Ironhand

by Hilary Green

  They crossed the garden and passed through a gate into a wide open space, bounded on the far side by the stables. The ground was bare, churned to dust by the passing and re-passing of hooves. In the centre of the space was an object which at first sight reminded Ranulph of a gibbet. It was a tall pole and from the top of it was suspended an arm which carried at one end a large shield-shaped piece of wood and at the other a sack weighted with something heavy. As they watched the thunder of hooves came again and a young man, whom Ranulph recognised as one of the squires, galloped down the track, a lance levelled under one arm. The tip of the lance struck the shield a glancing blow, causing the arm to swing round, and the boy received a heavy buffet on the back of his neck from the sack. A chorus of derisive cat calls rose from the other young men assembled at the end of the arena. A second boy charged. This time it looked as though his aim was true but at the last moment his horse veered slightly to the left and he missed completely. The third rider he recognised as Vincente, his escort from the city. This time there was no mistake. He hit the target fair and square and then ducked to his horse's neck to avoid the sack. The others cheered and Alessandro shouted 'Bravo!' Vincente raised his lance in salute.

  Turning to Ranulph he asked, 'Have you ever tried this sport?'

  'No,' Ranulph responded regretfully. 'I never had the opportunity.'

  'Come and meet my master at arms.'

  He led him to a thick-set, grizzled man who sat his horse at the end of the arena. 'This is Rollo. He is the most skilful warrior and the best teacher in Tuscany. Rollo, this young man is Ranulph, whom they call Ironhand.'

  The master cast a sharp, assessing glance over Ranulph. 'Ah. You are the one who gave my finest pupil the fight of his life, I'm told.'

  Ranulph felt himself blush. 'I think he could have bested me at any moment if he had wanted to.'

  'Not so!' Alessandro protested. 'You almost had me at your mercy once. Rollo, Ranulph would like to try his luck at the quintain. You have no objection?'

  'None at all. Vincente will lend you his horse.'

  'I have a horse of my own,' Ranulph said, 'but she is not trained for this.'

  'Better to take Vincente's, then,' Rollo said.

  The young man dismounted and Ranulph took his place on the big chestnut. He was immediately aware that this was a very different animal from his biddable mare. Feeling strange hands on the reins the horse threw up his head and backed and it took all Ranulph's skill to quiet him. He walked him quietly to the far end of the course and by the time they got there he began to feel more in control, but it was still like sitting on the edge of a volcano which might erupt at any moment. A page handed him a lance.. He tucked it under his arm and levelled it towards the target, then drew a deep breath. He knew they were all watching and he wanted very badly not to make a fool of himself. He touched his heels to the chestnut's side and the horse leapt forward, throwing him back against the high cantle of the saddle. He only just had time to recover his balance before they were on the target. He adjusted his aim and struck the shield squarely, and let out a yell of triumph; but he had forgotten the heavy sack at the other end of the arm and the yell changed to a violent expiration of breath as it hit him between the shoulder blades and almost toppled him from the saddle. He rode on to where Rollo and Alessandro were waiting, shaking his head at his own stupidity.

  'I made a mess of that!'

  'Nonsense,' Alessandro retorted. 'You did remarkably well for a first try. Don't you agree, Rollo?'

  'Certainly.' The older man nodded. 'You show promise. We'll make a jouster of you yet.'

  The words echoed in Ranulph's mind. There was a suggestion of continuing training that set his pulse racing even more than his recent gallop. He looked at the sky. The sun was already dipping towards the horizon and he had a good two hour ride to get back to the city. He dismounted and handed the reins and the lance to Vincente, then turned to Alessandro.

  'I should be getting back.'

  The count also looked skywards. 'Yes, you're right. I'll get two of my men to escort you.'

  'There's no need,' Ranulph protested. 'I know my way now.'

  'Nevertheless, I'd prefer to know you were not alone. It may be dark before you reach the city. When will you come again?'

  Ranulph caught his breath. 'I … I don't know. It depends on when I can get leave.'

  'Of course. Well, come whenever you can. You will always be welcome. If by any chance I am not here my steward will take care of you, and I'm sure Rollo will not mind if you join the boys for training.'

  Alessandro accompanied him to the stables and waited until he had saddled Silver and the two men at arms were ready.

  Ramnulph paused with his hands on the reins. 'Thank you for inviting me. It has been a wonderful day.'

  'I have enjoyed it, too,' Alessandro said. 'I shall look forward to the next time.'

  Ranulph made him a bow and swung himself into the saddle. The Count smiled up at him. 'Go safely. God be with you.'

  Ranulph's reception when he reached the city was less than enthusiastic. Rosa was sulking and Leofric greeted him with a caustic, 'Still in one piece, then.' Even Hildred seemed unusually off-hand. But he did not care. Like a man offered a spread of delicacies after a long diet of bread and water, he savoured the memories of the day and required no other comfort.

  Summer faded into autumn and still the siege dragged on. Rumour had it that the Pope was insisting on calling a synod to discuss rescinding the sentence of excommunication, but it was proving difficult to assemble enough bishops to give it any legitimacy. While his companions fretted with impatience and boredom, Ranulph was perfectly content. The duty of keeping watch on the castle was not onerous and he was able to get leave quite frequently, though it was always granted grudgingly and accompanied by a jibe at his devotion to this new found friend. He was aware that the rest of the company were puzzled and even offended by what seemed to them like a desertion, but the lure of what awaited him at Monteforato was too great to resist. The most difficult part was his relationship with Rosa. She alternately sulked and pleaded. Sometimes his clothes were left unmended, sometimes she brought him delicacies she had contrived from somewhere and lavished caresses on him. He found himself increasingly irritated by both ploys. He felt guilty when he saw that she was upset, but not guilty enough to yield to her pleas to be taken with him, or to stay away to be with her.

  His visits to Monteforato were beginning to take on a regular pattern. He spent the mornings in the library, usually in the company of Alessandro, and the afternoons in the tilt yard with Rollo and the squires. He was coming to know the rest of the household, too. There was Bartolo, the steward, a stick-thin old man who had served Alessandro's father and who seemed to regard Alessandro himself as a surrogate son; Enzo, his chamberlain; Drago, his falconer; Claudio, his master of horse and Father Salvatore, his confessor. The only woman who seemed to have any part in the organisation of the household was Lavinia, who had been Alessandro's nurse and who now supervised the serving girls and washer women.

  Ranulph was initially uneasy with Father Salvatore, as he was with any priest, but he was a jovial, easy-going man who was obviously happy with his current situation and had no desire to disturb it. It took Ranulph a while to realise that beneath that smooth exterior there was an extremely sharp intellect, which was the prime reason for his appointment. In his morning sessions with the Count he was introduced to a world of poetry and legend, but sometimes Salvatore joined them and then the talk turned to philosophy, and not only to the wisdom of the Christian fathers. For the first time Ranulph heard the names of Aristotle and Plato. He was over-awed by the wealth of knowledge which he was encountering for the first time, but also fired with enthusiasm by his first experience of intellectual debate.

  In the military exercises he could more than hold his own. His relationship with the five young squires was guarded at first. He recalled only too well how Dirk had resented him and was afraid that, seeing the favours
Alessandro bestowed on him, they might feel the same. He understood after a while that he need not have worried. They treated him with good-humoured condescension, like a mascot or a favourite hound.

  All that changed one warm day in late September. They had had a particularly strenuous bout of sword practice and they all stripped off to braies and hose to douse themselves with buckets of well water. Ranulph saw that the youngest, Felipe, a boy of fifteen, was gazing at him with wide eyes.

  'Where did you get those scars?'

  Ranulph looked down at himself. A long white mark ran down his right upper arm from a sword cut in one of his early fights, another showed in the soft flesh below his ribs, and there was a puckered scar in his left shoulder where an arrow had struck. He still winced at the recollection of the pain of having it cut out.

  'You can't expect to fight without getting wounded occasionally,' he said.

  'Have you been in many fights?'

  He thought back. Did the skirmish at the river ford count? 'Seven, maybe eight, I suppose.'

  'Ever killed a man?' Vincente asked.

  Ranulph looked at him. In spite of their birth and training, none of them had any concept of the realities of war. 'In battle, men get killed. You don't always know, when a man goes down under your sword, if he is dead or just wounded. All that matters is that he is out of the fight. I must have killed four or five, but I can't be sure. It might be more.'

  'Is that why they call you Ironhand?'

  'Yes.'

  After that, they treated him with more respect.

  He sensed it, and he knew that Alessandro was impressed with his command of Latin and his ability to argue over abstract concepts; but in spite of all that he still felt himself ill-equipped for the situation in which he found himself. He had not been brought up to have the courtly manners that came so naturally to boys like Vincente and the others. But he watched and listened and was quick to pick up hints.

  One of his more intractable problems was clothes. On the day after his first visit he went out and spent the last of his salary on a tunic of good, dark green wool and two pairs of well made hose; but he had nothing else to change into when he was hot and sweating after a bout and he could never match the fine fabrics and embroidered cuffs and silver buckled belts that the squires possessed.

  Back in the city there were new rumours. The Pope, it was said, had appealed to the Norman Robert d'Hauteville, known as the Guiscard, for help and Robert had left his campaign in the Balkans against the Greek emperor Alexios to his illegitimate son Bohemond and was on his way back to Italy. Ranulph's English companions shook off their lethargy at the prospect of the coming battle. At last they would have a chance to get to grips with the hated enemy. They might not be William of Normandy's men, but they were Normans, and that was enough. But after a week or two new intelligence arrived from the south. With winter approaching, Robert had retired to his castle in Apulia and disbanded his army. There would be no fighting until spring.

  The days were shortening and one afternoon as Ranulph prepared to leave Monteforato for the city Alessandro said, 'It is a pity you must go. Soon it will be dark so early that you will have hardly any time here. Why don't you stay?'

  Ranulph bit his lip. The temptation was almost irresistible. 'I have to report back,' he said reluctantly. 'I have a duty to Leofric.'

  'I understand that, but he can't have any real need of you at the moment, surely. How many men does it take to sit round a castle to keep one old man from breaking out?'

  'But he is my captain. It's my job. It's how I earn my living.'

  Alessandro tilted his head with the familiar half smile. 'Why don't you come and work for me instead?'

  Ranulph caught his breath. 'Could I? If I could join your squires …'

  Alessandro was shaking his head. 'I'm sorry, I can't make you a squire. They are all boys of noble birth. I know that that is true of you, too, but you no longer have the rank or the lands to sustain it. It would not be possible.'

  Ranulph turned away, bitterly. He had never before that moment felt the loss of his ancestral position so acutely. 'Well, then, I must continue as a common soldier.'

  'I could make you my secretary …'

  Ranulph swung round. 'Do you not understand? I have to be a warrior. One day I am going to assemble a big enough force to go back and challenge the imposter who sits on the English throne. How can I abandon that ambition to become an inky fingered clerk?'

  'You must be realistic. I know how you must feel about what happened to your country, but from all I hear William has made himself secure on the throne. There have been rebellions, but none have succeeded. Even Edgar Atheling has submitted and sworn fealty.'

  'I don't care! If I can just raise enough troops to gain a foothold in my own lands I am convinced the whole of Northumbria will rise up to support me.'

  Alessandro sighed. 'Very well. I can't make you relinquish your dream. But hear me out. Your official position might be as my secretary, -and truthfully I do need the services of someone with your capabilities -but there would be no reason why you should not continue to train with my squires, as you have been doing. Rollo would welcome you. He thinks you put the other boys on their mettle. What do you say?'

  Ranulph gazed at him. The prospect of spending every day as he had just spent this one was irresistible, but he still had his duty. 'When the fighting starts again, I must be with Leofric and the others. It would be dishonourable to desert them.'

  'When the fighting starts again, I shall be there, too. Remember, I, too, have men in the emperor's forces and when they go into battle I shall be there to lead them. So why not stay with me for the winter, and then, if you feel you must, you can rejoin Leofric in the spring. What do you say?'

  He still hesitated. 'There is nothing I should like more – provided I can get Leofric's agreement.'

  Leofric's reaction came as no surprise.

  'So, this is it, then? You have finally decided to forsake your countrymen for this Tuscan count.'

  'No!' Ranulph protested. 'I'll be back in the spring, as soon as the fighting starts again. But can't you see, Leofric, what a marvellous opportunity this is? I can learn so much from the Count's master-at-arms. I already have, but there is so much more he can teach me. When we start fighting again, I'll be more useful than I am now. I might even pick up a few tricks that I can pass on to the others.'

  'There's a big difference between real fighting and fancy tournament tricks. Has your precious count ever seen battle?'

  'He has men in the emperor's service and when the new season starts he will be there to lead them. He has told me so.'

  'Oh yes?' There was bitter scepticism in Leofric's voice. 'Well, if you are determined to go, I can't stop you. But what are you going to do about Rosa. Will you take her with you?'

  It was the first time Ranulph had even considered that question. He hesitated for a moment. 'No, I can't do that. Alessandro … the Count … hasn't invited her, and I don't think she'd fit in.'

  'Not fine enough for your new friends, eh?'

  'I don't mean that … not exactly. But what would she do? I wouldn't want her to find herself classed as one of the servants …' He made a decision. 'I'll ask Hildred to look after her. She likes him and he's always very kind to her.'

  Leofric looked at him with undisguised amazement. 'You are going to ask Hildred to look after your woman?'

  'Why not?'

  'Why not? You young idiot! Are you completely blind?' Leofric turned away abruptly, as if the conversation was over. Then he swung round again. 'All right! Go! Go to your fancy friends. But just ask yourself this. What is it Count Alessandro sees in you, that makes him so keen to have you with him? Do you really think it's for the pleasure of looking at your big blue eyes and your golden hair? He's after your arse, boy! Don't say I didn't warn you. He's after your arse!'

  Ranulph stared at him, wordlessly. Then he turned away and ran to the horse lines. Minutes later he was galloping up the road that
led to Monteforato.

  13.

  Monteforato was a different world. Until now he had had only the vaguest idea of how a great household functioned. Now he was part of it. He had an acknowledged position and a role to play, which he soon discovered was not merely an excuse for his presence. Alessandro had meant it when he said that he was in need of a secretary. On his earlier visits he had only seen the count at leisure and it had never occurred to him that he had set aside more mundane concerns in order to share his delight in poetry and philosophy. Now Ranulph began to understand that the good running of an estate required the time and attention of its overlord. Alessandro held regular conferences with his steward and the bailiffs who came in from the villages with reports and he took a close interest in everything they had to say. It was not simply a matter of the collections of taxes and tithes. He was concerned about the management of the land and the well being of the men and women who worked it. Disputes were brought to him to adjudicate and anyone accused of crime or negligence came before him to be judged. He heard every case thoroughly and his punishments, through sometimes harsh, were always, in Ranulph's opinion, just. He made a point of riding out around his domains, seeing for himself the conditions in the villages. He seemed to know most of the peasants who lived in them by name and remembered to enquire after those who had been ill, or had given birth, and babies were presented to him to name, and always received a generous gift. The grape harvest had been good and Alessandro took a particular interest in the production of the wine, for which the estate was famous, and showed himself knowledgeable about the techniques involved. In all this, Ranulph was expected to be on hand with his wax tablets to note down matters that required his lord's further attention. He was glad to make himself useful, and learnt a good deal in the process.

  There were regular visits to the city, as well. Alessandro had not been lying when he said that he, too, supported the emperor. Ranulph had been puzzled initially by the small number of men-at-arms living in the castle, but he had soon learned that the count maintained a much larger force, which was currently quartered in Rome as part of the besieging army. It was commanded by his marshal Sir Matteo and spearheaded by Alessandro's household knights. They were tough men, battle hardened, but it was clear that if there was any fighting to be done, Alessandro himself would take command and Ranulph could see that they respected that. For the time being, while the siege dragged on, the count was content to make regular inspections, to listen to complaints and ensure that his men were well supplied.