But I’m not altogether a fool. I didn’t announce my intention to go fight alongside Hawkwood in the spring. I merely used the thought of Hawkwood to soothe my own ruffled feathers. Instead of hating the count, who seemed to have forgotten that I had served him for almost a year without pay, I began to think of how I might expand my little company before I went south in the spring. I wrote to Sir Giannis, offering them employment if they chose to remain in Italy. I wrote to Hawkwood asking how many lances I might bring, as a sort of subcontractor, and I wrote to Nerio with news of the north and of the Prince of Achaea.
But that is all by the way. Christmas night, I danced, and smiled at the Green Count without rancour, knowing that all too soon I would be gone.
After we’d all danced, there was a second supper, and the seneschal clapped his hands for silence, and announced that the count would speak.
The count announced the decisions in two lawsuits. He knighted the elder of his squires, and gave a farm to the master of his bowmen, who had gone all the way to Constantinople and back. Then he gave an estate to Richard Musard, and another to Ogier, working his way through the whole of the Savoyard crusading party, awarding lands and titles. He gave away a fortune, but he demonstrated that he knew what good lordship was, and both his men and his wife nodded in appreciation.
Some time after Ogier, he called me forward. I admit I had hopes by then: the seneschal had given me a significant look, and Emile had summoned a page, who brushed my best wool hose. But I didn’t expect the Order of the Black Swan. Richard had it, and Ogier, and Mayot; but Ogier and Mayot were the count’s childhood friends, old companions, and, to be frank, well-born.
Richard was grinning from ear to ear.
I knelt, and the count put the collar around my neck. He leaned forward. ‘Ah, Sir William,’ he said, in tolerable Anglo-French. ‘You are not always best pleased with us, I think. And we have our faults, the House of Savoy, but we are not frugal or ungenerous. We reward good service, and your service has been exemplary.’
People cheered me when I had my Order. You may say ‘a bauble, worth perhaps a hundred ducats’, but the Order of the Black Swan was known everywhere – still is – and never again would anyone enquire after my birth before allowing me into the lists.
Two days later, I was summoned from my lady’s solar, where I was reading to her from Boccaccio while she sorted wool colours.
The count was trying cote-hardies for yet another function. As usual, the one he was trying was emerald silk, this one cut in the French style, with padding almost as impenetrable as armour.
There were a dozen tailors and sempsters attending him, but I had grown used to the ways of the truly rich, and I ignored them as he did.
‘Are you available in the spring?’ he asked. No preamble.
‘My lord, I have an understanding with Sir John Hawkwood …’
The count looked at me. His arms were spread; there was a man kneeling on his left side, marking the hem of his cote-hardie, and another measuring the arm skye, and he had to look back at me like a dancer.
‘You can join Sir John when I’m done with you,’ he said. ‘I need your company to escort me to Paris in the spring. Then we’ll all go to Milan and so will Sir John. You’ll be with him before active campaigning opens.’
The next day, the count stood godfather to my son, named Richard for my father. He told me that he would stand for Fiore’s wedding, and then he showed himself surprisingly well informed.
‘Master Albin,’ he said. ‘I owe him as well. Perhaps if I were to stand for his wedding?’
The Count of Savoy, standing forth at the wedding of a penniless doctor to a poor Venetian woman? It was the kind of social gesture that could make a man’s career, that could shout flat any attempt to blacken a woman’s name.
‘We would all be in your debt,’ I said.
I wrote to Sir John.
Perhaps ten days after Christmas, the count summoned the Prince of Achaea to attend him at court. The prince declined, and instead sent the count a formal challenge. We were warned of the challenge by a real herald this time. After some consideration, the count chose to take the situation seriously and sent me, and Richard, and Sir Ogier – all members of the Order of the Black Swan – with a herald of our own.
The challenge was brought by a party of armed men in the prince’s red and blue livery, led by Camus.
We met in the snow, perhaps five leagues from Chambéry where the valley widens by the little church.
Camus had ten men-at-arms with him. He seemed unconcerned to be deep in the count’s homeland.
‘Your count is in hiding?’ he asked.
‘Give me your cartel and go,’ Ogier said. ‘Your master is a rebel and a fool and all of you would do better to find someone else to serve.’
Camus looked back at his own men, who were stony-faced.
‘It might have been better if they’d all run away years ago,’ he said. ‘But it’s far too late for that.’ He reached into a bag at his saddle-bow and produced a scroll in an ivory tube. ‘I assume that your count is too much of a coward to actually fight, but here it is anyway.’ He looked at Richard. ‘You and Gold are fuck-buddies again?’ he asked.
Ogier stiffened and Richard reached for his sword.
I laughed. ‘Ah, monsieur,’ I said. ‘Once your gibes were so shocking, and now they have lost most of their effect.’
His face worked. ‘I will have you, Gold. Dead at my feet, your guts in a heap beside you. I’ll kill you, and your little boys, and your little girls. I’ll wipe you from the Earth and laugh.’
I shook my head. ‘No you won’t,’ I said. ‘Laughter takes joy, and you have none, even at victory. And anyway, monsieur, I believe I’ve now bested you the last three times our swords have crossed.’ Even though my hands were shaking, my voice was good. ‘Now scurry on back to the Prince of Achaea, and tell him whatever you like, so the grown-ups can go back to their party.’
‘I’ll show you Hell,’ Camus promised.
‘I’ve already seen Hell,’ I said. I shook my head. ‘I looked around, and I didn’t see you.’ I nodded. ‘But I did see d’Herblay. He said to tell you hello.’
‘Fuck you, you sanctimonious hypocrite,’ Camus spat.
I had never bested him so completely. I laughed. It was a little forced, but not bad. ‘Ride away now,’ I said. ‘Before we all mock you.’
‘I do not fear your mockery,’ he said. ‘I—’
Fiore spoke up. ‘You know,’ he said across Camus, ‘if I killed you now, no one would avenge you. The count might chide me a little, but there would be very few repercussions. Your master is an outlaw and you yourself are friendless.’
Camus paused as if considering the point.
‘I will kill you all,’ he said again.
‘Unlikely,’ Fiore said.
The Prince of Achaea’s case, as a vassal exceeding his inheritance, began to go through the count’s courts. Now, I have no reason to love the Prince of Achaea: he hired Camus, and he was a nasty piece of work. But he never had a chance with the law. To say that the Savoyard courts were corrupt would be unfair; they were, simply, the count’s courts, and the men in them were his appointments. By arranging for Achaea’s abandonment by his international allies, the count had guaranteed the result.
He couldn’t keep himself from announcing each step in the case, as his cousin was summoned, formally declared outlaw, and as charges were levied against him. The count seemed to relish his cousin’s legal extermination a little too much.
Otherwise, it was a very pleasant winter. We hunted chamois, and I gradually learned to get above them and not try to stalk from below. We lay in soft feather beds, or danced, or went on short rides that were rewarded with steaming cups of hot wine. If it wasn’t as blissful as Lesvos, neither was it bad; I proved adept at being a drone, and Fiore kept me f
it.
We had a fine wedding for Albin and his Catrina. It was an affair of my company, and I mean no disrespect when I say that never was an unfrocked priest (which Albin was, in secret) and a whore married with more friends about them: the Count of Savoy and his countess, my wife and her ladies, Sir Ogier and Musard and his Bonne. We packed the little church in the valley and all the ladies combined to sew the Venetian girl her trousseau, and she, to tell the truth, wept for a day, unbelieving of her good fortune. My wife was teaching her to read and write; that was her wedding gift to her doctor. I gave him three books, with some help from the archers, who rode over the mountains in winter to fetch them.
And we gave them a fine charivari … a loud party that lasted past dawn.
Winter was jolly, but spring didn’t ever seem to come to Chambéry. We were still racing sleds down the streets in March to the cacophony of the count’s marvellous bells. But, in the dying days of March, I rallied my company.
I appointed one of the squares for my muster and inspection, and ordered that every man should appear with his horses and arms. Sam Bibbo had entered, without apparent effort, into the place of master archer. Gospel Mark made no attempt to contest his pre-eminence, and I didn’t know how that had been managed, but there they sat at the head of twenty-four archers, mostly English, but with two Picards and half a dozen Flemings among them, as well as a Greek. They had the best horses of any group of archers I’d ever known – a year of campaigning and some losses still hadn’t depleted our stock of Arabs.
To their right were my men-at-arms. L’Angars was their corporal, for all that Gatelussi did a good deal of the work. Young Gatelussi had spent a good winter at court; he was going home after Paris, but now with contacts at the courts of Burgundy and Savoy that would probably help him when he was Prince of Lesvos, just as his father intended. Our men-at-arms were a mixed lot – the Birigucci brothers were from an ancient noble family, and Pierre Lapot was merely a dangerous Gascon – but two years of prosperity and employment had provided every man with good harness and decent clothes, and the muster was, for the most part, a pleasure. There’s always an awkward sod. In our case, we had Witkin, and never was a man more aptly named. He was Gospel Mark’s inseparable companion, even though he was never clean and had, on the last day of March in 1368, palpably and obviously sold his helmet, bow and maille to a pawnbroker and had nothing but the most ridiculous excuses to offer.
But Witkin was our only failure. The pages were mostly Savoyard boys, with a sprinkling of Greeks and Italians and one runaway English servant named Tom whom I took for myself after Bibbo recruited him. My two Greek boys were still too young to bear arms beyond daggers; Tom, despite being a skinny lout, was strong.
‘Had any weapons training?’ I asked him. I was sitting behind my table with Sam Bibbo and l’Angars and Fiore, and each man had to come forward, be inspected and draw his spring bonus.
‘Nay, lord,’ he said, not meeting my eye.
‘Ever killed anyone, young Tom?’ Bibbo asked.
‘Maybe,’ Tom said.
‘What’d you kill him with, then?’ Bibbo asked.
‘His mouth,’ l’Angars said, and men laughed. And it’s true, Tom’s breath was offensive fifty feet away; he needed to have some rotten teeth pulled.
‘Ma fist,’ Tom said.
‘Christ,’ l’Angars said.
‘Do you want to come wi’ us, Tom?’ Bibbo asked.
‘Oh, aye,’ the young man said. ‘If’n you’ll take me, and if’n you pay.’
Bibbo also raked Witkin over red-hot coals for selling his kit. It proved, though, that he had it under the table, already redeemed from the pawnbroker, so even as Witkin made his mumbling, impossible excuses – dogs ate his maille, a boy stole his helmet when he was asleep, his sword broke when he was sleeping from the frost – even as he spoke, his gear was piled up before him and finally Bibbo put the pawnbroker’s ticket into his hand.
Bibbo looked at me.
I looked at Witkin, who had stood his ground against Turks and Saracens and Frenchmen. ‘Do it again and you can find other employment,’ I said in my newly learned capitano voice. I guess I did it well – the good-natured catcalls and ungentle mockery ceased. Men looked away.
‘You’re not a child,’ I said. ‘You’re better than this, Witkin. You drink, and you lie. Do better, or don’t march with us.’
‘Everyone drinks!’ Witkin spat.
There was a hush, as if they all expected that the capitano might make him vanish in a puff of smoke, or perhaps turn him into a frog.
‘Exactly because everyone drinks,’ I said, ‘is why you’re an arse for lying and selling your kit. You were the only one of all of them to do it. Last chance.’
Witkin was considering further protest, but Gospel Mark shoved him away from the table and growled, ‘Shut the fuck up, you useless bastard.’
When they were all mounted, Fiore and I rode through the ranks and looked at them all. We had almost seventy men, and they were excellent. It was enough to raise the heart of any soldier, and the next day, when the count looked them over, he nodded.
‘I will have the finest escort,’ he said with his usual smug satisfaction. And it was the count himself who pointed at Marc-Antonio, in a new white harness. ‘Time for that one to be a knight,’ he said.
On the second day of April, we set off for Paris.
I hadn’t been to Paris since the summer of the year of Our Lord 1358, at the height of the Jacquerie, when the King of France was still a prisoner in England, and when the Dauphin, the Mayor of Paris, the Jacques, Charles of Navarre and the English were all on different sides. It had only been ten years. But those ten years …
We rode from winter into spring as we rode down from the mountains. The countess, Bonne, came with us, as did my Emile, and then it was rather as I had imagined the year before. I was an acceptable courtier and a good escort commander, and Emile danced attendance – often literally – on the Countess of Savoy, and flowers blossomed as they passed, or so it seemed. It was a remarkable spring; there were flowers on every hillside and in every village. France was rich again, and if there were bones on the roadsides and villages with more roofless huts – they always look like rotten teeth in an old mouth to me – than there were newly thatched roofs, still the place looked better than it had on my last visit. We had a dozen Savoyard courtiers, every one of them a veteran of a couple of major actions. There was no practical way in which the Prince of Achaea could hope to ambush us, but Fiore and Gatelussi and l’Angars and I kept up the good habits of the season before, scouting with archers, keeping a watch at night, even in good towns like Lyon, whose suburbs I had once burned with a party of brigands and routiers. I remember riding through Chalon-sur-Saône to the sound of Emile, my Emile, teaching Fiore one of Machaut’s love songs so that he could try it on his lady. She’d long since gone back to Monaco, but marriage was in the air and Fiore, so single-minded about everything, was determined to be a courtly lover and was willing to put his not inconsiderable skills to the task: dancing, poetry, singing … I half expected him to produce a lute at any moment.
We had days of rain, and because the count was in a hurry we pressed through them, so that we arrived at the castle of Nemours soaked to our various skins, the gentle with the common, and we were greeted with hot hippocras and enough wool to preserve us all. We were well fed, and there, I remember, I overslept. Me, the capitano, and I had to scramble into the courtyard a few steps ahead of the count.
‘It is odd to be in France,’ I said to Musard.
He shook his head. ‘I’m always afraid I’ll wake up and find it was all a dream and I’m a routier,’ he admitted. It was the third or fourth time he’d said that; I knew him now to be a more haunted man than I’d thought at first.
On the sixteenth of April, we arrived at Paris. The count had an enthusiastic greeting from the royal court: h
e was a near neighbour and a good ally. We were all housed in the Louvre, which for Fiore meant a palliasse of not-very-clean straw right under the slate of the roof, with a drip, while for me and Emile, a countess in her own right, it meant a tiny room with a bed we brought ourselves, possibly because most of the time our room was someone’s closet. Our window leaked when the spring winds blew from the south. But despite all that, we had more than most and, after I had inspected the archers’ quarters, I had a word with the count and moved them all to an inn out in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
That same day, Prince Lionel of Clarence arrived. Eh, Master Chaucer?
I met Master Chaucer, there, almost as soon as I returned to the Louvre – wandering the halls with a bundle of straw, looking for a place to sleep. Oh, my friend, am I unfair? Well, my memory says that I gave you the space my archers had tried to live in, and you were happy for it, and then you took me to the English prince.
Well, you have all seen how joyful Monsieur Chaucer and I are with each other, so you can imagine. Bells tolled, and dogs barked. Ha ha!
I introduced Emile to Chaucer, and Chaucer introduced me to you, Monsieur Froissart, and through you, to the good Duke of Burgundy and the Hainaulter lords in his train. I really only mention this to say that, although we were but three days in Paris – and most of that spent attending the Count of Savoy at court and law court as he pursued an old debt of nine thousand gold ecus owed him by the king – and some land contingent on that—
Chaucer, you frown. Do I misremember? Tell your own version, then. This is mine.
Any road, even as we attended our various lords, talk turned to arms and deeds of arms, and I brought Fiore along so that the good duke, the Countess Bonne’s brother, as well as some of the other Hainaulters and English lords, could meet him. I was always eager to show him off; he shone in any company that wanted to discuss fighting.
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