The Ill-Made Knight

by Christian Cameron

‘I don’t want your fucking prison!’ she hissed. ‘Why do you want a wife who has to have three cups of wine to spread her legs? Go find a nice, normal girl and leave me alone!’

  This to an audience of a dozen.

  Richard turned to me. ‘You bastard,’ he said. ‘You . . . you . . . fuck! I’ll kill you when I’m able.’

  His hate was palpable. I was young enough to imagine that it would fade. ‘Richard!’ I said. ‘Get a grip, man! I haven’t touched her, and I won’t.’

  He spat at me. ‘Thief!’ he said. ‘False Knight!’

  I shook my head in disgust. As I say, I didn’t really believe his anger would last. He was wounded, a prisoner, and his woman was giving him a lot of crap.

  His woman. Heh, there speaks ignorance. He may have been her man, but she, I think, was never his. At some level, I think she hated him.

  When you command – when you put yourself above others, to lead them – you learn a great deal. Some of the lessons are harder than diamonds. Some cut like blades. People have many motivations, and damaged people never show you the things they hold most dear.

  The next day, or perhaps two – we lay in a state of exhaustion for a long time – the Genoese established all the ransoms and agreed on a schedule of payments that satisfied us all. Well, not all, as you’ll hear.

  I had d’Herblay at my fire that afternoon. It was April, cold and wet. He didn’t have many clothes, and he was obviously suffering, so I offered him a cloak.

  ‘Why don’t I just live in your cast-offs?’ he asked bitterly. ‘On your fucking charity.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Five thousand florins!’ He spat. ‘I’ll have to sell estates, you little thief.’

  I wasn’t as raw as I’d been two nights earlier. ‘If you can’t afford it, perhaps you should have stayed home,’ I said, with Fra Peter’s calm voice.

  ‘You do know she’s dead?’ he said. It was a strange turn in the conversation. I lacked the experience of men like d’Herblay to know how desperately he wanted to hurt me. I was used to men who used violence to settle hatred. D’Herblay used words.

  At any rate, he watched my face like a lover. I took too long to understand. I’d taken several blows to the head at Brignais, and I must have been slow. I swallowed.

  ‘Dead?’ I asked.

  ‘In childbirth,’ d’Herblay said, with obvious relish. ‘Dead. A corpse. Stinking in the ground.’ He laughed, perhaps a little wild.

  I sat as if my sinews had been cut.

  You don’t know what you take for granted, until it is taken from you. I suppose I always imagined I’d win her in the end. Or perhaps I made an effort not to think about her in those terms at all.

  I also realized that I had been walking around for three days with her favour – torn from her favourite dress – pinned to my aventail. In front of her husband.

  By the sweet and gentle saviour of mankind, I can be a fool.

  Oh, but the height of my folly was yet to come.

  I’ve heard men say that loss gives way to anger, and others that most of us deny loss – I heard a very good sermon on that at Clerkenwell one Easter. But the loss of Emile hit me like a longsword to the helmet, and I reeled from moment to moment as if I could not get the ground to be steady under my feet.

  I went to a meeting with fifty other men-at-arms where Petit Mechin told us how the ransoms would be apportioned and how the money would work. It wasn’t complicated.

  ‘A week hence, we’ll send convoys of prisoners to the relevant royal lieutenants,’ Mechin said, as if this was an everyday matter. ‘They will sign for the prisoners and present us with receipts, and we will pass those receipts to the bankers, who will pay us, and collect the ransoms at their leisure.’ He shrugged. ‘No doubt they will make an enormous profit but, messieurs, the only alternative is that we go and attempt to collect each ransom ourselves. The truth is that we have no one with whom we can negotiate.’ He gave a lopsided smile and twirled a moustache. ‘The government of France has effectively ceased to exist.’

  To give you an idea of the scale of the rapaciousness of the Italian banks, my two ransoms totalled a little less than 6,000 gold florins. Under the scheme proposed by Mechin, I was to receive, in actual currency, about 500 florins, and letters of credit equal to another 1,000.

  A superb recompense for a few hours of fighting, you might say, but assuming Messieurs Bardi made good on the ransoms, they would have another 3,500 florins merely for handling the paperwork.

  At the meeting, I noted that Sir Hugh Ashley stood with the Bourc Camus. I remarked it, and I remarked it when I found the Count d’Herblay wrapped in a new cloak, sipping wine from a good horn cup at my fire, and talking to a very young man in black and white livery.

  I remarked it, but it didn’t penetrate the moral concussion I had received from the anger of my closest friend and the death of my love. Know this, messieurs, I was courteous to other women – I even lay with one or two – but I never, ever forgot Emile in those days. She was my chivalry. I worried that I had not heard from her, but I never forgot her for more than an hour.

  The next day, Sir John Hawkwood passed my camp. His lances were ready to march, his baggage carts loaded, and he himself was dressed like a popinjay, in a fine long gown over a short jupon of golden silk, with a great bag-hat on his head. He looked like a wealthy merchant.

  By contrast, I didn’t even have a change of clothes, because Milady was wearing my spares.

  He didn’t dismount, but clasped my hand. ‘Sir John Creswell asked for you to be a deputy,’ he said. ‘I assume he did it in a bid to hold you here, but I like anything that raises you in men’s estimation.’

  It was hard not to be flattered by that. I looked up at him, tried to smile and remembered that Emile was dead.

  ‘What’s wrong, lad?’ he asked.

  The problem . . .

  Companions, the problem between me and Sir John was that while he saved my life and built my career, he was never a man you’d tell about love or death. His mind was a thing of cogs and gears, not flesh and blood. He was loyal, though; he was always a good friend to me.

  But if I had told him about Emile, he would have given me that look he saved for men far gone with drink, or professing a desire to die in the field, or other failings. I once knew him to say that the only difference he could discern between women was the quality of their banter. I saw him kill a nun in Italy to prevent two men-at-arms from fighting over her.

  He was not the man to share my sorrow.

  So I shrugged. ‘A deputy?’ I asked, feigning interest.

  ‘You take the convoy to Auvergne,’ he said. ‘With Camus.’

  I must have shuddered.

  He shook his head. ‘Drop your foolish feud before it kills you,’ he said. ‘Think of him as a bad horse that must be ridden. Get through the ride to Auvergne and come to Italy.’ He grinned. ‘Remember, some of those prisoners are mine!’

  It was almost two weeks before my convoy was ready to ride, and I stayed clear of Camus, but we had problems every day, because my men and his had to struggle over the same ground to find forage and fodder. The army was breaking up, faster every day, and there was less and less authority. Sir John Creswell held Brignais, and he didn’t even let the rest of us in the gates. He was afraid that another routier captain would take it from him – that sort of behavior was the order of the day.

  Truly, there is very little honour among thieves.

  The women were gone, and that made more trouble, because Milady was the last woman in the camp except a pair of old whores who had nowhere to go. Richard would not speak to me. Neither would he leave without her.

  I lived in a fog of emotion, and I was surrounded by more of it – John Hughes said he’d rather have gone to hell than spend another night in that camp. It was like that.

  There was a lot going on around me, and I was mostly deaf to it.

  It was on a Sunday that we mounted, gathered our prisoners and rode west over the ridges for Auxerre.
r />   We didn’t have to go so far. The other prisoner convoys had left earlier, and there was some attempt to keep them apart so that the royal lieutenants couldn’t conspire against us, but ours was held in camp – Sir John Creswell seemed to be the reason, and I was vaguely angry. I say vaguely, because I was so unaware. Milady rode at my side, dressed in looted armour, and I wore my harness; so did all my men and all Camus’ men. Sir Hugh rode with us, and he was all honey to me. I thought nothing of it, even when he drank with the Count d’Herblay all three nights on the road.

  It was mid-April when we rode down a long ridge to the crossroads, where the road to Gascony crosses the road to Paris and the Road to Provence – a crossroads in Auxerre that every routier of that time must have known like an old friend. It was pissing with rain, and we came down the ridge just about nones – not that Auxerre had a working set of bells to announce the hour. We routiers had seen to that.

  Ahead, we could see fifty men-at-arms sitting in sodden splendour on the road, watery red, blue and gold.

  At the same time that we came down the ridge to the east of the crossroads, there was another party – a dozen wagons and twenty horsemen – coming down the far ridge towards us. I knew a moment of fear until I saw their colours.

  They were churchmen, with a heavy escort of men-at-arms.

  I ignored them. I rode up our column to the Bourc, and nodded as politely as I could manage. ‘How do we handle this?’ I asked.

  He smiled. It was a horrible smile, one full of knowledge. So might Satan have smiled at Eve in the garden. ‘Any way you like,’ he said, with real amusement.

  I knew right there that something was wrong. I knew he wanted me to know something was wrong.

  At some further level, I didn’t care. I think I knew then that I was betrayed, and I was prepared to let it happen. Why not? Emile was dead.

  ‘Who is the lieutenant of Auxerre?’ I asked, staring into the rain.

  Camus barked a mad laugh. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked. ‘I have a safe conduct.’

  It was true.

  We rode down the ridge.

  The Lieutenant of Auxerre was my old friend and enemy, Boucicault. Seeing him cheered me, and I rode up to him with my hands bare of gauntlets and offered my hand to him.

  He let his horse shy slightly, widening the distance between us. The distaste on his face was palpable.

  ‘My lord, I have the prisoners for exchange,’ I said into the silence.

  ‘I am required to ask for your letters patent and your safe conduct,’ he said.

  This was the sort of tedious bureaucracy that ruled our lives – the French seemed more hag-ridden with it than anyone else, but I hadn’t been to Italy yet.

  I reined my horse to one side, writhing at the humiliation of having my hand refused by Jehan le Maingre.

  I was in harness, with my dented basinet on my head – Christ, I remember thinking how marvellous Boucicault appeared in shining blue and gold harness, with all his points tipped in real gold, all his harness leather in matching blue, his eagles worked in enamel on his shoulder rondels.

  My eye caught movement and I saw Richard take Milady’s bridle, and for the first time in two days I thought, Why is Richard here?

  Milady screamed, ‘William! It’s a trap!’

  In that moment, I saw it.

  I saw Sir Hugh flip his visor down.

  I saw the uncontrollable smile spread over d’Herblay’s face.

  I saw Richard strike Milady, and I saw her fall back, and he took her.

  I saw Camus, convulsed with laughter.

  I saw Boucicault turn on me. He didn’t smile or frown. He said, ‘William Gold, I arrest you in the name of the King of France as an infamous bandit.’

  As I say, I saw it. Creswell had held me back until Sir John was gone so that he could take my name off the safe conduct.

  Like the blow that puts you down, I never saw it coming.

  I think, if things had been different, I’d have fought better. If I’d thought Emile was alive. If Richard hadn’t betrayed me.

  Instead, my realization of the betrayal was all at a distance, and if Camus hadn’t laughed so heartily, I might have let them take me without a fight. But his derision – and his long-repeated promise of the humiliations he would heap on me and my corpse – caused me to back my horse. Two French knights tried to get my reins, and one got my steel-clad elbow in his teeth. I eluded the other by luck – I half ducked and his armoured fist brushed the top of my basinet and carried on; he lost a stirrup and I put the toe of a sabaton into his horse’s side. The horse reared, he was down and I was a free man.

  Things were happening over in our convoy. I got my longsword clear of the scabbard and half-reared my horse, looking for an opening.

  Jehan le Maingre nodded heavily. ‘He’s mine,’ he called to his men-at-arms.’ He flicked me a salute with his sword and flipped down his visor.

  Jehan le Maingre was, in that moment, the knight I wanted to be. Confident. Brave. And courteous. He saluted me, man-at-arms to man-at-arms.

  I sat on my stolen horse with my rusty armour and put my spurs in, unwilling to go easy.

  It is a tribute to what chivalry really is, even on that day, that no one interfered. They let us go at each other. Camus’s mad laugh rang in my ears.

  Boucicault’s sword swept up, two handed. He was a fine horseman, and he guided his stallion with his knees, pointing its head for my midriff. I raised my sword one handed to guard my head on the left side.

  His horse crashed into mine as his blow fell like a bolt from Jove in the heavens, and it was so sudden and so hard that it went through my guard and struck me on the helmet. My horse turned away from his, and his second blow, fast as an adder, hit my left shoulder. I couldn’t get my arm up high enough to parry his blows – my leather and splint arm-harnesses didn’t fit well enough. He hit me a third time, and I responded by snapping a blow behind me.

  I missed.

  I got my horse around as he hit me in the head – again.

  I was reeling now, but I gritted my teeth and gathered my horse under me for one final effort. The nobly born bastard was beating me. I wasn’t used to being beaten.

  I caught his next blow, and our blades ran down, hilt to hilt. I powered my blade over his, rotated the point, wagering everything on getting my point into his neck or his faceplate.

  I caught his faceplate. I ripped a gouge across it, and his pommel caught me in my visor and punched me off balance, then his back cut to my head knocked me from the saddle.

  When I hit, I hurt. When I say hurt, I think, in that moment, something died.

  So I didn’t twitch when the sergeants came and took me.

  I didn’t move when they cut the spurs from my heels, and I didn’t shout or fuss.

  In fact, I noted with a sort of detached satisfaction when Richard Musard rode away, because he had Ned Candleman, John Hughes, Perkin and Robert Langland with him. He had our two French boys and Amory Carpenter and Jack Sumner. Camus said something. Richard Musard shouted back, Sir Hugh rode his horse in between them, and all my people rode away. I’m happy to say that John Hughes and Perkin never took their eyes from me all the way up the ridge until they passed out of sight.

  Then the French put a noose on the tree.

  Camus wrote out, ‘William Gold – Thief’ on parchment. He rode up. ‘To hang around your neck,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Don’t fear, Butt Boy. When you are dead, I’ll take your body and make leather of your skin.’ He laughed. ‘Maybe I’ll have you stuffed.’ He smiled. ‘I wanted this moment to tell you that I did this. Me. I bested you, merely by using my head. I undertook to make your friends – your own captain, Sir John Creswell, and your friend Richard – betray you. I hope you like it. I hope that you see you are utterly defeated, and I am victorious. You are nothing – worm dung.’ His voice burbled and rather ruined the effect of his own superiority.

  He leaned over. ‘I’ll have the woman, as well,’ he said, grin
ning. ‘And eventually, the black squire. In this world of shit, destroying you and your friends is the greatest satisfaction I can have.’ He laughed. ‘All of you will be my slaves in hell!’

  I’d like to say that he didn’t scare me, but a royal sergeant was preparing my noose and I was excommunicate. I was going straight to hell, and for excellent reasons.

  Camus, the very tool of Satan, was grinning at me. I was about to die.

  ‘Tell my master, hello,’ he said. He turned and rode away.

  Boucicault rode up. I noted he had a crease in his beautiful helmet and another on his right pauldron. ‘I’d like to give you a priest,’ he said. ‘If I didn’t have express orders to the contrary, William, I’d save you just to spite Camus. For my part, I’m sorry. I’m doing my duty.’ He glanced at Camus. ‘I promise you that in time, I’ll make that one pay.’

  I couldn’t bow as my hands were tied behind me, and I could barely stay in my saddle because the sergeants had cut my stirrups. But I nodded. ‘If you get him,’ I said. I managed a shrug. ‘He’s evil.’

  Boucicault made a face. ‘All of you are about the same, to me.’ He looked around, clearly hesitant to get on with it. ‘But de Charny said you had it – had the makings of a knight. This . . . is the wrong end for you.’

  I wanted to beg. I really did. I wanted to say that I’d start again, that I wouldn’t be lured by easy money and fighting, that I’d try to learn all the rules and please my Prince and . . .

  Hah. I was too proud. Add to my sins, too stupid and arrogant to beg for life from a man who, however much I may sometimes have loathed him, was not happy with hanging me.

  ‘You know what I hate?’ he said in a low voice.

  Camus yelled, ‘Get on with it!’

  Boucicault ignored him. ‘You know what I hate?’ he asked. ‘I hate that d’Herblay, whose worthless arse you saved at the Bridge of Meaux, actually helped contrive this.’

  I shrugged again. It was all getting far away, somehow.

  Emile was gone, and so was Richard. I had lived a worthless, sinful life. You know what I said to Boucicault, there in the rain, with the noose around my neck?