The Long Sword Read online

  ‘That’s Miles’ brother? Surely you two are old friends and good companions?’ Chaucer managed a genuine grin. ‘You and Miles fought Saracens together.’

  ‘He’s being replaced by John Devereux. Something is afoot at home, and Sir Brian is unwilling to give me a passport.’ Sir William shrugged again. ‘I was summoned by the king. I am needed in Venice and my patience has limits.’

  Chaucer nodded, and the two men walked past the nuns, who now kept their eyes down and their movements discreet. Outside, darkness was falling, the air was chill, and the smell of baked apples and sugar carried like the scent of love.

  Sir William laughed. ‘I’m imagining myself the centre of the world. Why are you still here?’

  Chaucer grunted. ‘The same. The French have not prepared me a pass, even though my business is to their good.’

  ‘Peace?’ Sir William asked.

  ‘At least a longer truce. There are those at home who would push the young king to war – but the truth is, there’s no money and no will to war in the commons.’ Chaucer gazed into the darkness.

  Ahead of them on the street, a woman was lighting the lamps on her house. She inclined her head as they passed, and Sir William bowed deeply to her and gave her the sele of the day, to which she responded by blowing him a kiss.

  ‘You are the lovesomest man,’ Chaucer said.

  Sir William smiled. ‘I do love women, it is true,’ he said. He watched the goodwife as she stretched to light her last lamp.

  ‘Adultery is a sin,’ Chaucer said.

  ‘This is very monk-like, coming from you,’ Sir William shot back.

  The two of them turned the corner of the church of Notre Dame and walked slowly toward the inn gate, visible at the end of the lane.

  ‘If we’re here another night, perhaps we can spin Monsieur Froissart more tales of our misspent youths,’ Sir William said.

  Chaucer laughed. ‘I believe that the two of us are too far beyond Monsieur Froissart’s views of the world.’ He looked at Sir William in the torchlight. ‘Do you remember him from Prince Lionel’s wedding?’

  Sir William nodded. ‘No. But I was busy, then. Well, if he’s determined to listen, we could do him some good. I could tell him of the Levant.’

  ‘And the Italian Wedding,’ Chaucer said. ‘Sweet Christ, that was a horror.’ He grinned mirthlessly. ‘He was there, but he didn’t see our side of it.’

  ‘Not all a horror,’ Sir William said. But when their eyes met, something passed – some shared thing.

  ‘You tell tales for your living,’ Sir William said. ‘Why leave me to tell the story?’

  Chaucer took his turn to shrug. ‘I like to see what you do with it. You take all the blood and shit and make it into something. As if it mattered.’

  Sir William paused, his hand on his paternoster. ‘Of course it matters,’ he said. Then he paused. ‘It matters to the men who are in it. Even when the cause is worthless.’

  Chaucer grimaced. ‘You would say that.’

  An hour later, and they were served a series of dishes – a meat dish with noodles, a game pie, a dish of greens. The inn’s food was renowned wherever Englishmen gathered, but it was not all English food, and the greens showed the influence of the new French fashions: fresh food, in season, and especially vegetables.

  Chaucer eyed his beet greens with a certain distaste. ‘French clothes, French manners, and now French food,’ he said. ‘You’d think we’d lost the war.’

  Messieur Froissart, on the other hand, inhaled his with every evidence of pleasure – or perhaps the hunger of a poorer man.

  Sir William put a pat of butter on his and ate them quietly. ‘In Italy,’ he said.

  Froissart quivered like a hound.

  ‘My faith!’ Sir William said, and laughed. ‘I wasn’t going to speak of fighting, messieur, but of food! In Italy, Sir John – Hawkwood, that is – has introduced an English dish, a true beefsteak, and it is all the rage, although they serve it with their own vegetables and salts. In truth, it seems to me that every country benefits in borrowing some food from their neighbours.’

  Chaucer shrugged. ‘Mayhap, William, but travel turns my ageing guts to water and I don’t need a boil of green weeds to soften me.’

  Froissart, endlessly fascinated by Sir William, ignored the English courier and leaned forward. ‘And Saracen food? You are a famous crusader.’

  Sir William looked up to meet the eye of Aemilie, the serving girl and the landlord’s eldest. He smiled, and his eyebrows made a little motion; she returned the smile, and curtsied.

  ‘My pater says to serve you this,’ she said. ‘And says to add that it was sent down from the castle for your enjoyment.’

  Chaucer looked up. ‘Come, that’s handsome. Stapleton can’t expect to keep you here forever, if he sends you a nice Burgundy.’

  Sir William tasted the wine in the heavy silver cup set before him, and his eyebrows shot up. ‘Bordeaux,’ he said.

  Aemilie poured for Chaucer and then for Froissart, and the three gentlemen drank.

  ‘That’s a fine vintage,’ Chaucer said. ‘But after all, you did save his brother’s life.’

  Again Froissart leaned forward in anticipation.

  Sir William spiked the last bit of his meat pie on his pricker and ate it, drank some wine, raised an eyebrow at Chaucer. Chaucer shook his head. ‘It’s your tale,’ he said. ‘I was only there at the end.’

  Aemilie was pausing in the doorway of the small dining room, waiting to hear whatever was said. Outside, Sir William could see his squire, John, and a number of other men. He swirled the wine in his cup.

  ‘If I’m allowed a full ration of this apple pie,’ he said, ‘perhaps I’ll tell a tale – but out under the rafters, where all can hear. Master Chaucer, do you play piquet?’

  ‘Not with professional soldiers,’ Chaucer said.

  ‘Fie!’ Sir William answered, and again they exchanged that look.

  Froissart leaned past Chaucer. ‘Tell us about your crusade,’ he said.

  Gold smiled his wolfish smile, and stroked his beard. ‘Very well. But I hope you are no fan of Robert of Geneva.’

  Chaucer narrowed his eyes.

  So did Sir William.

  VENICE

  1364

  In the spring of 1364, I had just been knighted on the battlefield by that two-faced bastard, the Imperial Knight Hans Baumgarten, for my feat of arms at the siege of Florence. Except, as you know if you’ve been listening, there was no siege and we never had a chance to take the city. Five thousand men against a city with a hundred thousand citizens?

  And the aftermath of my great deed was bitter; most of the companions, the Englishmen and Germans who had formed the great company that had made war on Florence for Pisa, accepted bribes and changed sides. There were fewer and fewer of us with Hawkwood – even Baumgarten himself, one of the most famous soldiers of our day, took the gold and crossed the river to join the Florentines.

  Sir John Hawkwood didn’t change sides. Some say this is because of his honour. That’s possible – he had a solid view of his own worth, and no mistake – but for my money, he stayed loyal to Pisa because they’d made him their Captain General and that meant promotion. He had never been the sole commander of an army before, and he knew that if he could stick it out and attract men, he’d make a name that would mean employment and real money, not the forty florins a month that most of the men-at-arms earned, if they didn’t take a wound, lose their horses or pawn their armour or get the plague or fall prey to the hundreds of perils that beset soldiers.

  At any rate, I stuck with Sir John. If you’ve been listening, you know he saved me once or twice, and despite being the devil incarnate in many ways, I liked him. And I still do. But by late May, we were down to two hundred lances or perhaps fewer. And that’s when Fra Peter came into our camp – Fra P
eter being a Knight of the Order of St John that most men call the Hospitallers. Fra Peter brought me orders from his superior, the Grand Master; from Father Pierre Thomas, who had saved my soul, and from my lady, who I loved par amours – Emile d’Herblay. I won’t tell you which of those three held the highest rank in my heart, but I will say that the three together pulled far more weight at the plough than Sir John. And since tonight’s story will be about fighting the Saracens, let me begin where the story truly began; in Sir John’s pavilion outside Pisa, in May of 1364.

  Sir John seldom displayed any emotion at all, and if the loss of two-thirds of his lances troubled him, he never showed it. Neither did he drink, or wench. That is, he liked a maid as much as the next man, but he was unwilling to show weakness – any weakness. His clothes were always perfect, and his horse was always groomed, and he did not lie abed, nor did he let us spy a pretty thing between the blankets of his camp bed. If there was one such, I never saw her. Indeed, he kept much the same discipline of the brothers of the Order, with none of their piety or purpose.

  His squire served me wine.

  ‘How much have they offered you?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s Fra Peter,’ I insisted. ‘I’m off for Avignon.’

  He fingered his beard. ‘I can let you have a hundred florins if you stay.’

  Now, this felt odd. First, I knew I was leaving with Fra Peter. If Emile was going on pilgrimage, I was going to be with her. And I had sworn to a living saint to go on crusade when my Order called me.

  And a hundred florins was no longer so very much money. I had a surprising reserve of money in my purse, and a gentleman-squire to carry that money, and an account with the best Genoese bankers that could get me cash anywhere in the Christian world and pretty far among the paynim.

  ‘I’m not going with Andy,’ I said. ‘I’m off to fight the Saracens.’

  He held up an ewer of wine, voicelessly asking if I wanted more wine. I nodded.

  ‘At least you have the honour to come and face me,’ he said. ‘But if you are riding with Walter Leslie, you might as well tell me.’

  I knew of the Scottish knight, Sir Walter Leslie. I knew his two brothers, Kenneth and Norman, as well. We’d all served together in France. Sir Walter had the ear of the Scottish king, and the Pope, and he was across the river. That is, with the Florentines.

  ‘I’m not going with Sir Walter,’ I said.

  ‘He says he’s recruiting for the King of Cyprus,’ Hawkwood said. He drank a little more. ‘But right now, he’s in the pay of Florence. Stealing my men. For the fucking Pope.’ He looked at me. ‘If you go with him, you are, in effect, leaving the service of the King of England for the King of France.’

  I was used to this; Sir John had the habit of using patriotism against us. And I knew – none better, as Master Chaucer will allow – that Hawkwood was always the king’s arm in Italy. ‘I thought we were serving Pisa against Florence,’ I said.

  ‘Florence is aligned with the Pope, who is raising the French king’s ransom,’ Sir John said.

  I smiled, then, because Fra Peter had passed me a titbit of news when he gave me Emile’s letters, and I had assumed Sir John already knew it. But he didn’t.

  ‘King John of France is dead,’ I said.

  Hawkwood froze for a moment. And for the first time in the conversation, his eyes met mine. ‘Says who?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Fra Peter Mortimer,’ I said.

  Sir John pursed his lips, but he didn’t protest. The Hospitallers had superb sources of information – they were the Pope’s mailed fist, and their intelligencers, too.

  ‘And you go to Avignon,’ he said.

  I nodded.

  He took a deep breath. ‘The Spaniard and the Friulian are donats, too. But I can’t let you take my master archer and ten lances. Nor Courtney nor Grice nor de la Motte. I know they are your men, but by God, William Gold, if you take all your companions, I’ll lose the rest by morning.’

  ‘I’ll come back!’ I said.

  He embraced me, one of perhaps three times he did so. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘If you don’t – God be with you.’

  John Hawkwood embraced me and invoked God. My eyes filled with tears, but I clasped his hand and left the tent.

  Say what you like about John Hawkwood: he could have made my leaving him a test of loyalty and allegiance. But he didn’t. Which is why, when the lines were drawn later, I went back to him.

  Fra Peter agreed with Sir John. ‘I’m not hiring your lances,’ he said. ‘You are volunteers for the Order, and you have to pay your own way. The Order will feed you and your horses; we’ll find you lodging, but there is no wage.’

  Crusading is a rich man’s sport, and no mistake.

  I sat down with Sam Bibbo and laid it out for him, and he laughed. ‘You needn’t make a fuss,’ he said. ‘I’m your man, but I wouldn’t go to the Holy Land for all the fish in the sea. Italy is rich, the fighting is easy, and this is all I need.’

  I had hoped that he’d insist. I relied very heavily on Sam Bibbo – he knew how to do everything, and when he didn’t, I still felt better for his support while I made things up. But I understood.

  Bibbo also embraced me. ‘Bring me a piece of the true cross,’ he said.

  We were sitting at a camp table in a sumpter’s tavern one of the wine shops that served the army. I shaved a splinter off the table and gave it to him, and he laughed and slapped my back.

  ‘John Hughes won’t want to go to the Holy Land,’ he said. ‘But he’s had a message from home, and if you are headed north across the passes, he’ll want to ride with you.’

  I went and found John Hughes, a Lakelander from Cumbria or Westmoreland. I got to know that country later, as you’ll hear, if this goes on long enough, but to me they were names, as alien as Thrace or Turkey, far off in the north of England. He was Milady’s archer, and he was a damned good hand. He was also devoted to Janet – Milady – and seldom left her.

  I won’t prose on. He’d had word that his sister had died of plague and that he was needed at home, which was a village called Kentmere near Kendall where the green cloth comes from.

  Milady Janet glared at me with her cat’s eyes. ‘If you leave, Hawkwood will treat me like a woman.’

  I sighed. ‘Janet, ma vieux, I have sworn.’

  ‘Men and their oaths,’ she said. She had her arming coat on, and her squire was trying arm harnesses on her. She was not the only armed woman among the English, but she was the only one who didn’t make a secret of it. ‘You leave, and John Hughes leaves. Mark my words, I’ll end up married to some loutly lordling.’ But she smiled, and she also embraced me.

  That was odd, too, because Janet and I never touched. But there are few things less like lovemaking than rubbing steel breastplates together, and the moment passed. ‘Andy Belmont—’ I began.

  ‘That cowardly shit,’ she hissed. In fact, they had been lovers – at least, I thought they had been lovers. But now Andy had run off to fight for Florence.

  She shook her head. ‘At least you’re taking Fiore,’ she said. ‘His love oppresses me.’

  Indeed, I had to watch him kneel and swear his eternal devotion to her before we rode away.

  There were too many goodbyes. This was, as I learned by leaving it, my home, and I was abandoning fame and fortune to return to lower rank with the Order. On the last night, we all shared wine, and John Courtney gave me letters from a lot of the Englishmen for Avignon, and Kenneth MacDonald, who now looked as Italian as the rest of us in fine hose and a silk jupon, gave me a packet of letters from all the Scots and Irish. Olivier de la Motte had letters for the Gascons and Normans. Avignon is a great clearing house for letters – priests come and go from there to every part of Europe, even Hyperborea.

  At any rate, the next morning, with a hard head and an empty heart, I rode for Avignon.
Listen, it is all very well to have a letter from your long-lost lady love, but it is damned hard to leave your friends.

  We stopped on the old Roman road north of Sienna, well along toward Lombardy, for the evening, at a fine farm that has since been burned eight or ten times, I’ll warrant. We sat at the farmer’s table and ate his chickens and paid handsomely for the privilege.

  After supper, Fra Peter prayed, and when we had joined him and said the office of compline, and when he’d looked at the two boys and the girl of the house and found nothing worse than some scrapes and some lice, then we sat under the grape arbour outside.

  ‘You boys are too polite to ask me what’s happening,’ he said, leaning back against the stone wall of the house.

  Fiore – that’s Fiore dei Liberi, a tall, strong man of twenty with good manners and an ascetic manner and a tendency to forget anything that didn’t involve fighting – Fiore raised both eyebrows. ‘You did say there would be no crusade for five years,’ he allowed. Fiore had the terrible habit of remembering everything you said; accurately. Unforgivable, in a friend.

  Fra Peter laughed, though. ‘Did any of you meet the King of Cyprus last autumn?’ he asked.

  We all shook out heads, and Fra Peter nodded. ‘He came to the Pope and to King John of France too, and King Edward of England, looking for help against the Turks and the Mamluks of Egypt.’ He took a sip of wine and smacked his lips. ‘Italy, land of wine. At any rate, he’s a good soldier and a fine man-at-arms, but the Pope thought him too young and of too little consequence to lead a crusade, so he chose King John of France.’

  I snorted. So did John Hughes. Fra Peter was not much on social distinctions, and John was a senior archer.

  Fra Peter raised an eyebrow at John and John shrugged innocently. ‘Which he did so well, fighting us,’ Hughes said in his Lakeland accent.

  We all laughed. It was true. King John the Brave of France had lost to us, the English, every single time he’d faced us.

  Fra Peter shrugged. ‘The Holy Father has other concerns than ours, messires. At any rate, King John took the cross and then nothing happened. But now he has died. Father Pierre told me to gather my knights because the word in Avignon is that the Holy Father will re-declare the Passagium Generale. He has appointed Talleyrand as papal legate to lead the faithful, and he will offer the command to King Peter of Cyprus.’