward III, the king who lived too long, and of course his fabled sons, the Black Prince and John of Gaunt. As ever, I am protective of them and mislike some less flattering portrayals. We all have access to the same facts; we just interpret them differently.

  I know I've inadvertently made mistakes in my historical research, which will be pointed out by sharp-eyed readers, but there are times I deliberately stretched boundaries. For example the oldest reference to a danse macabre fresco is some fifty years after the rebel, Thurold Watson, mentions it (Within a Forest Dark, Book Three). However, given the number of churches that have been obliterated in the last six hundred plus years, frescoes whitewashed away, and the psychic wound of the Black Death upon the European populace from 1348 onward, I'm comfortable with my educated guess.

  Having said that, I hope you enjoy A Knight There Was and will follow Margery, Matthew, her step-brother, Thurold, the Mad Priest John Ball, and all the rest to the end of my Knights of England series.

  Mary Ellen Johnson

  A KNIGHT THERE WAS, and what a gentleman,

  Who, from the moment that he first began

  To ride about the world, loved honor, chivalry,

  The spirit of giving, truth and courtesy.

  He was a valiant warrior for his lord...

  ~Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Knight

  Prologue

  Some called him Pestilence, others called him Second Coming, but Death was his name.

  Across the steppes of China he crept, through ancient palaces and peasants' hovels, aboard caravans bound for ports in the Tatar region—cities like Baghdad and Constantinople.

  When sailors loaded silks and spices aboard their ships, Death stowed away. South, along the Bay of Bengal, he sailed toward India.

  His arrival was heralded by frogs, serpents, and lizards which rained from the sky, congruent with thunder, lightning and sheets of fire. Wrapped in a heavy stinking smoke, Death himself descended, and Indians died by the thousands.

  Donning a sorcerer's cap, he caused mountains to vanish and, in their place, lakes to rise. The earth fissured, then spewed forth blood or balls of fire. Skies exploded with comets. In Venice the bells of St. Mark's rang by his hand and Plague Maidens rode the whirlwind.

  At sunset Death fashioned a pillar of fire above the Palace of the Popes in Avignon. There, people died in such numbers that Pope Clement blessed the River Rhone and allowed corpses to be dumped in waters which soon turned red with blood.

  Death passed through Greece and Italy in the guise of a miasma so noxious it caused wine to spoil, crops to wilt and fruit to rot. The sun was obliterated, as were the moon and stars, and only a gray creeping fog showed on the horizon.

  Again taking to the sea, Death sailed for Venice and Genoa, where he was driven off by volleys of burning arrows. Thwarted, he turned against those on shipboard. Like a prostitute plying her trade, he lay with each sailor, cabin boy and captain. Soon galleys, manned by spectral crews, haunted the European shorelines, wandering hither and yon at the whim of the changing tides.

  Pausing at Calais, Death gazed across the Channel toward England. England, arrogant and seemingly invincible, as sweet to look upon as Satan before his fall. England, protected by turbulent waters and sweeping winds. Proud, impregnable England, with her white cliffs and prosperous towns, sharp-eyed yeomen and bright-cheeked maids.

  On the Feast of St. Peter ad Vincula, Death docked at the port of Melcombe, and it soon became apparent that the English would succumb as easily as the Chinese, Italians and French—as easily as any man. Through Southampton, Dorset, Bristol, Devon, Somerset and other sea counties, Death passed, smiting all he touched. Bells tolled ceaselessly and graveyards became so full that bell-ringers had to dump the overflow in communal pits.
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  Rather than administer last rites, priests fled for the countryside, as did every city dweller strong enough to travel. Aristocratic ladies, seated inside swaying coaches, shared the roads with merchants, knights on palfreys, villeins carrying their babes in panniers slung across their backs—and Death.

  On All Saints Day, 1348, Death reached London.

  With nearly seventy thousand people, London's crowded conditions made it as vulnerable as rotten fruit clinging to a branch. Death shook the tree and London fell. People began to die. Scattered cases were reported among the whores of Southwark, the criminals in Newgate, the skinners along Peltry Street, and the grocers and apothecaries of Bucklersbury.

  Citing the increase in plague, King Edward III prorogued parliament and soon the nobility began deserting London.

  But not soon enough.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1349

  A dense mantle of fog hung over London as Matthew Hart and his family made their way along Fleet Street.

  Matthew eyed his mother, who rode several yards ahead, her scarlet cloak spilling over her palfrey's rump like a pool of blood.

  Nay, not blood, Matthew corrected himself. 'Tis simply a red cloth.

  But logic did little to soothe his anxiety. He peered off to his right, where the sprawling Convent of White Friars struggled through the mist. The convent, which housed the royal and ecclesiastical councils, was normally overflowing with clerks and petitioners and His Grace's retainers. This morning, however, a single Carmelite, pulling his cowl closer around his face as if it might somehow protect him from contamination, scurried, crab-like, past the limestone cloisters.

  Matthew found the stillness even more discomforting than the lack of people. London usually reverberated with ringing church bells and mongers hawking their second-hand clothing. Merchants begged business from their stalls; vendors peddled their homemade medicines, soaps, perfumes, nuts, quinces and pears. But not today.

  Today Matthew heard the jangling of bridle bits, the sucking of horses' hooves in the spongy dirt, and the ragged breath of his nine-year-old brother. He shot a quick glance at Harry, whose face appeared shrunken and pinched as a monkey's.

  Matthew silently cursed his mother's incessant piety. If Sosanna had not insisted on worshipping one last time at the tombs of Thomas Becket's parents, the Harts would already be headed north for his sister's wedding. In a kingdom that possessed nearly as many churches and relics as it contained sheaves of grain, why must his mother obsess upon one particular shrine?

  "Matt? Matt, I..."

  Harry's unnaturally wide blue eyes, focused on Matthew, added to his stricken expression. He licked his lips as if trying to speak, but no further sound emerged.

  "Do not look so timid." With a quick jerk of his thumb, Matthew gestured toward William Hart, riding so tall and straight and commanding, alongside their mother. "With Father protecting us, we have naught to fear."

  Which was true enough. From earliest memory, Matthew had always likened their father to a lion: watchful, dangerous and proud. Should Death himself spring from the mist, William would glower fiercely and Death would slink away.

  Harry's mouth gaped open and he looked at Matthew, his expression pleading. If William could be likened to a lion, Harry, God protect him, was more reminiscent of the delicate hart that graced the family crest. Or right now, a feeding fish.

  "We'll soon be finished at St. Paul's," Matthew said. "Just cease worrying and everything will be fine."

  Nay, it will not, Harry countered, though he didn't dare express his feelings until he was sure their father wasn't eavesdropping. William Hart's back had been straight as a sword blade, but now he swiveled in his saddle and said something to his wife.

  Good, Harry thought with relief. If they are talking to each other, they'll not be looking to me. Unless, of course, Father is telling Mother what a mewling pup she has for a son. He shifted his reins from one hand to the other and repeatedly wiped his sweaty palms on his tunic. Or that I'm a useless piece of baggage and Matt is worth a hundred of me.

  "God's bones, brother, do not roll your eyes so. Someone will mistake you for a dullard."

  "I do not like this weather, Matt. Don't you wish we were already with Elizabeth and her fiancé? Edmundsbury's walls are very stout, are they not? Nothing could penetrate them."

  Matthew stifled a sigh. He knew full well that Harry was referring to the plague, since his every conversation inevitably came round to that subject. Pretending to misunderstand, he said, "London's weather is always miserable in winter."

  "But 'tis mid-March, and yet everything still looks..." Harry's voice trailed away. It was so difficult to give utterance to the thoughts that clouded his head—thoughts all connected with his nightmares, the reason why he had spent these past weeks on his knees to Saints Sebastian, Giles, Christopher and Adrian.

  He tried again. "I am just so... everything smells so..."

  Harry silently implored Matt to understand, so he wouldn't have to vocalize some form of that awful word—Plague, Pestilence, Death. Ever since its arrival, Harry had locked away all relevant scraps of information, hoping to later discuss them with his older brother. Matthew was so good at turning aside his fears with a laugh or a shrug or a comforting explanation, yet when Harry attempted to communicate his racing thoughts, sometimes his tongue seemed to thicken in his mouth, leaving him mute. At those times he was left alone with his imagination, which conjured up such frightful possibilities that his entire body would tremble as if suffering from St. Vitus' dance.

  "...Odors from Fleet Prison and the tanneries and the latrines," Matthew was explaining. "They dump their waste into the city ditch. It makes the air noxious, but 'tis not harmful."

  "I do not care about the air. I care about what is in the air."

  "There is naught in it at all!" Matthew knew he sounded snappish, but he hoped to end the matter. Once Harry launched into the Death, there would be no surcease. First Harry would detail each one of the plague's symptoms. Then he would report, as if nobody save himself knew, that the plague preferred women and children to men. Then he would elaborate upon its origins. It had started, Harry would say, when the sun went to war with the Indian Ocean and had drawn up all the sea water in a vapor befouled by millions of dead fish. It was this vapor that was currently drifting across the world, destroying everything in its wake.

  Learned men asserted otherwise, that the pestilence had been caused by earthquakes that had vomited forth corpses and fiery rains. Matthew didn't know which theory was correct; nor did he care. So long as the pestilence left him and his loved ones alone, why clutter one's mind with useless speculation?

  "I feel poor." Harry pressed his hand against his stomach. "'Tis a peculiar sensation." The fog seemed to push against him like an enormous smothering coverlet and the scenery swam before his vision.

  Matthew rolled his eyes. Harry had complained of feeling peculiar since they'd first learned of the Death.

  "Stick out your tongue," he commanded. A swollen, furry tongue was one of the first plague symptoms. Harry's looked the same it had last hour and yestermorn and last week, though one could never be too careful.

  "There is naught wrong with you. Now stop your mewling before Father hears you."

  But Harry, certain he was about to faint, gulped mouthfuls of sodden air. Then he noticed a donkey sprawled alongside the road with maggots, white like plague boils, feeding upon its belly. Something between a cough and a gag scratched at his throat.

  Matthew threw him a disgusted glare, kicked his horse, and bolted ahead.

  Even Matt has forsaken me. Harry blinked back hot tears. No one loves me. No one cares if I live or die. Because I am a coward and a nuisance.

  He raised his eyes to the squat structure of Fleet Prison, located directly inside the city gates. The Fleet was a brutal, forbidding place. It reminded Harry of William. What sort of building would Matt be? A castle, surely, and Mother would be a pretty cottage. And Elizabeth would
be something out of one of her romances. A round table, mayhap. He suppressed a nervous giggle. What would I be?

  They neared Ludgate, where beggars huddled beneath the painted statues flanking the entrance. Usually the beggars scrabbled and cried for alms, but today they appeared nearly as lifeless as the piles of waste flanking the road. One ragged figure, wearing the shroud of a leper, staggered to his feet and tottered forward, clacking a pair of castanets.

  Harry's glance skittered to the man's right cheek, which was rotted away. He did indeed look like a leper, but perhaps this was merely a new plague symptom. Perhaps the pestilence rotted people before it killed them. Harry's hand crept over his heart until he encountered his Agathes, a special plague-preventing stone which had been sewn to his tunic.

  The leper held out his begging bowl.

  "Off with you!" barked William Hart.

  The leper made a garbled sound and slunk back to his companions.

  Not a plague monster at all, just one of God's poor children.

  Fingering the smooth black-veined surface of his Agathes, Harry's anxiety faded. Didn't he have a bevy of saints protecting him? And hadn't Mother plied the whole family with protective potions that contained everything from irises to the bark of an oak tree?

  By the time they reached Bowyers Row, the fog had descended to the tile roofs and clay chimney pots. Everything was gray and bleak and desolate, exactly the way Harry pictured purgatory. Only in purgatory the wisps of fog would be souls, drifting around until those on earth prayed them up to heaven.