I Serve by Rosanne E. Lortz Page A

left to ride, and were beating the same ignominious retreat for which they had earlier punished the Genoese. Our archers, who had formed up on the flanks of our army, began to ply their skill once more. It was a rout, a total rout, and Philip recognized it. Instead of castigating his fleeing troops, he ordered the orange Oriflamme furled. The great banner disappeared from view, and we heard the lugubrious horns of France sounding a retreat. The day was lost for Valois.
    But as the French companies and commanders left the battlefield in such haste, a strange sight met our eyes. Five enemy knights, undeterred by the general retreat, were riding toward our lines. Four of them had arranged themselves in a square, and their horses were attached with ropes to the bridle and trappings of the fifth horse which rode in the middle. Tethered as he was to the others, the rider of the middle horse did not need to hold the reins of his own horse to guide it. Both of his hands gripped a great broadsword, and though he bobbed a bit unsteadily, he managed to keep his saddle. Upon his helmet he wore a crown and a plume of three white feathers. These same feathers were painted on the shield that hung at his side, and beneath them was a motto, though I could not make out the words.
    The prince and all of us about him looked on in amazement to see this strange company advance upon us. “What foolhardiness is this?” exclaimed Audley. “Do they not know that the battle is as good as over?”
    “ If I mistake not the crest,” said Chandos, “it is John, the king of Bohemia. Our scouts spoke true when they said that many Germans had come to help Valois against us.”
    The Bohemian king and his strange bodyguards continued to advance picking their path carefully through the bodies that littered the field. In one uneven place, the horses stumbled over a hollow in the ground. The king nearly lost his seat until the riders reached out and steadied him in his saddle.
    “ Why does he ride thus?” I asked, looking perplexedly at the ropes that bound the central rider to his companions. Chandos shrugged and Audley turned away. The prince alone responded to my question.
    “ He is old and he is blind. That is why they lead him thus. But his spirit is not as shrunken as his body. He has sworn to serve Philip in battle against us, and eyes or no, he will strike a few blows for honor’s sake. He is a brave man, this king. It is my wish and express order that he not be harmed.”
    But even as he spoke, a flock of arrows arched heavenward and descended on the handful of Bohemians. Their wounded horses neighed and fell. The blind Bohemian king went down like a great cedar tree when an ax is put to its roots.
    The prince uttered a little cry; I sprang forward instinctively. “He is still alive!” said I, but I had not reckoned with the Welshmen.
    Wales, as you may know, fell into English hands in the reign of the first
Edward, the grandfather to our present sovereign. Edward made Wales English by an act of violence, and the Welshmen in our army are a particularly violent breed. They fight for England now, but the bitter edge of their spirit is as keen as the long knives they carry. In battle, they run amidst the enemy’s horses striking upward with quick thrusts. When the battle is strewn with fallen knights, they run among them and cut their throats. Many French nobles were finished this way at Crecy, and we lost more than a dozen ransoms from the rancorous rapacity of our Welsh brethren.
    When the Bohemian king was felled by the archers, I immediately ran forward to succor him. The prince, who was mounted, arrived there ahead of me, but the Welshmen had been there even before him. The blind king lay motionless on the ground, his heart pierced by a Welsh knife through the armhole of his corslet. His hands still gripped the broadsword; the bridle of his horse was still tethered to the horses fallen around him.
    “ Here lies a noble lord,” said the