The Ill-Made Knight (64 page)

I was still mounted, but I looked down to find a neat young man, only a little shorter than my horse, holding my bridle. It took me a breath or two to realize this was Perkin. Master Smallwood, as I understood everyone called him now. He was dressed soberly, in black, and he looked . . . like a man.

I dismounted and we embraced.

‘I . . .’ He hung his head. ‘I heard you was alive, but until a month ago we all thought you was dead.’

And then there were all my old mates: Robert Grandice, not seen in a year; Belier, looking like a man-at-arms; even the two wild Irishmen, Seamus and Kenneth, who I hadn’t seen in three years. They no longer looked Irish, except for their facial hair. They had doublets and hose like civilized men.

I almost had my ribs crushed by Kenneth, who was bigger than me – few men are –and kept saying, ‘Been too long!’

Then, while I was introducing men to Fra Peter, Sir John came down from his commanderie. He looked wealthy – his clothes were the best in the street, and that said something. He had gold on – a gold belt of plaques, a gold earring and gold on the mount of his dagger scabbard – and he carried a short staff, like a great noble.

He and Fra Peter exchanged bows.

‘From the Pope?’ he asked straightway.

Fra Peter nodded.

Sir John nodded. ‘None too soon,’ he said. He looked at me and smiled. ‘William the cook, as I live and breathe.’ His smile broke wider. ‘These are your ten lances?’

My forty men – or Fra Peter’s, as the case may be – filled the street. Streets in Alpine towns wind like snakes, and climb and drop like – never mind. They can be steep and the houses press close. It’s like Cumbria, friends, except twice as steep, and on a cold day your iron-shod horse-hooves ring like an anvil against the cobbles as your horse climbs a street. My little column closed the town’s main street to all traffic.

So I turned. I remember my chest being tight with pride at it. ‘Yes, Sir John.’

‘Well, we’re full up at the moment.’ He grinned. ‘And I’ll have to speak to the captain about you.’

Thornbury laughed. ‘Our captain, Sir Albert Sterz.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Full up, my arse. Look at their armour, John! That’s Bill Grice, Bob Courtney and Sam Bibbo. Christ, these are proper soldiers.’

John Hawkwood met my eye and his eyes sparkled. ‘Shut up, Master Thornbury. I’m negotiating.’

We settled on thirty florins a month within an hour.

I confess I was a trifle put out when Sir John took Fra Peter to his rooms and left the rest of us to drink wine. It reminded me of Chaucer and Master Hoo.

Juan sat by me. He pushed in when I was reminiscing with Perkin – in the main, I was reassuring him and my other former mates that I held them no ill-will for riding away when I was to be hanged.

‘Please?’ Juan asked politely.

Perkin frowned at him.

‘What, Juan?’ I asked.

He frowned back at Perkin.

‘Gentlemen!’ I said, and thumped my dagger on the table.

‘Why is Fra Peter speaking to this Sir John?’ he asked.

I shrugged and drank more good Piedmontese wine. It was a little lighter and thinner than the Provençal stuff I’d been drinking, but for all that, a better flavour. The blonde lass who waggled her hips as she walked away was pleasing as well. I liked the town, and I liked the sense of . . . order that I got from the men I’d seen. There was more discipline here than de Badefol had ever managed.

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘But I’ll guess, if it pleases you.’

Juan nodded. He slipped a glance at Perkin, who frowned.

I remember thinking, Sweet Christ, why can’t they just get along?

‘The Pope is at war with Milan. I assume that Fra Peter brought orders for the English Company.’ I turned to Perkin. ‘How many lances?’ I asked.

‘With yours added?’ Perkin asked sweetly. ‘About two thousand.’

I spat wine. ‘Two thousand
lances
?’ I asked. ‘Eight thousand mounted men?’

Perkin nodded. ‘We have every village around here crammed to the rafters. We purchased food from Genoa before the winter weather came.’ He smiled. ‘We raid into Savoy when we want sport.’

‘Ever see Richard?’ I asked.

Perkin smiled a lopsided smile. ‘I hit him in the head not a week ago, but his helmet turned the blow, bad cess to it.’ He drank. ‘Fucking traitor.’

Six months with men of religion had had a certain effect on me. ‘I’m not sure that’s how he sees it,’ I said.

‘What?’ Perkin asked. There were other men sitting around – don’t imagine it was just me, Perkin and Juan, because there were sixty of us crammed in a little slope-sided auberge, trying to talk and listen and trade tales all at the same time.

I shrugged. ‘Later,’ I said.

Perkin leaned over. ‘Tell me you are staying?’ he asked.

‘Up to my knight,’ I said. ‘Fra Peter.’

Later, after another round of introductions, reminiscences and war stories, we sat in another inn, the walls crowded with the heads of dead animals, and listened to a pair of musicians play. It was richer music than I’d heard in France – Avignon may have been full of whores, but there wasn’t any music but church music – but these two were fine – a pleasure to hear – and then they sang together with a woman, and the three wove their voices together like a turkey carpet. I couldn’t understand a word they said – it was Italian.

I had just introduced Fiore to Perkin, and he began interpreting the song – gradually the other voices fell away, though, as everyone became quiet because the music was so good.

Era il giorno ch’al sol si scoloraro

per la pietà del suo factore i rai
,

quando ì fui preso, et non me ne guardai
,

chè i bè vostr’occhi, donna, mi legaro
.

Tempo non mi parea da far riparo

contra colpi d’Amor: però m’andai

secur, senza sospetto; onde i miei guai

nel commune dolor s’incominciaro
.

Trovommi Amor del tutto disarmato

et aperta la via per gli occhi al core
,

che di lagrime son fatti uscio et varco
:

Però al mio parer non li fu honore

ferir me de saetta in quello stato
,

a voi armata non mostrar pur l’arco
.

It was the day the sun’s rays had turned pale

with pity for the suffering of his Maker

when I was caught, and I put up no fight,

my lady, for your lovely eyes had bound me.

It seemed no time to be on guard against

Love’s blows; therefore, I went my way

secure and fearless-so, all my misfortunes

began in midst of universal woe.

Love found me all disarmed and found the way

was clear to reach my heart down through the eyes

which have become the halls and doors of tears.

It seems to me it did him little honour

to wound me with his arrow in my state

and to you, armed, not show his bow at all.

Darkness fell outside, and when I went out into the sharp night air to piss, I heard wolves. There’s a moral there, I have no doubt.

When I went back into the inn, there was a boy from Sir John. I went with him, and met the famous Albert Sterz.

Sterz was German, from Swabia, and as tall as me, if rather heavier and older. I’d seen him of course – seen him at Pont-Saint-Esprit and elsewhere – but he was a knight, and one of the commanders of the companies, and I was, well, a squire.

But he took my hand with every evidence of good will.

‘I hier you haf a fine array of lances,’ he said. I won’t weary you with my attempt to imitate his Swabian accent, but he spoke fine English.

I stammered something.

‘Your arrival couldn’t have been better timed,’ he said.

Fra Peter sat by the chimney on a stool. His face was blank.

The next morning, he had all his kit in the street at first light. I curried his horse from habit, fetched him some bread and wine from a surly girl whose night had clearly not ended early, and broke my fast with him. We prayed together, and then he went out and looked over his horse.

‘I can’t stay,’ he said. He seemed to be talking to his saddle. ‘William, these men are not . . .’ He paused and took a breath. ‘You like it here?’

‘They are better than when I last saw them,’ I said. ‘Better disciplined. Better fed.’

He grimaced. ‘They’ve turned every woman in the town into a whore, and every house into a wine shop. They are even now planning to descend into Lombardy and burn the fields and kill the peasants.’ His eyes met mine. ‘For their master, the Pope.’ He looked away.

I understood. ‘And you brought the orders,’ I said.

‘Orders from the Pope –
suggestions
from the King of England,’ he said. ‘Do you know that the Visconti of Milan are providing a great deal of the money for the King of France’s ransom?’

I hadn’t known. I tried to work it out.

Fra Peter smiled. ‘I’ll have pity on you. The Chancellor – of England – told me that as long as the King of France’s ransom is unpaid, England keeps the rents and income of twenty counties and a hundred castles. And while that ransom is unpaid, and English garrisons sit in the mightiest fortresses of France, the King of France is powerless to end the truce, break the treaty, go to war
or
on crusade. You saw what the companies did to France.’ He started to pack his mule, and I stepped to the other side of the animal to help. ‘France is to be kept crippled.’

I bit my lip. ‘Fra Peter, I’m sure they all have Christian souls, but I’m an Englishman. So, when we make war on Milan, we do it for England?’ I confess I grinned. ‘I can’t say I’m worse pleased.’

Fra Peter pulled a cord tight and tied it off. ‘I’m an Englishman, too. But I’m a knight of the church – and watching the destruction of the riches of France sickens me. Is Italy now to be treated the same? I’m sworn to crusade, and without France, there will be no crusade.’ He got one end of a forty-pound bag of grain, I got the other and we hoisted it over the panniers onto the mule and began to tie it down. ‘Have I shown you this lashing, William?’

‘Yes, Fra Peter.’

‘Perhaps I’m just old, and sick of the whole thing. I’d like to fight other men like me, in an honourable way, in a good cause, and not rape anyone in the process.’ He shrugged. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but Savoy demanded of Father Pierre Thomas that we order the English out of his province. He told Father Pierre Thomas that until the companies are gone, he will not swear to go on crusade.’

Well, I’d caught rumours of this at Turin.

‘What did Father Pierre Thomas say?’ I asked.

‘Can you guess, William?’ he asked. He smiled at me over the saddle.

‘I guess he informed the Count that the crusade was an atonement for his sins and not a matter of political advantage,’ I said.

Fra Peter snorted. ‘You really are getting the hang of this,’ he said. ‘Of course, when Father Pierre Thomas speaks that way, he means every word.’

‘But you just told Hawkwood to continue his fight against Milan,’ I said.

He looked at every lashing, and then gave me a great hug. ‘Go fight, William, but do your best to fight with honour. Protect the weak, war down the strong and help the poor.’ He sprang into the saddle like a much younger man. ‘When the order summons you, come. In the meantime, remember that you are not William Gold, mercenary bandit. You are William Gold, esquire, donat of the Order of St John the Baptist, and behave accordingly.’

I wept, but I rallied. ‘Even when my opponents lie, cheat, steal and betray me?’ I asked.

‘Especially then. We practise chivalry because it is right, not because other men can be expected to do the same. The sword of justice – tempered with mercy.’ He laughed. ‘Remember what Father Pierre Thomas said of the church? Full of sinners? Imagine that the order of chivalry is entirely full of caitiffs trying to be knights.’

Those words stuck in my head, I can tell you. That’s what we are. No one is without sin. No man is a perfect knight. We are caitiffs, but it is the striving that makes us better.

He mounted on the mounting block.

‘Stay alive! My blessing on you, William Gold.’

He laid his hand on my head and rode off into the dawn.

Juan cried that he’d missed his master leaving.

Perkin mocked him for it, and the two of them stripped to their shirts and wrestled in the tiny inn yard. I let them.

Perkin was thrown first and hit his head, but he came back at Juan, and was put down again. Juan had been practising with Fiore, who was watching.

Perkin rose, rubbing his head. ‘You have more wrestling tricks than a Cornishman,’ he said.

Fiore laughed. ‘I see I will have new students.’

We celebrated Christmas like gentlemen. It was my first proper Christmas in years, and I exchanged gifts with my friends, kissed a pretty whore under a sprig of greenery and went to Mass in a good church. I went blithely to confession, and said my beads – my new habits stuck.

We feasted with the town – Sterz had a fine notion of how to keep the townspeople on our side, and we brought in a herd of beef from the coast at our cost. Our company was now so large that we had armourers and basket-makers and butchers. This was not a nation of thieves like the Great Company of Brignais. This was an army, like the army of the Prince of Wales or the King of France. We had a seneschal and a marshal; laws and police. Men who pissed in the streets were punished. Two days after Christmas, an Englishman tried to force a girl in one of the villages – she put a knife into his thigh and escaped, and her father complained. Sir John oversaw a trial as if he was an English magistrate, and the man was found guilty, beaten with rods and his money given to the girl. Then he was dismissed from the company.

On New Year’s day, we rode for Lombardy. We travelled for two days down a long pass, and then, in bleak midwinter, we descended into the fields of Lombardy. I remember my first sight of Italy, and I thought that it couldn’t be a coincidence that we were leaving the Count of Savoy’s land.