He fell back to the same bricks from which I’d lifted him. And spat, rubbing away tears of rage and shame with his fist.
‘You are my squire,’ I said, after rubbing my knuckles. ‘I do not expect to discuss this with you ever again.’
I walked back to the torchlight, had a cup of wine, and returned to dancing.
Perhaps you will think me a great prude. Perhaps I am. I am a lovesome man myself; I have made love to women against the laws of God. But, by the risen Christ, I have never forced a woman, even by word or manipulation. It is the exact repudiation of what I believe in knighthood.
I was prepared for him to leave me. I was angry, but not so angry that I couldn’t think. I was level enough to know that he might just collect his horse and arms and ride home. His family was only a day away.
And that is exactly what he did. It is a little amusing that from the ripe age of twenty-eight I could read a nineteen-year-old so well, but I could. I danced a little more, and then walked back through the beautiful streets to the castello, where I fell into bed, waking some time later to find that the count was already up, and I was short a squire.
We stayed three days in Verona. We went out into the countryside and ate in the hills above the town, Valpolicella, where the best wine comes from, and Father Angelo took us to Montorio. It was a pleasant party, and I flirted a little with various locals and thought of the pure hypocrisy of my anger at Marc-Antonio. When I was nineteen, I ran a brothel. And I had had various girls. While they had all been willing, I wasn’t exactly choosy.
Bah. And yet, let us say one is a poor swordsman. And let us say one devotes one’s life to a life of arms, and becomes proficient. Should other young men spurn you as a teacher because you were once a poor sword? No. Your experience and training have earned you the right to teach. I hope it is this way with sin.
Richard asked me where Marc-Antonio was on the second morning, when I was tacking up my own riding horse, whom I called Juniper, a magnificent Arab mare who I planned, if I got her alive to Emile, to make a brood mare for a line of Arabs. She was as beautiful as any horse I’ve ever known, and tough as an old boot, and while she was no Gabriel, I’d practised some fighting from her back and she was capable.
I digress, as usual. Richard asked me where Marc-Antonio had gone, and I explained.
He scratched his beard, leaning against the wall of my stall. ‘Does it ever make you think?’ he asked, toying with his paternoster.
‘What? Does what make me think?’ I asked.
Richard spread his hands. ‘Our old life. Our new life. I’ve grabbed a girl or two in the dark.’ He smiled sadly.
I had my saddle on Juniper, and I adjusted the girth, walking around her murmuring words of comfort, and then tightened the girth again. I leaned on her and looked at Richard. ‘All the time,’ I said. ‘I’m no Galahad. But what he did …’
Richard shrugged. ‘I know,’ he said.
‘He was an excellent squire and a good fighter,’ I said. ‘But that’s not enough.’
Richard tugged at his beard. ‘Ever think that maybe we’re such a pair of prudes because we lived so hard?’ he asked. ‘Mayot taxes me for my “morals” all the time.’
I hadn’t considered it, but now I did, in the pleasant warmth of a stable in Verona. ‘You mean, having started as thieves and rapists, we know why all the rules matter?’ I asked.
Richard nodded. ‘You know, before you came … I just tried not to think of it. Of … being a routier. And of … Janet. And all that.’ He looked away. ‘But you came, and it all came back with you.’
What could I say?
Juniper shuffled and stamped a foot, and I calmed her.
‘I guess I’m afraid,’ Richard said. ‘Afraid it’s all a dream, and I’ll find myself on a road in a rusty harness, off to kill some strangers. Or running a fucking brothel.’ He looked at me. ‘I want it to be far away, but it’s close, every time I fight, or …’ He shook his head. ‘Listen to me, I’m sounding like some sort of weak …’
I went and put my arms around him, and we clasped each other hard.
‘We won’t go back to being routiers,’ I said. I guess it was the right thing to say.
By the time we left Verona, my scalp had mostly healed, and Richard and I were getting along well. The count was ready to dispense with our anxious and close guard.
We rode south to Mantua. The count was well received, and the countryside was flat and ambush-proof. In Verona I’d been received as an important man in the great man’s train; the Lord of Mantua treated me as a sort of soldier-servant. He treated Musard and Mayot the same; we went to barracks, mostly full of German men-at-arms, and there were no pretty maidens to dance with.
South of Mantua a day was Bologna. And if you are wondering why I didn’t go straight to Bologna via Ferrara, I can only say, ask the count. He was on a triumphal progress of sorts. Richard and I had also determined on a strategy, since the count would not travel in secret, of making dashes from stronghold to stronghold. And with forty men, we were a difficult target as long as we stayed together.
Bologna had other problems. It was a Papal city; the city itself was the very bone of contention between the Pope and the Visconti, as the Milanese laid claim to it. I had seen a crowd there, paid to kill the Papal Legate, or so it seemed to me, and I mistrusted Bologna, and the city government apparently returned the favour by mistrusting me. I spoke to a captain and the podestà, and we rode into the city under an escort. They hosted the Green Count for a single day; no one commented on how young he looked, or noticed that his eyes had changed colour, and we rode out again without being attacked. In fact, Francesco Gatelussi had played the count very well, while Richard had taken the count around the town and spent the night in the Capuchin monastery.
But there was no attack.
I will say that during this time, as my head wound healed and my fever abated, I really began to see Richard at work. The count, like most great men, took a fair amount of handling, and was somewhat given to sudden ideas that were – some of them – quite useful; others, less so.
I came to realise that Richard’s handling of the count was masterful, and far more closely planned than I had seen before. The count was so formed that he had to be right, nearly all the time. He would correct me on matters of horsemanship, or etiquette, and I had discovered that it was my role, as the low-born but noble knight, to graciously accept his correction in all such things. Likewise, he was, by virtue of his birth, pre-eminent in matters of diplomacy and statesmanship and most other things, and he would correct any suggestion that Musard made on almost any subject.
For a week I writhed whenever he took his most patronising tone with Richard, but Richard never seemed to resent it. In small matters of household management – things like wines to be served with meals – Richard would present his intention and the count would correct him, a good master admonishing an erring servant. It happened every day, over and over, and it annoyed me on Richard’s behalf, until we came to the matter of the route to Florence.
Florence was our next destination, and there were mountains and very bad roads between the two cities. The problem for me was that we hadn’t had a sniff of an attack since Venice. And the count was no longer very interested in my precautions, so that almost every day, I had to call on Richard to mollify him. Richard and I discussed the day’s travel for a quarter of an hour after Matins.
In brief, I wanted to take a series of small country roads, really like paths. I’d found a guide I wanted to hire and I intended, as Hawkwood had taught me, to pay him very well. I was afraid, however, that the count, who had been less than pleased by the deception at Bologna, let us say, would demand to travel by the main road to Florence.
My fears were increased by chance events. I am not a superstitious man, but the priest dropped the Host at the elevation that night at Mass. The endless rolls of thu
nder in the distant hills served to remind me of how dangerous our next stage was.
The thunder was accompanied by a fine, but soaking, mist of rain the next morning, and the skies were a solid iron-grey. When the count came down from the solar he’d slept in at the monastery, he had a simple breakfast, served by Richard, and then he waved for me to attend him.
As I walked up, Richard smiled at me. ‘Messire Guglielmo would have us take some tangled trails across the mountains,’ he said, sneering at my efforts. ‘Listen to me, my lord. We can make the journey on the best road, and with more comfort.’
Richard and I had been getting along well enough, but at this, I thought, you traitor!
As if to put the last nail in the coffin of my careful planning for the count’s security, Richard said, ‘And the expense! He wants to hire a guide that will cost as much as a day’s fodder for the horses. An unnecessary expense, I feel, my lord.’
I am not much slower than the next fellow, I hope. I met Richard’s eye and it held no hint of reserve or shyness. Instead, it looked as if he was laughing.
The count glanced at me. And then at Richard. ‘You rate my safety so low, do you, sir?’
Richard bridled, as he did every time the count corrected him. ‘But my lord!’ he said. ‘Just yesterday you complained …’
‘Messire Guglielmo works patiently to protect us,’ the count said in his tone of gentle admonishment. ‘Sometimes his precautions are over-elaborate, but in this, a simple deviation from the well-travelled route, I see good planning. Come, Richard, what is a little inconvenience to knights? Perhaps we will have an adventure.’
‘As you say, my lord,’ Richard said, with good grace, and smiling at me over his shoulder.
I probably rolled my eyes. Listen, my friends; Chaucer is already nodding. A few months later I was a better courtier, and I thought nothing of such manoeuvres to get my lord to do what was necessary, but that autumn, travelling south to Rome, I felt the count’s presence like a horse feels a bridle.
I went and fetched my guide. He was a small farmer, Alonzo by name. Clean and neat, he had a scar over one eye and a long nose, and I found him a little too obsequious for my taste, but I assumed he was unused to the likes of the Green Count. I paid him five gold florins and showed him five more.
‘When we enter Florence,’ I said.
He bowed deeply. ‘Two days,’ he said, ‘and you will see the new cathedral rising into the sky over the city.’
That seemed an odd thing to say, and I didn’t like him, and suddenly my whole plan seemed too bold.
I sat on my riding horse in the yard. I was in an agony of indecision; it’s not my best state. The count was waiting. Richard was casting anxious glances at me, and Mayot was toying with his reins in a way that suggested that his temper was fraying.
‘Let’s go,’ I said, with an authority I wasn’t sure I really felt. We rode out through the gates of the monastery and then we rode past Santo Stefano and out into the countryside, where the hills rose green and round against the blue sky, contrasting splendidly with the golden fields of wheat all around the city.
Those hills were quite a barrier.
We rode by Ponticella, a little village. An odd thing happened there: I was riding in front, with Alonzo, and a man came out of a small house. When he saw us, he flushed, and then he threw the apple he’d been eating at Alonzo. The apple core clipped Alonzo’s horse and made it start, and the man himself called ‘Traitor!’ and ran into his house.
Alonzo turned white, but his scar flushed bright red.
Richard Musard was right behind us. He smiled affably – always a sign that Richard was on edge. ‘Family?’ he asked in his excellent Italian.
Mayot laughed, and I smiled, but Alonzo turned red as a beet. ‘No family of mine,’ he said. ‘His fool of a son went and got himself killed. He is nothing to me.’
After Ponticella we turned due south, into the hills. The road became a track, and the track became a trail, and by mid-morning we were leading our horses and thanking our maker we had pack animals and not wagons. We climbed steadily until it was time for lunch, and then we passed Casa Grandi, a well-deserved name for the fine castle there, and travelled south along the valley floor. We made good time, amid the oak and beech and silver fir. Small streams wound along our path, and the count declared himself delighted; indeed, we were all of a mind to see a unicorn in such beautiful surroundings.
The Lord of Mantua had given the count a hawk, and he decided to fly it after partridges then. Although he was a fine hawker, he had to cross and recross the little brook that rolled along to the west of our track, which slowed us considerably, and then the hawk settled in a tree. The count cursed, and all of us spent an uncomfortable hour trying to rescue the belligerent bundle of feathers.
The day was passing and our guide was growing increasingly disturbed.
I didn’t watch the hawking much after that, because I was watching my guide. I’d chosen him, with the help of the monks at the monastery and with the approval of the podestà. I couldn’t imagine that he had been planted on us.
But I couldn’t like him. He started at everything and he was clearly affected by our delays.
‘Can we not … convince the count … to ride on?’ he asked me, finally.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Are you in a hurry? The count is not here for our convenience.’
He mumbled something.
I wished that I had Marc-Antonio. Even more, I wished for John the Turk.
I had to settle for Rob Stone. I rode back to him.
‘I need you to scout ahead,’ I said. ‘I don’t trust our guide.’
‘That’s not good,’ he said. ‘Give me Lazarus and Ewan.’
An hour after the bird was found, my archers had cantered off down the road. No sooner had they ridden away than I lost my nerve.
I turned my horse and bowed to the count. ‘My lord, there is something I do not quite like. I wonder if you would allow me to ride ahead a little, while you take your ease.’
Musard shot me a look, and I nodded to him.
‘My old friend can be an old woman,’ Richard said. ‘And we have already lost time.’
The count favoured me with a smile. ‘If Messire d’Oro is cautious, let us benefit from it. This is a pleasant place – let us eat a bite here.’
I probably rolled my eyes.
I took Francesco and his friend Alessio, and we cantered down the track. We caught the archers at a stream crossing. The ford was muddy; Rob Stone had dismounted to look at it.
‘Hoof marks,’ he said. ‘Shod, military horses, at least …’ He shrugged. ‘At least one,’ he said, and Ewan laughed.
‘One busy horse or five moving in a line,’ he said. ‘Or ten.’ He looked up. ‘My lord?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t trust the guide and I didn’t like sending you three alone,’ I admitted.
Stone sighed. ‘That’s good, my lord, as we didn’t really like being out here alone, either.’
Across the stream, the beech woods were open, rising to a low plateau up ahead of us, but the trail switched back, climbing the ridge. A deep cover of leaves was killing the undergrowth, and only the occasional fern gave it a touch of green. It was quiet.
‘A perfect ambush site,’ I said.
Stone shrugged.
Ewan nodded. ‘Yep,’ he said.
The archers expected me to go first. I had armour and the best horse. If there was an ambush, Francesco, Alessio and I were far, far more likely to survive it than Ewan or Stone.
‘If even a single bolt flies,’ I said, ‘we ride away.’
Francesco nodded.
‘Visors closed,’ I said.
Alessio slapped his shut. Just then, I loved him; he asked no questions, and he wasn’t really one of mine. He just closed his visor.
We crossed t
he stream and picked our way up the far bank. Juniper had to give a mighty spring of her haunches to get us up, and I am not a small man. I almost lost my seat. I was still recovering my right stirrup when the first crossbow bolt whickered past me.
Alessio was down before I knew what was happening. He was pinned under his horse, which had taken three or four bolts. All this happened in an instant, while my head was down.
I put spurs to Juniper and we went forward, past Alessio. He was hit, too. I had an impression of blood, and his left leg was trapped under his dying mount.
I couldn’t see anyone.
A bolt thudded into a beech tree, a few feet to my right. My eyes were turned the right way, and I saw a crossbowman, wearing a dusty green, lying behind a downed tree.
I turned Juniper and went at him.
He was trying to span. When I was a few paces away, he gave up and tried to draw his sword. He died in the attempt, and I was through their line. Juniper powered her way up onto the road. I’d passed straight up between two switchbacks, and now I could see a dozen men below me, and more to the right.
Francesco raced along the road, caught a man, and skewered him with his sword, stabbing deeply between the man’s shoulders like a man killing a bull from horseback. The man slid off his blade, and Francesco wheeled his mount, turning her on her back feet, just as a bolt clipped his visor.
It was the last shot of the action, though, because our ambushers were running. They had horses in the woods; they were not banditti but professionals, and they didn’t intend to stay around and fight knights.
I wished for my Kipchaks. I wished that I could run them down.
Instead, we got Alessio out from under his dead horse and made him comfortable. He had a nasty wound on his neck. There was a lot of blood and he couldn’t speak; it looked bad.
I left Francesco with him, and I sent Ewan for the rest of the party while I pushed up the hill, but the banditti were gone. The count came up quickly, having already started for us, and by then we knew that, despite the blood, Alessio’s wound was not as bad as we’d feared. He was, with God’s mercy, going to be fine.
Sword of Justice Page 26
