The Ill-Made Knight (5 page)

After I named a price, he looked down his nose at me. In French, he asked me if he hadn’t seen me at the passage of arms the day before.

I spoke French well, or so I thought until I went to France, so I nodded and bowed and said that yes, I had been present.

He pursed his lips. ‘With the very handsome woman, yes?’ he asked. He looked at the younger knight, who grinned.

I nodded. I didn’t like that grin.

‘And the English knight, Sir Edward, is your cousin?’ he asked.

‘Yes, my lord,’ I said.

‘But you are in a dirty trade. Your hands are not clean.’ He made a face. ‘Why do you betray your blood like this?’

Perhaps my anger showed in my eyes, but he shrugged. ‘You English,’ he said. ‘I have insulted you, and truly, I mean no insult. You look like a healthy boy who would not be useless in arms. Why not turn your back on this dirt and do something worthy?’

I had no answer for that. I do not think that trade is dirty. Good craft still makes my heart sing like sweet music, but something he said seemed to me to be from God. Why was I intending to be a goldsmith?

You might ask why I wasn’t seeking the law and revenge for my sister. I’m telling this badly. In fact, I spent the morning taking her to the nuns before I opened the shop. I went to Nan’s father and swore a complaint. I did all that, and the French knight’s visit was, if anything, a pleasant diversion from my thoughts. Perhaps I should have killed my uncle myself. That’s what a man-of-arms does – he is justice. He carries justice in his scabbard. But in London, in the year of our lord 1355, an apprentice went meekly to the law, because the King’s courts were fair courts, because the Mayor and Aldermen, despite being rich fucks, were mostly fair men, and because I believed then – and still do, friends – that the rule of law is better than the rule of the sword, at least in England.

My uncle wasn’t bound by such rules.

When I closed the shop, I didn’t want to spend another minute under his roof, so I went to evensong, and then I walked. I’d been in the great passion play at the hospital as Judas – I already mentioned that – and I knew a few of the knights, that is, the Knights of the Order. They sometimes allowed me to watch them while they practised their arms, and my sister worked there. Now my sister was lying on a bed among the sisters, so my feet took me out Clerkenwell way to the hospital priory. I saluted the porter and went to find my sister. I sat on her bed for three quarters of an hour by the bells, listening to the sound of sheep cropping grass, and to the squawking of hens and the barking of dogs and the sounds of a Knight of the Order riding his war horse, practising, in the yard. Twice I went and watched him.

The Hospitallers – the Knights of St John – have always, to me, been the best men, the best fighters, the very epitome of what it means to be a knight. So even while my sister wept with her face to the wall, I watched the knight in the yard.

When I went back to her bedside and tried to hold her hand, she shrank into a ball.

After some time, I gave up and went back to get some sleep. I walked up to the servant’s door of my uncle’s house, and two men came out of the shadows and ordered me to hand over my sword.

I did.

And I was taken.

I want you, gentlemen, to see how I came to a life of arms, but I’ll cut this part short. I was taken for theft. My uncle swore a warrant against me for the theft of the knight’s dagger. I never touched it – I swear on my sword – but that boots nothing when a Master Goldsmith swears a case against an apprentice. I was taken. I wasn’t ill used, and all they did was lock me in a plain room of the sheriff’s house. I had a bed.

The next day, I went for trial.

Nothing went as I expected. I have always hated men of law, and my trial for theft confirmed what every apprentice knows: the men of law are the true enemy. I could tell from the way they spoke that none of them – not one – believed me guilty. It was like the passion play, they acted out the parts of accuser and accused. My uncle said that I had always been bad and that I had stolen the dagger. The French knight, Sir Geoffrey, appeared merely to say the dagger had been his. He looked at me a long time. When the court thanked him formally for attending, he bowed and then said, in French, that my case was what came of forcing a nobly born boy to ignoble pursuits.

Given it was a court of merchants and craftsmen, I’m fairly sure his words did me no good. Most of the court talk was in Norman French, which I understood well enough. My advocate wasn’t much older than me, and seemed as willing to see me hanged as my accuser. No one seemed to care when I shouted that my uncle had raped my sister.

I was found guilty and condemned to be branded.

They branded me right here, on my right hand. See? Of course you can’t, messieurs. I was branded with a cold iron, because Brother John and the Abbott appeared as if from a machine and told the court that I was in lower orders. I read one of the psalms in Latin when the Abbott ordered me to. It was like having a fever – I scarcely understood what was happening.

I was dismissed from the guild.

My uncle burned all my clothes and all my belongings. He had the right to do so, but he made me a beggar.

Nan’s father told me never to come to his house, but in truth he was decent about it. He didn’t say it in words, but he made it clear that he knew I was no thief. And yet . . .

And yet, my life was done.

I went and slept on the floor of the monks’ chapel, where I swept their floors. I was there three days, and they gave me some cast-off clothes, while the Abbott made me a reader – I read the gospel two mornings – so as not to have lied in court.

I’ll
never
forget those mornings, reading the gospel to the monks. I am a man of blood, but for two whole days, I loved Jesus enough to be a monk. I considered it and the Abbott invited me.

But the third day, Brother John came and took me on a walk.

We walked a long way. I was still so shattered I had no conversation, and he merely walked along, greeting all who looked at him, winking at the maidens and sneering at the men. We walked along the river to the Tower and back.

Just short of our chapel, having walked the whole of London, he stopped. ‘I’m giving up the habit,’ he said suddenly.

I doubt I looked very interested.

‘The Prince is taking an army to Gascony,’ he said. ‘The indentures to raise the troops are written – it’s spoken of in every tavern. I’m not cut out for a monk, and I mean to try my hand at war.’

I suppose I nodded. Nothing he said touched me at all.

He put his hand on my shoulder.

‘Come with me, lad,’ he said. ‘If you stay here, you’ll be a thief in truth soon enough.’

I see you all smile, and I’ll smile with you. It is the hand of God. I was born to be a man-of-arms, and then the plague and the devil and my uncle came to stop me. But every work of the devil rebounds to God in the end. The Abbott taught me that. My uncle tried to hurt me, and instead he made me tough. Later, he made me a criminal, and because of him . . .

I went to France.

Brother John and I left the monks without a goodbye and walked across the river at the bridge. I had to pass my former master’s shop, but no one recognized me. We walked out into the meadow, and there were the city archery butts – really, they belonged to Southwark, but we all used them. And John – no longer brother John – walked straight up to an old man with a great bow and proclaimed himself desirous of taking service.

The old man – hah, twenty years younger than I am now, but everyone looks ancient when you are fifteen – looked at John and handed him his bow.

‘Just bend it,’ he said. ‘And don’t loose her dry or I’ll break your head.’

John took the bow which, to me, looked enormous – the middle of the bow was as thick as my wrist. It was a proper war bow, not like the light bows I’d shot. A good war bow of Spanish yew was worth, well, about as much as a fine rondel dagger.

John took it, tested the string, and then he took up an odd posture, almost like a sword stance, pointed the bow at the ground and raised it, drawing all the while.

He didn’t get the whole draw. I was no great archer, but I knew he should have pulled the string to his cheek and he only got it back to his mouth, and even then he was straining. He grunted, exhaled and let the string out gradually.

‘Too heavy for me, master,’ he confessed.

The old man took an arrow from his belt and turned to face the butt. He took his bow back the way a man might receive his wife back from a guardian at the end of a long trip. His right hand stroked the wood.

Then he seized the grip, pointed the bow down as John had, lifted it and loosed his arrow in one great swinging motion. His right hand went back almost to his ear, and the arrow sang away to bury itself in the butt – it was no great shot, yet done so effortlessly as to show mastery, just as a goldsmith or cordwainer might do some everyday craft so that you’d see their skill.

An armourer once told me that any man might make
one fine
helmet, but that a master armourer made one every day just as good.

At any rate, the master archer watched his arrow a moment. ‘You know how to shoot,’ he admitted to John. ‘Have your own bow?’

‘No,’ John confessed.

The old man nodded. Spat. ‘Armour?’ he asked.

‘No,’ John said.

‘Sword?’ he asked.

‘No.’ John was growing annoyed.

‘Buckler?’ the old man pressed on.

‘No!’ John said.

‘Rouncey?’ the old man asked. ‘I am only taking for a retinue. We ride.’

‘No!’ John said, even more loudly.

The old man laughed; it was a real laugh, and I liked him instantly. He laughed and clapped John on the shoulder. ‘Then you shall have to owe me your pay for many days, young man,’ he said. ‘Come and I’ll buy you a cup of wine, then we’ll go and find you some harness.’

‘I’d like to come to France,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Can you pull a bow?’ he asked.

I hung my head. ‘Not a war bow,’ I admitted. ‘But I can fight.’

‘Of course you can. God’s pity on those who cannot. Can you ride?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

That stopped him. He paused and turned back. ‘You can ride, boy?’ he asked.

‘I can joust. A little,’ I admitted. ‘I can use a sword. My father was a knight.’ The words came unbidden.

‘But you have no gear.’

I nodded.

He looked at me. ‘You are a big lad, and no mistake, and if your hair is any sign of your fire, you’ll burn hot. I misdoubt that my lord will take you as a man-at-arms with no arms of your own, but you look likely to me. Can you cook?’

Here I was, being measured as a potential killer of men, and suddenly I was being asked if I could cook. I could, though.

‘I can cook and serve. I can carve. I know how to use spices.’ I shrugged. It was true enough.

He reached into his purse and handed me flint and a steel. ‘Can ye start a fire, lad?’

‘I could if I had dry tow, some bark and some char,’ I said. ‘Only Merlin could start a fire with flint and steel alone.’

He nodded and pulled out some charred linen and a good handful of dry tow.

I dug a shallow hole with my heel because of the wind and gathered twigs. I found two sticks and made a little shelter for my bird’s nest of fire makings, and laid some char cloth on my nest of tow. Then I struck the steel sharply down on the flint, with a piece of char sitting on the flint. I peeled minute strips of metal off the face of the steel with the flint – that’s really what a spark of metal is, as any swordsman can see, just a red-hot piece of metal, too small to see. A few sparks fell on my charred linen and it caught. I laid it on my nest and blew until I had flame, and laid the burning nest on the ground and put twigs on top.

The old man put out my fire with one stomp of his booted foot. ‘Can you do it in the rain?’ he asked.

‘Never tried,’ I admitted.

‘I like you,’ he said. ‘You ain’t a rat. Too many little rats in the wars. If I take you to France to help cook, you’ll still get to France. Understand me, boy?’

‘Will I fight?’ I asked.

He smiled. It was a horrible smile. ‘In France, everyone fights,’ he said.

So I went to France as the very lowest man in a retinue: the cook’s boy.

It’s true. In Italy, they still call me Guillermo le Coq – William the Cook. It’s not some social slur. When I started fighting in Italy, I was riding with men who could remember when I was their cook’s boy.

Because in France, everyone fights.

We’re almost to Poitiers, so hold your horses. I went and said goodbye to my sister. She wanted to be a nun, but we were too poor – convents required money for women who wanted to take orders – and the Sisters of St John, the women who served with the knights, were very noble indeed, and didn’t take women without more quarters of arms than my sister would ever be able to muster. But they were good women, for all that, and they accepted her as a serving sister, a sort of religious servant. It was low, but so was the rank of ‘cook’s boy’. I was lucky I wasn’t visibly branded a thief; she was lucky she wasn’t spreading her legs in Southwark five times a day. And we both knew it.

Before I saw her, the lady of the house came in person. I gave her my best bow and the sele of the day, and she was courteous. She spoke beautifully. She was the daughter of one of the northern lords, and she spoke like the great aristocrat she was.

‘Your sister has been grievously miss-used,’ the lady said.

I kept my eyes down.

‘She has a real vocation, I think. And my sisters and I would, if certain conditions were met, be delighted to accept her.’ She honoured me with a small smile.

I bowed again. I was a convicted felon and my sister was a raped woman. A gentleman knows, but among peasants, rape is the woman’s fault, isn’t it? At any rate, I had the sense to keep my mouth shut.

‘It is possible that you will, ahem, improve yourself,’ she said, her eyes wandering the room. ‘If that were to happen, with a small donation, we would be delighted to accept your sister as our sister.’ She rose. ‘Even without a donation, I will make it a matter of my own honour that she is safe here.’