The Ill-Made Knight (66 page)

‘Forward!’ he called.

By the sweet and gentle Christ, my friends, and by all the saints, that water was cold. And it came to my hips. Ice water to your balls!

Every one of us gasped as we hit that water. It filled my sabatons, my greaves and my clothes.

But 8,000 men can break the force of any stream. It was six paces across, and our front was well dressed – that is, we were all level with each other. Back then, we never practised any such thing – then we were scrambing up the far bank. Men grabbed bushes and trees – it was a three-foot climb out of the icy torrent – men behind pushed.

Then we were up, and it felt as if I could reach out and touch the Germans.

Even then, I thought the Germans would charge and make a fight of it.

Konrad von Landau rode to the front and called something in German. I don’t know what he was saying, but he sounded like he was saying, ‘Stand! Stand!’

They were melting away.

We formed and we did it quickly – we’re not the Legions of Heaven, or Old Romans, but we were a company and we had spirit. Then we started forward, spears held two-handed. The closer we got to the Germans, the faster we were going. Men stumbled and fell – I remember that field, and it looked as smooth as a tile in a Flemish bath, but it was covered with fist-sized rocks, left by the glaciers, and if you got one under your heel, down you went.

As is often the way, everything suddenly happened at once.

The Germans nearest von Landau charged, but they’d waited far too long, and we were closer than twenty paces, and their horses were unsure from their first steps whether to face our spears or not. Others among the Germans were running, or sitting where they were.

I’m going to guess they didn’t trust the men to their right and left.

Fiore was three men to my left. I heard him say, quite distinctly, ‘But we won’t get to fight at all!’

The Germans came at us, but their horse flinched, and we charged into them rather than the other way round.

I hadn’t faced another man in combat for a year – almost to a day.

I punched my spear into the armpit of the first German I met. He raised his sword to cut at me, and down he went, over the cantle of his saddle. I had to push past his horse to go on – the horse just stood its ground like an equine statue; I’ve never seen the like.

I remember the next man because I took him for ransom. He had a lance, which he endeavoured to use against me with both hands. I slammed it to earth with my spear and returned his stroke with a blow to his aventail, rocked him in the saddle and stabbed him three times in as many heartbeats. Each blow turned by his breastplate, but I had practised this at the pell – my point was looking for a weak joint and he couldn’t shake me.

My fourth blow popped his visor and went into his helmet – by an odd twist of luck and armouring, it went over his head, between his head and the padding of his helmet. So instead of instant death, it stretched his spine and gaffed him from the saddle as his horse tried to turn, so that he was on his back. By ill luck, he hit one of the small stones and was knocked unconscious.

Or perhaps it was good luck. He lived.

My third German knight was trying to run. I killed his horse from behind, and left him for Robert or Arnaud. They took him.

I was now deep into the German lines and the battle was over. The Germans were running, except for a band of perhaps 100, gathered around their great knight, von Landau, and they were facing Sir John’s men – and mine. I left off pursuing stragglers and ran at the rear of von Landaus’s stand. Of course he didn’t want to be taken, and he was still calling on his men to stand and not run. The English no longer had any order – everyone was going in all directions, looking for men to take and ransom.

War between mercenaries can be formulaic, but battle is always chaos and death.

The knot around von Landau grew smaller and smaller; it was very like the end at Poitiers. I faced a Milanese knight in superb armour, and he beat my spear aside with his sword; I caught his sword on my spear haft, and he cut into it, once, twice, and then the spear broke. I threw the shards at his horse to make it shy and drew my longsword. He came at me again, the horse pressing against me, so I dropped and went under the horse – got a nasty knock from the beast – and came up under his stirrup. I cut into the unarmoured back of his thigh and he yelled. Kenneth, the Irishman, got his other leg and pulled him out of his stirrups. He screamed – that must have pulled every muscle in his hips – and then he was dead, with Seamus’s great axe through his head.

Waste of a ransom, in my opinion, but the Irish are mad.

I was one horse from von Landau. If I could kill him or take him, someone would knight me – I could feel it and it was all I wanted.

He was sword to sword with Fiore.

He hammered the man on foot, and Fiore covered himself, so that he seemed to live in a tent of steel – every blow fell like a hammer only to trail away. Some fell so hard on Fiore’s sword that sparks flew in broad daylight. Blow after blow.

It is not done, even among mercenaries, to interrupt a fair fight between peers. So even though von Landau was mounted and a famous name, no one came forward to gut his horse.

Landau urged his mount into the Italian.

I prepared to put him down. But I’d have to do it in single combat, and I didn’t want Fiore to die just so I could get my spurs.

Fiore’s sword took another hammer blow and snapped.

He ducked under Landau’s next blow, fell to one knee and picked up one of the fist-sized rocks.

As Landau’s sword went back, Fiore threw. The stone hit just above the mercenary captain’s open visor, and Landau fell as his horse reared.

He hit the ground stone dead.

Hah! True as the gospel, messieurs. It’s in Villani! The best swordsman who ever lived killed Konrad von Landau with a rock.

That night, we were in a clean inn in Romagnano – not in a camp or a muddy tent, nor lying on the ground. I rather liked war in Italy, so far.

I was sitting at a decent oak table, drinking good wine.

Fiore and Juan were refighting the battle with Perkin and Robert, who’d managed to get his arm broken but was nonetheless in fine spirits because he’d picked up all my prisoners and made himself enough florins to buy a good horse and become a man-at-arms.

A Swiss girl with the face of a London urchin and the manners of a fine lady was hovering around, fussing over him. Smart lass. Tend a man when he’s sick or wounded and you own him.

‘Now you’ve seen a battle,’ I said, only partly in jest. ‘Does it affect your theories?’

He rocked his head back and forth. ‘I killed an armoured knight with a rock,’ he said. He sounded disappointed.

There was something in the way he said it – a combination of pride at having done it, wistfulness at having missed the ransom and annoyance at God’s plan for having to use a rock and not a weapon requiring more skill – that made me burst out laughing, and all the others followed suit. The laughter spread, as laughter does – one man told another, one girl whispered and giggled, and the inn rafters rang with it.

He frowned for a moment, and then he had the grace to laugh with us, though I swear to you he didn’t know why. Maestro Fiore, as we know him now, was not without humour, but in some ways he lived with the gods, not with mere men.

For example, he’d killed the enemy commander, he was young, exceptionally fit and rather handsome; he was the hero of the hour. He was, quite literally, surrounded by attractive young women – English, Italian, German, Swiss and Provençal. He did look at them from time to time, but I don’t think he had any idea how to proceed beyond that.

I’m losing the thread here. We were laughing; he was laughing. And then, through the crowd of camp followers, came a young man. The pretty blonde girl I had been eyeing near the door suddenly flinched aside as she looked at the new man; her nose wrinkled in distaste.

The man had short, dark hair cut in the latest Italian fashion, a sort of bowl cut that went well under a helmet, and he had tight leather boots to the thigh, a neat blue doublet and a matching blue belt with a sheathed dagger – slim and long. He didn’t look like anyone I knew, and my eyes passed over him.

Another girl glared at him and he glared back, then I knew who he was.

He
was Milady.

Perkin saw her and shuddered. He knew trouble when he saw it.

I rose and bowed, and she smiled at me. ‘I couldn’t stay away,’ she said. ‘I gather I missed the battle.’

Fiore bowed. ‘I haven’t had the pleasure,’ he said. ‘Do you always dress as a man?’

That was Fiore, too. He watched people in a way that most men do not. He knew she was a woman instantly. Most men didn’t, but many women did.

She smiled at him and offered her hand, like a woman. ‘I do not dress like a man,’ she said. ‘I become a man, if I want to.’ She tilted a head to one side. ‘I missed you, William Gold.’

‘Thanks, Janet.’ I bowed. I hadn’t missed her. Or I had?

I suspect I wore the same face that Richard wore when he saw me.

Why, though? She was a good companion, and what I had of gentle manners I owed to her. ‘How’s Richard?’ I asked.

She smiled. ‘Well, when I left him.’

That could mean anything.

‘Are you . . . visiting?’ I asked.

She frowned. ‘No, William. I plan to stay and lead a lance.’ She looked around, daring us to protest.

Fiore bowed. ‘May I be your squire, Madame?’

She snapped her fingers. ‘No, messire. I have a lover – I couldn’t possibly satisfy a second. Even in the most chaste and chivalrous way, men are tiresome. Except when you are one, and then men are a delight.’ She looked up and her eyes met his.

He said, ‘Do you have any skill with the sword?’

She shrugged expressively. ‘I’m a better jouster,’ she said, ‘but I have been known to use the sword and the dagger.’

‘Ah,’ sighed Fiore. A woman who could use a sword.

We were all doomed.

We ate and drank, and in an hour she was part of us again. When Andrew Belmont came by to congratulate Fiore, he noticed her. He put an arm around her waist, and she dropped him on his arse.

Andrew was a true knight, for all his failings, which were many. He bounced to his feet and grinned. ‘Horse or foot, messire,’ he said. ‘If you dress like a man, you’d best fight like one.’

She grinned. ‘Horse,’ she said.

Belmont paused. I think he still thought she was a whore playing dress-up, but he shrugged. ‘Dawn, by the bridge,’ he said.

We were young, and we were still awake when it was time to arm her. She had a fine harness – still some bits we’d picked up in the fight in Provence, which seemed ten years ago but was only two. She was drunk as a lord, and suddenly flirtatious and angry by turns. She kissed Fiore while he struggled to get her brigantine closed, which I promise you is not the best way to get your squires to arm you quickly, or well. On the other hand, it does seem to get devoted service.

It took three of us to get her on her horse, and I held the bridle all the way down to the bridge. Andy Belmont was there, and so was half the White Company, as we had taken to calling ourselves, drunk as only successful mercenaries – and sailors – can manage. The rumour had gone round that the handsome Belmont had run afoul of a whore who intended to fight him. Remember, to us there was nothing funnier than watching two cripples fight with sticks – an incontinent dwarf who could drink wine and piss it in the same action could keep a dozen men laughing for an hour. So a knight jousting with a whore?

The sun was just above the rim of the world.

Somehow I’d become the marshal. I had severe doubts about the whole thing – I was afraid for her, and afraid that someone would be killed. Both of them rode expensive horses, and a dead horse was both dishonour and financial ruin.

They set their chargers at either end of the course. We didn’t have a barrier, but then, we did this for a living.

Andrew motioned to me, and I trotted to his stirrup.

‘She’s not a whore, is she?’ he asked.

‘She wishes to have a lance and fight,’ I said. ‘She used to fight. She’s been with us before.’

He made a face. ‘Very well,’ he said. He was drunk, too. ‘I won’t hit her too hard.’

I went to my place and held my neck-cloth aloft. It fluttered in the cold wind and someone called, ‘Get on with it!’

I let it go.

Andrew leaned forward slightly, and his horse gave a small rear, then began to head down the list.

Milady’s horse came from a stand to a dead gallop in three steps, accelerating like an arrow from a bow.

His lance struck her in the shoulder and rocked her backwards. She was light, and so was her horse, and suddenly both of them were crashing to earth.

Her lance tip caught him dead in the centre of the breastplate, and even as she went down, her lance tip continued to track him, bursting the girth on his saddle and throwing him back over the rump of his horse.

Both of them crashed to earth.

We stood in shocked silence, broken only by the hoofbeats of Andrew’s riderless horse galloping down the rest of the list.

Then Milady’s small horse got to his feet. He shook like a dog and walked a few steps. Uninjured.

Milady sat up and said, ‘Fuck.’

Andrew just lay there for a moment, then he rolled over to get a knee under him – most of us have to do that, in full armour – and he was laughing. He got to his feet, tottered over to her and extended a hand.

She looked up at him. ‘Don’t we have two more courses to ride?’ she said.

‘Absolutely not,’ Belmont said, and we all burst into cheers.

Our victory over von Landau shocked Italy. Von Landau had been very famous, and we killed him.

After the battle, everyone called us the White Company. I don’t know who started it – I’m sure it was the white surcoats, although I’ve met some useless bastards who say it was our spotless reputation – I sneer – or our shining armour – to which I’ll attest that at Canturino, there were maybe fifty Englishmen in white harnesses. Five years later, we all had them, but that’s another story.