The Long Sword

by Christian Cameron

  Fra Andrea laughed aloud. ‘You are brave,’ he said. ‘Listen, young pup. Go suggest it to her. I will stand here and take wagers on how long you live.’

  Nerio’s sense of his own place in the world did not accept much derision. ‘I’m sure I can outlast the old witch.’

  Fra Andrea shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen anyone slain by raw scorn, but I imagine that it desiccates the corpse.’ The other monks were laughing. Nerio frowned.

  Nerio did not like to be told ‘no’.

  I think it was that same evening that Juan was complimenting me on how well I was recovering. I shrugged off the praise: I did not want their pity and Fiore laughed.

  ‘I am making you anew,’ he said.

  ‘How so?’ I asked. ‘Teaching me not to flinch?’

  ‘Teaching you everything. Listen, every swordsman is a blob, a sticky mass of all his own flaws and all the bad teaching of his masters and the injuries he has and all the errors of thought and decision and control. Even I am riddled with these flaws.’

  ‘Even you?’ Nerio quipped. ‘I can’t imagine that you have any flaws.’

  ‘Yes, I admit it is difficult to imagine,’ Fiore said without so much as a smile. ‘Yet I have them. Nerio leans forward when he is excited, Juan stamps his foot like a small boy, Miles bears the marks of a noble upbringing, and has a tell which guarantees that he will never, ever hit me until he rids himself of that foul error. I could name others, gentlemen. Dozens. In the end, we are a bundle of flaws.’

  ‘Man is but a fleshy doll packed full of sin,’ Fra Andrea said.

  Fiore shrugged. ‘Sin is not my business,’ he said. ‘But with William, his misfortune will be his fortune. The men who broke him changed his body. Fra Andrea and I have brought him back from the dead like Lazarus, with better training.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Nerio said. ‘You mean to say Sir William will be without sin?’ He grinned at me.

  ‘I would like to be stronger than Emile’s daughter, however,’ I said. ‘Right now, I would lose a tug-of-war with a kitten.’

  Fiore just looked smug. ‘I am making of you my thesis,’ he said again. ‘And tomorrow we start in earnest.’

  By Saint George, the Friulian meant what he said.

  Every day except the Sabbath, the nun’s laundry yard rang with the sound of blades. We ran around the island; we fought with sticks and clubs and blades; we fenced with sharp blades. I swung at a pell and boxed with my shadow and sometimes I did this while Fiore lay full length on the wall. Once, I remember that he went to sleep while I was jumping like some antic mime.

  I would like to say that he, as the master of the blade, never took his eyes off me, but he was human. And the novices began to congregate in the laundry yard. They would wash their hair and dry it in the new sun; they would wash laundry outside, and they would raise their hands above their heads and stretch to the heavens – I swear there is something in what Nerio said.

  I have known many worthy women with a deep passion for the calling, and a real profession. But in Venice, many a penniless younger daughter was forced into the order at Saint Katherine; many a wayward young thing was sent to the island until her scandal was no longer a nine-day wonder among the canals. Or to have her baby.

  At any rate, I was not allowed to pause and wonder at the lilies of the field, nor to appreciate the cleanliness of their linen. I was driven until I could not hold myself up. I couldn’t have managed fornication if Aphrodite had risen from the waves at my feet or if Emile had pulled her gown over her head and leapt upon me. I was exercised all day – my hands, my feet, the placement of my feet, my shoulders, my posture. It was endless, like some sort of torment in hell.

  And as endlessly corrected – my posture, my feet, the way in which I stepped, the distance I stepped, and angle of my toes. Nay! I am not enlarging! Fiore was insistent on the way in which my feet pointed, and for five long days I wore a rope between my feet to limit my stride to a particular length.

  I didn’t argue.

  Because I assumed that Emile was watching.

  Perhaps she was and perhaps she wasn’t. But I assumed that she was, and I know she did, from time to time. I knew, too, that I was in a struggle for her esteem – at least – with the King of Jerusalem. Rumour had it that he loved his wife, and that she was less than faithful to him and that he, too, was a lovesome man and had lovers in revenge.

  He was a king, and not used to being gainsaid. He came at least once a week, and each time he would work to be alone with Emile.

  Each time, she would thwart him, usually with me.

  And despite this or, by God, because of it, I came to admire him. He was a fine man, and he accepted his lot as commander of the crusade with a humility that I admired. He loved Father Pierre as much as any of us and he admired Emile.

  Perhaps you gentlemen would have me hate him as my rival, but is that the way of a knight? We admired the same woman, because she was made to be admired. In beauty and in courage she had no peer and it would have been as unjust to hate the king because he loved Father Pierre.

  At any rate, it is because of our unspoken rivalry for the Countess d’Herblay that I began to be included in the king’s private council.

  At the end of April, we had word from Genoa that they had agreed to the stipulations signed by Father Pierre in January and that the indemnity, a grotesque payment from Cyprus to Genoa for alleged injuries, had been paid.

  The king, in concert with Father Pierre, set a sailing date and a rendezvous off Rhodes, where the Order had its headquarters.

  As the Venetians made their final preparations, so I was stronger and stronger, and so I had to face my poverty.

  I had neither horse nor arms. In fact, I didn’t even own a sword. The crusade was a month from making sail, and I lacked the tools of my trade.

  My first rescuer was my Bohemian armourer. I went to him and he fitted me for another complete harness; not, I am saddened to say, as pretty as the first one, now broken up among thugs. But pretty enough.

  I wrote him a bill, promising payment even in the event of my death, but after a few days, I took the note to Nerio, sat him down with wine in his hand, and asked for a loan.

  He read my note of hand to Master Jiri and sneered. ‘You are a fool, Sir Knight. How often have I told you that I can loan you money?’ He shrugged.

  ‘If I die on crusade—’ I said.

  ‘Pah! I’ve taken worse risks with dice. Here is a note on our house for a thousand ducats – let us hear no more!’ He waved at me airily.

  A thousand ducats!

  ‘Could you purchase us a ship?’ I asked.

  Ser Nerio leaned back. His eyes were already on a fetching young woman with carmine lips who wore the red dress of her profession very tight indeed. We were in the wine-arcade by the Grand Canal.

  ‘Oh, brother in arms, I have done better. The Corner family has built and manned a warship-a new galia grossa. They intend to put her in the pilgrim trade after we take Jerusalem.’ He shrugged. ‘Whether we take Jerusalem or not, I suspect.’ His eyes flashed, and the scarlet girl began to make her way towards us.

  Now that he had her, Nerio turned back to me. ‘We will be aboard that ship, and not stacked in the hold, either. The Corners almost worship you. And they are fond of money.’

  The scarlet girl came and put her hands on his shoulders. I smiled at him. ‘Have you ever been in love?’ I asked.

  Nerio smiled. ‘Every hour, brother.’

  I paid Jiri in full. He loaned me a sword and a dagger – good plain work from Germany.

  Fra Ricardo – less close-mouthed about the sins of others then Fra Peter – had let me know that it was King Peter who was keeping the Count d’Herblay ten miles from his wife. ‘He has libelled the Count to the Doge,’ Fra Ricardo said with a disapproving frown, ‘so that to the sin of adultery he adds the sin
of bearing false witness.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Gossip links your name with hers as well. No good will come of your attachment to such a woman.’

  ‘I hold the Countess d’Herblay in the highest esteem as a true lady.’ I met his eye. The beating had changed more than just my face. ‘The Count d’Herblay is a coward, a poltroon, and an enemy of Father Pierre and the crusade.’

  Fra Ricardo was not a worldly man, but he was no fool and he fair worshipped Father Pierre. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Is he so?’

  ‘The lady brought us six knights and is eager to go to Jerusalem,’ I said.

  ‘Going to Jerusalem …’ mused Fra Ricardo. In Venice, the phrase ‘going to Jerusalem’ suggested the accomplishment of an impossible task – or perhaps living in a dream world.

  ‘The count had me beaten,’ I said.

  Fra Ricardo pursed his lips. ‘Very well, William,’ he said. ‘The legate wishes to see you.’

  Tired in spirit and injured in body, I went to see the legate. He was sitting in his own scriptorium, at a table covered in scrolls. Sister Marie sat by him on a stool.

  He looked up and smiled warmly. ‘My son,’ he said. He rose and I knelt, and he blessed me.

  Then he scared me by sending Sister Marie from the room.

  ‘William,’ he said. ‘For as long as I have known you, your name has been paired with this woman’s. This Emile d’Herblay.’

  I looked away.

  ‘Fra Peter has told me about the count.’ Father Pierre’s eyes were kind. But not deceived. ‘I forbid you to avenge yourself on him.’

  I might have choked.

  ‘You, my son, have sinned against him – and his marriage.’ His eyes bored into mine. ‘I’m told he is a bad man. Does that justify your actions?’

  ‘He serves your enemy!’ I said.

  Father Pierre shook his head impatiently. ‘I have no enemies,’ he said. ‘I serve only Christ. I am not important enough to have enemies.’

  ‘Robert of Geneva seeks to destroy you and d’Herblay is his tool!’ I said, with some heat.

  ‘His death would suit you very well,’ Father Pierre said. ‘It is easy to rationalise sin, is it not? I tell you, my well-beloved William – if you kill this man, I will send you away.’

  I looked at the floor, the magnificent parquetry floor.

  ‘I will obey,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Yes. And now,’ he took my hand, ‘I must give my thanks for saving us in Genoa.’

  ‘Sabraham saved us,’ I said with some asperity. Nothing is worse than to have one’s sins known.

  ‘Sabraham says that, but for you, we would all have died. I have thanked him anyway. William, saving you from the tree was one of the best days work I’ve ever done.’ He met my eye again, and though he smiled, his eyes were as hard as any killers. ‘Don’t make me send you away.’

  A few days after, when the Hungarian horse dealers came to the camp at Mestre to sell warhorses to the men who’d wintered over, I took a barge to the mainland with my friends. I was past needing the convent, but I was utterly unwilling to leave Emile, and I loved it there, to be honest. I played chess with the abbess, who had less use for men than any woman I ever met but seemed nonetheless to like me, and I was swimming with Fra Andrea, and swimming better than I ever had before. And I was learning to enjoy children. I will not fill this annal with tales of parenting, but I spent any time that was allowed with the three of them, and as the spring improved, that became hours every day. Nor did I confine myself to Edouard. Emile’s other children were, I discovered, no less entertaining, nor could the three be separated easily, and as I played with them, I thought of d’Herblay. He was at Mestre, and I was not to kill him.

  What a tangle.

  At any rate, we went to the camp at Mestre, and after a day with the horse thieves, I chose a fine big bay of indeterminate ancestry. He had been well trained, and that was his greatest selling point. He lacked Jacques’ great heart – and I admit, I walked the lines the first morning, hoping against hope that Jacques had come to Mestre. After all, we had the greatest accumulation of men-at-arms in Europe that spring. Hawkwood, defeated at Cascina, had nonetheless held Pisa together. Pisa had a new tyrant, Lord Agnello, who sounded at least as brutal as the della Scala lord of Verona. All over the rest of Tuscany and Lombardy, the Pope’s Italian war with Milan dwindled away and contracts ended, and the market was flooded with out-of-work men-at-arms and soldiers. Many turned brigand and many came trudging across the late spring roads to the terra firma of Venice, looking for work.

  I hoped to catch my enemies there.

  But that bastard who took Jacques was not there, and I bought my bay and called him Gawain for my favourite knight of romance. He was a better horse than he looked. In fact, I suspect he was Jacques rival. But at the time I saw him as a poor second for he had none of Jacques beauty.

  I missed Jacques. I purchased Gawain.

  Having spent an entire day prowling the camp for my foes, on the second day I was off my guard. I had collected Gawain and needed a saddle, preferably used. I was counting my ducats and florins, walking towards the horse market, when I looked up and found the Emperor’s sword, walking along, the scabbard considerably the worse for wear. It hung from a belt a few men in front of me, and the scrofulous fellow wearing it was the same who’d taken it from the pile by the road. I didn’t know him at first – I confess, I wouldn’t have known any of them by sight.

  But when he turned to talk to his mate, I knew his voice and the odd, sing-song Gascon-Catalan. I motioned to Marc-Antonio and chased them.

  I suppose that I might have gone to the master of the camp, but I had something to prove to myself. Nor could I bear to let them from my sight.

  I followed them into the tent lines and pressed closer as they slowed. The shorter man had de Charny’s dagger in his belt. Just beyond him, and to my joy, I saw Juan with Marc-Antonio.

  Thank God, I thought about what I was doing. A knight has the right of justice, but justice is not the same as revenge. I knew the one man but not the other; his voice was not the voice of the brigand who took the dagger.

  ‘Messieurs!’ I called out.

  Heads turned for fifty yards, and both men turned to face me.

  The man with the sword knew me in an instant.

  The other frowned. He had a heavy moustache – an Easterner, I thought. He had a riding whip in his hand, and he pointed it at me and said something.

  I didn’t slow. ‘That’s my sword and my dagger,’ I said. Juan was coming from the other direction.

  The man with the sword smiled. He didn’t have many teeth. He was old, forty or more, and he had on a worn, padded jupon with the stuffing leaking out. It didn’t go with the Emperor’s sword, although six months of bad care had helped the scabbard to match his style better.

  His Hungarian mate was shouting for his friends. Hungarians are easy to spot in a crowd – long hair, sometimes in braids, and nobles wear pearls in their hair.

  Every Hungarian in the tent row came at us at a run.

  That didn’t slow me, either.

  I think my lust for that sword – the completeness of my desire – shut out fear. I should have been afraid. A beating can break a man, and if I wasn’t broken, I was surely bent a long way.

  But I saw nothing beyond my gap-toothed adversary. I walked towards him, and he drew his sword and stood there in the sunshine.

  Everything seemed to still. Perhaps this is only memory playing tricks on me, but I think the crowd fell silent and the running Hungarians slowed and stopped.

  Far off, one woman was singing.

  Gap-tooth raised his sword in a poor imitation of the middle guard, posta breva.

  The woman’s voice rose.

  Three paces away, I drew. My sword swept up from the scabbard even as his fell. Up and up, covering me, and back along the
same line, and he fell, dead. I’d slammed his sword out of line, up into the air with my rising stroke and then cut about two inches into his head and ripped the point all the way from his temple to his jaw with my descent, and then continued down into my first guard.

  He fell without a cry.

  The Hungarian stepped away from the body.

  Gap-tooth’s hand twitched and I put my point through his neck into the ground, knelt, and retrieved the Emperor’s sword from his not-quite-dead hand.

  At my back, Nerio, Juan, Marc-Antonio, Davide, Miles and Fiore all stood with their blades in their hands. Despite the blood and the flies that began to gather immediately, it is one of my favourite memories: I knew we could not be beaten, not all together.

  And I knew I had never been so good.

  And I admit, a little revenge can be like a drug.

  I pointed the Emperor’s sword at the Hungarian. ‘Monsieur has my dagger,’ I said. ‘I am Sir William Gold, and I can prove my ownership if required.’

  My Hungarian untied the dagger from his belt without outward fear or flourish. He bowed and handed it to me. ‘I believe I have just had all the proof any gentleman requires,’ he said in good French. ‘A pity. A fine weapon. I wondered why I had it so cheap.’

  I offered to cover his purchase, and he grinned and shouted something in Hungarian, and twenty longhairs faded back into the camp.

  ‘Perhaps we can discuss a price if we meet again,’ he said.

  He walked away, unruffled.

  I bent and began to retrieve the scabbard from the dead man’s belt. I know he’d ruined it, but it had a bye knife and a pricker in the scabbard and pretty furniture, and I was sure that Bernard and I could run up a new scabbard on the old wooden core.

  So naturally, I was kneeling in the spring mud robbing a corpse when I saw d’Herblay.

  Well – the Bourc thought he’d killed me, and now d’Herblay had the same experience.