The Ill-Made Knight (24 page)

Quite a few crossbows were suddenly levelled at me.

‘Your English friends are burning their way across France,’ the captain said. ‘We hesitate a little to let you into our city? Eh?’ he asked.

‘Your man tried to poke me with a spear,’ I said. I extended the spear to the captain. ‘Then he seems to have dropped it.’

‘Fucking aristo,’ spat the man whose weapon I’d taken. ‘Let’s just kill them all.’

‘Why are you here?’ the captain suddenly asked John Hughes.

The Cumbrian looked blankly at him.

Now, I happen to know that John had been in France ten years, and spoke good, if Gascon, French. But he glared sullenly at the French captain, and the captain went from man to man. ‘Why are you here?’ he finally asked me.

I shrugged. ‘To escort that man,’ I said. I waved at Hoo. Let him fight his own battles.

‘Your
sauvegarde
is signed by the King of France,’ the captain said. ‘The King is a prisoner in England and no longer the head of our state. Your safe conduct is worthless.’

‘Let’s kill them all,’ said my friend, who had his spear back.

‘Shut up, Guillaume,’ said the captain. I saw this as a positive sign.

Master Hoo shrugged. ‘I have . . .’ he paused. Getting words out of Master Hoo was like pulling the teeth of a healthy man, and I think he was guessing what he should say. ‘I have certain information – for the consideration of the government.’

‘What information?’ asked the captain. ‘What part of the government? Don’t ask me to believe that King Edward of England will treat with the Provost of Paris.’

‘Is the Provost of Paris now the head of government?’ Master Hoo asked.

I looked at Chaucer.

There were about twenty Paris militiamen on the gate. The more I looked at them, the more I thought we could take them. But we’d need to have a little surprise.

So I stopped looking to Chaucer for information and started catching Richard’s eye.

‘Perhaps,’ said the captain.

Master Hoo reached into his pouch. ‘I have a letter for Master Etienne Marcel,’ he said.

The captain reached for it.

Hoo held it out of his reach – we were all still mounted, remember.

‘For Master Marcel himself,’ he said.

The captain rolled his eyes. ‘Very well – why didn’t you say? I’ll send an escort – the Bois de Boulogne is full of Navarrese renegades and Englishmen. And fucking Gascons.’ He smiled grimly.

An hour later, we were escorted over the Seine on the St Cloud bridge.

The Paris militiamen weren’t very good, and they didn’t ride particularly well, but they were enthusiastic, and from them, in an hour, we learned that the Dauphin was a virtual prisoner who signed whatever the Provost and the Bishop of Laon, Robert Le Coq, told him to sign.

I saw Master Hoo take note, and I was ready when he caught my eye.

‘Eh, messire!’ I called. ‘Your girth is slipping.’

All the Parisians were happy for a break, for all that we were deep in the woods of the Bois de Boulogne and supposedly surrounded by broken men. In fact, it was pouring sheets of cold rain from a lead-roof sky and I assumed we were safe – no self-respecting Gascon criminal would go abroad on such a day.

Men dismounted, and I went to Master’s Hoo’s horse and played with his saddle.

‘Can you take our escort?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Do it,’ he said.

I went straight to Richard. ‘Hoo says we have to kill the escort. Right now.’

Richard looked around.

Someone in the escort understood English. Or, just possibly, they’d been told to kill us in the woods.

Their leader was a journeyman butcher, a big brute with a huge falchion – a sword like a meat axe.

He shouted, ‘Paris! St Denis!’ and killed Master Hoo with one contemptuous swing of his enormous weapon.

Hoo never even called out. He slumped and fell, blood from his almost-severed neck pumping onto the muddy woods road.

Richard had his sword in his hand immediately and cut down the Parisian nearest him.

I was a horse length from the butcher, who was obviously the most dangerous man in the party. I drew and touched Goldie’s sides to send my sword into his back.

But, of course, I wasn’t on my war horse.

I was on my riding horse, who shied.

The big bastard was on me in one turn of his horse.

I didn’t, honestly, think I could parry that meat-cleaver with my longsword, but a few moments later I was still alive, and his sword had passed harmlessly down the length of mine, like water running off a roof. He was open. I cut at him.

He had a kettle hat on, and my blow caught the brim and slammed it down into his mouth. He couldn’t see and it must have hurt.

He swung wildly and killed my horse.

Par dieu
! I was in armour, or I wouldn’t be here to tell this, because another of the militiamen put his spear into the middle of my back, but my backplates and mail held. My poor palfrey fell forward onto its front feet and slumped to the ground, and I managed to get my feet under me.

I thought the butcher was huge before, now he was eight feet above me, and his weapon crashed down. I got a piece of it on my sword, but the rest blew through my guard and, thanks to God, slipped down my pointed helmet, slamming into the top of my shoulder. It bit through my pauldron, stopped on my mail, and left me a bruise that lasted weeks, but I wasn’t dead. That’s what armour’s for.

I backed off the road into the trees, dragging my two opponents after me. I had no idea what was happening – rain on a helmet drowns most of the clues your ears give as to where anyone is – and there were horses and men moving everywhere.

In London, when we practised two and three on one, I had learned that the best way is to take the easy boy first, and then take your time with the tougher boy. The bastard with the spear was terrified – doing his duty, but scared spitless, and he was just prodding at me.

He prodded with the spear while the butcher was getting control of his horse, and I got the shaft in my left hand and cut along it with the sword, so that thumbs and fingers sprayed. He was out of the fight.

I had taken too long, though – I could feel the butcher coming at me in the rain, and I let myself fall to the ground in a clanking pile, as his blade parted the air over my head. I took too long getting up, and he had his horse turned.

He came at me, his horse giving a little half-rear. But it wasn’t a war horse, and when I shouted, it shied – he cut too early, and I let the blow go and slammed my sword into him.

He rode by and turned his horse.

Armour. It goes both ways. He was in chain from his knee to the crown of his head, with leather pieces buckled over and a heavy coat of plates.

There’s something terrible about giving your best blow and having it fail. I had hit him hard – twice.

He came at me again.

I spiked his horse in the muzzle with my point and stepped out of the way.

His horse screamed and reared.

Lightning crashed, and a levin bolt blew across the sky so brightly that, for a moment, I couldn’t see anything.

I stumbled back and crashed into a tree just as a second tree came down, apparently struck by the lightning.

I looked left and right. Despite the cold rain and winter wind, I was sweating like a horse and choking for breath – and I’d lost my opponent. I flung my visor up and turned through a circle.

The rain was crashing down now, and I couldn’t see the next tree. There was thunder all around me, and I couldn’t tell, through my helmet, what was fighting and what was nature.

I bent forward and breathed, water running down my nose and over my face.

Something gave him away. I raised my sword before I even raised my head and his blow fell on my outstretched blade, near my hands, and skittered along the blade – sparks flew as his edge bit at mine.

As soon as his blade was clear of my body, I used the force of his blow to turn my sword, as I had on horseback, but since he kept throwing the same overhand blow, I was getting practice at turning it back against him, and my counter strike – this time I ignored his head and armoured torso. I cut into his arms just above his heavy leather gauntlets, below the cuffs of his chain shirt. He had some protection, but whatever it was, it didn’t stop me from breaking both of his arms. He screamed and stumbled back, and I reversed my weapon, holding it as I had at Poitiers, like a two-handed pick, and I drove it into his face.

Three or four times.

Later in life, I learned to be a competent swordsman, praise God. But in the Bois de Boulogne, in the pouring rain, I learned that the point, not the edge, is what rules in a fight between armoured men.

When I was sure he was dead, I stumbled out onto the road.

All of our men were gathered around Master Hoo.

He was still dead.

Chaucer was shaking his head.

The rain poured down.

‘What a fucking waste,’ Chaucer said. His voice broke. Perhaps he wept – who could tell?

Richard looked as tired as I felt. ‘You put that big fuck down?’ he asked.

I smiled. ‘No thanks to you.’

‘I was a little busy,’ he said.

I was proud. Du Guesclin had fallen over a brook, and it took ten of us to bring down de Charny, but the Paris Butcher, while no knight, was all mine. I’m a different man now than I was then, but that was a fair fight, and more than fair.

He banged his helmet against mine. ‘Well struck!’ he said. ‘I got two,’ he added.

Chaucer turned to me. ‘While you two crow over your murders,’ he said, ‘my master is dead.’

Sam was holding his cloak over his head. Like most veterans, now that the fighting was over, he was just trying to stay dry. He never mentioned how many men he’d put down, if any, but he looked at Hoo and shook his head. He pointed north and east. ‘St Denis is that way,’ he said. ‘If we leave the road, we might get clear.’

Chaucer slapped my breastplate to get my attention. ‘Are you abandoning the enterprise, messire?’ he asked.

‘What enterprise?’ I asked. ‘Only Master Hoo knew what the hell we were doing here. If he knew himself.’

The rain poured down.

Chaucer reached down and took the heavy leather scrip that Hoo always wore under his short cloak. He made heavy work of getting the scrip off Hoo’s corpse.

‘We should bury him,’ I said.

Richard nodded.

Christopher shook his head. ‘Jesus
fuck!
Are you two children mad? Wood? We’re in the heart of France! Every man is agin’ us! Can we just get the fuck out of here?’

Chaucer took Hoo’s cloak.

‘Take his boots,’ Sam commented. ‘Those are good boots.’

Chaucer hesitated.

Sam looked at me, but I was too tired and too rattled by the fight to understand his look.

John Hughes coughed. ‘Take his boots or I’ll take ’em myself, yunker.’

‘Monastery,’ I said.

Richard understood immediately. ‘We can do that,’ he said. ‘Put him over his horse.’

Chaucer looked at us as if we had multiple heads. ‘We may have the fate of two kingdoms in our hands,’ he said. ‘He’s carrying a copy of the draft treaty for the Dauphin. Master Hoo told me it’s essential to King Edward that the Dauphin ratify the treaty.’

The rain poured down.

‘Why? For the love of God? By the virgin, Chaucer . . .’ I shook my head. ‘Is this one of your stories? Why is the Dauphin’s treaty so important?’

‘Because the treaty gives us half of France,’ Chaucer said.

‘Christ,’ Richard said. ‘By the Virgin.’

‘Which half?’ asked Sam.

No one laughed.

‘So why the rush?’ I asked.

Chaucer looked at me a long time.

The rain fell.

I was being judged by a sixteen-year-old inkpot, the son of a rich wine merchant.

‘You don’t have the need to know,’ Chaucer said quietly.

Sam sighed. It was audible over the rain. ‘Because Sir James Pipe told Master Hoo that Charles of Navarre escaped from prison four days ago,’ he said. ‘He’s headed for Paris, and if he gets to the Dauphin first, the treaty is cooked. Right, Master Chaucer?’

Chaucer glowered at him. If anger were fire, Chaucer might have kept us all warm.

‘Yes,’ he spat.

I looked at Richard. ‘Why couldn’t I know that?’ I asked.

Richard shrugged.

‘Can we get the fuck out of here?’ asked Christopher.

‘How can we get to the Dauphin?’ I asked Chaucer.

Sam spat. ‘You boys are mad,’ he said. ‘Wood. Solid wood. I don’t know how Master Hoo planned to penetrate Paris, but he was good at this part. The crowd there would rip us apart.’

Boys was the right word. Chaucer was sixteen, and Richard and I were a year older.

Sometimes, mad boys do things.

‘Where’s the Dauphin?’ I asked Sam. ‘Do you know?’

Sam nodded. The dead men said he was in the Louvre.’

‘Where’s that?’ I asked.

Sam blew out his cheeks in exasperation.

‘We’ll see it as soon as we ride out of the woods,’ Chaucer said. He looked at me. He was no coward. I admit that. That is to say, he was scared of a great many things, like any man, but he could control his fear and act . . . like a brave man.

‘Does it have its own gate?’ I asked.

Sam sighed. ‘Yes. Listen, gentles. Recall what Sir John Chandos said – to listen to me? This adventure is at an end. You are brave. We fought well. We cannot fight our way into Paris.’

‘I can ride up to the porter of the Louvre and we’ll be with the Dauphin before vespers,’ Chaucer shouted.

Richard looked at Bibbo. ‘We have to try, Sam,’ he said.

‘Well,’ Sam said. He looked at Hoo’s body. ‘There is a small monastery house just past the wood on the right. I lodged there in forty-eight.’ He looked at me. ‘We can take Master Hoo that far. Leave coin for a Mass or two. I’d . . . like to see him fair.’

I nodded.

Sam looked at Chaucer. ‘And then we’ll see,’ he said.

‘We can do this,’ Chaucer said. He might have seemed brave, but he really sounded desperate.

Sam shook his head. ‘I’ll come along,’ he said. ‘If only to see what the hell you do when you die.’