The Ill-Made Knight

by Christian Cameron

  I wasn’t going to give it to him. I don’t know what he expected, but he clearly thought the fight was over and he grabbed at the sword.

  I flicked it at him, one handed, a weak, false-edge rising cut fuelled only by fear and hate.

  I caught the base of his left hand and cut off a finger.

  He dropped his sword. ‘Merde!’ he roared in Gascon French.

  I raised my sword to kill him. I was absolutely going to kill him, unarmed.

  Sir John Hawkwood saved my life and my career. He had already picked up a piece of firewood, intending, he told me later, to stop Bertucat Camus from killing me. Instead, he hit me on the head from behind.

  I fell to the ground unconscious.

  When I came to, I was in the Three Foxes, in a room paid for by Sir John. And my two little whores were waiting on me hand and foot.

  Over the next month or so, Richard Musard and I became fast friends, and we took over the running of the Three Foxes. It proved, after the fact, that the Gascons had ‘protected’ the place until they left it, charging the landlord protection money and running a string of prostitutes under the eaves. It’s good for an innkeeper to have a good sword on his payroll – a soldier can often talk other soldiers out of doing damage or fighting, and a really good sword discourages violence.

  I lay in bed for three days, and Richard visited twice. The two girls – named Marie and Anne, in the best tradition of Gascony – worked the inn, and no one stopped them, of course, because the inn’s strong arm had just ridden north to Normandy.

  I’ll make this brief – you all want to hear about Paris and Brignais. I want you to know what our lives were like in the companies, and this is all part of that. So, in short, by the time my wounds healed, I had fifteen girls, and the Black Squire and I ran the inn. The innkeeper was a big man, but not a brave one, and he was used to being bullied by a much more evil bastard than me. Musard terrified him, with his black skin.

  As to the girls, I am not proud of being a pimp, but there are ways and ways. Even then, I wasn’t willing to pimp directly. In fact, Marie did all the work, and all Richard and I did was glare at the customers and collect the coins.

  Sometimes a girl would come and say she’d had a problem.

  The first time was the worst, but it made life easier for us. Anne was working on her back and the man she’d taken started to hit her with his fists. She screamed. Marie came for me, but I was already moving. I went into that room – a room barely big enough to fuck – and there’s a man my size, stinking of wine, his hose and braes off, his hairy arse bare, pummelling this small girl—

  Good Christ.

  I caught one of his hands the way I’d learned from Abelard, in a dagger lock. Look here – punch at me, see? I catch your hand like this – eh bien? – I could make you scream like a woman giving birth.

  So I trapped his hand under my dagger blade and twisted, and he came off the girl. He followed me down the steep steps to the courtyard, bellowing curses and bile all the way.

  I put his left hand on the chopping block in the inn yard and drove my rondel dagger through it. I left him there, nailed to the block, until Anne came, kicked him a few times, raised her skirts and pissed on him.

  Afterwards, she kissed me and called me her true knight.

  Aye, the paragon of chivalry and protector of women.

  Here’s the funny thing, though. I took good care of Geoffrey de Charny’s rondel dagger, but I must have left the man pinned to the chopping block too long. Because when I took the dagger free, the whoreson’s blood had left a stain on the steel, and I couldn’t polish it out.

  Ah, I have shocked you, messieurs. Let us discuss this like gentlemen.

  Running an inn was hardly to be reconciled with the life of a knight, you might think, and yet, what men-at-arms do in the field is rape and murder. We kill each other and we kill peasants. We burn farms and we take loot – even in Italy, and twice as much when fighting pagans or saracens.

  I went to a hard school that summer of Poitiers. And when I was done, I had learned how to kill and how to survive. I thought I was a fine sword, a good lance and a gentleman. I confess to you that what I knew of chivalry might have fit inside one of the illuminated letters monks use at the beginning of a gospel – just one. I wanted to be worth more. I wanted to fight, and be preux. That’s what I knew.

  Of chivalry’s finer feelings, I knew next to nothing. In fact, I was worse than that. I heard the old troubadour songs about courtly love, honour and loyalty, and I thought them lies.

  I did fear the law and the loss of respect. I knew full well that if the Prince ever heard of any of this, I’d have been out in an instant. But thanks be to God, our clients were discreet. We gathered girls, and they came to us, for no better reason than that neither Richard nor I beat our girls – Christ, men are animals. I was an animal. I rutted with every girl in my stable. I was their lord and master.

  I confess, I ate well, dressed well and, twice a week, I waited at table on my Prince. I remember one evening, he stopped in a corridor where I was enjoying a cup of his wine with two of his squires. I was wearing a good black linen jupon, carefully embroidered with crosses, and matching wool hose, and I had a silk coat over the whole in a fine red-brown. It was my best, and my shoes matched, and I had de Charny’s dagger in my belt.

  The Prince stopped and I made my obeisance.

  ‘You have done well for yourself, Master Gold,’ he said. I flushed, because he knew my name. ‘Has your prisoner paid his ransom?’

  ‘No, my Prince.’ I tried to smile, to make it a joke. ‘Some . . . money from rents, your Grace.’

  He laughed. ‘Ah, you have rents?’ he said, and I could see I’d just climbed in his estimation. ‘I am remiss, Master Gold. Are you John or William?’

  ‘William, your Grace.’ I bowed again.

  ‘I remember you from Poitiers, and elsewhere,’ he said. ‘I seem to remember you as a cook.’ He laughed.

  ‘I was a cook,’ I admitted. ‘My mother was a de Vere and my father served as a man-at-arms, but . . .’

  He nodded absently. ‘Yes, of course.’ His eyes scanned the crowd of courtiers, who were pressing in, wondering who I was. Sir John Chandos stepped up closer to the Prince and took my hand.

  Sir John Chandos, shaking my hand.

  ‘I remember you at Poitiers,’ he said. ‘You were there when de Charny fell.’

  ‘I have his dagger,’ I said. I didn’t mention that I’d just used the paragon of chivalry’s dagger to pin a bad client to a chopping block so my whores could punish him. That seemed like a bad idea.

  The Prince smiled at me. ‘You fought well,’ he said. ‘Men like you, with the help of God, gave me that victory.’

  He turned away and I was aglow. For a moment I forgot that I was a pimp. I was a great man-at-arms, a soldier in the retinue of the finest prince in Christendom, the best lance in the west.

  Sir John Chandos waited until the Prince swept on down the corridor. ‘You were a cook,’ he said pleasantly. ‘And now you seem on the road to being a knight.’

  No one was more pleased to hear it than me. I had waited tables in the archbishop’s palace for almost a year, and suddenly my service was remembered.

  I went home, floating on a cloud of knightly valour, and ordered Marie to wash herself and decline clients. I ordered wine and we had a fine night.

  Towards morning, she kissed me. ‘Am I allowed to tell you that I like you, protector?’

  I rolled on top of her and tickled her. We were very young to be so hard, and neither one of us was as hard as we pretended.

  Sometimes, we had a fine time.

  Spring came, in the year of our lord 1358. Sir John sent me a letter for the Prince, which seemed to me an odd conceit, but I read his covering letter, blushing at his praise of me. He had more than eighty lances, and he had fought his way across Brittany – not, as it proved, Normandy.

  I read enough of his letter to the Prince – pardon me, g
entles, but the only seal was on his letter to me – to know that he had seized castles for the King of Navarre and was offering them, unofficially, to our Prince.

  I gave his letter into Sir John Chandos’s hands, and he looked at me very thoughtfully and gave me five golden ducats for the delivery – a great deal of money.

  It wasn’t many days after, when I stood in my room at the inn – a fine room – dressing for court. I was not wealthy enough to have a male servant, but Marie generally saw to my appearance with the practicality of a farm girl. I remember she wanted to go to Mass, and wanted me to come – she wanted us to go to Mass together. I was not an enemy to God like the Bourc, but neither was I a hypocrite, and I didn’t relish facing God with a purse stuffed full of coins from whores.

  Killing men is so much nobler, now, isn’t it? And look at that young cock – afraid to face God while aglow with praise from his worldly Prince, and still breathing hard from a fine morning ride with his whore. How many men live in a man?

  At any rate, I was half dressed, in my hose and braes and a shirt and sleeveless doublet when there was a commotion in the inn’s yard.

  I threw open the windows and looked out.

  There were half-a dozen men on bad horses in the yard.

  Richard Musard had his sword drawn.

  You could tell at a glance that these were hard men, and that the talking part was over.

  Listen, I had learned a dozen lessons from the Bourc Camus. I’d worked on my swordsmanship and my jousting all winter, because I was never going to allow myself to be so easily bested again. And I’d learned that when the talking is over, you fight. In fact, you can save a great deal of trouble if you start fighting while the other bastard is still talking.

  The Three Foxes had a slate roof and lead drains. I was out the windows of my room, over the balcony and onto the stable roof before I’d really thought it through. I knew what to do.

  ‘It’s my inn now,’ said the leader. He was English, tall and broad like an archer. ‘You kept it warm for me. Now run along and play, Blackie.’

  The other five men chuckled. They were hairy, about ten years older than me, with grey at their temples, flat purses and a lot of spring mud on their boots. They weren’t archers, though. Archers always have bows.

  They were brigands. Mercenaries, or worse.

  Richard didn’t budge. ‘Whose man are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m my own man, Blackie. And I won’t ask again. Walk away.’ He reached for his sword.

  I felt he’d asked one too many times. After the Bourc, I’d learned a great deal about who was dangerous and who was merely tough.

  I jumped onto his back from the stable roof. De Charny’s dagger went into the top of his head and he was dead before I had control of his horse. I wheeled the horse and dumped his body in the yard.

  I backed the terrified horse – no horse likes the smell of blood – until I was at Richard’s side.

  ‘That took you too long,’ he said pleasantly enough. ‘I didn’t think I could kill them all myself.’

  Oh, how I loved him. I never saw him lose his nerve – then or later.

  ‘Marie was dressing me,’ I said, as if the other five weren’t even there. ‘I was busy.’

  The five men were disconcerted to say the least.

  I raised my bloody dagger. ‘Get you gone,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll kill the lot of you. This is Bordeaux, not the marches. We don’t allow broken men here.’

  The closest man to me met my eye, and I knew in a moment that he was the most dangerous of the lot. He didn’t care. His eyes were vague, empty.

  I addressed him directly. ‘I’m the Earl of Oxford’s man,’ I said. ‘Get you gone.’

  He looked down at his former leader, now leaking into the already foul mud of the inn yard. ‘Fuck me,’ he muttered and turned his horse.

  The last man of the five was not as hard and looked as if he would weep.

  ‘Par dieu, messire! Have pity! We are Englishmen no worse than you!’

  The fellow next to him was, one could see, the castle lawyer of the group. Seeing me hesitate – I’m death in a fight, but soft as a snail inside, as all the girls knew – he leaned forward.

  ‘It’s all a misunderstanding, messire. We need work.’ He smiled. I’m sure he meant it to be ingratiating, or reassuring, but his ugly breath and worse teeth were enough to cause grave offence.

  ‘And you meant to take my inn to have your work,’ I said.

  ‘We could help you run your inn,’ he said.

  Marie leaned over the balcony. ‘Like fuck, messire! I don’t need five new rams poking at my ewes. eh bien?’

  I summoned Christophe, the inn’s lord. ‘Messire, would you do me a favour and feed these men? And give them a place to sleep tonight?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. He was making a fair amount of silver these days, as I took less out of him than the Gascons had. ‘For you? Anything, messire.’

  ‘What in the name of all the apostles are you doing?’ Richard asked me.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know myself. In fact, in my heart I knew I’d done the wrong thing, and that they’d catch me sleeping, kill me and take my girls.

  But they were English, and the empty-eyed man had been at Poitiers. I knew him immediately as one of Master Peter’s men. So I waited for the other five to pass me, and I held him back.

  ‘I know you,’ he said slowly. He fingered his dirty beard. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why let us stay?’ he asked slowly.

  I had thought he was slow, or stupid, or had received an injury, but now I realized he wasn’t English. He was from the north. York, or even further.

  ‘You were at Poitiers,’ I said.

  ‘Heh,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Samuel Bibbo,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘An’ you too, eh?’

  We shook.

  I promise you that wouldn’t have ended well, but then, everything happened quickly. It was that evening at court that Sir John Chandos took me aside.

  ‘Master Gold,’ he said. ‘You have something of a mixed reputation. A fine blade, men say. And as brave as a lion.’

  I could hear the ‘but’, so I didn’t let the praise go to my head.

  ‘Brave men are as common as lice here in Gascony. The Prince is here to govern, and not to loot his own lands.’ Chandos was a man I never wanted to cross – he was distant, careful and very slow to anger. He was always courteous, even to those he detested. ‘The Prince needs men who are brave and loyal and thoughtful.’ He sat back. ‘You are very young – and I think you had a misunderstanding with the law in London.’

  I nodded, chilled to the bone. Was I about to be dismissed from the Prince’s court? I could feel it.

  But Sir John Chandos was much more subtle than that. Instead, he let the threat of my colourful past stay on the table between us, so to speak. ‘Some men say you are cunning. One man – Sir John Hawkwood – says you are wise beyond your years. I understand you can read.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ I answered.

  ‘Like a clerk?’ he asked. He put a document in front of me. It was a draft, full of blots and misspellings. It was in Latin. A grant of lands to a Gascon lord.

  I read a sentence of the mediocre Latin aloud. ‘It is a land grant,’ I said.

  Sir John steepled his fingers. He rocked back and forth slowly. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Do you seek to serve the Prince?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I was surprised at my own vehemence.

  He looked at me. His eyes didn’t move, and I suspect I fidgeted. I had a great deal about which to be nervous. Many secrets that could be used against me.

  ‘We will see. I will try you, and see what metal there is in your body. Come, Master Gold. You will have your future with the Prince’s household in your own hands. I have a man for you to meet.’

  We walked along one of the bishop’s endless corridors to a small solar – like a closet with a fireplace, set in the wainscotting. Ther
e was a young man with an older man’s forked beard sitting on a low stool. He had ink stains on his right hand and a touch of ink at the corner of his mouth – a touch that added to the perpetual sneer he wore.

  ‘Master Chaucer,’ Sir John said. ‘This is William Gold, Esquire. He serves us sometimes. Master Gold, this is Geoffrey Chaucer, a page of Prince Lionel’s wife’s household, and with us at this time to do the Prince a service or two. I have a mind to send the two of you on an errand together.’

  ‘I am mere clay to accompany your Gold,’ Chaucer said. He looked at me. ‘Best send him on his own.’

  His intent was uncivil, but he smirked and bowed.

  Sir John Chandos was so unused to any form of cheek that he continued, assuming Chaucer had been respectful. ‘In light of the letter you brought from Sir John Hawkwood, the Prince would like an answer taken straight away. And perhaps, ahem, a further message for Paris.’

  Chaucer looked at me. ‘He doesn’t have a clue what you are talking about, Sir John,’ he said. He smiled at me in a patronizing manner.

  Sir John glared at him, having caught the tone. ‘Keep a civil tongue, young Chaucer.’ He looked at me. ‘This is all about the government of the Prince’s realm,’ Sir John said. ‘Can you keep your mouth shut?’ asked the old knight. Well, he was old to me, even if he was reputed to be one of the top fighting men in the world.

  I bowed. Let’s be frank, compères, never ask a man if he can keep a secret. Who will say no, eh?

  ‘Give me your solemn word,’ he said.

  I knelt. ‘I swear to keep your secret, my lord,’ I said.

  ‘On his brothel, he swears it,’ Chaucer said.

  ‘What’s that?’ Sir John asked.

  Chaucer smiled. He looked like a ferret when he smiled. ‘Nothing, my lord.’

  Sir John looked at me, clearly off balance. Chaucer had the habit of putting you off balance. He was that kind of boy.

  ‘The King of France has negotiated a peace with our King Edward,’ he said portentously.

  Now, in truth, this was mighty news. It struck me in ten ways. First that my employment was going to end, and I hadn’t even worn all my harness yet. In fact, all my looted armour was in pawn with the Italians – why redeem it when there was wine to be drunk – but now the war was going to end.