by Dan Davis
A space was made by the monks, knights, and spectators standing in a rough circle on the dockside.
“Get back,” I said to those gathering. “Make room, there, you damned fools, unless you want to get your bellies cut open by a reeling squire.”
Eva fastened her cap beneath her chin, handed me the sword and scabbard from her hip, and tightened her belt. “If these fools do not disperse, we shall be arrested for breaching the peace.”
“Do not finish him too swiftly, they must see your ability,” I said. “But do not toy with him too long, or the authorities may detain us. And do not kill him.”
She gave me a look.
“Yes, yes, I know,” I said, “but he will attempt to humiliate you. Do you recall what happened in Castile?”
“That was twenty years ago.”
“So, you do remember.”
“The boy was incompetent,” she said. “I can hardly be held accountable.”
“What about that knight in Aleppo?” I reminded her. “We had to run all the way to—”
She scowled. “Why do you nag at me like an old maid? Stop your prattling. Here comes the squire.”
When they faced off from each other, the size disparity between the two of them was startling. The squire Hughues was a huge young man, with broad shoulders and a big head. He must have weighed half Eva’s weight again. He was smirking as he advanced toward her.
Eva stood straight and held her blunted sword lightly, resting the blade on her shoulder as she slid forward in a most casual manner. A man finds it difficult to see an attack that comes straight toward him. One cannot effectively judge the distance.
She brought her sword back as she moved and then exploded forward with a thrust to his face. Hughues jerked back and managed to get his own blade up to parry the thrust away. But Eva had him on the back foot and she pushed cuts at him, low and high, while he circled away. The squire’s face went from swaggering confidence to shock to utter confusion as he found himself desperately flailing and outclassed with every blow.
Eva whipped her blade onto his wrist, hard enough to cause him to drop his sword with a clatter upon the paved stone underfoot. In quick succession, she struck his knee, chest, upper arm and knee again. Hughues’ leg buckled and she slapped the flat of the blade against the side of his unarmoured head. The squire fell, whimpering and clutching his head.
“Yield, I yield, for the love of God.”
Eva stood back from the downed man and nodded at the crowd. Some were shocked, others laughed. Many were scowling as they filed away.
Thomas and Friar William were shocked but both held my gaze. The young monk Stephen grinned from ear to ear. The old monk was horrified.
Bertrand glared at me with open hostility. Through our squires, I had humiliated him once again in front of a senior Templar and a monk acting as the ambassador for the King of France. A noble like Bertrand was obsessed with his own status. Indeed, he was only taking this journey in order to regain the favour of the King.
I knew Eva had won us our place on the embassy to the Tartars.
And, as I watched Bertrand drag his squire away, I knew I had made a dangerous enemy.
Part Two - Pontic Steppe ~ 1253
We made sail across the Black Sea for the province of Gazaria, a triangular peninsula at the north of the sea. On its west side was a city called Cherson. The region would later come to be known as the Crimea.
“Cherson is the city where Saint Clement was martyred,” Friar William said to me on the deck of the Genoese galley that we sailed on.
“How interesting,” I said, looking out from the side of the foremost part of the galley at the seemingly endless expanse of water. In the south of that vast inland sea, the air was often humid in the summer and under a deluge in the mild winters. Up in the north, the summers were blazing hot and dry, and the winters bitterly cold.
The friar and I were alone, other than the gruff but efficient sailors who adjusted the rigging constantly to best capture the strong but blustery, changeable winds in the sail above our heads. The great sheet of canvas rippled and cracked as the wind moved about its course, thrumming into life whenever the force caught it flush and the lines snapped taut as though a monstrous beast had been captured and fastened to the mast.
“Do you know of the lands to which we travel?” Friar William asked. “I am told that you know these parts, to some degree?”
I nodded. “I know some. A Venetian had agreed to sell me his cog and his contacts with the cities around this sea. I took the time to learn of who I would trade with.”
“Hmm,” he said, nodding. “A knight and soldier such as yourself becoming a trader. I believe that to be somewhat unusual.” When I did not respond, he continued. “Do the Genoese and Venetians not guard their trade against outsiders?”
“If you have enough gold, you can buy acquiescence,” I said. “Especially from those men for whom gold is everything.”
“And you are wealthy enough to purchase a ship of such size? And to provision and crew it? And purchase goods to trade with it?” The friar, I would discover, genuinely embraced the chief madness of his order. The Franciscans were ostentatious with their vow of poverty and William of Rubruck lived what his order commanded. “You must have won a great many tourneys, sir.”
“I have been accumulating wealth for a very long time,” I said, shrugging. “Wealth enables any man, even a knight, to do what he will.”
“I do hope you have not brought a great deal of coin or gold with you, sir,” Rubruck said, fretting. “Such wealth would only confuse the Tartars as to its purpose.”
“It would not confuse them,” I said. “If they knew one of us had gold, the first barbarian we come across would try to steal it. Do not be concerned. I may sometimes act foolishly, Friar William, but I am not a fool. My wealth is kept safely with the various Italian houses, and indeed, with the Templars.”
“Good, good,” William said, waving away consideration of my fortune with his fat fingers. “And you say you studied what goods you should trade with the Tartars? And what the key cities of the region are?”
The Flemish idiot was beginning to annoy me. “What do you want to know, Friar?”
He turned away from the sea to look at me. His smile dropped from his face. “Why are you here?”
I said nothing.
He pressed me further. “It is clearly not for the payment, as Thomas claimed.”
“No. Not for the payment. I was going north alone, with my wife, as a trader. But you already have leave to travel through the barbarian lands. And I know a man who serves the Tartars, or at least lives in their lands.”
Friar William scowled. “A man? What man?”
“A man who committed crimes all across Christendom and Outremer.”
He was silent for some time then turned to glare out at the horizon instead of at me.
“And you mean to punish him?” There was an edge to the Friar’s voice. He was controlling himself.
“All I wish,” I said, “is to request a trial by combat. If the Tartars who shelter him grant it, we shall fight. If I win, it is over. Finally.”
Rubruck squeezed his fat fists as he struggled to control his outrage.
“And should you lose this fight?”
I laughed. “Eva will return with you to Christendom and find another husband, I hope.”
“What of us, then?” He was certainly angry but pretending quite well that he was not. “What evil will your hatred and your vengeance cause for us and our efforts to convert the pagans?”
“Evil? Vengeance?” I shook my head, sadly. “No, no, dear Friar. There is no hatred in my heart.” I was far from certain that was the truth but I was not feeling hatred in that moment. “I will do everything that the Tartars require to stay within whatever barbaric laws and customs they have. If they do not grant me the trial by combat, I shall acquiesce. I would not force the matter. I shall say to him that I will see him again one day in Christendom and there
bring him to justice.” I shrugged. “It shall be as God wills.”
Whether I was lying to the monk or lying to myself, I do not know. Either way, my words seemed to mollify him somewhat. “I shall not allow you to endanger our mission.”
“I understand,” I said to him, for monks and priests can be placated as if they were women. “You are right. God comes first, always.”
“God and the Church,” he said, looking down his nose at me.
“Of course.”
“And the Pope.”
His order had only grown into such power due to their fanatical devotion to orthodoxy and their willingness to be the aggressive right hand of a pope who used the Franciscans to keep the perverted, wine-sozzled, acquisitive priesthood in line.
“Yes, Friar William,” I said, grinding my teeth. “I assure you I am thoroughly conventional in every way.”
He stood, bringing himself to his full height and full girth. “I shall be watching you very closely. Both you and that woman. If you threaten our mission, I shall be forced to expel you. For the greater good.”
How very Christian of you.
I fought the urge to slash open his gigantic belly and tip him into the sea and instead grinned at him like a lunatic.
“You do not need to worry about me, Friar. I shall cause you no trouble whatsoever.”
***
The cabins were tiny, fetid and dark. I could not stand up straight, not even close to it and Eva and I had to share a bunk that was not large enough even for her alone. Upon the deck, by the bunk, we had a single chest for our belongings and some hooks for a lamp and clothing. The cabins ran down on either side of the ship at the prow end, with the stern to midships taken up with cargo. For privacy, we each had a canvas curtain threaded through a rope that pulled almost closed across the small space. The walls of each tiny cabin were boards that were little thicker than parchment.
At least it gave us a modicum of privacy and so she could drink blood from my wrist every other night and thus remain in good health. Without drinking blood regularly, every three days at the most, her skin would progress from rude health into a pallid green, and her sharp mind would descend into savage madness. We had managed to avoid her going without blood for decades, other than a few times, now and then, when we had kept such close company that it was difficult.
Once, we were arrested attempting to leave Obidos after a fight in the street that was categorically not my fault. For a while, it appeared they were going to sell us into slavery and they left us chained up in a tower room given over to the purpose of holding undesirables like us. That little makeshift gaol was full of prisoners destined to be slaves. It was always well lit, and there was always at least one man staring at Eva, and often it was all of them. Lest we be further accused of practicing some evilness, she held off for three days, becoming sick and twitchy, sweating and groaning in her sleep. Once, I had starved a vampire monk named Tuck of blood, and my dear wife began to resemble that vile beast. Although I knew not to mention that to her at the time. When one of the prisoners saw her drinking blood from my wrist in the night, he woke up the rest with his outraged accusations. I beat him unconscious and warned the rest of them to mind their own business.
They stopped staring at her after that and we were released a couple of days later.
Outside Obidos, I swore to Eva that I would never allow her to be taken prisoner again as long as we lived.
Another oath that I would soon break. Another way that I would fail in my duty to protect my wife in the pursuit of my vengeance. For such a thing is so very easy to swear, and yet not so easy to avoid in the face of a hostile world. Taking Eva into the wilderness, into a land ruled by violent savages, and in the company of men who would happily do her harm, was contradictory to my duty. I should have foreseen how such a contradiction would end, but I did not, and so I brought her into the confined space of a galley sailing across a foreign sea.
Our company on that Genoese galley on the Black Sea was metaphysically divided into two distinct social tiers. Thomas, Bertrand and myself were knights and the friars William and Bartholomew were spoken to as if they were equals.
The two squires, the young monk Stephen Gosset, the friar’s servant boy Nikolas and the dragoman, who was called Abdul, we never conversed with unless it was to issue them commands.
Eva did not fit in either station. She was a squire but also the wife of a knight. The monks and the knights, I am sure, thought of her as a woman merely playing at being a squire, in spite of her skill with the sword. And any woman who would do such a thing was not a true lady. The squires and servants, she made uncomfortable with her presence. For all of our company, she was a conundrum seemingly impossible to resolve.
But both Eva and I had encountered such difficulties before and the only way to deal with these things is to pretend outwardly that they concern you not at all.
Either way, we shared a bunk which was closer to the centre of the ship, closer to the hatch through which came the fresh air. The squires came next, then the dragoman, Abdullah and the boy Nikolas. Both of whom were as miserable and sick as otherwise healthy young men could be. But we needed no interpreters on the ship, so they were welcome to lay in their bunks, located hard under the prow. Their ceaseless groaning and vomiting was, however, most unwelcome and by far the healthiest place to be on the ship was up on deck.
“You deceived me,” Thomas the Templar said as we leaned on the rail late on the second day. “With regards to the nature of your squire.”
We were as alone as one could be on the galley, which was to say, surrounded by the ceaseless bustling of the crew but not within earshot of anyone important. A warm wind tugged constantly at us and the mist sprayed up from the ship’s prow smashing through the choppy waves. To the west, the fertile lands shone green in the summer sun.
“I did not tell you my squire was a woman, that is true,” I said. “And I apologise for putting you in that situation with the monk.”
“Bertrand is angered.”
“She thrashed his squire without breaking a sweat,” I said, not bothering to hide my smile. “I am sure that he will come to terms with it, in time.”
Thomas sighed. “You do not know the man.”
I nodded, for that was true. But I was sure I knew the type of man that Bertrand was.
“Tell me, sir,” I asked Thomas. “What did he do?”
The Templar hesitated. “What do you mean by that?”
I leaned further out, looking down at the white froth running in a torrent where the hull smashed through the water. “I mean, what hideous crimes did Bertrand commit for the King of France to send him on this God-forsaken lunatic’s quest.”
Thomas bristled at that and I thought I had pushed him too far. But he ground his teeth for a moment then sighed. “Do you know his family? He is the second son but the family has two castles and Bertrand has one for himself. Somewhere near Cahors. Good land. Rich land. Bertrand brought twelve knights and their followers with him on the crusade. All dead now.”
“Bertrand was at fault?”
“For his lost men? The King was at fault. He threw away his army.” Thomas spoke with deep bitterness. As well he might, for the catastrophe of Louis’ crusade was agonising and fresh. “No, Bertrand escaped death or capture and has served the King in Acre since. That is where he lost the King’s favour. Bertrand is not a man who does well in the close confines of a court. Give him a horse and an enemy and he will do God’s work but when required to be Godly, he is unable to control his passions. He is full of sin.”
“Which sin of Bertrand’s did Louis take umbrage with?”
“Lust. Bertrand lay with a wealthy widow of Acre. She claimed that he forced himself upon her and yet a child was placed in her womb, so her word was disbelieved. However, the child was lost and the lady almost perished herself. Some said it was God’s proof that the lady had been raped after all.”
“She probably drank too much pennyroyal,” I said.
“Why was he not tried and convicted?”
“The local lords clamoured for it. Louis would not submit one of his men to their authority so he sent him away.” Thomas rubbed his eyes while screwing up his face. “And I had been pressing the King for more knights to accompany me on the embassy so when he insisted upon Bertrand, I could do nothing but accept. Which he knew. What a fool I was.”
In fact, it was I, Richard, who was the fool.
Because I saw it then, striking me as suddenly as a slap in the face. Thomas was old. Strong, and perhaps even skilled at arms, but of middling height and with a slender build. His Templar squire was young and so humble as to be invisible. Friar William was a big lump of a monk but monk he was. The other two Franciscans were either old and frail on the one hand, or full of little more than the idiotically mirthful joy of youth.
“You only wanted me to join you,” I said, as realisation dawned, “so that I would help you to control Bertrand.”
I laughed heartedly at my own dim-wittedness for not seeing it earlier.
Thomas scowled at my uncouth laughter. “I always wanted more men, within reason, but yes. When I saw your ability, your strength, and your stature at that sad little tourney, I believed that you could act as a force to temper Bertrand’s passions. And that is one reason I am so displeased at your deceit.” He cleared his throat. “She should not be left alone.”
“You don’t need to worry about Eva,” I said. I had left her snoring away down on our bunk. I grinned at Thomas, hoping to put him at ease. “If anything, it is they who should be afraid of her.”
Sheer bravado, on my part. I claimed that I was not worried about danger on the ship and yet I wore my sword at my side so I felt threatened on some level, even though I denied it. Despite my general caution, I did not know then quite how dangerous Bertrand could be. And God was listening to my dismissive arrogance.
