The Marshal of Champagne,” announced the guard at the entrance of the pavilion to those within. François hesitated a moment outside. The pavilion was situated in the center of a colorful sea of tents and banners which itself was located on the plains of Champagne. From all over the French domain men were gathering in response to the regent’s call. And all the most powerful people in this camp are inside, thought François. He took a deep breath and entered.
Inside, the dauphin and several nobles waited. Charles smiled warmly at François. Seated next to him was Pepin le Bref, scratching out notes on a roll of parchment. The scholar gave François a grin. The other nobles looked at François with cool passivity.
“Come in, François, please have a seat,” greeted the dauphin motioning to an empty camp chair. “Allow me to introduce you to the other members of your inner circle that have arrived. Your chief advisor, Bertrand du Guesclin.” He gestured to a short Breton who possessed a face that, it was rumored, even his mother didn’t love. François bowed. Bertrand snorted. “Now, Bertrand,” the dauphin reprimanded, “we’ve already discussed François’ qualifications.”
“That may be,” responded Bertrand, “but surely my Lord could have found someone a little less expendable?”
“Don’t mind him,” confided the dauphin to François. “He’s like this with everyone.” He passed on next to a young man of twenty. “And here we have someone you may know.”
“Bon dieu!” cried François seeing the man for the first time and quickly dropping to a knee.
Enguerrand de Coucy chuckled and extended a hand, lifting François to his feet. “Good to see you François. It looks like we’ll be traveling together.”
“Yes,” confirmed Charles, “Enguerrand will join Bertrand and be under your command. The domain de Coucy is a keystone in the French realm, and what better way to safeguard it than to apprentice its Sire under du Guesclin?”
“Humph!” snorted the Breton. “I am to be a nursemaid!”
François turned to the dauphin. “But, my Lord, if Coucy is under my command, yet I owe allegiance to him as my Lord... how...”
The dauphin smiled. “Sometimes being a member of chivalry requires a degree of flexibility. A degree I’ve come to learn that most of my men-at-arms don’t possess. They would be tripping over protocol while the enemy was looting the baggage. But you and Enguerrand, as well as Bertrand, seem practical enough that I doubt you will let it get in your way. You can’t afford to let it, as you three will be the nucleus of the army’s central battle, and you their commander in chief... at least for the next month or so. Longer, perhaps, if matters fare well.”
“I trust we will not let you down, Sire,” François said.
“I hope not. Now, also in you company will be Pepin.”
“What?” squawked the scholar. “That wasn’t the plan last I heard. I was to stay with you at court and write up my histories!”
“Yes,” smiled Charles, “but where were you going to get the material for your histories?”
“Er, dispatches from the field?”
“Well, who is going to write those dispatches?”
“Some... herald, I supposed” Pepin hazarded. “Besides, I’m not made up for the rigors of the field. Composing my histories will be very intellectually strenuous,” he explained. “I need a good bed, and...”
“Good food, good drink, fair company,” continued Charles. “I’m sure of all that Pepin,” he said with a smile. “But François will be making such a sacrifice for the good of France. And somewhat because of you,” he added pointedly. “Can you do no less by accompanying François in the field and writing those dispatches yourself? Your histories will then lose nothing in the translation between the event and the recounting!”
“Well, field conditions are hard on parchment and ink...” said Pepin, searching for an escape.
The dauphin winked at François. “In fact, the closer one is to the scene, the better the tale! In fact, I’ve decided that you should ride in the front rank right next to François... charge into battle by his side.”
“Whaaat?” Pepin wailed. “I... I have no armor! How can I write while charging into battle! I’ll... I’ll break my quill!”
“Easily amended,” Charles assured. “Report to the armorer tomorrow for a suit, and tell him to fashion you up some steel-plated parchment and a steel-plated quill as well.”
“A steel-plated quill?” Pepin repeated in consternation. The parchment and quill he was currently working with slipped out of his hand and he slumped to the floor of the pavilion. Around him the knights and nobles laughed uproariously. “You wicked man,” François said to the dauphin with a smile on his face as he took a bowl of water over to Pepin and started splashing it on his face. Pepin came to with a moan. “Oh François,” he said, “I will never survive...”
“I fear his scribing may be affected by the jostle of riding,” François said with mock seriousness. “Perhaps it would be best if Pepin wrote his histories from the terra firma of camp and not the front-line of battle.”
“That seems wise,” the dauphin said. “Let it be as you suggest.”
“Thank you, François. I’ll never forget this,” Pepin promised as François helped him back up to his seat.
The dauphin raised his hand to quiet the still chuckling nobles in the pavilion. “Let us return to business at hand,” he suggested. “Now as for the northern battle,” he continued, “it will be commanded by Lord Childeric des Vosges.” A knight in his late thirties seated next to Enguerrand inclined his head.
“Childeric! What sort of name is that?” demanded Bertrand.
“My family is Alsatian and descends from Merovingian nobility,” Childeric replied cooly.
“Let’s hope you haven’t inherited their work ethic!” Bertrand retorted. Childeric glared back at the Breton. Bertrand matched his stare unflinchingly. An attending servant coughed nervously. [Editor’s note: The Merovingian kings were known as “les Rois Fainaieant,” which loosely translates to “the lazy kings”, except that lazy isn’t insulting enough. I’ve also seen it translated as “the sluggard kings”.]
The dauphin closed his eyes and offered up a prayer to Saint Jude, patron of lost causes. He stuck out his goblet to his side, waited, then kicked the servant whose attention had been transfixed by the staring duel. The servant recovered from his trance and quickly filled the dauphin’s goblet with wine which Charles proceeded to drain. Letting forth a heavy sigh, he installed a smile on his face. “Father always said that congress with the flower of French chivalry was the chief privilege of his office,” he remarked.
“Yes, but everyone was usually drunk while they were congressing with King Jean,” said Bertrand turning his attentions away from the Alsatian and accentuating his comments with a healthy belch.
“As always, Bertrand, your observations are must educational to us,” replied the dauphin with thin amusement. “Now, if I could continue, the commander of the southern battle will be... yes François, you have a question?”
“Yes, well, if the army is divided into northern, central and southern battles, what if we need to deploy them in an eastern/western configuration?”
Bertrand groaned. “Are you sure he hasn’t left his nanny behind?” he asked Charles.
The dauphin turned his thin smile upon François. “The battle designations don’t refer to their deployment on the field, but to where the men-at-arms are from. The central battle contains knights from the Ile-de-France region. The northern battle contains knights primarily from north-eastern France. The southern battle is somewhat misleading as it also contains those from the west of France, such as Rohan and Chateaubriant from Normandy. But the men-at-arms are not necessarily fixed to a given battle. You may disperse them as the situation dictates, François.”
“The boy’s an idiot,” muttered Bertrand.
“Guesclin!” the dauphin hissed. “Do you deny my authority as regent for my father?”
Bertrand looked horrified. “No, my Lord!”
“Then you will assist François to your fullest ability until I deem otherwise!”
“Of course, my Lord. I never said that I would do otherwise. Why is my Lord so upset?”
The dauphin clenched his teeth. “It must be the heat.”
“The heat? But the day is pleasant, the air is fresh. How can...”
“Bertrand...”
“Yes, my Lord?”
“Shut up.”
“Yes my Lord. I will gladly obey whatever your commands may be.” Bertrand sat back in his chair and tried to look innocent.
The dauphin closed his eyes for a long time. His audience waited patiently. Presently, he opened them again, smiled and asked, “Now, where was I?”
Bertrand started, “You were...” He stopped, unsure if he should continue.
François took up the banner. “You were naming the commander of the southern battle, my Lord.”
“Ah yes,” remembered Charles. “Unfortunately the commander, Aoibeann of Arran, is not here yet. I’ve not personally met him, but he comes highly recommended by Childeric.”
“A foreigner!” exploded Bertrand. “I can’t believe you’re going to allow...” Bertrand stopped again with a puzzled look on his face as if he knew he shouldn’t be talking but didn’t know why.
“Oh, go on,” said the dauphin in resignation.
Bertrand continued. “I was just pointing out to my Lord that I feel it would be unwise to place French troops under the command of a foreigner of unknown capabilities.”
“Yes, Bertrand, but we’ve discussed the qualities that I need in commanders given the current political situation: competent, loyal to France, and obscure. Childeric personally vouchsafes his qualifications.”
“Excuse me,” said François, “but that name, isn’t it Celtic?”
“It is,” confirmed Childeric.
François had a worried look on his face. “I’ve picked up a smattering of Gaelic, but I fear that for the most part I find it incomprehensible.”
“Well, despite the name, Aoibeann is actually a lowlands Scot and doesn’t speak Gaelic but Scots, which is related to English,” explained Childeric.
François brightened. “Ah, I know English passably.”
“Most English speakers find Scots as incomprehensible as Gaelic,” assured Childeric. “But Aoibeann speaks adequate French...” Childeric paused thoughtfully for a moment, then added: “when not excited.”
“Bah!” retorted Bertrand. “I bet this Scot runs at the first sight of trouble!”
“Childeric says he is a fierce fighter and that he has gallantly led Scottish troops in battle against the English,” replied the dauphin. “He is highly regarded among his peers, isn’t that so, Childeric?”
“Yes, my Lord,” answered Childeric.
The dauphin looked closer at Childeric who was shifting nervously in his chair. “Childeric, is something the matter?” asked Charles. “You look like you swallowed a fish bone and supper isn’t for an hour.”
“Well, my Lord,” started Childeric uncomfortably, “there’s perhaps one aspect of Aoibeann’s character that hasn’t quite come to your attention yet...”
“I knew it!” shouted Bertrand. “He’s a coward, isn’t he? Runs away at the first sign of blood!”
“That’s not it at all!” replied Childeric in a deeply offended tone.
“Well, Childeric,” said the dauphin, “what is it that you want us to know about him...”
The camp of the dauphin was in typical good order for the French. Although the hour was barely past noon, a group of knights were rising to greet the day after a vigorous evening of re-fighting old battles over numerous bottles of wine. Two masters of logic were exchanging point and counter-point amidst a gathering of appreciative spectators, the party demonstrating superior refinement of the art doing so by pushing the face of his opponent into the mud. A maid of negotiable virtues was engaged in a boisterous negotiating session with a squire over matters of accounts receivable and quality of services rendered. Into this rode the knight.
Clad in chain-mail and armed with a sword and dirk, the knight rode astride a sturdy pony. Following behind was a mule laden with more armor, weapons and camp gear. Finally came a massive war horse encumbered only by a cloth coverlet proclaiming the knight’s heraldic arms. Those who stopped to look at this passing troupe became spell-bound. Those who looked upon the face of the knight gaped in amazement. An envelope of surcease spread over the camp in the wake of their passage.
The knight passed through the crowd and approached the pavilion of the dauphin. Guards posted to challenge all strangers simply gawked at the new arrival. The knight stopped before them preparing to request passage beyond, then became aware that the atmosphere of the camp had somehow changed. Gazing slowly about the knight took in the vast silence that surrounded the camp. Veteran knights, disputant and foe, squire and maid, these and all their neighbors had stopped their labors to look in wonder at the knight. The warrior became puzzled, then disbelieving. Finally settling on exasperation the knight broke the silence and asked in a fair voice: “Haes the sin makkit aabodie daumert, or haes naebodie e’er seid the wumman afore?” [“Has the sun stupefied everyone, or has nobody ever seen a woman before?”]