The Ill-Made Knight (27 page)

We didn’t want to ask. In truth, although I’ve glossed over and made light of it, we were prisoners, and from time to time, an angry Frenchman would propose killing the lot of us. It’s happened. We were eager to go. It was so close that we all feared some last-minute difficulty.

The tension at dinner that night was like the heavy air near the sea in mid-summer.

After a few sallies that failed, I turned to my host. ‘What troubles you, my lord?’ I asked boldly.

Chaucer stepped on my foot. But I thought then, and still do, that some things are best met head on.

Du Guesclin made a face. ‘In this, I will hope that you can share our anger. Michel wants me to be silent – he thinks that to tell you this will be to tell a secret, yes?’ He looked at de Carriere, who glared at him.

‘The person of the Dauphin was seized by Etienne Marcel three days ago. They took him prisoner and killed Marshal Clermont and every other servant of the King that they could find in Paris.’ Du Guesclin pursed his lips.

‘And the King of Navarre condones it!’ shouted de Carriere – he was usually a pleasant, if silent, man, as young as we ourselves, but he had drunk deep, and his anger was as deep as his draughts.

Chaucer spoke carefully. ‘This is what we . . . sought to prevent.’

‘So you say,’ de Carriere said.

Du Guesclin shook his head. ‘If you English dismember France,’ he said, ‘what will be left? Who will till and work the land? Who will pray? Have you English thought on what will happen if France collapses into anarchy?’

There was, in decency, no answer we could make.

The next day, wearing our own armour and riding our own horses, we rode away. We rode into Normandy, where there was no royal administration to be found. The siege of Rennes was over, and the men who’d participated in it were all serving in the King of Navarre’s armies.

We rode south through lands that were already showing signs of recovery. It was early March and the men were tilling. Women leaned on stone walls and watched us ride by.

This part of southern Brittany had never been a theatre of war, but now it was English, as English as Gascony. And when we reached Gascony, it looked prosperous. Spring was peeking out of every sunny morning; birds sang.

We reached Bordeaux late in March. Lent was almost out. The air was clear, the girls were pretty and we sang as we rode the last few miles.

The Three Foxes looked about the same, except that there was a table in the front of the yard, and at it sat Christopher Shippen and John Hughes, playing dice. I bridled, but Marie threw herself into my arms, and Sam Bibbo came down the stairs – was it her door that had opened?

He clasped my hand, and we had to tell our stories ten times as wine was served and all the girls had a holiday. Ah, I had sworn a hundred times to give her up, cease my fornications and send the girls away.

That good change did not last out my Marie sitting on my lap and telling over our accounts. Taxing me with having run risks and been captured.

I put de Charny’s dagger on the oaken chest by our bed, looked at it and thought hard thoughts.

But that didn’t keep me out of the bed.

The Prince was in England for a tournament, and so was Sir John Chandos. The Prince’s Lieutenant for Gascony was Sir John Cheverston, and he was reported to be marching up the Dordogne valley. Richard and I rested a day, gathered our retinue and rode north after him.

Fortune is a fickle mistress.

After months of hardship and failure, we arrived at the siege of Nadaillac, young Chaucer in tow, in time to present Sir John Cheverston with our damp and somewhat moth-eaten array of
sauvegardes
.

He was a hard man, with a greying forked beard and heavy moustache, a broad forehead and a ferocious temper. His steward warned us before we were taken to this tent that he was in a mood.

‘How long were you two scamps on the road?’ he asked. ‘Chandos must have been scraping the barrel when he chose to send you. Where’s Master Hoo? He’s been sore missed by the Prince.’

‘Dead,’ I said. ‘Killed by the militia in Paris.’

Sir John’s squire helped him get his aventail over his head, and his stained arming cap emerged. ‘Where in the nine hells were you two, that he was killed?’

‘Fighting,’ I said.

He looked at us and shook his head. ‘And you were captured,’ he said in disgust.

‘Yes, my lord,’ I answered humbly.

‘Am I allowed to know exactly
why
two such very young scallywags and a rogue of a notary were sent to Paris?’ he asked.

‘We thought you might tell us?’ I said quietly.

Cheverston spat and took a cup of wine from his squire. ‘I’m of half a mind to send you back,’ he said. ‘The Prince ordered me to acquire a safe-conduct from the French so that I could clear the bandits from the Dordogne, but he didn’t leave me orders as to where I should get such a document.’ He sighed. ‘You boys have had a hard winter – its in your faces – and I suppose you expect to be paid?’

What do you say to that?

We stood silently. With our caps in our hands.

Richard leaned forward. ‘May we . . . stay on for the siege?’ he asked.

Cheveston shrugged. ‘If I’m paying your wages, you might as well be of some help. I don’t suppose you know anything about the Chateau of Nadaillac?

Richard and I spoke out at about the same time. ‘We scouted it last autumn,’ we said in unison, like monks chanting.

We showed him the spring on the hillside.

It took me six months to accomplish nothing for my own reputation. It took one evening for me to make it.

Richard and I took ten men-at-arms and a dozen archers in light harness, and we worked our way up the hillside in the dark. There was very little cover, and we made noise, but the siege had gone on for weeks and the garrison was lax – they expected Sir John to buy them out soon enough, and the fighting had been sporadic, to say the least, as the men inside were mostly the same kind of Gascon routiers who made up most of Sir John’s army.

Let me tell you about lying all night on sandy soil. It’s dull. Every noise is an enemy; every rock digs into you, despite your harness. I wore my brigantine and my arm harness, and no legs, sabatons or breastplate. I couldn’t be comfortable.

Sam Bibbo snored behind me.

The stars crept across the sky.

When you go out to lay an ambush, you go out full of the soundness of your plan and the excellence of your men. By the time the moon has crept halfway across the sky, the plan seems like lunacy and the men with you a paltry force to face the destined counter-ambush, or far too large and noisy for the task. The enemy is never coming.

What I remember best was the tricks my eyes played on me and the plans I
hadn’t
made. Somehow I’d forgotten to tell everyone under what circumstances we’d retreat. I lay there and worried as my stomach roiled, and I farted too much.

Ah! Command. Everyone desires it. But once you have it, it’s a fool’s game, and you are always better off having some other man, who you tell yourself is brilliant,
preux,
daring and sure – let him make the decisions.

A night ambush is for a monster of self-assurance.

I kept thinking that the sun was rising, that it was lighter. I have no explanation for this, except that as I rolled over to start telling men to withdraw – this happened at least twice – I realized that it was still black as pitch, even with moonlight.

When I heard the clink of metal on stone, I assumed it was from one of us.

Then a boot scraping, and then metal.

Sabatons. A knight in full harness, walking on the road.

I raised my head.

In the moonlight, they were like a procession of the dead – twenty men at least, in harness, coming down the road.

Was it a sortie?

But they had another half a dozen men with yokes.

They’d come for water.

So much for my night of worries.

I had chosen a spot below the road, with a clear view. My archers were all to my right, so they had unobstructed shooting, and my men-at-arms were on both sides of the road but a little lower down.

I waited, my heart beating so hard that I could watch my brigantine’s plates move in the moonlight.

The last man passed me.

I stood up. ‘St George and England!’ I roared.

We killed or took them all.

It wasn’t a great feat of arms, but all the famous names were off fighting in the north with Navarre, and so Richard and I made our names. I took the Captain, Philippe de Monfer – he was the man in sabatons – sword to sword. He hacked at me overhand – most men do, to be frank – but in two years I had learned a few things about the longsword. I held mine in two hands – one hand on the hilt and one almost at the point – caught his first great blow over my head, threw my blade around his neck and threw him to the ground, using my sword as a lever. He went down with a crash, and Sam stripped him of weapons while I stood on his sword arm and fought off his squire. The squire had an axe. I cut at his hands until I broke his fingers. He gave himself up.

Richard took four men. He was getting better, too.

The rest threw down their weapons. These were routiers, not great knights. They weren’t worth much – in fact, Cheverston hanged a few of them – but we made a fair amount on our ransoms.

That was all in the future, though. The taking of Nadaillac was an event, as much for the French as for us, because the ‘captain’ had preyed on both sides. Cheverston had a writ from the Black Prince to clean out every nest of robbers in the Dordogne, and with the fame of our deed behind us, Sir John sent us, as he had threatened, back into France to get him the permission he needed to make war against the brigands who preyed on both sides. He also gave me letters to Charles of Navarre, two of the King of France’s officers and the Dauphin.

He read them over very carefully after a scribe had copied them fair. ‘Listen, Master Gold. None of us really knows who is governing France these days. We do not want to break the truce, but we do not want to offend the wrong . . . hmm. The wrong government. If you can, get me a
sauvegarde
from all three: the Dauphin, the King of Navarre and the King’s lieutenant. Understand?’

I think I smiled. ‘All too well, my lord,’ I said.

‘Sir John Chandos says you have a good head on your shoulders,’ he nodded. ‘Governing is not all about swords, eh? Get this done for the Prince and I’ll see you are rewarded.’ He looked at me. ‘I’d have sent Master Chaucer on this mission, but he, mmm, is not available.’

I bowed gratefully.

A letter had come to the army from England and ordered Chaucer home for a wedding. I wasn’t that sorry to see him go, but Richard was. We gave him a fine dinner, and so did Marie, as he passed through Bordeaux.

We rode north in spring. Our horses and gear were the worse for wear after almost ten months’ constant campaign, but we had just made our fortunes and we were cheerful. We sang. We told stories. That’s when we missed Chaucer the most, of course – he was an endless fund of stories, and that’s
before
he went to Italy.

We repeated our earlier route to Tours. The same royal officer passed us, with the same courtesy – this is one of the reasons the same men are used as couriers again and again. Once you are known, passing borders and gates is much easier.

North of Tours, we stayed within France and rode on to Paris. We passed north through a sullen country, full of furtive people. Bibbo was on his guard. I’d learned my lesson from du Guesclin, and now we went into our cloaks as soon as we’d eaten, and we kept watch all night. My page, Rob, was growing into a man, and had a good sword from Nadaillac; the rest of them were solid enough. We were used to each other’s ways – we could halt and, in an hour, the food was cooked, the fire out, the horses curried, fed and picketed, the blanket rolls laid on firesh-cut bracken of whatever type the area allowed, whether plundered straw or pine boughs. The taking of Nadaillac had improved our kit by four small tents, simple wedges of white linen that went up easily and stowed flat in wicker panniers. We often used them to roof over other structures, byres and barns and roofless hovels, but they were better than a sky full of rain, even by themselves.

By day, very little moved across the country. We never saw a wagon or a cart. Sam and John took to riding with their bows strung and over their shoulders, because despite the spring sun, there was an air of thunder over the whole country.

Twice we passed manor houses with smoke coming from the chimneys, but they weren’t interested in having us, so we rode on.

Forty miles south of Paris, at Etampes, we found the town taken and full of an English garrison. They claimed to be holding the town for the King of Navarre, but they gave us lodging, let us refill the feed bags for our horses and baggage animals, and we got wine and news.

The news was that the Dauphin had escaped from Pairs and was raising an army.

Word was that he was at Meaux, on the far side of the Seine. That set us a fine problem as we didn’t relish entering Paris, especially Paris controlled by Etienne Marcel and his red and blue hoods. Word was they were killing every aristocrat they could find.

The English held the lower Seine, but it was a hundred
dangerous
miles round Paris to the English-held crossings.

We discussed trying our luck.

But the captain of Etampes told us that the Isle de France was ‘the very cockpit of war’, so we elected to go south around Paris. We decided to go straight to the King of Navarre.

I wanted to see the trail of slime, I guess.

We rode north first. We weren’t following a rational route, but rather jumping from English-held manor to English-held castle. It was interesting to talk to the captains – all new men, as far as I could tell, many as young as me, and some – you may laugh to hear me say this – the sweepings of English prisons. Hard men were pouring into France from England. They were here for plunder and nothing else. Most had only the vaguest idea of what side they supported in the French civil war.