by Terry Jones
And suddenly she was doing a pantomime of a man balancing on one leg and having trouble removing his stockings from his legs . . .
‘It’s obvious you must usually sit down to take them off . . . and I’ll bet your man usually pulls them off for you . . .’
Tom laughed out loud.
Yes, she was probably right. He’d never even thought of it. And yet he had grown up in a house not so very different from this. And the fires that he and his little sister Katie and old Molly Christmas had huddled round, ever since his parents had died of plague, all those years ago, were not so very different from the sorry-looking excuse for a fire that this girl had been keeping alive when he arrived.
In those days – more often than not – he went unshod, he wore coarse cloth and ate the plainest food and little enough of that. And yet now? Perhaps he was not dressed in silk or scarlet at this moment, but he was used to fine clothes and to living surrounded by luxuries, to sweetmeats and dainties, baths and music, and, of course, books.
When did he cease to notice all those things? he wondered. At what point did he get used to them? And did that mean he had lost something?
Tom frowned.
‘I like your laugh,’ said the girl.
Tom looked up. ‘It’s the only one I’ve got,’ he replied. ‘No . . . I tell a lie . . . when the Lord Bernabò commands it, I laugh like this . . .’ and he gave a courtly chortle that rang with as much sincerity as a friar’s sermon. ‘When my Lady Donnina de’ Porri makes a joke, I go . . .’ and he gave the sort of low snort that people give when they’ve heard the kind of story they shouldn’t.
‘When my Lady Regina della Scala tells a joke, I laugh like this . . .’ and Tom scowled . . . rather like the girl was scowling now.
‘That’s not laughing,’ she said.
‘My Lady Regina della Scala never makes jokes,’ replied Tom.
The girl didn’t laugh out loud but she scowled her smile with more of a sparkle in her eye. ‘My name is Niccola,’ she said. ‘I’m usually called Nicca . . .’
Tom gave her a slight bow. ‘My name is Tom,’ he said.
‘Tom,’ she repeated, as if disappointed by the brevity of it. ‘Would you like some soup, Tom?’
Tom ate the lukewarm soup gratefully in the gathering gloom of the cottage. When he’d finished, he felt his clothes. They were as wet as ever. So was his horse. Tom had poked his head out of the door to find the rain was coming down harder than ever. What was more, night was beginning to fall with it . . . as if the darkness were being washed out of the sky onto the sodden ground.
Tom turned back into the house. The girl had lit a candle and was rearranging the wet clothes closer to the fire.
‘I need to stay the night somewhere,’ said Tom. ‘Do you know of anywhere nearby?’
‘You can stay here,’ she said. She stood up and looked at him with a frank gaze that held no apology, and at that moment she seemed to embody nothing but kindness and generosity – at least to Tom.
‘I will pay for the fire and the food,’ said Tom.
The girl shrugged. ‘You can have my father’s bed upstairs,’ she said.
‘What about your father?’ asked Tom.
‘He died,’ she replied, ‘last Lent.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tom.
‘You can put your horse in the barn,’ said the girl. ‘You can borrow some of my father’s clothes.’
Some time later, Tom was sitting by a reasonably lively fire. Since he was now paying for the wood, he had put more on, and he reflected, his clothes now had a fair chance of being dry by the morning. In the meantime, he had been fitted out from the dead man’s wardrobe: he sported an old brown tabard that came down to his knees, but which was rather tight on him, and dirty brown hose.
Suddenly, he became aware that the girl had been staring at him for some time. But as he turned to look at her she dropped her eyes.
‘How old are you?’ Tom asked.
‘I am eighteen,’ she replied. ‘I should have been married last spring.’
‘What happened?’
The girl did not reply but she raised her eyes and they made contact with Tom’s. In the candlelight her face had become softer and the frown seemed to have been brushed out. She looked like . . . who was it? A memory stirred in Tom’s mind . . . but he couldn’t pin it down. Her eyes were grey-green and she had shaken her dark hair out from the tight roll in which she’d been wearing it.
Suddenly he realised she was smiling at him. He smiled back. ‘You look like my father,’ she said.
Now I don’t know whether or not any romantic feelings had just then been creeping up upon Sir Thomas English, but – if they had been – they now suddenly turned tail and scuttled out of the door like naughty hens caught raiding the larder.
‘What happened to your marriage?’ asked Tom. ‘Or would you rather I didn’t ask?’
The girl’s smile dropped for a moment. ‘No, I will tell you,’ she said, but then fell silent.
‘Well?’ asked Tom. The girl sighed and stared into the fire.
‘Piero – the man who was to be my husband – was tortured and killed by my Lord Bernabò.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Tom. Then he waited until he found himself forced to ask: ‘What for?’
‘He was not a handsome man – Piero,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s not a crime,’ smiled Tom.
‘He was lame – he had a shrivelled leg – and one of his eyes sort of looked the wrong way.’
‘It’s all still perfectly legal, as far as I’m aware,’ said Tom.
‘But he was a good man. I loved him well enough.’
‘So?’
‘One day, Piero caught a fish,’ said Niccola.
‘He caught a fish?’ It was as if every statement she made was the end of the story, so Tom felt he had to keep prompting her or she would never get to the end.
‘Cursed to God the day he did,’ said the girl.
‘What are you talking about, Niccola? He caught a fish? So?’
‘It was a big fish. A very big fish. Such a fish had never before been pulled out of the river.’
‘And . . .’ Tom coaxed her, for she had stopped again.
‘It was so extraordinary a fish, that he was afraid to sell it in the market.’
‘Why should he be afraid?’
‘Because if my Lord Bernabò were to hear that such a fish had been caught, and had not been offered to him, he would be angry.’
‘Ah ha . . . so Piero didn’t give it to him and the Lord Bernabò put him in prison?’
The girl shook her head.
‘No. Piero decided to go to the court of my Lord Bernabò and give the duke the fish himself.’
‘A wise move.’
‘Was it?’
‘Er . . . well . . . why don’t you tell me what happened,’ said Tom in a kindly way.
‘Piero, in his simplicity, went to Bernabò’s court, and when they saw the fish they allowed him into the great man’s presence. It was indeed a very big fish. Piero went down on his knees and said: “Great duke, please accept this gift from a simple man.”
‘Well, my Lord Bernabò looked at the size of the fish, and then he looked at Piero, and then he suddenly flew into a rage. “Who allowed this freak into my court?” he screamed. “Look at him. He looks like a fish himself!” Then the great duke turned on my poor Piero and yelled at him: “Do not ever presume to think that I would accept any present from an abomination of nature like you! I’ll flay the man who let you into my court!”
‘Well, my poor Piero just knelt there and said: “My lord, I am sorry if my looks offend you. Could I change them I would do so – only too willingly.”
‘And then do you know what the great Duke of Milan said? He said: “In that case, I’ll give you a hand! Guards! This misbegotten creature has one leg longer than the other – even him up! And do him another favour by making both his eyes the same!”
‘And that is what
they did. They cut off his good foot and they put out both his eyes. He died a few days later from loss of blood.’
The girl stopped, and looked Tom straight in the face, dry-eyed and open. There was no emotion in her voice. It was as if all feelings had been strained out of her by the press of cruelty.
‘Such a man is the lord you serve, sir,’ she said. ‘But then you probably know that better than I . . . as well as you know that if you were to report these words of mine, I should doubtless meet the same end as Piero . . . or worse.’
It was Tom’s turn to drop his eyes.
That night, Tom lay in bed, Niccola’s words jangling in his ears. He knew the Lord Bernabò was cruel and arbitrary. He knew the Lord of Milan acted without constraint – mutilating and killing wherever his whim fell. And yet because you could not smell the dungeons from the state rooms, because you did not see the killing and the mutilation, it was so easy to forget that it was all going on all the time . . . so easy to convince yourself that the marble-tiled floors and the gaily painted walls and the gorgeous dresses were the whole reality . . .
And, for all that he felt that the whims and outrages of the tyrant were nothing to do with him, Tom suddenly felt he had been – no! still was – a party to them. It was true that he had not thrown anyone into a dungeon on Bernabò Visconti’s behalf, but he had drunk his wine. He had not tortured anyone for Bernabò Visconti, but he had danced with his mistress. He had not murdered anyone at Bernabò Visconti’s behest, but he had made the great Lord of Milan laugh.
Tom suddenly felt that anything he did for the Visconti made him implicit in the evil that had plagued this girl’s life. And that went for the Lady Regina’s spying mission on Bernabò’s nephew – and yet, if he did not see it through, how was he to rescue his squire, John?
He opened his eyes, and found that he was staring at the blank wall of night. He could see nothing and that pitch-black room might just as well have been his future. Either was equally impenetrable.
Chapter 6
Mende 1361
Tom had no idea how long she had been lying there. He must have fallen asleep, but now he was aware of her breathing gently beside him. Tom lay absolutely still, and listened. Was she asleep? Did he dare wake her up? Or should he turn over and go back to sleep himself?
He tried to make out her silhouette but could see nothing in that absolute dark. Eventually he reached out his hand and touched Ann’s shoulder. She didn’t stir but the words came immediately – as if she had been waiting for the signal to release them.
‘Do you think Anton’s dead?’ she asked. ‘Do you think he drowned? Or was he crushed beneath all those huge trees?’
‘He couldn’t have survived,’ whispered Tom, ‘either way.’
They were lying in a barn somewhere near the small town of Bagnols. It was two days since they had fled across the bridge at Avignon and had watched as the giant Anton, whom they had come to respect and even love, had been flung into the angry river Rhone beneath a cartload of sawn tree trunks.
‘It’s too terrible,’ whispered Ann.
‘But what can we do?’ asked Tom.
‘Maybe we could turn time backwards . . . maybe we could make some magic . . . ah . . . no . . . we saw what we saw . . . there is no magic that can undo what we saw . . .’
‘Ann,’ whispered Tom. ‘This Peter de Bury . . .’ He fell silent. The blackness also fell silent. Everything fell silent for some minutes and Tom could think of no way of going on.
‘That’s a very difficult question to answer,’ said Ann eventually. ‘For a start there’s no verb. Then there’s no question mark. In fact it isn’t really a question. “This Peter de Bury . . .” Hmm. It isn’t even a statement. I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit – just to give me some hint about how to reply?’
‘I know I asked you before, but do you love him?’ breathed Tom.
‘I suppose I do,’ replied Ann.
‘How do you know?’ asked Tom.
The question hung in the air like a falling star that had got stuck.
‘I don’t know how I know,’ replied Ann. ‘I could list all the things I like about him, but there are lots of people about whom I could list the things I like. Like you, Tom.’
‘But you don’t love me, do you?’ asked Tom.
‘Of course I do,’ said Ann.
‘But not like you love Peter de Bury.’
‘No,’ said Ann, and the star went out. ‘I don’t love you like that, little Tom.’
Tom turned over. Why did it matter? Why was he asking Ann these questions? He was in love with Emily. He was to become her knight in shining armour. Even though Emily was not in love with him, Tom was going to win her hand. And they were going to ride off together and live forever in a grand house with a chimney.
The next morning Emily was extremely cross about something or other. But then she tended to be these days. Ever since she had discovered that Alan was not a boy but a girl in disguise whose name was Ann, she had been in a vile temper. She would kick anything that was remotely kickable, including Tom.
‘So have you decided yet?’ she demanded, as Tom laid some breakfast in front of her. It never ceased to amaze him how – no matter how hard he tried – he always ended up feeling like her servant.
‘Well, it seems to me that Brittany is on the way to England. So why don’t we all go along with Alan . . .’
‘Ann,’ snapped Emily with a certain bitterness.
‘Ann . . . to find Sir Robert Knolles’s army and then . . . maybe . . . you and I could . . . possibly . . . get a ship to England from there.’ It seemed a perfectly reasonable plan, but Emily frowned.
She wanted to get to England to find her brother, Guillaume de Valois, who had been languishing in an English prison ever since the Battle at Poitiers, waiting for his ransom to be paid. Emily had learned that her uncle, Jean de Craon (who also just happened to be Archbishop of Reims), was plotting to have her brother murdered so that he could control the family fortune. What’s more, the archbishop was planning to marry Emily – just to make his control complete. She had escaped the archbishop’s clutches at Avignon, thanks to Tom, but now she wanted Tom to accompany her to London to try and help her brother escape.
‘What’s all this “maybe” and “possibly”?’ Emily demanded.
‘Well . . . you know . . . I mean you never know . . . things change, and . . .’ Tom felt himself running out of words. It was always the same when Emily looked at him in that way she had. He could never quite make out whether it was the perfection of her straight nose . . . the whiteness of her skin . . . the blackness of her hair . . . or those long lashes that framed her grey eyes . . . or maybe it was the smile that played around the corners of her mouth even as she pouted her displeasure at Tom . . . but whatever it was, Tom knew he had no defence. Whatever it was that made him, he would do whatever Emily said.
‘We’re going to England,’ said Emily. ‘We decided.’
‘Of course we’re going to England,’ said Tom. ‘But it’s sensible for us all to keep together as far as Brittany.’
‘Ann seems to be able to manage pretty well for herself,’ said Emily.
‘Yes . . . but . . . look! It’s better to all keep together.’ Tom couldn’t understand why Emily had a problem with that. It was obvious really. Together they were protection for each other and company and . . . and . . . he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ann to make her way all on her own – even though she was disguised as a boy, and even though she was going to find this Peter de Bury whom, apparently, she loved in some way that she didn’t love Tom.
‘We’ve got to stick together, until she can find this Peter de Bury chap!’ exclaimed Tom. And then one of the weirdest things happened . . . well, it seemed weird to Tom. It certainly took him totally and utterly by surprise. The commanding and demanding Emily, whose imperious voice could make the toughest palace guard touch his forelock and the most truculent gatekeeper open up his gate, suddenly burs
t into tears. And they weren’t gentle, ladylike drops that merely wetted her beautiful cheek and no more . . . these were great heaving sobs that shook her to the root of her elegant body.
At first Tom was so taken aback, he couldn’t think what was going on. He thought for an awful moment that the breakfast he had just given her must have been poisoned. How was he going to feel if he’d given the most beautiful creature in the world a poisoned breakfast? He would never have forgiven himself.
When he realised that the paroxysm was, in fact, grief – albeit unaccountable grief as far as Tom was concerned – he sat beside her and put his arm around her heaving shoulders. She immediately leaned her head heavily on his chest, and they sat like that for some time.
Yet even in this situation, thought Tom, I’m simply providing a service. You see, no matter how much the lovely Lady Emily relied on him and needed him, he still felt like her servant.
But so it was the three of them set out to cross the immensity of a France ravaged by war and plague.
Chapter 7
The Road to Pavia 1385
Sir Thomas English awoke with a start. There was the sound of laughter coming from downstairs. For a moment he thought he was back on the floor of a little inn room, with Ann and Emily asleep on the bed. But, as the light broke through the sleep in his eyes, he saw the russet smock of Niccola’s father hanging from a peg above his bed – the same bed in which, Tom assumed, her father had died some months before.
Gradually Tom’s present situation came back to him: how he was travelling from Milan to Pavia to spy on Gian Galeazzo, nephew of Bernabò Visconti, the ruler of Milan. He had to find out the nephew’s intentions towards his uncle, and report those intentions back to Bernabò’s wife and mistress to save his squire John from death in a Milanese dungeon.
Suddenly he yearned for the comradeship of those former days – for the company of Ann and Emily, with whom he could discuss what to do. But those days were long gone now. Tom mentally shook himself free of the past and fell with a jolt back into the present.
