I kissed Emile in the courtyard of the count’s palace, in front of Prince Lionel and the count and the earl, and she leaned over and kissed my ear. ‘I’m pregnant again, sir knight,’ she said. ‘Try not to be away this time.’
I laughed.
‘Come home,’ she said. ‘My feet get cold without you, and I’m too old to find another lover.’ She smiled, and I loved her – oh, God, how I remember that parting – and my lances formed, and the count …
Bah. Never mind. It was a good day: the promise of a great adventure, and the honour of leading such a brave little force, almost two hundred men.
The great war had come. I was as eager as an old warhorse at the smell of wood smoke and warm wool. I’d had a long winter of comfort. I’d been a courtier and, to be fair, I had very much enjoyed some of it – the dancing, the time with Emile.
But this was war – a great war fought by the greatest captains. The count was raising his whole host. It was his plan to demand the service of the Prince of Achaea, so that he could keep the man where he could see him. And it was in his head that if Achaea came and served, they’d patch it up. I think he was wrong; Richard and I knew how constant the attempts had been, and I still do not think that the count believed in Achaea’s willingness to kill him.
I didn’t have to worry about any of that. I merely had to cross Lombardy as fast as I could. The count would come with a feudal host, and a bridegroom, and Emile; he would be weeks behind me.
I bowed, vaulted into my saddle, waved to my wife, and we rode forth in a column of four men abreast, led by Sam Bibbo, who was proud as Pontius Pilate. The moment we were clear of the gates, I had archers out in front and on my flanks, and a rearguard of picked knights led by Francesco Gatelussi. Our baggage was on mules, between the two bodies of men-at-arms, with Fiore in command. Every man, from knight to page, had three horses. We had a letter from the count for fodder and oats across Savoy, and we went like the west wind. We didn’t stop at the monastery the first day, and indeed, our winter march seemed like a snail’s pace against our spring ride – forty Roman miles a day or more.
The count had warned me that his cousin, the Lord of Montferrat, might try to oppose us – ironic, as he had been my first employer in Italy, when I was with the White Company. I was careful to pay for everything as we crossed his lands, and he, in turn, ignored us, or perhaps our passage was so rapid that he didn’t have time to react. We spent a night in Turin, but I had the men in their saddles at dawn the next day, regardless of whatever pleasures Turin might have offered, and we were away along the Via Francigena towards Pavia. We rode from Turin to Pavia in a single day, across the endless sunny expanse of Lombardy on a good, if dusty, road – twelve hours in the saddle. But the Visconti, however strange their family, took good care of their soldiers, and they had been forewarned of our coming, and there were beds in inns for the men, a room at the castle for me and Fiore, and stables for jaded horses.
I rested my people a day at Pavia. It was an odd day, as I was nearly exhausted and had endless work to do, gathering supplies and replacing anything that could be replaced – every broken sword blade and lost buckle. Galeazzo Visconti sent for me himself and stressed to me the desperation of his brother Bernabò’s position: he and Hawkwood, with the Veronese, had attacked Mantua, trying to take the Gonzaga city off the board before the Pope’s army could come up. At the same time, the Holy Roman Emperor’s army was coming down from the north – fifty thousand horses by some reports.
Let’s consider this a moment, friends. Here’s Mantua, or Mantova, as the Italians say. Here’s the Emperor, above it, with fifty thousand men; here’s the Pope in the south, with at least fifteen thousand; here’s Bernabò and Hawkwood at Mantua, just south of the gates, with perhaps eight thousand men. Bernabò’s closest ally is on the wrong side of the Alps.
At odds of seventy thousand to ten thousand, near enough, my two hundred might not seem very important, and indeed, they might not have been. But Milan was raising its excellent city militias, and they were just starting to march east. Thousands of men with crossbows and handgonnes, or great pavises and heavy spears. All of them had good armour; Brescia, Pavia and Milan were the centre of the armour industry across all the Latin lands. The Moors and the Turks prized Milanese armour. And every Milanese pavisier had a coat of plates, a kettle helmet and a good shirt of maille on his back; iron gauntlets on his hands, too.
Be all that as it may, it was a sobering interview with Galeazzo. I had not previously seen the counts of the Visconti as vulnerable men, with normal emotions, but now I saw Galeazzo rub his hands together far too often, and stare off into space before answering.
As I rose to leave, he waved me back. ‘Give my son a sword lesson,’ he said.
As I say, an odd day. I went to find Fiore, and then we went looking for his son, Gian Galeazzo, and found him in a window bower in the huge, old stone fortress. It’s gone now, replaced by the glorious brick castle that the Visconti built after the war, but that stone pile was gloomy and had an air of tragedy about it at the best of times. Perhaps the building made the men, because that air of desperation, of torment … The Visconti device said it all, the viper with a man in his mouth …
Perhaps I don’t want to say it. Chaucer knows, and Froissart.
I found Gian Galeazzo with his sister, Violante. She was flushed, but her eyes were empty, like many a man I’ve known who’s seen too much horror and too much war. They were odd, sad eyes on a thirteen-year-old girl. Her hair was unwashed, and lank, and she would not meet my eye.
Gian Galeazzo smiled at me. ‘Swordplay, messer?’ he asked, as if I had not found him tormenting his sister.
I indicated Fiore, who led him away to the room over the vast stables. I turned to Violante, bowed, and made a reverentia.
‘My lady,’ I said, ‘may I be of service?’
She shook her head silently.
‘My lady?’ I asked.
She wouldn’t look at me – shrunk away as if I had offered to strike her.
‘Let me help you,’ I said.
She smiled. It was a terrible smile – purposeful and bleak together.
‘You could kill me,’ she said. Then she ran.
Blessed Virgin Mary, that’s what she said. And then, while Gian Galeazzo swaggered swords with me an hour later, I slipped in my fatigue, and my wooden waster clipped him on the thumb, a sloppy blow at a sloppy cover, as too often happens. I didn’t break his thumb, but it swelled up like an apple.
He didn’t cry or whine. He was no simple villain; he was, in fact, very brave. But after Fiore had looked at it he said, turning to me, ‘You could do me a great favour, my lord.’
I bowed. ‘I am not a lord,’ I said.
‘You hold a barony on Cyprus, and Prince Francesco has granted you another,’ he said. ‘My father told me this, that I would judge you by your worth. Tell me, messer – what can I do to stop this English lordling from coming to marry my sister?’
It was, in its own way, as shocking as Violante’s request. ‘My lord?’ I asked.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘I do not want this marriage. My father will not listen to me. How can I keep this Englishman away?’
‘My lord, he is mere days behind me on the road,’ I said.
He tried to flex his thumb. ‘It is her fault,’ he said. ‘She is so beautiful.’
Later, I lay on a fine bed, with Fiore on the next one. I had drunk off three cups of wine. Fiore was staring at his bed hangings, which were, as I remember, Arthurian.
‘What did he mean, it is her fault?’ Fiore asked quietly, as darkness came down across the fields of Lombardy.
I remember thinking about Fiore – about how he was. ‘I do not wish to discuss it,’ I said, after careful consideration.
‘Ah,’ he said, into the darkness. After a while, when the tumble of my thoughts had almost calmed, he spoke ag
ain.
‘Do you not think it odd,’ he said, ‘that, for the most part, we like the Pope, and that the Visconti are so obviously loathsome, and that the Emperor made us knights, and the count has, let us be honest, barely noticed our existence – yet here we are, about to ride to war for the Visconti and the count, against the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope?’
I lay there, wishing I had Emile to deal with the Visconti girl. Emile had had a darkness in her; she had overcome it, but I knew that girls could have as much darkness as men, perhaps more. Emile would know how to talk to Violante – I was sure of it.
I thought of Fiore’s question.
‘Listen, my friend,’ I said.
‘I am listening,’ he said. ‘It’s too dark to see.’
I probably sighed. ‘Listen, then. When you go to fight in a tournament, what is the purpose of the tournament?’
‘Practice?’ Fiore asked.
I should have expected that would be Fiore’s answer. ‘What would the purpose of a tournament be to a Ramon Llull, or de Charny?’ I asked.
Fiore’s bed creaked as his weight shifted. ‘Practice?’ he asked.
‘No, no. It is honour. A tournament is a fountain of honour. It is an honour merely to be allowed to fight, an honour to participate, and more honour to fight well, to be seen to be skilled and brave. Yes?’
I could hear him breathing. ‘Honour in winning,’ he said.
‘Honour in just going and fighting,’ I insisted. ‘You risk your life and your fortune, and you gain honour.’
‘I suppose,’ he admitted. And after a pause, the new, thoughtful Fiore said, ‘Yes, I admit it. I agree.’
‘So it does not matter what team you are on in the mêlée or who you joust against, does it?’ I asked.
Fiore laughed. ‘Of course it matters. I may be on a team of fools, or may have to joust against Nerio or you or …’ He made his bed creak again. ‘That’s not what you mean, is it?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘So you are suggesting that we needn’t enquire into the justice of a war, or the character of the captains – war is a great tournament, and it is an honour to participate?’
I lay there a while.
‘Are you asleep?’ Fiore asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking that I’m a witless fool, and you have the right of it.’
I could hear him laughing. ‘I do?’
‘Of course we should enquire into the justice of a war …’ I said. ‘But we are also mercenaries.’
‘Oh!’ Fiore said. ‘Of course. That makes it all right.’
‘You spent too much time arguing with Nerio,’ I said.
‘Why?’ Fiore asked.
‘Because you sound just like him,’ I said.
The sun was not three fingers clear of the flat plain of Lombardy when we rode out of Pavia. A day’s rest had done wonders for our horses, but I didn’t press them. We couldn’t hope to make the new fortified camp south of Mantua in one day, even a twelve-hour day, and I disliked entering enemy country so precipitously. So instead we halted just after noon at Cremona, still inside Milanese territory, and I went the rounds of all my men, sending them to bed early with a minimum of wine and a good meal. I inspected the horses with Sam Bibbo.
‘I could ha’ handled that blowhard, Hobhouse,’ he said suddenly.
I nodded. ‘No doubt,’ I said.
‘Bernabò’s a right bastard,’ he said, glancing at me to see how I’d take this.
I remember laughing in the anonymous darkness of the stable. ‘Sam, his nickname is “The Beast”.’
Bibbo laughed too. ‘Aye. Well. He comes by it honestly, is all.’ He pointed out some spur-galls on one of the Savoyard horses, and then said, ‘I like serving the count. He’s a decent eno’ soul.’
That was true, too. It had taken me a year to think of him warmly, and it had come by stages, but …
‘I like him fine,’ I said.
‘No one likes Bernabò,’ Bibbo said. ‘They’re afraid of him. He’s Camus, but with more power.’
‘Jesu,’ I said. I crossed myself, and then said, ‘But we’ll be with Sir John.’
Sam Bibbo looked troubled. ‘Aye,’ he said.
The next day was damp; the sun rose red in the east and the rain began while the shadows should still have been long. We were already a-horse, moving along a broad, sandy road that ran almost due east towards the distant impression of mountains or low clouds in the distance. I had Milanese guides – four wealthy peasants on ponies – and I gave each of them two gold Venetian ducats and promised as many more when we met up with Bernabò, a name which made every one of them cross themselves.
We had thirty miles to go. We were away early, moving through country that was ostensibly friendly with almost fifty lances – about two hundred men, and let me say what a terrible number that is. Not enough men to fight a stand-up battle or even to face a real army, but too many to slip by unnoticed or take cover, for example, in a barn or set of outbuildings.
So I sent all of our archers and pages – at least, the boys who spoke Italian – away on a broad front, just as we would have on a chevauchée against the French. The archers formed a sort of wide bow in front of us, bent in an arc, and we came up behind in a tight column, moving along the Mantua road. I stayed back with the baggage and with Fiore – the centre of the column is where a commander ought to be. I didn’t need Vegetius to tell me that. We had one of the guides with us, and there was another with Bibbo, and the last two were kept apart, one with the advance guard, which was with l’Angars, and one with the rearguard, under Gatelussi. This was Hawkwood’s system: to keep the guides separate so they couldn’t conspire. I also had my pilgrim itinerary – here’s the page I used that day. See how it has been wet? We got a rain shower mid-morning, just as Bibbo rode in to show me the lie of the land. The next village was San Giovanni in Croce – see here? With the little cross for a church?
I climbed that church steeple while we watered our horses and everyone changed. We were fifteen miles from Mantua, and we hadn’t seen an enemy. But we were north of the River Po, and Bernabò and Sir John were, at least nominally, south of it.
The plain in front of us rolled on like the plain of Heaven: fertile agriculture and rich villages as far as the eye could see, hills to the north, and the valley of the Po to the south. Mid-May: everything was green, and the clouds were breaking after the morning’s rain.
I questioned three of my guides. All of them agreed that there was a bridge at Casalmaggiore, and that Bernabò had the castle, or had a week before.
I’ve mentioned before what command is really about. It sounds simple, taking two hundred men from Chambéry to Mantua in spring. Two hundred men, six hundred horses and mules, three tons of supplies; crossing the Alps, crossing the plains of Lombardy, and picking the right route to meet up with our allies. A spiderweb of paths and roads, some wide, some narrow; bridges out from spring floods, or places where no bridge had ever been built and the banks were collapsing; bedbugs and surly villagers; men-at-arms with a taste for felony, or merely a desire to quarrel with each other or some girl’s father; cooks who have forgotten their olive oil; permissions for our men-at-arms or our slatterns to go to local churches; archers who steal chickens or chalices; and lost horses. Found horses! One day I noted that our horse herd had grown by a noticeable amount and, upon questioning, Gospel Mark revealed that he and Ewan had ‘found’ a dozen fine riding horses, all bearing the marks of the Visconti.
I won’t make a chronicle of it, but when I stood in the steeple of San Giovanni in Croce, the whole burden of my next move was on me. I was not a great captain; I was a man with fifty lances, half of which were not even his own. The responsibility weighed on me. Not to mention the concerns about my pregnant wife, Camus, the murder of Demetrios, the possibilities of assassination …
‘I want to go south, to the river,’ I said.
Fiore, who was with me, was trying not to look down. Somehow, I had known him for years and not realised that he was averse to heights. It was comic; Fiore had so few flaws that it was, in a way, good to know he had this one.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I think I will go down and see to my horses.’
‘You think south is the way to go?’ I asked. I admit it – I was keeping him in the steeple.
‘Certo,’ he muttered. Then he realised that he had to go down the ladder and he baulked.
Bibbo was looking under his hand. ‘I don’t know,’ he said with real hesitation. ‘I was here in ’65, but I don’t remember, right enough.’
No one was going to help me. I looked at my pilgrim itinerary, and it was no help at all – it didn’t name any village after San Giovanni until Mantua.
‘South,’ I said.
Then, somewhat cruelly, I said to Fiore, ‘Shall I go first?’
He was taking off his sabatons.
Heh.
We got down out of the tower well enough, and let me tell you that climbing a church tower in plate legs and sabatons is more exercise than a man facing battle needs to have.
I came down, drank watered wine with Gatelussi, gave the orders, and my column turned south. I left Gatelussi in San Giovanni for as long as it took Lapot to say three Credos, so that if someone came at us suddenly from the east, we were prepared.
No one came at us. It was hot, and the sun was suddenly brilliant, and men were winding turbans around their heads.
Bibbo appeared a little before midday. ‘Men across the river,’ he said. ‘Trying to stay hidden.’
There was no way we could stay hidden. ‘Try crossing at the ford. Send a pair of scouts – send Ewan …’
‘Aye, Sir William,’ he said with a half-smile, to indicate that he had been directing scouts, foragers and village-burners longer than I’d been alive.
Sword of Justice Page 42
