The Ill-Made Knight (23 page)

I frowned. ‘As soon as they rally, they’ll come and burn me out,’ I said.

Sir John nodded. ‘And so, once you have them backing away, you
stay at it.
Until the other inn is burned to the ground and yours is the only one standing. Eh?’

Two days later, I declined Hawkwood’s offer of employment. I was a retinued man-at-arms, and I couldn’t be forsworn.

He embraced me. ‘When you want to be rich, come and fight with me,’ he said.

And we rode away.

Sam set us on the road for Rennes, and we rode about three hours, then Master Hoo came alongside me.

‘Now that we are free of Sir John’s spies,’ he said, ‘I’d like you to turn our party toward Paris.’

‘Paris?’ I said, dumbfounded.

‘Paris,’ said the notary.

We made good time up the Seine. Sam was alert all the time, and he put us on our guard. We ran across an English band on the second day, but they passed us as soon as we hailed them in English.

The fourth day, and we were riding hard. We were just west of Maule, and suddenly Sam pointed, and we saw smoke and movement across the valley, and the sparkle of the autumn sun on armour.

We made what preparations we could. We had letters of passage from both sides, but the routiers were seldom interested in letters, so we put arrows to bows, loosened our swords in their scabbards and donned our helmets.

Sam tried to take us around whatever was happening in the valley, but there were no road signs and no directions, so we rode along the edge of the valley for almost a mile, only to run into a web of hedges and stiles. Sam dismounted and crossed a hedge, and came back.

‘No way through,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should wait for darkness?’

In four weeks of travelling, it was the hardest decision I’d had to make yet. I looked at Richard.

Richard nodded. ‘Darkness might be good,’ he opined.

Master Hoo shook his head. ‘Time is of the essence,’ he said. ‘I’ve been too long on the road already.’

He turned his horse’s head and began to ride back the way we’d come, forcing our hands.

An hour later we were spotted by a pair of brigands, and we saw them run around a barn and up a slope, calling as they went.

‘That tears it,’ said Sam.

We began to trot. I led the way, and we dashed along the valley floor, the Seine sparkling on our left hand. The road cut in, away from the river, and we cantered along it.

There was a village on fire to the south, and another just to the west on a stream, and a religious house at the bottom of the stream’s valley. I could see that the road crossed the stream at a ford below the religious house.

And I saw armed men mounting horses in the religious house’s yard.

Even as I watched, armed men emerged from the abbey’s gate, riding to cut us off from the ford.

‘Ride for it!’ Sam called.

We went to the gallop. I didn’t like the way Master Chaucer rode – he seemed to bounce like a sack of turnips – so I turned to shout to him, and there was the Bourc Camus, fifty feet behind Chaucer and riding a jet-black horse like a fiend of hell. He yelled and Chaucer turned to look, but the horse interpreted his change of weight as indecision and threw him.

Just for a moment, I thought of leaving him.

But I was on retainer to the Prince to protect him, so I pulled up, turned Goldie’s head, and readied my lance.

I had no idea if the Bourc Camus was a fine jouster, but I knew damned well that I was not. I was a better rider than I had been the last time I’d had to fight on horseback, but the tiltyard hadn’t been a big part of my training.

I decided to kill his horse. It’s not done, in jousting, but this seemed different.

Camus flipped his visor down and brought his lance into line about ten strides out.

My lance wasn’t a heavy one, but I misjudged my strike. My lance came down, and instead of hitting his horse, my lance struck his lance – perhaps he raised it to guard himself – and both spear points went down into the earth. We both had to let go our spears or we’d have unhorsed ourselves.

Master Chaucer flung himself out from under our hooves.

Goldie spun under me, and Camus was struggling to draw his sword. I got mine out first and I cut at his arm.

‘
Merde!
’ he shouted.

I cocked my arm and cut again.

It’s very hard to hurt a fully armoured man with a sword, even a heavy longsword.

There’s a way to do it. I just didn’t know how yet.

Camus got his blade free and cut at me.

I ducked and cut, blind, even as more of his men-at-arms came down the road. He hit me in the head and his blow twisted the basinet on my head, making everything harder. I cut again, desperation and panic fuelling my blows, as his second blow hit my helmet.

My blow caught something soft and cut through it.

There was a pause in the rain of blows, and I managed to get my visor up and my hand on the beak of my helmet, then with one tug I reseated the helmet on my head.

Richard, bless him, had blown through Camus’s retainers at full gallop, unhorsing one with his lance – he was clearly a better jouster than I – and riding clear.

Camus was fifty paces away, trying to control his war horse with only his legs. I’d cut his reins and his hands.

Richard waved at me.

I got Goldie under me, backed him a few steps, and found Chaucer cowering by the stone wall to my left. I extended my left hand, and he took it like a drowning man – I hauled him up behind me.

Richard crashed into the men-at-arms again, but they didn’t have much armour and weren’t eager for a second encounter. Even as he closed, a single arrow from across the ford buzzed by like a huge wasp and buried itself in one horse’s withers, and that was the end of the fight. Richard came out of the dust, sword high – I turned and followed him, and we trotted across the ford in a fine spray of water.

Sam and John Hughes had their bows in their hands on the far side. Master Hoo was farther up the bank with Christopher and Peter. Rob had caught Chaucer’s horse and was ludicrously proud of himself.

Camus got control of his horse and rode down to the ford as we got Chaucer mounted.

‘Shoot him?’ John asked me.

‘Only if he tries to cross,’ Richard said.

Camus had his visor up. Visored basinets weren’t all that common back then, but all the Gascons had them. I think they spread them.

‘Ah,’ he yelled at me. ‘The Butt Boy.’

‘You ride beautifully,’ I called. ‘Is it a Gascon style?’

‘I’ll have your head on a spear, Butt Boy!’ he yelled.

‘If your horse comes another step, my archer will drop you in the water,’ I said. ‘I have a warrant and a safe passage from the Prince of Wales, and you are in defiance of him.’

‘Fuck your Prince,’ he said, and forced his horse into the water. ‘We are the masters here now.’

Sam loosed.

The arrow went into the horse’s head just below where the mane emerged between the ears, and the horse dropped in the river as if poleaxed. An expensive horse, too.

Men piled into the shallow ford to pull the Bourc clear of the water.

‘Let’s ride,’ I said. I slapped Sam Bibbo on the shoulder and he grinned.

‘I’ll pay you double for that,’ I said.

‘Putting that evil bastard in the water was my treat,’ Bibbo said.

An hour later, we found four nuns and a priest at a crossroads.

Richard rode up to the priest. ‘Can we be of service!’ he asked.

One of the nuns began to scream.

She screamed and screamed.

Another nun began to beat at Richard with her fists. Considering she was about five feet high and he was a fully armoured knight on a war horse, you can see why this sticks in my memory. She meant him harm. She didn’t care what harm she took in return.

Richard backed his horse away. ‘Sweet Jesu,’ he said. ‘Leave off,
ma soeur
. I’ve done you no harm.’

‘All of you,’ she shrieked. ‘All of you! I’ll kill you all, you hell-spawn!’

The priest just shook his head. ‘Ride on,’ he said. ‘And do us no harm, I beg.’

The nun stood in the road behind us. ‘May Satan rape you! May demons rip out your eyes! May he grind your flesh with a mill – rip you with red-hot pincers! May you take the plague!’ she shrieked. ‘Boil in oil! May worms eat your eyes, you shit-eating English!’

We rode a little faster, as if her curses carried weight.

Chaucer watched me. I felt his eyes on me, and I looked away from the nuns and at him. ‘What?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Hawkwood’s men, or Knolles’, or Camus’ or one of the other captain’s men raped them all. Good fun. Very chivalrous, no doubt.’ He nodded. ‘Perhaps they had it coming.’

‘Camus’ men are Gascons, not Englishmen,’ I said.

Chaucer nodded. ‘That makes it different, I’m sure,’ he said.

She was still screaming. She was too far away for her words to carry, but the shrill tone was like a witch, I thought.

I leaned towards him and he flinched.

‘Richard and I saved your life,’ I said.

Chaucer shrugged. ‘My ransom, I expect.’ He smiled his annoying, superior smile. ‘Camus wouldn’t kill me. He’d just sell me to the Prince.’

I got control of myself and rode away. Richard rode with me.

‘Let me hit him, next time,’ he said. He grinned. ‘By God, William, that was a good fight.’

It was our first one together, as brothers-in-arms, so to speak.

The next day, we made contact with Sir James Pipe’s men, and Master Hoo gave them some sort of password, and we were taken to the Lieutenant of Normandy. Bah – perhaps he was made Lieutenant of Normandy later. I can’t remember.

Sir James held the convent of Poissy. From the walls, we could see Paris on the horizon.

He had fewer than 500 men, and he was waiting for Knolles and Hawkwood. He met with Master Hoo for half an hour, and Hoo emerged looking grey. I’d just seen to the horses – by then I was resigned to being a sort of military servant, and I’d admitted to myself that Hoo was the one in charge of the expedition. Richard and I got the convent’s servants to curry our horses. Given what we’d seen on the road, the convent made me . . . anxious.

There wasn’t a nun to be seen, and all I could think of was the Bourc Camus’ assertion that nuns made good whores.

By the blessed virgin, this courier duty was giving me heartache.

At any rate, the horses were fed and clean for the first time in six days, and most of the men were already asleep. Chaucer was lying across a saddle, out cold.

We were tired.

‘We need to ride. Immediately,’ Hoo said.

I just looked at him. But he was not given to dramatics, and he hardly ever spoke.

‘It is . . .’ he shrugged. ‘I can’t say. But we must go. Now.’

As I say, I’d realized he was the true commander of our enterprise, so I hauled our tired horses out of the stables, kicked the men awake – I didn’t kick John Hughes or Sam Bibbo, by the by. That would have been foolish.

Richard shook his head. ‘What the fuck?’ he asked.

Chaucer got to his feet. ‘You curried my horse!’ he said to Richard.

Richard shrugged. ‘William curried your horse, you ingrate.’

Chaucer looked at me as if waiting for the trick. He probably was.

Richard raised an eyebrow. ‘Why don’t you repay him by finding out why the hell your master needs us to ride right now?’

Chaucer nodded. ‘I’ll try,’ he said.

Of course, while he tried, I had to saddle his mare. I looked at Goldie and shook my head. I’d been on him for two solid days and he needed rest, so I saddled my riding horse.

We were out the gate with three hours of late autumn light left.

‘Paris?’ I asked Master Hoo.

He nodded.

‘Messire, may I ask how dangerous this is?’ We were moving briskly.

Hoo shrugged. ‘In truth, lad, I have no idea. Everything just went to hell.’ He looked at me. ‘You and your friend have done a fine job of keeping us alive so far. You are luck’s own child. Let’s pray you haven’t burned it all.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘I have good credit with the Prince. I swear to you that if you get me to Paris, I’ll see you well.’

‘Can I ask what all this is about?’ I tried.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ I muttered, or something equally blasphemous.

We reached St Cloud by the simple expedient of riding all night and not giving way to the temptation to hide. There was fire all around us, but very few people, and the roads were clear. I have seen this many times – if you move fast on a good road it’s very hard for an enemy to ambush you, and in many cases, no one will lay an ambush on a highway.

Luck? Good strategy? Whichever way you take it, we entered St Cloud as the sun rose, in heavy winter rain. There were guards on the gate, in hoods of crimson and royal blue – the colours of Paris. Their weapons were ill-kept and they had the indefinable air of incompetence that marks the militiaman.

Master Hoo spat. ‘Fuck me,’ he said bitterly. He glanced at me. ‘Be very, very calm, messire. This is not—’

He had no more time to speak, because we were surrounded by the militia at the gate.

They read Master Hoo’s
sauvegarde
over and over, until I became convinced that none of them could read. My hands were numb, the gloves of my steel gauntlets were soaked through and bitter cold, and rain was running down the middle of my back between my shoulder blades, having soaked through my best three-quarter cloak about two in the morning.

The ‘captain’ of the gate was younger than I was and very full of his own importance.

Master Hoo looked bored.

I began to grow angry. I was cold and wet, and I at least wanted into the warmth of the guard room, but none of the Paris militiamen seemed inclined to offer us so much as a cup of small beer.

‘May we come in and get warm?’ I asked.

The man nearest me snarled. He had a partisan – a spear with heavy side lugs. He raised it and made to place it against my throat.

I caught it in my left hand. I was still mounted, and without thinking I gave my riding horse the command to back, and he backed, dragging the Frenchman off his feet. He let go his weapon.