Read Online I Serve by Rosanne E. Lortz - Free Book Online Page A

and clumsy to boot. His father was a fighting man before he lost his leg, but there’s not a drop of noble blood in his veins or the boy’s.”
    “ Thomas, Thomas,” interrupted his master with a broad smile, “It is well that you are no merchant, for a seller should not decry his own wares. I am the buyer here. Let me be the judge of the lad.
    “ Come here, boy,” he said, addressing me. Forward I came, head lowered and jaw clenched like a servant expecting to be beaten. “What is your name?” he demanded.
    “ John Potenhale,” I answered gruffly. I peered up through my eyebrows to see a kindly face, ringed with grey around the temples. His black beard had a touch of silver and so did his voice.
    “ John Potenhale, do you want to enter my service?” asked the lord of the estate.
    “ Aye,” said I, but it came out harsh and forced for my mouth was as dry as sand from Araby.
    “ Can you fight?” he asked.
    “ A little,” said I remembering the wooden fence posts and my father’s instruction.
    “ Can you read?”
    “ A little,” said I for my mother had taught me my letters.
    “ Can you pray?”
    I looked up in surprise and stared him full in the eye. “Aye, I can pray right well.”
    “ That is good,” said Sir John, “for however well you wield the sword or however well you trim your pen, it is the favor of heaven that will prevail. Perhaps you have the makings of a knight in you.” He turned to my grandfather. “Very well, Thomas. I will take him as a page. If he proves apt, he may go further.”
    “ Gramercy for your kindness,” said my grandfather in utter astonishment at the success of his mission.
    Sir John bade me remove to the manor immediately and gave me into the charge of his lady wife. I had left little behind at my parents’ croft save a tunic, a dagger, and a pair of shoes. My grandfather brought my small bundle to the house and bid me adieu. When I would have thanked him for the place he had got me, he shook his head. “Nay, no thanks to me. It is your father who deserves the thanks, for I would not have importuned Sir John if your father had not importuned me so frequently. ‘Ask, ask!’ he says, and ‘No, no,’ say I, till at last my resistance wears through like a padlock beset by a file. If I had my will, you would be steward after me, for I have no sons of my own to take my place. But your father’s will is stronger than my own; and he has the right of it to send you where he pleases, for the duty of a son is to serve the will of his father.”
    With these words, my grandfather left me. I would see him again a few short times, but his days in Herefordshire were numbered and death came on swiftly the following winter. My own days in Herefordshire were shorter than his; Sir John Chandos was not one to linger in the countryside when the king’s court had entered the city. I traveled to London with his household when he went thither to wait on Edward.
    The cautions my grandfather had delivered concerning my dullness and ineptitude proved but little true. I learned quickly and eagerly the duties pertaining to a page. Sir John’s lady took a liking to me; she was a stately woman with no children of her own. She took me in hand and remedied the churlish manners of my upbringing. She was one of the most learned ladies I have ever known. In two years’ time, she taught me to read in my own tongue, the tongue of the French, and the tongue of the Church.
    You may know that in our country, the English tongue is used by the common folk, French is the speech of castle and court, and Latin is the language of the monks and scholars. A knight must know all three languages: Latin, for how else would he confer with God’s servants? French, for how else would he speak with other knights? English, for how else would he command his serfs and the lower men-at-arms? And besides all this, the king threatens every year to change the language of Parliament to the English tongue, for he likes