The Ill-Made Knight (34 page)

‘Monsieur,’ she said, and put a cup on the table with a click.

‘Madame,’ I said with a slight emphasis. But I smiled at her. I confess to you, gentlemen, as I have confessed to a hundred priests, that the sight of a woman like that is usually far more to me on the edge of death than all the promises of all the Popes in history.

Her eyes dropped. At the door, she flicked her eyes up at me. I was there, as she hoped. She paused in the door while a man might count three. She smiled and licked her fingers. And was gone.

Lying on the table under the cup was a triangle of pinky-red linen.

I picked it up and put it in my doublet next to my heart. Please note that I did
not
wear it outside my armour. There’s fools and fools.

I did wear the Dauphine’s favour from the day before, however. I had Perkin attach it to the peak of my basinet.

Tom had to help me down the stairs. My knee had stiffened and I couldn’t make it do its duty, so it was tiring quickly. Tom got me out to the courtyard, where Perkin had Goldie and a pair of stools. They got me up on the tallest stool, and then, with some pushing, they got my bad knee over the saddle, so I was on.

I was the first knight mounted, but the Captal came out, approached, took my hand and then looked carefully at my knee.

‘You really might be a Gascon. How are you?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ I said.

He laughed, and Tom started to arm him at the stable door. By now the captain of the castle and all the older men were arming, and a number of the younger knights. When the Captal was mounted, Tom went to help the Count of Foix, who had two squires of his own and a dozen knights in his train. His equipment was the most magnificent I’d yet seen, and he appeared to be going to a tournament, not a mortal fight. He had a panache in his helmet of peacock and ostrich; he wore a silk coat over his magnificent brigantine which was studded with golden nails.

You get the picture.

When he was armed and mounted, he rode over to me and raised his visor. ‘I understand Madame the Princess gave you that yesterday,’ he said conversationally.

I bowed in my saddle. ‘My lord is correct.’

He nodded. ‘Do you really think you are the best man among all these worthy and noble gentlemen?’

His intention was to be rude. He was tense and what the French call ‘disobliging’.

I bowed again. ‘My lord, after Madame the Princess was kind enough to grant it to me, I thought it would be rude not to wear it.’

‘It looks like a brag, to me. But you are young, and English, and probably don’t understand such things.’ He shrugged – no easy feat in armour – and turned his horse away.

I was too young to answer the bastard as he deserved. I just sat there, my knee hurting, thinking about what I’d do to him if I ever had the chance.

Fast, dashing talk is hard. You have to practice. You have to read – the romances are full of
bon mots
to shoot at your opponents. I vowed to read more. I sat on Goldie, stared at his back and stewed.

It was as hot as the hell I was destined to visit with my soul steeped in the mortal sin of adultery. Sweat soaked my cap and my helmet liner, and trickled down my back under my arming coat and shirt. Knights came one and two at a time into the yard and armed, and the appearance of each was a little event – ladies cheered; men shook hands.

It was my first chance to see the French – from inside, so to speak. They were, and are, great knights, but there is an element of performance to everything. Each knight had to be seen and admired; had to arm publicly and hear the plaudits of the ladies. Meanwhile I sat and sweated as my knee burned like sin.

Until Emile entered the courtyard. I was watching the French knights, trying to imagine which one was her husband. There was a murmur – I turned my head and there she was, dressed in her gown, with my blood on it. She paused by one French knight’s horse and curtsied, back straight, eyes down. Then she danced among the horses, crossed the yard – the English and Gascons were all together, and the French were all together, and a few feet separated us like a wall – and paused under Goldie’s nose. She curtsied.

What could I do? Spurn her? I grinned. ‘Madame,’ I said.

‘I . . . we . . . put all our faith in you,’ she said distinctly.

There was a murmur of outrage from the French.

I drew my sword and saluted her. ‘I will try to be . . .’ I began, and then I thought of a line from the Alexander Romance. My mother used to read it to me when I was little – the monks had a copy which I’d used to learn French. I waved my sword. ‘Only death, madame, will prevent my return. Victorious.’

She flushed and smiled. A French lady at the edge of the yard clapped her hands together.

The Captal grunted. ‘Excellent, my big English mastiff. When we’ve killed all the Jacques, we can fight the French.’ But he grinned wolfishly at me. ‘Never mind them, stay close to me, or the Sire de Bourbon will have you off your horse in the mêlée.’ He shot a glace at one of the French knights. ‘Her husband’s brother. Eh?’

We were
not
a band of brothers. Somewhat shamefacedly, I put my sword away, and emotion made me shove it home in the scabbard a little too hard.

The captain of the castle arranged us in ranks, and we shuffled about the yard, forming a dense column. The enemy was already formed on the far bank, their flanks anchored on stone buildings either side of the bridge entrance, and they had crossbowmen in the houses.

De Grailly had half a dozen professional archers, and Sam was with them in the bridge-gate tower. That was all the support we were going to have.

Let me add that the Jacques were fools to come out and fight at all. Much less to pack in like lemmings at the entrance to the main bridge.

The main gate opened.

I was in the third rank, behind the Captal’s shoulder, with Tom – the last man mounted – at my right hand. The Count of Foix was in the front rank, with the captain of the castle and the Duke de Bourbon. They were there from
social
precedence, although, to be fair, they also had the very best and latest armour.

The Captal was far and away the most famous knight – and the best, I think. As a mere Gascon, however, he was in the second rank.

The French. Well might you all shake your heads.

We walked out the gate. As soon as we were on the bridge, the head of the column began to move faster – it was a tricky manoeuvre, getting the column to a charge on the bridge without crashing into the enemy in dribs and drabs.

Just as I passed into the brilliant sunshine beyond the bridge gate, the first flight of English arrows hit the Jacques and men fell.

The Duke de Bourbon put his spurs to his horse. The captain’s horse shied, and the Captal pressed past him – I stayed with him, and we galloped down the narrow path, barely three horses wide. I was struggling to get my lance into its rest when I felt a change, and my left rein hung slack. One of the French knights had cut it as I rode past.

By St Thomas, gentleman, try riding with a lance and no control of your horse on a bridge just five ells wide! I was saved by the closeness of the press – Goldie had nowhere to go but forward, and I grabbed the curving cantle of my war saddle with my left hand, jamming my shield against my left thigh and losing the reassuring cover of its shadow against the crossbows. I put my head down, and rose slightly in my stirrups as Bertrand du Guesclin had taught me.

Some poor bastard in the front rank took my lance in the chest and died instantly. My lance tore a great hole in him, then snapped, and I bounced back against the rear of my saddle and snapped forward again as the lance broke. Goldie, maddened by the blood, the gallop and the waiting, crashed into the press, kicking and biting, and I had no control over the damned horse, who was going like a demon from hell. I reached for my sword as Goldie did a curvet that almost unseated me, but I got my right hand on my hilt and pulled – the sword stuck fast.

Good Christ, that was a terrible moment. A crossbow bolt struck my visor and tore it off its hinge, so it hung from the right, bouncing against my head and face. What was worse, the forcible removal of my visor showed me that Goldie had carried me past the Jacques and I was all by myself, with men all around me, reaching for my harness – a bill slammed into my right foot, and the sabaton held, but the weight of the blow hurt my ankle.

I fell back against my cantle, and Goldie caught the change in weight, bless him, reared and kicked.

I got my right hand back on my sword hilt and pulled.

The belt moved on my hips and the sword stayed scabbarded.

Not that I stopped to make choices, but I couldn’t dismount – I was surrounded by foes – and I couldn’t control my horse, either.

And I had no weapon.

My right knee throbbed like some devil’s torment. And some of the knights on my own side were trying to kill me.

I got Goldie to rear again and kick. As he came down on his forefeet, I pinned my scabbard with my left hand, shield and all, and pulled at the hilt with my right, with all the power of desperation.

A spear point caught me from behind and threw me forward over my horse’s neck, which of course made Goldie bolt forward.

Finally the sword came loose in my hand. I sat back, hard, to try and slow my mount. Now I was deep in the ranks of the Jacques – I cut, more from habit than from a feeling of combat, and they scattered.

Another bolt struck the top of my left shoulder and it felt as if a giant had punched me. But if you must be hit by a heavy missile, the top of the shoulder is the place – overlapping metal plates lie over chain, and under the base of the helmet’s aventail, there are three or more layers of steel. It’s the very best armoured part of the body.

I had a bruise for two weeks, and I still almost lost my seat. I rocked back and forth, trying to find an opponent, every sway in the saddle forcing me to grip with my knees.

Behind me, there was a roar, a panicked shriek, and suddenly the whole mob of Jacques was in flight.

I attribute it to divine intervention. I didn’t break them, and neither did the Captal, or Tom, who, it proved, was close behind me. We shattered their ranks, but they were ten to one against us, and they had crossbowmen on the roofs. Sooner or later, they could have killed every one of us, but they didn’t. Instead, they succumbed to fear and broke.

And the dashing French knights hunted them through the streets.

I took my time gaining control of Goldie, who was mad with battle-rage. I had one rein, and that was not enough, so we rode deeper and deeper into the town, and eventually, without intending to, I emerged at the land gate on the south side, with Tom at my shoulder. There was no guard at the gate.

‘If we hold the gate,’ I called. I remember how tired I was. ‘If we hold the gate, they can’t escape.’

He dismounted, caught Goldie’s bridle, and I got off – and fell to the ground. My right knee didn’t want to take my weight.

Tom dragged me clear of the gate and some fugitives ran past us.

‘Tom, run for it,’ I said. It was clear I couldn’t fight, and he wasn’t going to live long, trying to hold two horses and cover me, too.

He shook his head. ‘If I repair your bridle, can you fight?’ he asked.

‘Just prop me up and go,’ I said.

So I spent the rest of the fight leaning on a water barrel in the gateway, with Goldie’s bridle in my hand, helping to hold me up. Tom rode for the Captal, who came soon enough. I don’t remember much after that, except that I watched the French knights hunt the Jacques through the town and through the countryside. I didn’t see anything like it again until Cremona – that’s another story – but I knelt there on one knee and wondered how men who called themselves knights could hate their own peasants with such ferocity.

I wanted to be a knight, but I was beginning to think that in the process, I might have to change what knighthood was.

I was in the castle of Meaux for five days. I had six wounds – Jean de Viladi swears to them, and who am I to complain? I was much doted on by the ladies, and one lady in particular. I worried I’d be poisoned, but the Captal assured me that this was not the French way.

As far as the ladies were concerned, I’d ridden into the Jacques, first of all the knights, and cut my way through. I hope the irony of this wasn’t lost on the man who cut my reins. The bastard.

For two nights – two beautiful, sin-filled nights – Emile came to my room, but on the third night, she came with another woman, who would not leave, and on the fourth night, she didn’t come at all. Instead, the Princess came.

I tried to bow, and she came to my bedside and smiled somewhat hesitantly. She put a hand on my hand. ‘Monsieur,’ she said. ‘My husband will return tomorrow from Burgundy, and with him comes a great army to smash this rebellion – and take Paris, too.’ She smiled bravely. ‘I will leave it to him to reward you as you deserve for coming to our defence,’ she said. She smiled, then frowned and looked around the room, as if for support.

I knew some of the language of chivalry. ‘I need no reward but your thanks, my lady,’ I said. ‘I hope that you feel I did justice to your favour?’

She flushed. ‘Monsieur, I was very foolish to give you such a thing, and I must ask for its return.’ She had the good grace to look ashamed.

Well, to have a favour revoked is . . . not a good thing.

‘Send Perkin for it. It is attached to my helmet,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry if I . . . disappointed you.’ Really, what could I say? English squires don’t chat with Princesses, much less task them.

She looked at me under her lashes – not flirtatiously, but more questioningly. ‘Ah, Monsieur, you were never disappointing. But this has become a matter too elevated for me. Or you.’ She leaned forward slightly. ‘A certain person is leaving – with her husband. She wishes to send her . . . farewell. Yes? And I cannot be seen to favour you. I’m sorry. My honour is engaged.’ She leaned back.

‘Please tell the certain person . . .’ I said.

She turned her head away. ‘Monsieur, you cannot imagine I would carry messages between you.’