The Ill-Made Knight

by Christian Cameron

  I couldn’t meet his eye. ‘I want to be a knight,’ I said. ‘But I am not sure what that means.’

  He nodded. ‘Come and pray. Let me show you how.’

  ‘I know how to pray,’ I shot back. ‘And you? Brother? When you killed those three men today, were you holier?’

  He led me two more steps away from the fire. ‘I am not holy,’ he said. ‘Listen, boy. And I call you boy, because that is what you are. Listen, boy. When we take our vows, they ask us, would we take the cross if we knew that in killing, we risk hell? So that other, weaker men and women might achieve salvation?’ His dark eyes cut me like blades. ‘If I risk hell, killing the enemies of the church, what are you?’

  ‘Damned!’ I spat, like the angry boy he called me. ‘I don’t care.’

  He shrugged. ‘It is the ultimate defence, is it not? Indifference.’ He shrugged again. And smiled. ‘Listen, William. Will you allow me to teach you to pray?’

  ‘Paternoster, qui es in Caelis, santificatur . . .’ I began.

  He laughed. ‘That isn’t prayer,’ he said. ‘That’s repetition.’

  Despite my anger – the kind of anger young men achieve mostly through understanding their own shortcomings – he had me. I was curious. I wanted his regard.

  I wanted to change, too.

  ‘Can you see pictures in your head, William?’ he asked me.

  I suppose I shrugged. ‘What kind of pictures?’ I asked.

  ‘Can you see your sister?’ he asked. ‘Look into the darkness and close your eyes. See your sister.’

  ‘This is praying?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you see your sister?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted. Truth to tell, I was horrified by how hazy my visual memory of my sister was.

  ‘What is your favourite scene in the Bible, William?’ he asked.

  ‘Epiphany,’ I said. ‘The gifts of the magi.’

  ‘Splendid,’ he said with real satisfaction. His pleasure relaxed me. ‘Can you imagine the blessed Virgin?’ he asked.

  I discovered, to my horror, that the blessed Virgin bore a striking resemblence to Emile.

  ‘See her, in a lowly stable, surrounded by animals, William. With the newborn Christ child on her knee.’ He was speaking quietly. I was simply obeying. As he imagined the scene for me, I obediently filled in the details.

  ‘Now, can you see the magi? The three kings?’ he asked.

  I added them.

  ‘And their retinues. They are, after all, kings.’ There was gentle humour in his voice.

  I added men rapidly: Sir John Chandos, sitting on his horse, and Sam Bibbo, on his. Sir John Hawkwood and Bertrand du Guesclin. It was an odd, mixed set of retinues, and my three kings looked very much like the Black Prince, the Dauphin and Charles of Navarre.

  ‘Now put yourself there, William,’ he said.

  And there I was. With snow on the ground, and a bite in the air, and the rattle of horse-tack and the feel of fur at my throat. The virgin’s crown and halo were a glow of gold past my Prince’s shoulder, and my horse fidgeted.

  ‘Can you see the Christ child?’ Fra Peter asked.

  I could not. I tried to push forward, but all the men in front of me – all the better knights – blocked my view. I realized that I was far at the back, and that I had a wall of famous men between me and the Christ child.

  I made to dismount . . .

  . . . And Fra Peter was holding me up. I was swaying in the darkness, my eyes unfocused and his arm was around my waist.

  ‘So,’ he said. His teeth showed in the new moonlight. ‘You are your sister’s brother.’

  ‘That is prayer?’ I asked.

  He blinked. ‘To those who can achieve it,’ he said. ‘You will leave us in the morning?’

  ‘I must,’ I said. But I was wondering if I shouldn’t simply ride away and follow Fra Peter.

  ‘You should sleep,’ he said.

  Indeed, I was so shaken I couldn’t think.

  ‘Try,’ he said. ‘Try the prayer, when you can. I will be in Avignon for a long time. Come and see me there.’

  ‘And my sister?’ I asked.

  ‘Needs her dowry. But in truth, young master, your sister is better at seeing to her needs than you are to yours. You should visit her.’ He shrugged. ‘Will you accept my blessing?’ he asked.

  I bowed my head.

  When he had pronounced his benison, he said, ‘You intend to attack the convoy.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No. Now I don’t know.’

  He nodded. ‘Go with God,’ he said. ‘See where he takes you.’

  The next morning he rode away, with his noble nuns, his two angry monks, his boy-soldier prisoner and six fully armed Hainaulters. I watched them until they were gone at the base of the valley.

  ‘I liked him,’ Sam said.

  ‘Me too,’ I allowed.

  I thought about it all, silently, for the fifteen leagues of the ride back across the Bourc’s territory. Sam and John rode by me. We were as cautious as men crossing enemy territory in broad daylight can be. The ground was frozen, and we cut across fields, through hedgerows and over old stone fences, but often we had to go on the road.

  We saw no black and white.

  I came to the Bourc’s bridge from behind – from the Bourc’s side. Sam and I scouted it carefully, hearts hammering in our chests.

  There were four men in a blind of branches, upwind of the bridge. Two were asleep and two awake. We were above and behind them, and Sam crept forward from cover to cover. I watched him from above as he went – an hour to move fifty paces.

  I thought I was going to throw up. The tension was not my kind of tension. I prefer to be in the thick of it. I loved Sam Bibbo, and at another level, I’d saved him from the Plague, or whatever the hell he’d had, and he represented . . . something. Something good.

  I didn’t want him to die.

  It was an education in stalking, watching him cover ground. Twice, I lost him, despite staring right at him from fifty paces away.

  Finally, he rose to his feet with a slow inevitability. He had his bow in his hand, string, and four arrows in his fingers.

  He drew and loosed so fast I scarcely followed the first shaft. I saw him draw the second to his ear, but I didn’t see him loose it, because I was on my feet and running for the Bourc’s men.

  I might have saved my strength.

  They had two crossbows cocked and ready, and neither of them ever left the blind, where they were pointed at the road. The four went down in five shafts. One died in his sleep.

  When we went back to the road, John pointed mutely at the hillside behind us. He had a shaft in his own hand and he used it to point to a place on the hillside where a tree was dead.

  Bibbo winced.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  John Hughes sucked in his cheeks and spat. ‘There’s a watch post to cover the rear of the one you heroes just stalked,’ he said. ‘It’s empty or we’d all be dead.’

  We walked up the hill and looked at it. It had a hut, a pair of watch posts with woven branches and screens of brush, a firepit and the corpses of a young girl and a young boy.

  ‘Christ,’ Bibbo said. ‘I missed all this?’ He shook his head.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ John said. The corpses spooked him more than our poor scouting.

  I followed some tracks outside and came to another clearing, this one with hoof prints.

  I shook my head. I went back and put my hand on the ashes of the firepit.

  ‘They were just here.’ I scratched under my chin in thought, and Jesus my saviour vanished. ‘They’ve gone for the convoy, with every man they have,’ I said.

  Bibbo nodded. ‘That’s it,’ he agreed.

  ‘Let’s ride,’ I said.

  Hughes paused. ‘Give me two Ave Marias,’ he said, and disappeared into the woods.

  I knew he was gone to fire the huts and the corpses. I was tempted to stop him, because it would warn the Bourc, but I also realized
that if the Bourc turned back from his attack on the convoy, Richard would be safe.

  We made the gate of our town alive and untouched, and I got to the inn to find that Richard had marched.

  I got a nag for a riding horse, to spare my war horse, such as he was, the brute. Sam and John followed me as we rode at day’s end with three horses apiece, searching east along the valley for the convoy and our friends.

  Perkin was at the inn. He said that Richard had gathered almost sixty men – thirty lances, almost two dozen Gascon spearmen, and a pair of English archers who belonged to Sir Robert Knolles but didn’t have anything better to do. Sixty men should have been easy to find.

  We rode hard until the moon set, and then made a cold camp. A camp on the edge of November in the Auxerre highlands is cold indeed. No fire, no warmth except your horse. And it is brutal on horses, even horses like ours. We drank wine and rubbed our steeds down – even the nags.

  An hour after the last horse was picketed, there was a noise. We jumped up to the maddened chaos of our horses and saw wolves. They were gone before we could kill one.

  Sam shook his head. ‘I’m going to watch,’ he said. ‘I ain’t sleeping anyway.’

  John and I pressed as close as we could. I slept for an hour, I think.

  Sam woke us. He dismounted and gave his horse to Perkin, who had disobeyed me and started a very small fire and heated wine. God praise such a man.

  Sam pulled the saddle off his poor hack. He set it on the ground, threw his three-quarter cloak over it and sat back with a groan.

  ‘Well?’ I asked.

  ‘The Bourc’s men are out there. I spotted them down by the river – black and white banners.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s one device I know in the dark, eh? I’m guessing he’s going to stop the convoy and charge them a toll.’

  ‘Any idea where?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But John needs to get going and keep an eye on Camus.’ He nodded at Perkin, who handed him a beaker of hot wine. ‘Benidictee, lad. Master Gold, this is my last fight. I mean to do my part, but when we divide the spoil, I’m done.’

  What could I say?

  Sam Bibbo was a more famous man than me. He’d been at all the fights. He’d been down and up – famous, a criminal, a royal archer. He didn’t need to follow the likes of me, but his presence meant that other men took me seriously.

  ‘I’ll miss you, Sam,’ I said.

  He nodded, looking into the fire. ‘John Hughes will stay, won’t you, lad?’ he asked.

  Hughes, already rolling his cloak on his saddle, grunted.

  ‘He likes the life,’ Sam said.

  ‘Bollocks to you, Sam Bibbo,’ Hughes called softly.

  Bibbo ignored him. ‘My bones hurt every morn, and my back – by the saviour, Will, I’d rather spend a night in the saddle than a night lying out on the ground.’ He looked at me. ‘And the Bourc – when men like that come to the fore, it’s bad. I served with Chandos and the Prince. Remember the man you killed in the tavern? He liked to hurt people. I should never have fallen in with him, either.’

  I nodded, the way young men do when older men talk about pain. It’s the same way boys nod when men talk about sex. I had no idea what pains he meant.

  Of course, now I do, eh?

  But I was cut by his words. ‘Are you comparing me to the Bourc?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I was glad you helped yon priest,’ he said. ‘You’re ten times the man the Bourc is. But will you be in ten years of this?’

  We rose while there was still mist in the streambeds and we rode hard. John was gone before first light, off to watch the Bourc’s banners, and Sam, Perkin and I rode north and west, looking to find Richard.

  But the Black Squire had moved at first light, too.

  Bibbo sat on his horse, looking at the tramped ground and drowned fire, and cursed. ‘I should ha’ just ridden in and told him.’ He shook his head. ‘But, Plague take me, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want a spear in my gizzard in the dark.’

  ‘Nothing for it,’ I said, and changed horses. So did Sam and Perkin.

  We rode into the fog.

  An hour after the fog began to lighten, we heard movement – quite a lot of movement. The brilliant fog was so thick that we couldn’t see much beyond our horse’s noses, and dripping wet. I reined in, and Sam rode forward.

  He came back and shook his head. ‘Unbelievable they’ve made it as far as they have,’ he said. ‘There’s gold tack on some of the mules. It’s two fucking cardinals. Twenty men-at-arms. He shook his head.

  ‘The three of us aren’t likely to take them. We need to find Richard,’ I said. My nerves were getting to me. The fog, the Bourc, the church convoy.

  I could see the disaster coming. Even Sam’s determination to leave.

  I dismounted from my horse in the dripping fog, knelt on the wet grass and prayed.

  And then I rose and took three deep breaths. In my head, just as I could see, however dimly, the virgin Mary, so I could see the lay of this valley, with its broad flats at the base, its sharp angle halfway to the town of Guye, and the road along the flat. I could see the hedges along the heights, and the stone walls that crisscrossed the ruined fields.

  If it was me, I’d hit the column where the Bourc was. At the narrowing of the flats.

  If I was Richard, I’d be on the other side of the ridge, waiting for the fog to clear so that my Gascons and archers would be effective.

  Bless Fra Peter. Looking at things inside my head is a habit I received from him, for good or ill.

  ‘I believe that the Black squire is on the other side of the ridge, above the fog, shadowing the convoy,’ I said.

  Bibbo nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Yes!’ he added with a little more excitement. ‘I see sense in that. We ha’n’t crossed their tracks – that much I’d swear to.’

  ‘On me,’ I said, and mounted with an effort. My hips didn’t love a night on cold ground, even at the age of nineteen.

  We rode carefully. The fog carried noise oddly – snatches of Avignon gossip, the shrill voice of a man who clearly thought himself in charge, an angry imprecation and a squeaky wagon wheel.

  Then, as suddenly as the parting of a curtain, we rode clear of the fog. We moved as swiftly up the ridge as we could. Sam was ahead of me – he came to a gap in the hedge and stopped.

  So did my heart.

  Then he waved, and a broad smile crossed his face.

  And in fifty paces, I was with Richard. He grinned and pounded my armoured back.

  ‘They’re right below us!’ he said. ‘What?’

  ‘The Bourc is just to the south, at the Narrows,’ I said. ‘With half a hundred men, or more.’

  Richard paused.

  ‘We found one of his camps deserted. His whole area is deserted. Even the castle he holds for Knolles is empty. He’s after the convoy.’

  Richard looked at me.

  Richard Musard and I have fought over most of the things men fight over – women, loyalty, even money – but in some ways, we were two men with but a single will. He looked at the fog.

  ‘The Bourc will hit the convoy whatever we do,’ I said.

  He smiled, and his smile spread until it covered his whole face.

  ‘And then – we save them.’ Richard shook his head. ‘Kill the Bourc, save the bishop—’

  ‘Sam says it is a cardinal,’ I put in.

  Richard laughed aloud. ‘By God. By God. We’ll be knights in a week!’

  I agreed. It all seemed like God’s will.

  We had sixty men. We put all of them behind the ridge that lines the edge of the Seine, above the road, and we moved fast – at a canter – along the ridge top to our new position, which depended on my sense of the ground. I sent Sam and half a dozen of our Gascon bidets down into the valley to watch for John Hughes, while keeping a weather eye on Camus and the convoy.

  As I’ve said before, waiting in ambush is one of the hardest things a soldier does. The waiting always seem
s to go on for ever. There’s lots of room for doubt – in fact, it’s a rare ambush where I don’t decide I’ve made an awful error.

  But the two cardinals and their convoy moved across Auxerre with the reckless assurance of a drunken soldier who has just been paid. They were as brazen as an old whore, and just as well-defended.

  John Hughes appeared out of the mist before we heard the convoy. He laid it all out for us – twenty men-at-arms, the number of mules, where the two great men were – in some detail. He added that there were seventy mules, ten horses and six wagons.

  ‘Have you seen Sam?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s watching the Bourc,’ Hughes said. ‘Bastard is moving along the valley.’

  Tricky.

  ‘He wants you to let the Bourc hit the cardinals first,’ Hughes added.

  Richard grunted. ‘We couldn’t stop him anyway.’ Richard looked at me. ‘Two cardinals? This will make us famous,’ he said.

  I suppose I shrugged.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t like fighting for the church.’

  ‘Sit here if you don’t want to come,’ I said. ‘But I mean to have a piece of the Bourc.’

  ‘For that, I’ll join you,’ he said.

  We moved along the ridge top, out of the mist and with good visibility for leagues. We moved carefully, watching and listening for the cardinal’s train at the bottom of the valley.

  The mist burned off about an hour after a working man would have gone to his fields, if there had been anyone left to till the fields of the Auxerre, which there was not. As soon as the mist became transparent, the Bourc struck, his men-at-arms crashing through the riverside brush, panicking the pack animals and killing several of the papal men-at-arms in their first charge.

  I brought my men up to the ridgeline and formed them. Men were still coming up and I needed every straggler. We sent our Gascon javelin men down the gullies. They moved like the cattlethieves they were, silent and almost invisible.

  I saw the Bourc’s banner advance, and advance again. His men ripped into the pack animals, killing many of them outright. They opened every load, destroying manuscripts and textiles, chopping things like chalices and icons into pieces for the precious metal.

  A month before, I might have done the same. But watching it was – different. And I hated the Bourc.