The Ill-Made Knight (22 page)

‘Should we dismount?’ I asked.

Sam grinned in the moonlight. He was missing a few teeth, and his smile was no maiden’s joy. ‘I would,’ he said. ‘Why be the first man into a fight?’

Where we were placed, we couldn’t see the road, or the moon, or even the sky. It was so dark that when I let go my reins to turn and piss, I almost lost my horse. When Richard needed to piss, I held his reins.

By these tiny steps does a man go from being a raw recruit to a veteran – such as knowing how to tie your hose and braes so you can piss while wearing armour. I showed a young man last year at Chioggia.

No shame to being new-minted. Often, the new-minted coin has better gold.

The waiting went on and on, and we moved too much and our horses nickered and other men snored – yes, someone went to sleep, but it wasn’t one of mine. At some point, I realized it was lighter than it had been.

I felt as if someone had poured sand behind my eyeballs.

And then I heard an owl hoot twice – the signal – and everything happened very fast.

There was a crashing sound to my left front. I got my sabatonned left foot in the stirrup of my tall, golden horse, and then he moved, damn him, with me bouncing along off the ground.

There’s good things about wearing armour. One is that if your horse bounces you through deep brush, all that happens is that you get pine-needles in your visor. I slammed a tree, ripped through a thicket, then I got my right foot over the saddle. I saw something move ahead of me and reached for my sword, all while trying to tuck my right foot into my stirrup. I got it, and stood in my stirrups – that’s how you ride a war saddle – and got my sword out of my scabbard.

My horse burst out of the trees into a clearing.

There was another man moving ahead of me on a horse as big as mine. His horse was black and his armour glittered in the moonlight. His helmet had an impossibly tall peak. He saw me, and turned his horse and spurred at me.

But of course the clearing wasn’t a clearing. It was a bog.

He went down so suddenly I thought he’d been sucked into the earth. There was a tiny rivulet running down the middle of the boggy meadow – tiny, but three feet under the level of the grass – and his poor horse stepped in it and he was thrown.

He was on his feet in a moment. I was sure he wasn’t one of ours, and I swung down at him and my sword hit his helmet solidly.

Against a good helmet, you can swing all day and not accomplish much. On the other hand, most men don’t like being hit on the head.

Goldie was a fine animal, and he backed on command and half-reared, and I cut again at the Frenchman – at least, I hoped he was a Frenchman. I connected again, this time atop his shoulder.

He stumbled and Goldie kicked him. I heard his hoof strike, a hollow sound against the French knight’s breastplate. He had one of the new ones – just two pieces – and it didn’t cave in.

He was knocked flat.

I backed Goldie.

The injured horse screamed.

I could hear fighting, sword on sword, very close by.

The French knight wasn’t moving, so I slid down from my saddle. I ran to the French knight as he tried to get to his feet, and slammed my pommel into his helmet. Down he went again, and this time I sat on him.

I opened his faceplate.

He glared at me. ‘Bah!’ he said. ‘God is against me. I am taken.’

‘Are you worth anything?’ I asked.

It is hard to shrug while an armoured man sits on you, especially when you are in a swamp. But he wriggled. ‘Not a hundred florins,’ he said. ‘Perhaps fifty? I am du Guesclin. You know the name?’

I didn’t, so I shook my head.

‘Would you do me the service of killing my horse?’ Du Guesclin said. ‘He was a fine horse. Christ only knows how I will replace him.’

Richard appeared while I cut the horse’s throat – somewhat ineptly as I was splashed in blood. My harness was already a squire’s nightmare – bogs and armour are not friends, and my sabatons collected the most remarkable amount of stinking mud.

He laughed, and then he saw the French knight.

‘You lucky bastard!’ Richard said.

‘I’ll split the ransom with you,’ I said sportingly.

Richard slapped me on the back. ‘I’ll do the same.’ He stripped his right gauntlet and held out his hand to the Frenchman. ‘Richard Musard,’ he said.

‘Bertrand du Guesclin,’ said the Frenchman.

Richard looked at me and shook his head. ‘I think we’re supposed to hang him,’ he said. ‘He’s the French brigand Sir Robert is hunting.’

‘Is that Sir Robert Knolles?’ Du Guesclin asked. He laughed. ‘That rapist is calling me a brigand? I live here. This is my country.’

Sam appeared out of the darkness. The sky was almost light, and he looked at the French knight and shrugged.

‘That’s him, right enough.’ He looked at me. ‘What do you plan to do, my lord?’

I don’t think Sam Bibbo had ever called me ‘my lord’ before.

‘If you gentlemen will release me, I’ll pay my ransom wherever you want it sent,’ du Guesclin said.

‘If you don’t inform Sir John . . .’ Sam made a face. ‘He’ll know. Sooner or later.’

I sent Richard to find Sir John. I moved my prisoner across the meadow, hobbled Goldie and ate a sausage. I shared half with du Guesclin, and gave him some wine. He was my King John. He was a real knight, and I waited on him the way I thought he deserved. This was the chivalry for which I yearned.

He handed me back the leather bottle of wine. ‘You are a cut above the routiers,’ he said. ‘Could I try one more time to entice you to let me go? I will pay – and I’m not worth any more. Your Sir John will kill me.’

I shook my head. ‘No he won’t,’ I said confidently.

Half an hour passed, and then a party of horsemen came into my meadow from the north. Richard dismounted to cross the brook, and Sir John and three of his men-at-arms rode around the perimeter.

He dismounted and bowed. ‘Messire du Guesclin. I have long wanted to meet you.’

Du Guesclin smiled bravely. ‘Sir John Hawkwood. I cannot say I feel the same about you, messire.’ Nonetheless, he took Sir John’s hand.

Sir John turned to me. ‘You took him?’

I nodded.

Sir John nodded. ‘William, you have just made your reputation.’ He looked at me – not old man to young, but man to man. ‘What do you intend?’ he asked.

Everyone was quiet. I felt very much out of place. The sand was back behind my eyes. I was aware, in some dark part of my head, that I hadn’t taken this man fairly – it was simply that his horse had stumbled in the dark.

‘He’s offered a hundred florins ransom and I’ve accepted. I intended to let him go. Saving your Grace.’

Sir John laughed. ‘Christ, I have Galahad serving in my convoy. But yes, William. You have my grace.’ He nodded to me. He turned back to du Guesclin. ‘Yesterday, I’d have strung you up from the nearest tree, messire. But . . . things change. May I take you aside and whisper in your ear?’

Du Guesclin tensed – I think he expected to be taken aside and killed – but his sense of his own dignity overcame his desire to live, and he bowed. ‘I put my trust in you, sir,’ he said.

I put a gauntleted hand on Sir John’s steel-clad arm. ‘I’d take it amiss if he was to die here,’ I said.

Sir John gave me a cold glance. ‘Galahad,’ he spat, and beckoned to du Guesclin, who followed Sir John into the woods.

They were gone for far longer than I expected or liked. I was walking across the meadow, my thighs burning with fatigue and my head swimming, when I saw the sun dazzle off Sir John’s steel arms.

Du Guesclin was with him, and not face down in the forest.

When they emerged, du Guesclin nodded to Sir John.

Richard bowed. He ordered John Brampton to dismount and share Christopher’s horse, and gave the boy’s horse to the French knight.

Du Guesclin embraced us both. ‘I thank God I was taken by two such gentle knights,’ he said.

‘Two such great fools,’ Sam muttered.

‘The Inn of the Three Foxes,’ Richard said. ‘At Bordeaux.’

Du Guesclin mounted, got the feel of the little horse and smiled. ‘I’ll pay by the end of the day,’ he promised us.

And he trotted his horse away.

Sir John rode with me on the long road back to his keep. ‘You have become a canny man-at-arms,’ he said. ‘But that might have gone badly for all of us. It might have been better if you’d put your whittle into his eye, eh?’ He looked at me. ‘You heard Sir Robert say we were to kill him.’

‘I didn’t hear you agree,’ I said. ‘And to the best of my knowledge, my lord, we are not at war with France. Indeed, Master Hoo is carrying the word of the truce far and wide, is he not?’

Hawkwood looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. ‘So, there is something inside that head besides empty chivalry. You know that, eh? Do you know what else Master Hoo is saying?’ he asked.

I shook my head.

‘Thank God, then. Listen, my young friend. Things change. Kings change. Their policy changes. Kings are the most inconstant creatures – more so than young maidens.’ He laughed.

‘But you are a routier – you serve your own ends, and not the King’s,’ I said.

Sir John stroked his beard. We rode on a ways, and he played with the length of his stirrup for a while. He spoke to one of his scouts. I assumed we were done when he turned to me.

‘I serve the King as surely as if I wore his livery and served under his banner,’ Sir John said. ‘Routier, my arse.’

It is odd what can sting a man.

That night, I dined with Sir John and his men-at-arms in the great hall of his keep. Master Hoo was there, and young Chaucer waited on the table. I worried he might piss in my wine.

I was pleased to be allowed to dine with the knights. Richard and I sat quietly. Nothing was said of the capture of du Guesclin. Nor of peace.

In fact, they were all planning to march on Paris. It sounds absurd, but a few hundred Englishmen were planning to take Paris. Hawkwood was in on the enterprise, and so was Sir Robert Knolles and Sir James Pipe – all the King’s officers in Normandy, in fact.

I found myself sitting by Master Hoo late in the evening. I leaned over, emboldened by wine. ‘How can they attack Paris?’ I asked. ‘We’ve made peace with France?’

Master Hoo looked at me over his nose and grunted.

He was almost too drunk to talk.

I admit I was shocked.

Chaucer leaned over, sloshed wine into his master’s cup and sneered at me. ‘Paris isn’t currently held by the King of France or his son, either,’ he said. ‘Paris has declared itself . . .’ he seemed at a loss for words.

‘
Communes
,’ Master Hoo enunciated clearly. ‘Paris and Amiens and the northern cities.’ He nodded gravely. It would have been more impressive if his cap hadn’t slipped further down his head at every nod.

‘So Sir John and the other bandits plan to plunder the Isle de France while no one can protect it,’ Chaucer said. ‘King John will return to find he is king of a graveyard full of corpses.’

‘Which will suit our master perfectly,’ Master Hoo allowed.

Lads, until that moment, I had imagined there were two kingdoms, France and England. I had thought that in France, a bad king ruled a hard nobility who abused hordes of ignorant peasants, while in England, a good king and a fine parliament ruled benignly over good men and true. Laugh all you like. I thought that our king went to make war in France by right, and to protect England from the deprivations of France. And did so openly and honestly, making war justly.

Following Sir John and listening to Master Hoo was undermining these assumptions as surely as a good engineer undermines the walls of a town.

So I turned to Sir John – full of indignation as only a young man can be – and I couldn’t contain myself.

‘You are destroying France?’ I asked. ‘For the King?’

He laughed. ‘Destroy? France is ten times the size of England.’ He shrugged. ‘But France will never threaten England again, that I can guarantee you.’ He grabbed my shoulder suddenly. He was a little drunk and very strong. ‘Come!’ he said, and he started to climb the tower’s stairs, which coiled like a worm up one flank of the keep. Up and up we climbed, the stairs turning so tightly that a misstep could send an unwary man crashing to the bottom.

My calves were burning by the time we emerged on the castle’s roof. There were four men on duty – Sir John was very a careful captain. He led me to the edge of the roof and pointed east, towards Paris.

As far as the eye could see, there was fire.

All the way up the Seine valley, towns and hamlets burned.

‘Do you not think the silken girdle that binds all of France is parted this night?’ he said and laughed. ‘Listen, virgin. Every man of blood in England is here this autumn. We’ll take ten thousand ransoms, we’ll burn their fields, we’ll throw down their churches, we’ll unbind peasant from lord. There’s no one to stop us. By the time King John returns from his tournaments and festivals in England, he’ll have a merry time finding his own ransom.’

It was . . . horrifying, and yet so bold. So much fire. Like the twinkling of all the stars in the heavens.

‘But surely the King is against this—’

‘Judas,’ Hawkwood smiled. ‘William, the King,
ordered
this.’

At last I understood, or thought I did. ‘Ah!’ I said. ‘And Master Hoo has come to order it to end.’

Hawkwood shook his head. ‘I’m drunk, or I wouldn’t say so much,’ he said. He looked at me from under his brows. ‘But I want you to understand, lad. Master Hoo has come to order us to work faster. And to turn over the towns we take to
his
officers, and not those of the King of Navarre, as per the treaty.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s why I sent the letter to you.’ He sat with his back against the wall. ‘That, and it seemed a pity that you waste your youth in Bordeaux when there’s a fortune to be made here.’

‘The Prince is paying me double wage for guarding Master Hoo,’ I said.

‘How’s the Three Foxes?’ he asked.

I smiled. ‘It does very well.’

Sir John nodded out over the ruins of France. ‘Imagine, then, that there was another inn that rivalled yours – indeed, that it was ten times the size and the girls were more beautiful, more skilled at love, the inn was better, the rooms cleaner. And imagine how many men they could employ to harass your inn. Imagine that you came to blows; imagine that by good fortune, you won a fight with the other inn. Would you walk away, letting bygones be bygones?’