And so there we were, a dozen of us, English and French, Hainault and Italian and Savoyard. We were waiting outside the antechamber where the count and the King of France were discussing finance, or just possibly the Prince of Achaea, when I looked up and there was Boucicault.
I was standing with my shoulders wedged comfortably into the panelling, with a pewter cup of good wine in my hand, between Musard and Fiore, who was holding forth on the best way to use a spear in a foot combat.
I looked up and saw Boucicault, and saw, too, his shock.
‘William Gold,’ he said.
I bowed. ‘My lord,’ I said.
He just stood there, shaking his head. He was beautifully dressed, but then, so was I; I had a fine white wool cote-hardie from Venice, with some fripperies and the Order of the Sword from Cyprus on my shoulder, and the Order of the Black Swan, a gold collar, round my neck.
Boucicault grinned. It took time, but it came. ‘Of course, I’ve heard of you from time to time,’ he said. ‘You was at Alexandria.’
‘I was.’
Boucicault nodded. ‘Par Dieu, William, you have certainly made something of yourself. What brings you here?’
‘I am leading the Count of Savoy’s military escort,’ I said.
‘Still with Musard, I see,’ Boucicault said. Of course, this had to have seemed odd to him; he’d been part of the plan to take me, and Musard had, to all intents, sold me. To Boucicault, and Camus.
‘Yes,’ I said.
Musard nodded. Boucicault had a strange relationship with the two of us – if you’ve been listening, you know that we wandered between enmity and friendship and rivalry in arms all our youth. But now Boucicault was filled out, taller and stronger even than I remembered him, and older – a few years older than me. Mature, perhaps. The best jouster I ever faced, except Fiore.
I introduced them.
‘You are a Knight of the Sword,’ Boucicault said.
I bowed. ‘I have that honour.’
‘You know that King Peter of Cyprus is in Rome?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
‘He has agreed to fight some Gascon adventurer. To the death. In the lists.’ Boucicault shrugged.
‘Florimont de Lesparre?’ I asked.
‘The very man,’ he said.
Then Boucicault joined our banter about fighting with spears, and we all moved on, but the subject was not dead. We went on to discuss the possibilities of war: the French knights were eager to have du Guesclin lead them against us, by which I mean the English, and there was some obvious ill feeling. I was sorry to miss du Guesclin, as I held him in high regard; he was in the north, laying siege to a castle, or so I was told. From war between England and France, we turned to war in Italy. Almost every man present thought that the Holy Roman Emperor, with the Pope, would take Milan in the spring, and that the English were fools to tie their chariot to that of the Count of Milan.
Two Germans present, quiet, dignified men, maintained that the Holy Roman Emperor was so embroiled in Bavaria that he would never cross the Alps. And Boucicault, who seemed to know whereof he spoke, said that the Pope was having trouble paying his captains. The consensus by the end of the evening was that the ‘Great War’, as we had all come to think of it, was not going to happen – that despite the web of alliances surrounding both the Pope and Milan, events like Prince Lionel’s reception in Paris showed that the peace was sound and the world was not going to war.
That evening, at a very formal dinner with the King of France, the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Savoy and Prince Lionel, the subject of the King of Cyprus surfaced again. This time it was the English prince.
‘I remember the King of Cyprus,’ Lionel said. ‘I found him very … impressive. Preux.’
‘Still,’ the King of France said. ‘Why would a king agree to fight a commoner?’
‘Sir William Gold there is a Baron of Cyprus,’ Boucicault said. He was apparently very close to the King of France.
I was well below the king, although not as far away as I might have been were I not married to Emile. He looked at me. ‘Sir Guillaume?’ he asked. ‘You serve the Count of Savoy?’
‘I have that pleasure, Your Grace,’ I said.
‘And yet you have a look of some familiarity,’ he said.
I rose and bowed. I might have described the circumstances under which I met him in fifty-eight, but it would not have seemed flattering. ‘Yes, Your Grace,’ I said.
He nodded, as if he had just remembered where he had seen me.
‘You are English,’ he said.
‘Yes, Your Grace.’
‘But you have served Cyprus.’ He glanced at Machaut, who was quite close to him. Machaut had been chattering with Emile; really, we all knew each other, at some remove.
‘Yes, Your Grace,’ I said.
‘How, my lord?’ the king asked.
I glanced down, and then at Emile.
Count Amadeus laughed. ‘Sir Guillaume is too gentle to say so, but he saved Cyprus’s life at Alexandria.’
‘With a dozen other knights,’ I said.
The King of France’s gaze locked with mine.
‘You are the man who stormed Corinth,’ the king said.
‘With Fiore, here, and some gallant gentlemen,’ I said.
The king smiled.
Machaut said, ‘And Sir Guillaume held the lists at Didymoteichon, in Outremer, against a team of Saracens.’
What the hell do you say? I was trying to think of something. Fiore says my mouth was open like a fish out of water, gulping air.
Then the King of France rose from his seat.
He bowed to me.
Well, there you have it. The summit of all my ambition, in a sentence. At the court of France, the King of France bowed to me.
Bah, none of you have any sense of what an honour that is.
Never mind. That’s not the point. And see, Chaucer will confirm it happened – it’s not all my vainglory.
‘So you know the King of Cyprus well,’ said the King of France, when he had seated himself, and people had stopped applauding. Chaucer, I appeal to you … they applauded, did they not? Thank you, Master Chaucer.
‘Not so very well, Your Grace,’ I said.
‘Nevertheless,’ the king said, ‘tell me why he would fight this other knight.’
‘De Lesparre called him a coward,’ I said. ‘In public, before hundreds of witnesses.’
King Charles – this is Charles, fourth of that name, by the way, who had been Dauphin during the Jacquerie – nodded. ‘Such a man could be arrested,’ he said.
The French nobles looked pained.
‘Your Grace, King Peter depends on his … preux to preserve his ability to lead.’ I decided that a shrug was not appropriate when dealing with the King of France, especially the same King of France who’d dedicated his reign to destroying the routiers. He had to know I’d been one.
The king tilted his head slightly. ‘So he will fight?’ he said.
‘I would expect it, Your Grace,’ I said.
The king turned away, finished with me.
‘If the King of Cyprus can fight a commoner,’ a voice drawled, ‘perhaps the mighty Duke of Savoy might condescend to face the lowly Prince of Achaea in the lists.’
I turned.
The man wasn’t sitting at our pair of tables, but off to the right, with the churchmen.
He was the Bishop of Geneva. Bishop Robert – Camus’s usual employer, the Count of Savoy’s cousin, and Emile’s cousin as well. A man who liked to pull the legs off insects.
‘Unthinkable,’ the King of France said.
‘Oh, but my lord, surely it is unthinkable that you should seat not one but two tard-venus at your royal table, but there they sit like toads in a pond.’ The bishop still had the same odd eyes,
the same impression of viewing the world with an intense and childlike curiosity.
Of course, a great many people looked at me, and others looked at Musard. Heads craned round.
Count Amadeus yawned. ‘My cousin is young, Robert,’ he said. ‘I do not wish to kill him, as I most certainly would if we met in the lists.’
Robert of Geneva smiled, as if he was beneficent. ‘Whatever the outcome, it would save this kingdom and its courts a great deal of time and money,’ he said.
Amadeus still wore his smile. ‘I don’t think it is a business of this kingdom,’ he said.
Robert of Geneva nodded. ‘Well, you should,’ he said, and every one of hundreds of people listened with the greatest attention. ‘Because the Prince of Achaea has presented his case to the King of France, along with his offer to do homage as the king’s vassal.’
Amadeus looked at King Charles.
Charles smiled. ‘A mere formality,’ he said.
‘Neither his holdings in Savoy nor his holdings in Morea are subject to France,’ Amadeus said coldly.
‘They are now,’ Bishop Robert said. ‘There is precedent.’
‘A mere formality,’ the King of France said, his smile unbroken. ‘I will look into the matter, and the courts will examine the status of the prince. And Savoy.’
There it was. I didn’t need it explained, and neither should you, but in a word, Savoy was an independent country – a county in rank, but a place with no overlord. The Counts of Savoy swore fealty to the Kings of France for certain towns and cities, but not for Savoy itself, just as the Prince of Wales does fealty to the King of France for Gascony but not for, say, England or Wales.
But in his bid to change his inheritance, the Prince of Achaea was willing to go to the King of France and abandon his independence. And the King of France was well known for his acquisitive ways. He would add Savoy to his kingdom.
Prince Lionel was no fool. He looked up and down the table, looked at Bohun, his principal advisor, and then cleared his throat. ‘I did not think that Savoy was ever subject to France?’ he asked.
King Charles smiled pleasantly. ‘Let the courts decide.’
‘French courts?’ Amadeus of Savoy said.
‘You want my cousin to be tried in your courts,’ Geneva said. He smiled. ‘I thought perhaps you would praise the principle. We have only done what you did.’
Amadeus sat back. ‘We will see,’ he said.
Geneva looked at me, and his smug superiority was like a blow.
On the nineteenth of April, we left Paris for Chambéry. This time, we had forty English knights, twenty French knights, almost a hundred ladies, and minstrels and servants, as well as a dozen wagons and Prince Lionel himself. We had Chaucer and Machaut and Froissart there, and a mule train of gifts.
We were the bridegroom, and we were riding through spring, to a wedding.
Count Amadeus was as cold as ice. But when we were five miles outside Paris, he rode aside from Prince Lionel and summoned me to his side with a wave.
‘I will fight this Prince of Achaea,’ he said.
I probably looked shocked.
He shrugged without petulance. ‘It is now the best option,’ he said. ‘There’s little use in fretting. I prayed on it last night and I have spoken with my brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy, and with Bonne. We all agree.’
‘I understand,’ I said.
‘You do?’ he asked.
‘Your Grace, if you fight him, you will beat him, barring some evil miracle or some deception.’
‘Nonetheless, your friend Fiore has the name of the best sword in Italy. Is this true?’ the count asked.
I revelled in the moment at which I could make Fiore’s fortune. ‘Yes, my lord,’ I said.
He nodded seriously. ‘The prince will be at the wedding,’ he said. ‘Cambrai will be there as well – we’re fortunate he didn’t travel with us.’
‘Cambrai?’ I asked, wracking my brains.
‘Ah. My cousin Robert, formerly Bishop of Geneva, is now Archbishop of Cambrai,’ the count said. ‘And will soon have a cardinal’s hat.’
I sent a prayer to Heaven.
The count was looking at the distant mountains, as if very eager to be there. ‘We will exchange cartels at the wedding,’ he said.
I nodded.
‘I will train with Monsieur Fiore. You will attend to the precautions, with Monsieur Musard.’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’ What else could I say?
‘Musard says that you have a personal … feud …with this Bourc.’ Amadeus of Savoy glanced at me.
‘Yes, my lord,’ I said.
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Please tell me the basis of this feud.’ He glanced at me. ‘The legal basis.’
He made a business of raping nuns and turning boys into animals. That didn’t seem to answer.
‘My lord, among other things, he attacked the Papal Legate in Avignon,’ I said. ‘And he has led attacks on you, at least twice.’
‘He is a routier?’ the count asked.
‘He serves the Archbishop of Cambrai, who has some hold over him. He has threatened me and my wife …’
Amadeus nodded. ‘Leave this to me,’ he said.
We rode on. We had superb music; we ate dinners in flowering orchards and listened to Machaut’s latest compositions played by his own minstrels. Lady Bonne and my Emile led all the women in the party, clad rather daringly in just their kirtles with garlands of flowers, to dance, and I was never more thankful that I had spent the winter learning, as I did my lady no disgrace and was agile enough. And Emile and I began to teach Fiore to dance; he learned very quickly, and became instantly enthusiastic on the benefits of dancing. When Fiore was engaged, he was ever an enthusiast. He actually took to lecturing me on the benefits of dance.
And here we come to the glorious first of May. We were at Ceneserey, or close to it, and the count and his lady had arranged for the local seigneurs to meet us. I didn’t know them, and perhaps I was not conscious enough of where I was. Later, I realised how often I had fought over these very ridges – in fact, I had ambushed Camus here, in this very valley, when he tried to take Cardinal Talleyrand. I should have been more alert. Even as it was, though, we had vedettes out in the fields and we watched the local villeins dig us earth ovens so that the count’s servants could cook us dinner. We had precautions in place.
There was also a display. The area had known ten years of peace and the local lords were inclined to show their wealth. There were tables spread in the fields, and the sun was bright and the evening long. The grass was rich and green and newly cropped, and while the count, Prince Lionel, Lord Bohun and their ladies dined at tables, the rest of us lay on the grass or ate sitting up. A dozen of us dug a table: an old routier trick where you dig two short trenches in the loam and put your feet in them; the space between with a cloth on it is a table. It was a glorious meal of game and the first fruits of spring. I particularly remember asparagus, which I do not believe I had eaten before. And then we listened to a poem by Machaut, some songs by the ladies, and even the birds sang. The sun set so slowly that it seemed that the golden twilight would never end.
And later we danced, and all of us sang together. Emile was as beautiful as I had ever seen her, and we danced until she had a sheen on her flesh and I felt drenched in sweat. Dancing is almost as much work as fighting, and there I was on a warm May night in English broadcloth and silk, with wool hose … Afterwards, she wanted a cup of wine, and I had left my little pilgrim bottle by a tree, and so we walked off into the apple trees. I put a hand on her side …
‘You have converted the count,’ she said, looking back. Count Amadeus was sitting with Prince Lionel as if they were old companions; Prince Lionel was telling a story, and Richard Musard was already laughing. ‘Soon, he will cease to talk to me at all, and conduct all his business with yo
u.’
‘Are you angry?’ I asked. I had other plans entirely, and was not expecting her tension.
She shrugged. ‘No. But everyone always likes you, which I confess, my love, can be a trifle wearing.’ She smiled, a little bit of the woman I had once known, with a colourful past and no great opinion of herself.
‘I am only here on your sufferance,’ I said.
She looked away. Then she looked back. ‘If he really fights the Prince of Achaea,’ she said, ‘you know that Cambrai will cheat. And you know how much will hang on that fight.’ She shook herself. ‘I knew I should never have left Lesvos. My love, I do not enjoy being a great lady as much as I enjoyed our lemon tree. I barely see my babies – I file documents and deal with lawsuits …’
‘And dance on spring evenings …’ I insisted, taking her in my arms.
‘Well, there is that,’ she admitted.
‘And flirt with your friend, the King of France,’ I said.
‘Hardly friends. But I have known him since … well, since about the time I met you.’ She flashed a smile.
‘Don’t you think …?’ I began. I was at a loss for words; unusual for me, I grant. ‘Don’t you think, as a man who began his career of arms as a cook to the archers, that it is I who might have every reason to make people like me? And that perhaps it is not so easy for me?’
She smiled, kissed me, just a brush of the lips, and then away. ‘I admit that you do have some compensations,’ she agreed. I realised that she had led me by the hand far from the circle of fires and the dancing, and that we were on the broad lawn of grass beyond the trees – grass deep as leaf mould and soft as a carpet.
‘Red hair?’ I asked. I was kissing her.
‘Not the one I was thinking of,’ she said.
I kissed her again.
‘Do you know what the principal advantage is of wearing a green kirtle?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. We both laughed a little, but I did know the advantage of a green kirtle, too. I began to make love to my wife; we weren’t hurried, and it was the perfect spring evening …
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