Sword of Justice

by Christian Cameron

  All in all, it was a staggering piece of theatre. There were jousts and a little fighting at barriers, but the count forbade me to participate on the basis that I was required to serve him, which suited me.

  In fact, Fiore and Musard and I had an anxious day. Rome is a giant, sprawling ruin of a city; there’s always plague there, and the place is filthy, especially in comparison to Venice or Florence. But the old bones are beautiful, and the oddest thing is that the city has space for many times the population she has now. It was worse fifteen years ago, I promise you. Almost as bad as Constantinople. So we would ride for a while on an empty road, well paved by the ancients, between old houses of sagging stone, their stucco coming away or fallen in little piles of ugly white plaster or gone entirely. And then we would turn a corner, or come down a big hill, and enter what were really like little towns, or parishes, within the ancient walls, and suddenly there would be thousands of people, screaming for the Pope or waiting in respectful silence.

  And all day, we had to watch the count. He reared his horse, he scattered coins, and we watched for the dagger or the crossbow. Half of Rome is covered in huge old buildings, and I hurt my neck watching balconies and loggias above us.

  I might have saved my neck muscles. Or at least taken off my new helmet, now once again well polished. Try craning your neck all day in an armet.

  No one attacked us. We overreacted a dozen times; the one I remember best was the count scattering a particular handful of coins. There happened to be more silver than bronze in the toss, and he did not throw the coins far, and two dozen dirty small boys ran in under the horses. Behind them were two or three big apprentices. Just for a moment they appeared to be armed, and Musard struck one to the ground and I had my arming sword out and pointed at another before we realised they had painted silver wands for one of the demonstrations.

  We apologised and rode on.

  By the end of the day, I was as hungry as a hunter and as tired as if I had jousted and fought on foot, but it was a magnificent event, and I must say that old Petrarca did the Pope proud. He and Boccaccio also acted as ambassadors – Petrarca for Venice and Boccaccio for Florence – and they were treated better than most of the worldly princes by the Holy Father.

  I chose to wait on the count at the magnificent dinner after the triumph; that is, Richard Musard and Fiore and I served him as noble pages, so that we could watch over him and his food. This proved far more pleasant than I had expected. The air of festivity extended to the servants, and Richard and I both knew how to serve. We passed dishes, and I think I can say with pride that I saved the Pope’s roasted and gilded pheasant from a disastrous fall and even saw it to his high table while still warm. They served sixteen dishes; until then, I had never seen such a magnificent dinner.

  All of that is beside the point – except for comparison to what is coming – but they served the dinner in the square of Saint Peter and they had both outdoor and indoor kitchens. The whole dinner was more than a little chaotic, and some of the pages and servants either did no work or simply never found out where to go to fetch a dish. It rained for a little while, and one of the cooks couldn’t get her fire started. I went over with the tinder kit from my purse and she gave me a look that effortlessly conveyed that no man in fine clothes could possibly be of any use to her, so it gave me infinite satisfaction to start her fire. She wasn’t supposed to be in charge of the kitchen, I’ll wager – there were male cooks in fine clothes pontificating for that – but the woman seemed to be the only one who knew where the verjus was.

  But my point is that the count sat with Masters Boccaccio and Petrarca on either side of him. Both of them had servants, but their lads were lost, or drunk, and Richard and I ended up serving these noble authors alongside our own count. They were both extremely courteous and thankful, and they composed a little rhyming epigram about the nobility of the table service, which I’ll trot out if I ever need work in a kitchen again. Now Petrarca I knew rather well; he’d come and read to me more than once, and I had read a few of his pieces with Emile, although I confess that Emile and I preferred Boccaccio’s The Decameron.

  I had never met the Florentine poet, but Petrarca was quick to introduce us all, including Fiore, whom he remembered.

  It proved impossible to watch all the food; on the other hand, Musard and I came to the conclusion that no assassin could predict who might get what dish. We did our best, and we helped serve the Pope as well, and I saw to it that both Antonio Visconti and the Greek monks, who made the triumphal entry as captives and were probably not intended to dine, were fed. The Greeks, at least, thought better of the Pope on full bellies, although Antonio still burned as hot as before.

  It was at that dinner that I heard again from Boccaccio that Florimont de Lesparre had challenged Peter of Cyprus, an anointed king, to a fight, on foot, with swords. And stranger still that Peter had accepted, and that they were coming to Rome. I heard this from Boccaccio, who, hearing that I had served the King of Cyprus and was one of his barons from Petrarca – who, while a delightful old man, had a tendency to name-drop and exaggerate the importance of all of his acquaintances, myself included – put his hand on my arm and asked me why the King of Cyprus would agree to fight de Lesparre.

  ‘He’s an arrogant fool,’ I said. ‘De Lesparre, not King Peter.’

  Boccaccio flicked his eyebrows in a knowing way. ‘In Florence, I suppose we’d just make the man disappear.’

  ‘That might be commendable,’ I said.

  ‘You are not a partisan of this de Lesparre?’ Boccaccio asked.

  I glanced at the count. I was standing with a towel on my arm, and he was seated, lounging in a camp chair we’d provided, because the Pope’s stools were so bad. I smiled at him, more informal than I usually was, but, despite the presence of the Holy Father, it had become a loud and informal evening.

  He smiled back. ‘I am a little surprised that Messer de Lesparre survived to adulthood,’ he said.

  Boccaccio laughed aloud. ‘That bad?’

  ‘Even for a Gascon …’ the count said.

  I poured them both wine and went for the next course.

  It was a magnificent dinner, and it was followed by a week of festivities. Everyone in Italy was in Rome, or so it seemed, and we stayed at the Casa des Pins, safe and well fed, riding back and forth to ceremonies. The crowds of people included several of the leading bankers of Italy, and I found a representative of the Bardi, my preferred house, and was able to draw on my own funds without beggaring Emile.

  The man laughed. ‘You make game of me, eh?’ he asked. ‘I have here a note on your account that Master Davide of Venice has paid you six hundred gold florins for saffron. Your account is very much to the good.’

  I laughed. I had forgotten the saffron. Not Master Davide, however, and God’s blessing on him. I handed a shocked Marc-Antonio one hundred golden florins for his own.

  ‘Not a courtesan,’ I begged him. ‘Buy armour, or a sword.’

  He laughed.

  The count was also able to negotiate a bill, too, so the abbot of our monastery was satisfied with our coins and our care. I put down some hard coin for my archers and pages. I paid them for one month, which almost beggared me, and almost all of them, many fresh from Jerusalem, made the round of the churches. Indeed, we all went to Santa Maria Maggiore together and then ate in a Roman tavern.

  The count had another ceremonial interview with the Pope. This time, the whole of his escort accompanied him into the old Lateran, and we bent our knees to the Holy Father and he blessed us one by one, and blessed our company banner.

  Afterwards, out on the great Borgo Santo Spirito, Pierre Lapot shook his head. He was walking with Beppo and l’Angars.

  ‘I’m an old sinner,’ he said. Missing teeth made him look as sinister as he was, and gave him a dark lisp. ‘And now I’ve been to the Holy Sepulchre and I’ve been blessed by the Pope as we
ll.’

  L’Angars grinned. ‘That’ll save you a thousand years in Hell, brother,’ he said. ‘Only ten thousand to go.’

  Beppo laughed. ‘The men I killed are still dead.’ Everyone laughed.

  He looked around with a comic turn of his ugly head. ‘I mean. If I ever killed anyone. Hypothetically speaking.’

  But no one laughed at our little banner, with the Virgin in satin, and the nuns at San Paolo added a little to the embroidery when they heard that the Pope had blessed it, so that the Virgin’s face took on a look of real kindness that might encourage a poor sinner. We still carry it, although I confess we’ve repaired her so many times that she looks more like one of the flightier Greek goddesses and less like the patient mother of God, but the Corner girls made her in Chioggia and the good sisters of San Paolo made her beautiful. It took the Pope’s armies to put slashes in her, but that story is yet to come.

  After a hectic week, the count made his preparations to leave. We left our Greek monks with the Pope, though no promise that they would get a hearing could be extracted. The count paid to get a good horse and arms for Messer Antonio, and he rode north with us. We also had Maestro Boccaccio, as he was going to Florence and had no escort. We had a vague feeling of having failed: the churches remained divided. I almost spoke to the count about it, but the routine duties of commanding the escort kept me away from him. I could see he was sad – mayhap even angry. I asked Richard.

  Richard shook his head. ‘He worked for three years for the union,’ he said. He shrugged.

  Let me just add that Richard and I were almost there. We were easy with each other; some mornings we slashed at bucklers together. And as you’ve no doubt noticed, at some point I’d developed a regard for the count, too.

  We took a different line back through the hills than the Papal procession had taken coming to Rome as we headed south. If you have ever travelled with an army or a great lord, you’ll know that one night of hosting someone like the Pope and a fine town has no meat and no wine left in it – maybe no grain, either. We took a line to the east to get food and forage, and then went west to the post station at Sutri, and then we went north and east to Viterbo. We hadn’t lost a man to the fevers in Rome, and when a man fell sick, we had Maestro Albin, who was as fine a leech as Italy had to offer; just his presence gave our people heart. Our little company was clean and neat, and well-trained in a way that many routiers never achieve; trained at the simple things, like moving and camping, keeping clean, cooking, staying dry, tending to kit and to horseflesh. We’d been together a while; we had no slackers.

  We were cautious, though. I wished that I had Sir Giannis and his lighter cavalry, but we made do, as we had fine horses and plenty of them. Archers and pages became our stradiotes and they went far ahead of us. Ewan the Scot had a special talent for that kind of mission, and he would sometimes go as far as our next lodging, a day ahead. He said it was just like roving the Borders, which made some of my Northern Englishmen frown. We had a big archer we’d picked up in Greece, Michael Burn. He towered over other men, and he had a wit, but he was from Cumbria, like Hughes, and he never let Ewan forget it. Burn was a good man on a scout, too, but we didn’t send them out together.

  We didn’t have so much as a sniff of an enemy. The weather grew colder, although the rains were not bad. I remember it as a golden week to Orvieto, but I see here that I have written ‘rain’ three times.

  Orvieto is another of the finest towns you’ll ever see; Italy abounds in them. Orvieto has a magnificent cathedral, more like a jewel than a building, all red and blue tile on the outside, and inside is the finest statue of the Blessed Virgin I had ever seen. She was so magnificent, under her canopy, that my breath was taken away, and I had to return the next day, take Mass again, and then pray there, so moving did I find her. There is also a Saint George in antique Roman armour, and I purchased a drawing of him for my walls, and to show Maestro Petrarca, if ever I met him again. The dragon at his feet didn’t look like much of a threat, to be truthful – rather like a man slaying an otter.

  From Orvieto we made our way through the hills to Tuscany, where we were met by a company of Florentine cavalry sent out by the Council of Eight expressly, they told us, to see to Boccaccio’s needs, but more, I think, to keep watch over the count and my little band. The Florentines were being cautious: if the whole of Italy had been a tinderbox before the Pope’s triumphal entry, it was now a laid fire, the wood shavings and the little scraps of bark ready for a great blaze. There was a rumour that the Emperor – the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV himself – was coming with ten thousand lances to support the Pope against Milan.

  Our second night in Tuscany we spent in the hilly country south of the city, at a tiny hamlet called La Pietrella. The Florentine gentlemen had prepared barns for us, and the count was to stay in the manor house.

  I had taken note of the number of military horses picketed just outside the town – perhaps fifty. We had double their numbers, and the Tuscans more again, so I had no fears of trouble. Indeed, I heard from the corporal of the Florentines that the horses belonged to the famous condottiere, Giovanni Acudo.

  I grinned.

  There was no inn. There was, however, a wine shop. As we had had a sunny day, and had arrived mid-afternoon, Fiore and I elected to have a cup of the excellent local wine after prayers and see if the great Acudo was really on offer.

  I was expecting to see Hawkwood there, and there he was, slim, well dressed, and not at all resembling a man who’d recently been defeated in a pitched battle.

  He shot to his feet as we entered, and we embraced.

  ‘Will Gold,’ he said, with his hands on my shoulders, ‘I always forget how big you are, and how red your hair is. Sit and drink with me.’

  I introduced Fiore. Hawkwood wouldn’t take no for an answer, and Fiore found himself crushed in an embrace.

  ‘How could I forget him?’ Hawkwood said. ‘The best blade, and the first to tell you of it.’

  Fiore had the grace to look rueful.

  Hawkwood introduced us to his cousin, Anthony, and most of the rest of the gentlemen I knew. I sent Marc-Antonio to find my erstwhile captive, Antonio Visconti, who arrived a short while later.

  That night, many stories were told, and before our third cup of Tuscan wine, Richard came, and l’Angars and half our people. We told of the Holy Land and the fighting in Outremer, and Hawkwood nodded, clearly pleased.

  We were all in our cups when the watch changed. I had set a watch, and so had Sir John; Pierre Lapot went out with Ewan and Gospel Mark, and before the bells tolled again, Sam Bibbo was sitting by me, none the worse for wear, if a little greyer atop his head.

  Finally we left off telling our stories, and asked Sir John and his people for theirs.

  Hawkwood pointed at Messer Antonio. ‘If you’ve come with this scapegrace,’ he said, ‘you know what befell us.’

  He settled back, took a sip of wine, and looked around. ‘Ah, well, mayhap you do not know all of it. Bernabò sent Ambrogio south – not in the name of Milan, but as a “Free Company”, a sort of kick at the Pope. We didn’t expect to find Albornoz and the whole army of the Papal See waiting for us at Urbino. I told Ambrogio to retreat; he would have none of it. I told him to hire more lances, too. He said the Lords of Milan needed to make war on the cheap this autumn, as they were spending all their gold on a wedding.’ He looked at me. ‘I’m glad you took my hint not to come, lad, but he’d have turned you away. I never saw a man so bent on his own destruction. We went south, burning the country, but Malatesta knew the country better than we did.’

  He smiled his fox’s smile. ‘Every day we were a little more hemmed in. We fought Malatesta, and honours were even. I confess I thought we’d escaped. I had no idea that Albornoz had another army, or the means to pay them.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ I said.

  Hawkwood smiled, as if that proved so
me point of his. ‘If he wants them to fight next year, he’d better pay them,’ he said. ‘Any road, we retreated, and found the road cut behind us. Ambrogio gave a brave speech about victory or death, and I bought two guides and paid them to get us out through the hills.’

  ‘You left us to die,’ Antonio said.

  ‘Yes,’ Hawkwood said pleasantly. ‘Strictly business, Messer Antonio. I wasn’t being paid. I had chosen to ride along with my good companion, Messer Ambrogio, on an empris. And desperate last stands are fine for personal quarrels, but they do not pay the bills.’

  ‘How many did you lose?’ I asked.

  ‘Six men-at-arms and two archers,’ he said. ‘Belmont returned wounded but singing your praises. Renfrew returned unwounded and claiming you betrayed him to Albornoz.’

  ‘I don’t see him here,’ I said. ‘And if I had betrayed him, he’d be dead.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Sir John looked around. ‘I’m guessing he’s afraid of you. He’s said some very uncomplimentary things.’

  Just for a moment, I was reminded of what it was like in a mercenary company. I had become so used to the Order – to Sabraham and men like him – or the Venetians, or even the Green Count’s professionals. I had forgotten what it was like when the dogs bit each other – the petty animosities, the stupid accusations.

  Like Italy. Or Turkey.

  ‘He attacked me,’ I said.

  Sir John poured me more wine.

  ‘Albornoz massacred all the men-at-arms who surrendered,’ I said.

  Belmont nodded. ‘I told him.’