I introduced the rest of them to the count, and then set out to find them lodgings in a city scarcely less expensive than Venice. I spent a happy hour wandering the streets hearing them all explain how they came to be at Florence, and how right Peter Albin had been about their route, and a dozen more tales besides.
I settled them, four at a time, in inns and private houses recommended by the podestà’s officers, and then I was left with Fiore and Marc-Antonio.
‘You will stay with me?’ I asked Fiore.
He shrugged, as if it was of no matter.
‘And you, Marc-Antonio?’ I asked.
He didn’t meet my eye.
‘You wish to stay with me, and be my squire?’ I asked again.
He was silent for a long time. I was tempted to speak; I didn’t want him to baulk at this gate, but he had something to say.
‘My father used to hit me,’ he said. It was as if I’d torn it from him. Fiore, who could be a difficult man at times, raised an eyebrow and walked out of the room.
Marc-Antonio and I stared at each other for a while.
‘You confess that you were wrong in your treatment of the lady?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And you will state that you will never, ever, use force on a woman again?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said, like a man facing fire.
‘Then I am happy to admit I was a fool to strike you. I have always had contempt for men who beat their squires. Fiore once called such a man a school for bullies and cowards, and I agreed. Will you accept my apology?’
Marc-Antonio burst into tears.
I may have shed a few myself.
We rode south through the finest autumn anyone could remember since the plague. It was as if, after an early burst of rain, the old gods had remembered to be kinder to man, and the sun smiled on the fields of Tuscany. Is there anywhere more beautiful?
Siena gave us a fairly chilly welcome, not least because we had just come from Florence, and Florence was Siena’s inveterate enemy. However, there I could use my own name and contacts; I had won a small but famous victory for the Sienese, and I was remembered fondly enough, for a mercenary. I rode ahead and signed a contract agreeing to allow only six men-at-arms a day to enter the gates, in exchange for which, for their ‘love’ of me, the town fathers offered to feed my men and my horses.
I ordered my people to pay. I put Pierre Lapot in charge of overseeing the market and making sure all was done fairly – setting a wolf to guard sheep, you might say, but I knew he’d do a careful job. He was one of the most changed men I’d ever known, and I suspected, correctly, that he was considering swapping the life of arms for a more contemplative one.
We stayed two days in Siena, and had a scare when the count vanished from his lodging. Richard found him; he’d engaged a laundress for something other than laundry. I suppose he found all the close protection stifling to his courtly ways, but Camus and the Prince of Achaea could have killed him, helpless as a trussed pig, if they’d known, and all our efforts and all our soldiers would have been for nothing.
We had words. That is, the count and I had words. Richard stood silent.
‘My private life is not your business,’ the count snapped.
‘Keeping you alive is my business. You made it my business. If you would like, I can ride away now …’ I said.
‘Don’t be foolish,’ the count said.
‘Foolish?’ I asked. Richard was shaking his head at me like mad, but I ignored him. ‘Who’s foolish? I didn’t wander off in the night at the sight of a pretty face …’
The count’s face turned bright red. ‘You may go,’ he said.
‘I don’t care who you diddle, my lord, but I need to be able to watch over you—’
‘Go! Now!’ The count turned his back on me. Richard came and grabbed my shoulder.
I couldn’t think of anything really cutting to say, so I allowed Richard to push me out the door. We went down the steps to the main floor, where Mayot was lounging at a table.
Richard threw himself down on a wooden stool that was not built to take his weight. It groaned ominously.
He put his head on the table and tapped it three times against the hard wood.
‘How do you stand it?’ I asked, still incensed.
Richard was laughing softly. ‘I stand it easily enough. I like him.’
‘He’s acting like a guilty boy, not like a great lord. If he wants a girl, someone can find him one, surely.’ I shrugged.
Mayot shook his head. ‘My lord would not find that suitable. He does not tumble a lass for money. Only for what he calls love.’
I probably tugged my beard. ‘I imagine …’
Richard was shaking his head. ‘He could have been killed. By God, William, I don’t think he really believes he is mortal.’
‘But you like him!’
Richard shrugged. ‘You saw him at Gallipoli and the Dardanelles,’ he said.
I agreed. ‘Yes, when he is on an empris, he is a great man. Less so, perhaps, in Siena.’
Richard shrugged again. ‘We are not all as moral as you’ve become, William,’ he said.
‘Whoa!’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘This is a change of tack, friend. I was too much a routier, now I am too moral?’
Richard made a face. ‘I’m just tired and cranky, brother. I’d like a lass too.’
‘And me, if you’re finding them,’ Mayot said.
‘Not in my contract,’ I said. It was a weak enough joke, but they laughed, and another day of crisis was averted.
The next morning, early, we rode south, and the count didn’t mention the dispute. We rode together until we left Siena by the Porta Romana, a new brick construction in the best Italian style. We rode to Isola d’Arbia on the Via Francigena, and then cut cross-country for a while, re-merging onto the road at Monteroni d’Arbia, where we ate sausage and cheese and drank wine. While I had planned to make more stages, we stayed in the excellent inn at Ponte d’Arbia because the count was unwell. But he bounced up in the morning, and we continued south, having eaten all the oats in the Arbia valley, or so the innkeeper assured me.
I was running out of money, and so was Richard. After the explosion in Siena, I was not anxious to confront my patron, but my fancy new purse from Florence had nothing left in it. Searching through it was fruitful, though; I found the beautiful gloves that I had purchased for Fiore, and I handed them over, and he was … emotional. At least, for Fiore.
‘What will I do, without Nerio to spoil them for me?’ he asked.
That day I asked him to take half a dozen archers and clear the roads ahead of us, and I didn’t see him again until evening. We had developed a system in Outremer, and although the Kipchaks and Sir Giannis’s stradiotes tended to do our scouting, all of us had had turns, so that it had become habit. We would move along steadily with the column, and the scouts would leave us a guide, both to show the way and to indicate that the area was safe, and in this way we could jog along at a fast walk all day without pausing to worry about our road or our next stop. We took rests, and because we were extraordinarily well provided with horseflesh, we changed horses whenever we halted, so that we arrived at San Quirico d’Orcia atop its magnificent ridge almost before we were tired of riding across the magnificent wheat fields of autumn. The fields were full of folk, and the riches of Italy shone to any northerner. Lines of men and women cut the wheat, scythes flashing, and girls and young boys bundled up the sheaves, but there were no gleaners – that is, no poor folk, so very poor that they followed the harvesters picking kernels of wheat out of the dirt. Father Angelo told me that, since the plague, wages had risen to the point that farm labour was well-paid.
The night we spent in San Quirico d’Orcia was as difficult as I might have anticipated. We heard Mass at the new church of Saint Francis, and then the count we
nt to the fortress to guest there and I dispersed my people and his throughout the pilgrim hostels.
I’ll explain briefly for those who have never made the pilgrimage to Rome. From Canterbury to Rome there is a road – the old Roman road, I think, that the legions built – and all along the route there are hostels, like monasteries but maintained by monks and nuns for men and women travelling for the good of their souls. The Knights of Saint John, my own Order, maintained a great many hostels and I tended to prefer them, inasmuch as they had better services for men-at-arms. Because I trusted the knights, I could send ahead and negotiate through them for fodder for two hundred horses, lodging for the count’s Greek monks, and so on. Every town required a different negotiation; remember that the Greek monks were as much heretics and schismatics to a small-town Italian curate as if we’d been travelling with Saracens or Cathars. We also had as many horses as a small army, and most of the men in the count’s train were hard, dangerous individuals with lifetimes of violence behind them, and that the peasants of the Emilia-Romagna and southern Tuscany had every reason to fear and loathe them.
The Knights of Saint John were my link to these communities and, through Father Angelo, the Franciscans, who were very popular in Tuscany and had many houses and hostels. Just as we had found Franciscans at Jerusalem, so they seemed to line the route to Rome. Between the two, the Order and the brotherhood, we had lodging and fodder, and the communities, podestàs and peasants too, were reassured that we were not going to steal their cattle.
My hostel was like a good inn; the wine was good, the fare plain but delicious, and I was sitting down to eat with two old knights of my Order and most of my men-at-arms when the count summoned me to attend him. I left my wine and walked up the hill to the castle, and made my reverentia to the local lord, the captain of his fortress and the count.
Count Amadeus was in a fine fettle, and offered me part of his dinner, which, as I have said before, is reckoned a great honour. So I ate a roast pheasant for perhaps the third time in my life, drank some good wine, and reported to my lord on his Greek monks, who were comfortably entertained by the Franciscans. A Franciscan may have terrifying spiritual visions, he may threaten to overthrow the whole established order in a search for the Kingdom of God on Earth, and he may trouble your theology with searching questions, but all of them are good hosts.
I drank some more wine while the local lord explained that he had two nephews who needed employment somewhere else – indeed, as far from home as could be arranged. I was slow to understand, possibly just tired, but eventually I realised that I had been summoned in hopes that I would take them on: two young Italian knights with no experience of war or anything but life in Tuscany, two men who thought themselves both dangerous and very clever.
Even now, I can recall my lack of enthusiasm, but in the end I took them. The Birigucci brothers, Benghi and Clario, were two young scapegraces who would, as it proved, be valuable men – eventually. They were sent for, and they appeared, brushed and combed and a little too neat, and they failed to hide how very impressed with themselves they were.
‘Ready to ride after Prime,’ I said.
‘Of course, capitano,’ Benghi said in his beautiful Tuscan Italian.
‘We will simply ride away,’ I said. ‘If you are not there …’
Both boys bowed.
‘You have squires? Archers? Pages?’ I asked.
Both boys admitted to having grooms. I explained about pages; ‘armed and capable’, I think I said.
‘Beppo is a rascal,’ Clario said. ‘But I’m sure he will suit.’
‘Mind that he does,’ I said. ‘Your uncle has asked specially for you. I do not really need two more inexperienced lances, gentlemen.’
They withdrew, still arrogant.
The lord of the town made a face. ‘I was wondering if you might advance them … some pay,’ he said, as if discussing money caused him physical pain.
I shook my head. I am usually eager to oblige any man, but I was almost out of money, and I had not asked for two hot-headed young Italians to join my little company. ‘No, my lord. We pay by the month – only experienced men are advanced money.’
The count smiled his lordly smile. ‘Perhaps, captain, you can make an exception this time.’
I shook my head. ‘My lord, I cannot.’
‘I insist,’ the count said. He was affable, and he didn’t think it was possible that I would refuse. Richard might have saved the situation, but he was already asleep.
I knew that I had to surrender gracefully; my social position demanded it. ‘I could perhaps advance them—’
‘A full month’s pay,’ the count said. ‘I am paying your lances twenty florins a month, am I not?’
‘Eighteen,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ the count said to the Baron Birigucci.
‘Except, my lord, we have never been paid.’ I shrugged. I was at the end of my patience; perhaps I was just tired from a hard day of playing captain.
Amadeus turned on me a sort of basilisk stare that was, I think, meant to freeze me to my marrow, but he’d never met Sister Marie. His glare was nothing on hers.
‘Further, my lord, Monsieur Musard and I have covered the food and fodder since Venice,’ I said.
‘Silence,’ the count said.
I shrugged with deliberate insolence. ‘Of course I will be silent, my lord, only, you need to know these things, if you intend to order me to pay for two lances I do not need while my veterans remain unpaid.’
‘You are dismissed,’ he barked.
‘Forever?’ I asked. I was too angry to hold my tongue. ‘Or just for the evening?’
Baron Birigucci saved my military career by rising too quickly and overturning an iron candle stand, so that the crash of the last judgement startled us all. I’m sure he did it on purpose, and I bless him for it.
I managed to bow my way out without being dismissed forever. It’s odd to think of how a lord must behave, but he was trapped. Once he said forever, he had to mean it, but then I’d ride away with his escort and leave him with two knights and twenty servants in the middle of Tuscany. No one wanted that.
I do not mean to paint him so black. He was merely a product of his class and ordo, and no worse than others I have known in England, France, Germany and Italy. Much better, in fact, than most. But I was perhaps too much my own man, and too used to having my own way; or perhaps it was just that with the Order, I had men like Fra Peter to obey, and not so many fools.
In the morning, there were clouds and a light rain. I told Richard of the evening’s foolishness.
‘Christ, William, never, ever, talk to him about money. Everyone knows that. I told you we will pay you. Of course we will!’
I shrugged. ‘If he wants to order me to advance money to his friends, he has to pay up,’ I said. ‘I’m not rich enough to support the Count of Savoy.’
Richard looked annoyed. ‘William, are you dense? Listen to me. He’s cut off from Savoy. We’re lucky if we can get a message through. He’s mortgaged to the hilt from the crusade.’
‘I’m not Nerio,’ I said. ‘I’m not made of money.’
Then I thought about it. Nerio’s family were in Florence. They were accounted the richest men in Italy, the richest country in the world. I could probably write one letter and borrow any sum I named.
‘Jesu, Diccon,’ I said, using the name I’d always called him when we were young. ‘I didn’t understand. You mean you and he are counting on me footing the bill …’
‘He didn’t expect to be this poor,’ Richard said. He managed a smile. ‘No one’s called me Diccon in five years.’
‘Make it right with him. I’ll try and borrow some money.’
‘See it from his place, William,’ Musard said. ‘He is one the greatest lords there is; he has led and paid for a crusade for the Church, and suddenly one of his
vassals is in revolt and he is cut off. Hunted. And the Pope is not responding to us …’
Now I felt like a fool. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Monsieur Musard, will you do me the great favour of conveying my apologies to my lord, for my intemperate language, and beg him to disregard anything said, as said in fatigue and perhaps in wine?’
‘Get us some money,’ Richard said. ‘He won’t even remember.’
That was a touch too sanguine. The count did not ride with me all day, and we moved fast, passing the usual pilgrim stage on the slopes of Radicofani and pushing on to Acquapendente, or Aquipendium, as our churchman called it – a dramatic modern castle on a high hill, towering over the plain. The castello has five towers and is all new work. The fortification is so strong because this is the Tuscan March, the very border between Siena and the papacy, and they are not always friends. It was a hard, wet day and we were all glad to come to the end of it.
I took it as my turn to ride ahead and make arrangements for our little army, so I went to the castello with Marc-Antonio and Father Angelo and my two pages, with Ewan the Scot as my archer and with Clario Birigucci as my guide. In fact, the guide turned out to be his demonic page Beppo, who appeared to be a thousand years old in evil and reminded me a little of all the bad men I’d ever known. Where the Birigucci boys were tall and handsome and might have passed for military angels with their blond hair and aristocratic noses, Beppo was stoop-shouldered, walked with something of the rolling gait of a sailor, rode like a sack of corn, and had a nose as big as the beak of a puffin. He had two moles on his face that spouted hair and might have had their own teeth if allowed, and he had a cast in one eye, and was, in almost every way, ready to be cast as a villain.
On the other hand, he knew the way to Acquapendente, and he knew the men at the gate and almost everyone else. Granted, women hid their children as he rode down the high street, but he had a fund of stories almost as good as Sior’ di Lippo in Florence, and his terrible looks belied both a lively interest in people and a cunning mind.
And he could mock himself and others, which is a fine turn in any man, I find – self-mockery, that is.
Sword of Justice Page 28
