The Long Sword

by Christian Cameron

  Fra William filled the room he called his ‘closet.’ It had a pigeon roost (as we call it) for scrolls, and the whole shelf was packed with them, hundreds of scrolls, and there were more around the room in baskets. In among the scrolls was a table no bigger than the sideboards on which squires cut meat and mix wine, and it, too, was covered in scrolls, and the bulk of the man was wedged between the pigeon roosts and the writing table. By his side was another tall man, this one as thin as Sir William was round.

  ‘Sir Robert Hales – Sir William Gold.’ He waved at us.

  Sir Robert Hales rose and took my hand. ‘I have heard of you, in France and in Italy.’

  I bowed. ‘Indeed, my lord, we were introduced at Clerkenwell.’ I smiled. ‘I was with Juan di Heredia’s nephew.’

  Sir Robert flushed. ‘Sir William … indeed. I swear you were younger then. Or perhaps smaller.’

  We all laughed. I had been a squire of no account whatsoever. Now I was a knight of moderate fame.

  Sir Robert sat. ‘Of course, I know your sister, who shares your high courage.’

  My turn to flush. I had scarcely thought of my sister in six months. Fra William looked up from his writing. ‘Sit, Sir William. By our lady, clear him a space. There’s nowhere for a man to sit.’

  I stood against the far wall and hoped that nothing fell on me. Very gradually, I leaned against a set of shelves weighted down with scrolls and books and tall stacks of parchments being led to their dooms by their heavy seals, slipping gradually but inevitably towards the floor.

  ‘You had a quarrel with Fra Daniele,’ Fra William stated. He did not ask.

  I said nothing.

  ‘Senior Knights of the Order are commanders,’ he said. He was still writing quickly. His big hand was perfectly well-trained, and his writing was as neat as a professional scribe’s hand. He was writing Latin. ‘Many of my paid soldiers are commanders in their own right, and I have to explain to them that here, on Rhodes, their authority is nothing, and only the brother-knights have the power to giver orders.’

  He looked up at me. ‘In Outremer, mercenaries sold themselves to the enemy. We have become careful.’

  I nodded.

  Fra William pursed his lips. ‘You further informed Fra Daniele that the legate is your lord.’

  I suppose I sighed. I was trying to control my temper, and not doing a perfect job.

  Fra William frowned. ‘He is a great man, perhaps a saint. But you, as a volunteer in the Order, must obey your superiors. You swore an oath to obey.’

  ‘Any reasonable order,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Fra William said. ‘There is no such stipulation. You swore to obey. Kindly keep that in mind. I have no doubt – no doubt at all – that you are a brilliant soldier. The dockside tales of your daring are worthy of Roland or Oliver or Gawain. But if you wear the red coat, you must obey.’ He raised both eyebrows in his most cherubic look, one I would come to understand better. ‘Even Fra Daniele.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Knight.’ I bowed carefully, given the limited space.

  He smiled, and the room seemed to fill with his glow. ‘Good. As an Englishman, you fall to me, and I am proud to have you. I’m sorry I had to start with discipline. But we take it seriously. And you will see why if we come to battle. Knights – gentlemen – are used to doing just as they please, even on the battlefield.’

  Fra Robert smiled. His smile was as thin as Fra Williams was beaming. He didn’t strike me as a man who had much time for humour.

  I nodded. ‘I have some experience of this,’ I said.

  He handed me a set of keys. ‘Perhaps the greatest advantage of being English,’ he said, ‘Is that we have the richest inn except for the Italians, but the smallest langue in numbers. So while there are men camped in the streets, I can give all of you cells, good cells with beds. Enjoy them – they may be the only beds you see for a year. The food here is excellent, though I do say so myself,’ he added, patting his belly. ‘We will pretend that your friends are English. Fra Daniele thought they were.’ He went back to writing, and I was not sure whether I was dismissed or not. After some time, he looked up. ‘You know John Hawkwood. How is the bastard?’

  I shrugged. Italy had made me the master of many shrugs – shrugs for knowing too much, or nothing at all. ‘I wrote to him twice last winter and had no reply. He was badly defeated last autumn, but he rescued much of his army.’

  ‘There a rumour that he and the Visconti are threatening Genoa,’ Fra William said. ‘That the Pope used Hawkwood to put pressure on the Genoese to participate in the crusade.’

  I shook my head. ‘It may be, but he was nowhere near Genoa when we undertook the last round of negotiations. That success belongs entirely to the legate.’

  ‘I knew him as a boy.’ The turcopolier frowned. ‘Our lives have taken very different paths.’ He met my eye. ‘How many men have you commanded?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘I was a corporal last year against Florence, with fifty lances,’ I said.

  Fra Robert smiled his thin-lipped smile again. He murmured something I did not catch.

  Fra William raised an eyebrow. ‘Most of the volunteers who came out with the legate have declared a desire to serve together.’ He signed his name, took hot wax and sealed his document. ‘If circumstances align, I might like to see you command them. It would be unprecedented for a man not of the highest birth – commands of volunteers and donats usually go to princes and kings.’ He grinned sourly. ‘I don’t have one, this fight. Did the Emperor really gird you with that sword?’ he asked.

  I smiled. I drew the longsword carefully and handed it to him, and he regarded the Emperor’s sword with something like lust.

  It is worth saying that the sword was almost unmarked by a dozen combats. There was not a nick in her blade, not a mar on the surface of the metal between her fullers, except where I had covered myself against the sweep of the Turk’s axe – I had not allowed his weapon anything like a direct cross, and yet his edge had left a cut on her forte.

  ‘You fought in a tournament,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted.

  ‘While wearing the surcoat of the order,’ he added. Then he shook himself; indeed, he quivered. ‘Never mind. But please understand that you have flouted some rules that young knights are punished for disobeying.’

  ‘Are these rules written down somewhere? I asked.

  He laughed. ‘Every baillie has his own. Every langue has some few. It’s only ten years ago that we were allowed to keep a copy in English – until then we had to read the rule in Provençal. But I’ll find you a copy of the rule. You won’t find any mention of tournaments.’

  Sir Robert leaned forward. ‘Sir William, do you know anything of the – the factions within the order?’

  I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said.

  Sir Robert had the look of a man all too well versed in politics. Certes, he was – and is – a great man at the court of the English king. He played with his beard. ‘Men may join the order and yet remain loyal to their former lords. We are still English. The French are still French.’

  I suppose I smiled.

  ‘What I mean is that there are, no doubt, those within the order who do not relish your legate or his crusade,’ he said.

  ‘Or his evident partiality for Englishmen,’ Fra William laughed.

  Sir Robert nodded. ‘Do you see how this can affect all of us?’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t,’ Fra William said. ‘Let him breathe, Robert. He’ll come to know us soon enough.’ He waved his hand. ‘Go find your friends and I’ll see you for Lord Grey’s birthday.’

  Lord Grey’s dinner was a gathering of all the English on Rhodes, and I was surprised – and deeply pleased – to see how many of us there were. The English Grand Prior, Fra John Pavely, had led a goodly body of knights and men-at-arms out to Rhodes for the Passagium Generale. The
re was Nicolas Sabraham; there was Steven Scrope, who, like Miles Stapleton, was a squire ready for knighting. Fra William Midleton sat with his friend Fra Robert Hales, who was holding forth of the current state of finance in the English priory. Sabraham whispered to me that I could expect Hales to be Prior of England. We had the Scottish knights, Sir Walter Lindsay and his brothers Kenneth and Norman. We also had Sister Marie who I had not seen in months. She had accompanied Marcus, the legate’s archdeacon, on an errand to Naples and joined us late. There were two other women present in a very masculine party, both sisters of the order. One was Fra William’s sister Katherine. She, too, was nearly perfectly round, and her eyes also had the bright twinkle of intelligence. She was by me during the speeches, and her undertone of comment on her brother was so funny as to be a danger to all around her. And always by her side was young Sister Mary Langland, who I mention only because she was perhaps the most beautiful nun any of us had ever seen, and yet so utterly pious and chaste as to prevent untoward advances, even from Nerio. It was a splendid evening, with fine food and a flow of talk – and ten thousand compliments for our part in the Venetian victory off Negroponte.

  I enjoyed Rhodes. By the time we’d been there a few days, it seemed as if we’d been there forever, and by the end of the second week, it was as if it was the only life I’d ever known. We lived, with our squires, in the English langue; we served all the offices from matins to compline. Nerio sang so well – the bastard, he did everything well! – that he was taken to sing in the choir.

  I was privileged to be a reader. Fra Peter had known me in London and knew that I was in the most minor order, as a reader of the Gospel. He didn’t seem to know that I had been accorded that status to save me from branding. I confess to you that standing in the great church of St John by the harbour of Rhodes and reading from the Gospel to the knights, brothers, and volunteers – and mercenaries – of the order was a great pleasure, not unmixed with fear. I found reading to be much like fighting in the lists: the attention of hundreds of eyes can confuse or even terrify.

  One pair of eyes especially. Emile had a dispensation to hear Mass with the knights. It was not an uncommon dispensation for pilgrims to obtain, but it made Mass all the more important to me – see what a sinner I am – that Emile was there. When I read the Gospel, I was all too aware that she stood very close to me, on the other side of the choir stalls, with the Order’s sisters.

  Otherwise I had virtually no opportunity to see her. I had imagined that we would lie in each other’s arms every night of the crusade (how complex a set of sins that is) and of course, when the reality presented itself, she was sealed away among the women. I took consolation, though; without the post-battle darkness of spirit I was not nearly as jealous and the king could no more come to her than I could.

  I tried to arrange opportunities to be with her. The one I remember was a ride in the countryside, hawking. The children came, but the duenna I had arranged, the wife of one of the Order’s standing officers, was unable to ride, being sick, and that forced Emile to remain with the nuns. We did manage to smile at each other a great deal in the gate house. And I had a lovely day riding along dusty lanes with the nurse and the three children, as well as Marc-Antonio and Miles, both of who proved far better hawkers than I.

  Edouard was five or six, and I had found him a pony – really, an island horse. He rode beautifully. In fact, he rode better than I did, and he was polite, attentive, and very excited to be out in the country with a real knight.

  ‘You don’t have your big sword,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘No,’ I admitted.

  ‘What if the Saracens attack us?’ he asked.

  I pointed over the great blue horizon. ‘The sea protects us. Before the Saracens could come here they would have to assemble a fleet.’

  ‘You would kill them all anyway,’ he said. ‘Maman says so.’

  There is something disagreeable in the flattery of a child, second-hand. ‘Eduard, being a knight is not all killing,’ I said.

  ‘Is it not?’ he asked with the terrible disinterest of the young child. ‘When I grow up, I will kill anyone I don’t like.’

  I had not spent enough time with children to know how to handle this.

  Miles, on the other hand, had a variety of brothers. ‘Even the ones who surrender?’ he asked. He smiled as he said it.

  Eduard looked pained. Here I had been at the point of imagining him a violent recreant. When I knew children better, I learned that they merely experiment with ideas, and look to adults for encouragement. Some children are encouraged even when adults do not mean them to be.

  Miles cut across that. ‘Think about the word “gentil”,’ he said.

  The boy pointed at me. ‘But Sieur Guillaume is a great knight, and he kills everyone! This is what Maman said.’

  ‘Look!’ cried Marc-Antonio. He’d found us a target for our birds, and he halloo’ed at the flock of birds. His intervention couldn’t have been more timely.

  I resolved to spare someone as soon as possible.

  The time passed pleasantly. I suspect it was made better for the five of us that we arrived on the wings of a famous victory, and that we had, apparently, been seen to be important in it. I say this with some amusement. It was a hot fight, and a desperate one, one of the harshest I had seen until that moment, and I had no way to judge the importance of my own role, or my friends’. I had been in fights where I knew I had turned the tide – the bridge at Meux comes to mind – but at the sea fight off Euboea, I fought, and that’s all I know.

  After the dinner for Lord Grey, I knew most of the English knights and squires, whether they were donats, brothers, or crusaders. Through Nerio, I quickly came to know the Italians in the Order; Fra Ferlino di Airasca was a Savoyard. He was the Order’s admiral, as senior as Fra William Midleton, and as easy to know. He had the beautiful manners of the Savoyard court, and his family were friends of Emile’s father’s family. He was a fine swordsman, and he and Fiore made an immediate and close acquaintance. Fra Palamedo di Giovanni was commanding one of the Order’s galleys, and Nerio visited him frequently.

  Each day on Rhodes, after matins, we’d eat a light meal – hard bread and cider, perhaps a little cheese, some sausage, whatever was left in the kitchens – and then we’d debouch into the yard and train. We’d stand at the pell with Fiore yelling at us, and we’d engage each other. The Order believed in the English game of sword and buckler, with sharps, and we’d swagger our good swords, first left- and then right-handed. And then spend hours taking out the nicks. I was careful of the Emperor’s longsword, and used my spare.

  By the summer of the crusade year, Ser Fiore had begun to codify many of his notions of sword and spear play. He had a theory, much like the way the theologians with whom we discoursed had theories on the divinity of Christ, or the Virgin Birth, or the nature of the Host, or the nature of blessings administered by priests. If I dwell on the profession of arms, it is because I was not a priest, but on Rhodes, as in Avignon, we were surrounded by the profession of Christ, so to speak, and we would have had to be far more ignorant men then we were not to imbibe some of their wisdom and their style.

  So with Fiore’s theory. One of them was that the forming of the first cross in a fight determined all the actions that followed until the two combatants broke apart, or one was hit. And the process by which the combatants came together – in a fight, you never think of these things, but Ser Fiore did, all the time. He would stand watching us, purse his lips, shake his head, and I’d think what am I doing wrong? And it would prove later that he was thinking of making us fight to music.

  Because fighting has a rhythm to be exploited, of course.

  In the yard and in the squares and on the parade of the fortress we trained and trained. Fra Peter led my company, in which, to all effects, I was a corporal. It was the only time I saw him, except occasionally at dinner. When not training,
Fra Peter attended constantly on the legate and sometimes on the Grand Master. I missed him.

  We formed lines and squares, we formed wedges on foot and mounted, we fought alone, as pairs, as teams of five and as units of fifty, and we practised with spears and swords. A few men had axes or poleaxes – a difficult weapon with which to train, believe me. A good man can ruin a pell with an axe cut. Fiore installed a line of springy saplings – very different from our heavy oak pells – to give us a more rapid, more flowing ‘opponent’. But the axe men could lop them to pieces, and sometimes did.

  Fra William used a very small axe on a long handle, a weapon he’d taken from a Turk. With a mischievous gleam on his face, he appeared one afternoon and worked his way down our saplings, turning them into kindling with his little axe.

  Fiore watched him and then picked up a victim, a thin branch, no thicker than my thumb. It was cut through and almost polished. The cut ran straight.

  Fiore nodded and looked at the turcopolier. ‘He is very good,’ Fiore admitted.

  I was amazed that a man so big was so capable, but the man was amazing.

  My Turk was also amazing. We baptised him on the feast of Saint John, and he took the name John. Everyone called him John the Turk – Iannis Turkos, in the local tongue. By the time the hospital released him, his Italian was acceptable, although he was not good at tense or time and his idea of the agreement of numbers could be very difficult.

  ‘I am very honoured to being so many knight,’ he said with a bow to my friends. ‘All with Christ now.’

  It is easy to make a man sound like a fool with bad speech and John the Turk was no fool. He could ride anything, and he was impossibly generous – his understanding of Christ’s word shamed the rest of us. I gave him some coins to drink my health one day, and watched him the next day give all of it to a beggar.