Hawkwood

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘It is known that the Visconti sees his legitimate daughters as fit for dukes and counts. We propose a sovereign that must tempt him, for in Richard there is a handsome prince in need of a bride.’

  ‘And a dowry!’ Hawkwood exclaimed.

  ‘Of course. He asks that you, known to be a faithful servant of his crown, act to investigate if such a suit would be welcome.’

  ‘I see you wish to proceed cautiously.’

  ‘A rebuff publicly known would do little for King Richard’s prestige. He is young and as yet without a reputation to match that of his sire.’

  ‘And a refusal would favour his uncle of Gaunt even less.’

  ‘The Duke of Lancaster had placed much hope in this.’

  Within that reply lay a tangled web of the same kind of intrigue that troubled Italy. In producing so many children – even if he had lost several – King Edward had left behind him a set of competing interests and at the heart of that lay the boy king, who would soon come upon his true inheritance as a ruler. Whom would he favour, John of Gaunt, who had acted as his regent, or Gaunt’s brother Edmund, the Duke of York? That was beside the point to Hawkwood; what was proposed carried a degree of wisdom.

  ‘It is my duty to do what I can.’

  ‘I thank you, Sir John, on behalf of His Grace our King.’

  ‘Your men are being taken care of?’ A nod. ‘Then now you must dine with me.’

  ‘And find out the state of affairs in this part of the world, perhaps?’

  That got a very loud laugh. ‘Such an explanation would take weeks, Mr Chaucer.’

  ‘I learn quickly, Sir John.’

  ‘So I seem to recall.’

  The soldier had never quite felt comfortable in Chaucer’s presence, even though they had much in common, which got them through the meal that followed. Both had served in King Edward’s Crécy campaign and had met, though not intimately mingled, when the previous Plantagenet marriage had been in the process of completion. The man was clever, if anything too much so for the ‘old freebooter’, able to reference things that never entered the world of a mercenary; poetry, endless allusions to classical history and the writing of the Greeks and Romans, though Hawkwood could hold his own on the military aspects. On his last visit he had spent much of his time in the Visconti library, which housed many a rare book and would no doubt do so again if the opportunity presented itself.

  Chaucer was personable enough but with a tendency to wear his erudition on his sleeve. Also, he had about him a slightly sly way of looking when he sensed that something he referred to was a mystery to the listener. Then there were his interrogations, which is what Hawkwood saw them as and he knew he was not alone. The man was forever asking questions about the captain general’s past and his recent exploits. It made little difference that he did it to everyone. He seemed to have a facility to remember everything that was said; it was as if he was storing things up for future use, and that could be uncomfortable.

  Private reservations had to be put to the side; Hawkwood was needed as an intermediary to broach the prospect of a royal marriage, the man entrusted to test the waters of Bernabò Visconti’s feelings on the matter. The ruler of Milan, famed already for his outrageous temper, had not grown mellow with advancing years; indeed he had become worse, the only person who could calm him being his wife.

  Added to his rages he had come to a feeling that he need bend the knee to no man and no power; the travails of the papacy, with the whole of northern Italy opposing it rather than just the Visconti, added to the fact that his leadership was acknowledged, swelled a head already too large for much sense to easily prevail.

  Besides, and he had kept this from Chaucer, they had a relationship that rested on many uncertainties: the happy estate following his marriage to Donnina had not lasted. As ever, Hawkwood had to argue constantly to get paid what was due to him, as well as explain to a man rarely prepared to listen that to carry out the duties he wanted from the English Company required more lances, which naturally would incur more expense.

  Bernabò was always demanding the impossible and would not accept that to go into battle against a superior enemy or overcome city walls without the numbers and equipment required was to risk destruction. As for the Anti-Papal League that seemed in abeyance since the death of Pope Gregory; Bernabò was too busy trying to take power and land away from his neighbours.

  It was that temper that persuaded Hawkwood to approach Beatrice first and let her present the subject to Bernabò, for she would do it gently. She engaged her husband enough to agree first to meet Chaucer and then that a return embassy should go back to London with him for further talks.

  With his typical swings of mood Bernabò, who at first seemed lukewarm on the marriage proposal, began increasingly to favour it, to the point that he saw it as part of his destiny. He would ask for an English army, with which he could crush every one of his opponents in Lombardy and Tuscany. Wild-eyed sometimes and frequently drunk he would talk in a way that hinted at imperial pretensions.

  Meanwhile his captain general, on short commons to his mind, must continue his soldiering and seek ways to nullify Verona, as well as follow his employer’s designs on neighbouring Mantua, this on a shoestring. The aim, while still fighting the Scaliger family, was to prick the man who now ruled Mantua, Ludovico Gonzaga, into a reaction that would justify war. The Mantuan tyrant proved too wily to enter the snare.

  He was cautious of the strength of Milan, as well as the abilities of Hawkwood, and even if incursions into his territory irked him he responded with no more than written complaints. To these Hawkwood replied with surprised innocence, while listing infractions by Gonzaga’s subjects in which he had been deprived of cattle and horses in what became an ongoing and lengthy correspondence, a game in which both men took some pleasure in trying to deceive each other.

  The other matter that engaged Hawkwood was the ransoming of his one-time brigade captain, John Thornbury, who had deserted him and ridden off to seek service, as well as personal profit, elsewhere without prior warning when he had been needed. Captured in a running fight he was now a prisoner and where there had once been friendship and trust there was that no more, just a price that must be found for the release of a man seen by John Hawkwood to have betrayed him.

  Meanwhile a new pope had been elected, taking the name Urban VI. It was said he had been forced on the College of Cardinals by the population of Rome, who had noisily demanded an Italian pontiff instead of another Frenchman. Since Gregory had changed the rules from a unanimous vote to a majority one, the missing cardinals in Avignon had no chance to interfere, there being enough in the Holy City to grant Urban the mitre.

  ‘He’s a peasant,’ was Bernabò’s verdict on the one time Archbishop of Naples. ‘Never even a cardinal. Lord knows what his noble peers will make of him.’

  Not a great deal, seemed to be the conclusion, this far from aided by the reported attitude Urban adopted to the men who had elected him. He castigated them for their luxuries and lax morality, even to the point of ordering them to have only one meal a day, to dispose forthwith of their mistresses and to surrender the multiple benefices from which they accumulated their wealth.

  Bernabò proved correct on his antecedents: Urban came from the slums of Naples and had crawled up the hierarchy until he had drawn the attention of the woman who became his champion, the Neapolitan Queen Joanna. It was she who had favoured his further progress. Milanese spies took great pleasure in describing him to their master, who was just as eager to tell Hawkwood what he knew.

  ‘They say his temper is uncontrollable.’

  ‘A terrible fault,’ was Hawkwood’s reply, the irony in his tone completely missed.

  ‘I am told he has even physically attacked some of his cardinals and he regularly tells his Romans of their faults, so they are pelted with rotten fruit in the streets and need armed guards at their residences.’

  The news arriving next, that a section of cardinals had declared the ele
ction void, set more than Milan buzzing with speculation. In another vote a different man was elevated to the papacy, none other than the Prince-Cardinal Robert of Geneva, who took the name Clement.

  ‘Urban being from the alleyways of Naples makes sense,’ Hawkwood opined. ‘Clement for Robert of Geneva? The man has not an ounce of compassion in him.’

  ‘Or humility,’ was Gold’s assessment. ‘But who will come out on top? We cannot have two popes.’

  ‘Robert has his Bretons, or what is left of them and they hold the Castel Sant’Angelo. Urban has the people of Rome, but I will favour the man with proper soldiers. For us, Christopher, it means little: we have our own work to do and we must hope two men in the same office will makes things easier.’

  If it complicated everything for the Church the effect for Hawkwood was positive. Robert of Geneva – few were prepared to use his papal name – was a scion of France. England being that nation’s enemy, they naturally backed Urban, so the document that came to Milan, with the Great Seal of England waxed on the base, appointed Sir John Hawkwood as King Richard’s Ambassador to the Holy See, which meant Rome, not Avignon.

  Was it that which made so cool the relations between Bernabò and his son-in-law? Hawkwood had no real idea. It could be the proposed marriage negotiations with King Richard, which had come to naught, causing the Visconti dreams to be shattered. Why this would be his captain general’s fault could not be fathomed or made sense of, but the Lord of Milan was rarely capable of that these days.

  Ever in a court full of rumour and gossip, the complaints Bernabò was now openly making about Hawkwood and his efforts on behalf of Milan reached his ears. The campaign against Verona was not being pressed hard enough. Why was that? Hawkwood was in endless correspondence with Gonzaga. Was he preparing to betray Milan to Mantua and Verona? When could these mercenaries ever be trusted not to change sides for money?

  It was likely in one of those ungovernable rages that he issued a decree saying that he would pay a goodly sum in florins to anyone who would kill a member of the English Company, an outburst he might regret in sober reflection but that was not to be trusted. Hawkwood knew the beast within him too well. He had fought against him and for him and his brother, while being often left to wonder which was worse. At the same time he had no faith that his marriage bind would protect him.

  ‘Sir William, take your lances to Bagnacavallo and put my property in a state of defence. I also ask that you protect my wife and daughter as you would look to your own.’ He then passed over a rolled parchment to Coggeshall. ‘I have written to ask Mantua that you be given safe conduct and that has been here provided.’

  ‘Am I allowed to ask for an explanation, Sir John?’

  ‘Matters in Milan are in an uncertain state. Let us say that I would not wish to have to seek to rescue or pay for the freedom of my family.’

  William Coggeshall had been in Milan long enough to know it was a febrile place but the implications of what his father-in-law was saying clearly shocked him. It implied a break.

  ‘Please do as I request, William, and trust that I know of what I speak. All you are required to do is hold Bagnacavallo until I arrive, which will be very shortly after I find it is in any danger.’

  Christopher Gold, now Constable General of the English Company, had to be informed of what was about to happen, nothing less than that Hawkwood would detach himself and his company from Milanese service.

  ‘We cannot fight while ever looking over our shoulder. Bernabò wishes for Verona to be crushed but will not provide the money to recruit the necessary lances, while stirring up trouble with the Gonzaga.’

  ‘I have had to, in your absence, buy grain from Mantua.’

  ‘With the funds of the company, and there’s the rub. Our men deserve their pay and my pockets are not deep enough to sustain what is being expended. When Bernabò gifted me all those properties in Romagna he saddled me with a bottomless pit. The revenues do not cover the costs. I will keep them, for one is my family home, but to do so I must find a way to earn more for we cannot depend on Milan.’

  To explain that to someone like Gold was easy; the person he was worried about was his wife, who would scarce take well the news that he had fallen out with her father to the point of a breach. Heavily with child and already with one infant girl, Donnina still made his heart skip a beat and that brought on hesitation and an attempt at distraction.

  ‘Has Coggeshall seen to his duties?’

  ‘He would not wish to face you, Husband, if he did not.’

  ‘Am I such an ogre that even the husband of my daughter fears me?’ Standing over the cradle in which his infant child slept he ran a gentle finger down her soft cheek, which made her stir but not wake. ‘Antiocha has four girls I have never seen. I have two sons I know of who were both born to their mothers when I had moved on and I could walk past them with ease, for I do not know them except by letter. Janet here is the first of my children I have gazed on.’

  ‘Then she is blessed.’

  ‘Is she, to have a father so full of years he may not last long enough to give her away as a bride?’

  ‘You are melancholy, Husband.’

  He smiled and indicated the cot. ‘You do not see me as happy?’

  ‘I sense that there is something you wish to tell me.’

  That furrowed his brow; Hawkwood was proud of his ability to mask his feelings, a very necessary attribute when dealing with those he led as well as the men he did business with.

  ‘I am bound to ask why you say that.’

  ‘Allow a wife to see her man better than others. Allow her to ask why William Coggeshall is here with sixty lances and why his men guard the walls of our property with such vigilance. That can only come about because you fear someone and I am enough of a Visconti to guess who that might be.’

  ‘Your father no longer trusts me.’

  ‘My father trusts no one.’

  ‘It may be worse than that. I sent Coggeshall here to ensure he did not seek to use you against me.’

  ‘You think I would oppose you?’

  A man does not have to be married to a woman for too long, or spend much time in her intimate company, to quickly see when his words have offended. If Donnina had a beautiful brow it was one that could furrow quickly to produce a look that put Hawkwood on edge. Tempted to remind her of his authority as her husband, which in the eyes of the Church and society was absolute, he refrained. She had a temper that was hereditary and the ability to shift the point of argument to ensure he could never feel he had won.

  ‘I would hope and pray not.’

  ‘You are my husband and the father of my child.’ Her hand was on her belly but the second blessing would not be alluded to with childbirth so full of risk. ‘When we were married I left the bond I had with my father and entered into one with you and that is made sacrosanct by the vows I took.’

  ‘You would not, then, take Bernabò’s part against me?’

  ‘It offends that you should even ask. But I would like to be told of what has occurred.’

  Donnina listened in silence to him, but acute observation of the small facial movements around the eyes showed there was a degree of pain in what she was hearing. The notion that her father would welcome the death of her husband was particularly hard to disguise, but it was equally plain she had no illusion about his capability to arrange such a thing. But Hawkwood needed to say more.

  ‘If I were to say to you that trust is essential in such a bond as I have with Milan, you might well laugh. It is not a virtue usually uttered in the same breath as what I do. But I can say to you that I have never deserted a man or his cause who met his pledge, yet this is not the first time your father and I have had disputes over payment. My worry is that now I have you. If he were to act in a way I fear, there is little I could do but give way to anything he demanded of me.’

  The slight frown she had worn while listening lifted. ‘Why, that sounds like a declaration of love.’

 
; ‘If you do not know that is the emotion I feel then I am a poor husband, Donnina.’

  ‘Everyone I spoke to before we wed said you were incapable of love. That you had a warrior’s heart and it could not hold such a sentiment.’

  ‘Did you not think to ask me?’

  ‘That would not have been fitting.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘You hide much, John Hawkwood, for I sense you must, but not from me. I see you as no other does, when we lay together with only the moon to light our talk. If I know little of men, I do know that that is where the real soul of one is revealed.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Slowly, so as not to cause alarm, Hawkwood withdrew his lances east into the Romagna, closer to where he and his family resided, made peaceful overtures to Mantua, then waited to see how Bernabò would react. With him seemingly quiescent he could set about the business of raiding and plundering in Tuscany, allying himself to a German, also a son-in-law of Bernabò, their combined force a formidable twelve hundred lances.

  For two years their successes were measured in thousands of florins, though as usual much was expended on keeping the company whole, while Hawkwood had personal overheads that needed to be met, such as protecting his home, which meant a strong garrison permanently based at Bagnacavallo. Just as much went to support his other properties against anything that might threaten them, which meant his father-in-law.

  He was not without information of what was taking place in Lombardy, such as the death of Galeazzo, naturally replaced as ruler by his son Giangaleazzo who, it was reported, had become exceedingly pious, surrounding himself with priests, carrying a rosary everywhere, praying frequently and dressing without show. Such news extended from gossip written by old friends to Donnina, through whispers brought by passing travellers, to downright betrayal of the Visconti family, who like any Italian rulers had many internal enemies though the family were better at suppression than most of their rivals.