The Ill-Made Knight (69 page)

Fiore looked at me and smiled. ‘Do you intend some feat of arms?’ he asked.

‘By God, that’s just what I intend,’ I said.

Just after dark, a boy came and fetched me to Sir John Hawkwood. He had his feet up, and he was holding a silver cup. He looked quite relaxed. Sir Hannekin was sitting by him.

‘William,’ he said and nodded.

‘Sir John?’ I asked.

‘Hannekin, this is William Gold, whom I’ve known since he was a boy. He’ll command Andrew Belmont’s lances. William, we’re going to try for the city. We won’t take it – Florence has more people than we have grains of wheat in this camp – but I intend to drive in Hapsburg’s outposts and break his barricades.’

‘I’m in,’ I said.

‘You’d best be in, young William,’ Sir John said. ‘Your battle has the best armour. You are the vanguard. I want you to go first – right at their barricades.’

I nodded. ‘Consider it done,’ I said. Or something equally brash.

Baumgarten laughed. ‘Quite the young cock,’ he said. ‘I offered my best German knights, but Sir John must have you. I’ll have my eye on you, Master William.’

I was given wine. I tried not to sound too drunk, and after a little while, and some polite noises, I went back to my people.

They all looked at me.

‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘I mean to avenge Seamus and Perkin. And win my spurs, or die trying.’

No one said a thing. The fire crackled and I went to my cloak.

I mean, what else was there?

I didn’t have Richard, and I didn’t have Emile, and I wasn’t ever going to be a knight. I was full of anger. And I thought, Plague take them all. I’ll just cut my way to the gates of hell.

We rose before dawn. I didn’t have a hangover, and after two leather bottles of water, a cup of wine and some hard bread and honey, I felt ready to face my armour. It was the first of May. I remembered May – the month of love. I took Emile’s favour out of my clothes and attached it to the peak of my helmet.

‘Let’s get this done, Edward,’ I said.

He sighed.

I put on a clean shirt and my arming doublet, the one I’d repaired the night before, over clean braes and my best red hose. He pointed my hose to my doublet. ‘This is servant’s work,’ he muttered.

I said nothing.

Perkin used to lay all my harness out on dry blankets. Edward didn’t know what to do – I think he’d only armed in dry castles and nice big pavilions. ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night,’ he said.

‘You attach the greave to the cuisse with the little key,’ I said. ‘Before you put it on my leg.’

‘I know that,’ he said, hurrying to do as I’d said, as if he’d known all along. He knew, at one level, but at another, he’d forget what he was doing.

He was afraid, of course.

He stopped to put my sabatons on, and he spent far too much time on just two buckles. Then he seated the left leg and closed the greave.

‘I need more light,’ he said.

I said nothing.

He took an aeon getting the buckles closed on the cuisse.

Then he tackled the second leg. I had time to think how easy he had it – Perkin had had to arrange different armour all the time, as I damaged a leg, or plundered something I liked better. He’d been shaping into a good knight.

I had only learned to be a squire under Fra Peter, and only after I’d been a man-at-arms for years.

I was lucky, I decided. I had a lump in my throat and I was close to tears.

‘This belt is too stiff,’ Edward said.

‘Take a moment. Breathe. There’s no rush,’ I said.

Milady Janet pranced by, fully armed.

I laced my own points, cinching the points tight to the arming jacket. When you fight on foot, the worst thing that can happen is to have your leg harnesses slip down even a little.

‘I can do that,’ he insisted.

No you can’t, I thought, but I didn’t say so. I was kind enough to know he didn’t need to face his first battle feeling like he’d failed me.

Of his own accord, he fetched me a stool. I sat, and John Hughes put a cup of hippocras into my hand. He smiled. He was Milady’s archer again, and very happy with it.

Sam Bibbo came up. He was eating a sausage. The two of them counted over their shafts while I armed.

Edward came back with my Milanese breast and backplates.

‘Unseat the lance rest,’ I said. ‘I won’t need it today.’

That started a murmur.

‘Sir John says we’ll fight on foot. We’re to go for the barricades.’ I smiled. I felt better.

I sat and drank hippocras, and thought about May and love. And Emile. And Fra Peter, and Father Pierre Thomas. And Richard, and a lot of other things. Chivalry. Fear.

I rose and shrugged on my haubergeon, looted from Poitiers.

Edward and Sam put the breast and backplates around me and closed it like an oyster’s shell – buckled it home and fetched the arms.

The left arm went on, and was laced to the haubergeon, and then the right. I flexed each one in turn.

Three of them put my white coat over my armour.

All around me, in the growing light, all the men I liked best were doing the same things – the gradual process of arming. A young woman came with a basket of rolls, warm from an oven somewhere, like a miracle of loaves and fishes brought to the White Company camp.

‘For luck,’ she said. Just for a moment, she looked like Emile.

I ate the roll; it was delicious.

Edward came with my gauntlets and helmet.

‘Go get armed yourself,’ I said. I had the wisdom to know that the worst fear of a young man-at-arms is the fear of being late.

Sam brought me my war sword – four feet of good steel, made in Germany. He belted it around my waist and buckled it.

Arnaud appeared with de Charny’s dagger. ‘You’ll miss this, if you don’t have it,’ he said. We tied it to the sword belt, and I drew it a few times. A rondel dagger has to flow into your fist in a fight. When you want it, you have to know just where it is.

Men were pale shapes flitting like moths when I rose from my stool. I could see Sir John in his full, new harness, all steel, and the light made him a statue of molten silver, or the shape of an angel – a very incongrous shape for Sir John Hawkwood. I walked to my horse, and spent some precious spirit vaulting into the saddle. My men were watching.

Pierre, my warhorse, was eager. Edward had made him gleam. That, he was good at.

I sat on Pierre and watched my lances form. The sun was just going to crest the horizon.

They had to know we were coming.

Kenneth MacDonald sprang onto his charger. He looked very dull, in a leather jupon instead of a breastplate. He wore a great aventail as big as a cloak, hanging down from the most steeply pointed German basinet I’d ever seen. He looked like a great orange bird of prey.

Milady looked like a very small, sleek steel falcon.

Juan looked showy; he wore a red cloak pinned at his shoulder, and his lady’s favour – a little beaten about – was pinned to his shoulder. Fiore was very plain; he didn’t have a steel breast and backplate, but his white coat hid his poverty.

Pages scurried about, collecting spears we’d use if we dismounted, picking up last requests, handing out cups of wine – many men drink hard before a fight. My page was eating a winter apple with one hand while trying to manage a horse with the other.

Edward was the last man in my battle to mount his horse.

Around us, other battles were in the last stages of preparation. Thornbury had all veterans, and he was ready – his whole company sat on their mounts, mocking the latecomers. The Germans were much slower – I could see a German man-at-arms who didn’t have his breast and backplates on yet.

Sir John rode up to me. He looked over the camp and the Field of Mars – the place where we formed. As I watched, he came to a decision.

‘You decide how far you can go,’ he said. ‘This is mostly for honour. Hapsburg has too many men for us to win a real victory. I’d like a man to touch the barricades.’

It was an honour, in a chivalric fight, to have reached the enemy barricades. I knew this language.

You might ask,
mon dieu
, if Sir John Hawkwood was making war into a business, why should touching the enemy barricades matter.

Look you. We were an army of a few thousand men, facing a city with a population of a hundred times that, defended by an army four times our own size. Even if we obliterated our enemies, we couldn’t take Florence.

But men are not clockwork. They are flesh and blood. Taunts sting us. Insults hurt us.

‘I’ll do it,’ I said.

He tapped me on the shoulder with his steel-clad fist. ‘I imagine you will, William.’

He looked around.

An Italian priest – doubtless a Pisan – came forward with a censer, and said a prayer over us. I said a paternoster. A boy handed me a clay cup of water and smiled.

‘I want to be a knight when I grow up,’ he said in pretty fair English.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the water.’

I turned to my lance and raised my fist.

‘On me,’ I said.

We filed off, and I led the way out onto the road. A dozen exiled Florentines – gentlemen – were gathered there, and two of them left their ranks. They led us down the road almost two leagues, and then we went across farm fields for as long as it would take a nun to sing Mass.

In the distance, I could see the Florentine forces forming. I remember thinking, Sweet Virgin Mother, they’ve had all night, they know we’re coming, and they still aren’t ready. It lit a small fire of hope in me.

My gentleman guide pointed with his sword. ‘The gate of San Gallo,’ he said.

It was a great gate, big enough for ten men to ride in abreast, and in front of it were entrenchments and barricades. They were full of men – crossbowmen from the guilds and German men-at-arms. They were about 500 paces distant, and the ground was as clear as a farmer’s field from us to them. It rose steadily, too.

But the men manning those makeshift walls weren’t steady. They seethed like maggots on a wound. Some were still arming, and others . . .

Who knows why men are late?

‘Companions!’ I called out, and all the muttering behind me died away. Something was forming in my head: Anger. And hope. I raised my hand again.

‘The best way to do this is very quickly. We form a line right here on my command. We will ride to long crossbow shot and dismount, as fast as lightning, and we will go forward to the barricades without stopping to dress our line or issue challenges or any other formality.’ I looked back. ‘As soon as Sam finds the distance comfortable, the archers are to fall to the rear and loft over us – steadily.’

‘Comfortable, is it?’ Sam said.

‘All the way to the barricades,’ I said. ‘And over them, into the town.’

I had fifty lances. There were 3,000 men at the barricades.

‘All the banks in the world are here,’ I said.

That got a happy grumble.

‘Drink water!’ I ordered.

I loosened my sword in its sheath and checked de Charny’s dagger.

No one said, ‘This is insane.’

No one suggested we should stop.

‘Ready?’ Men at the barricade were pointing at us. We were so few, I assume they thought we wouldn’t attack. Indeed, militiamen were already trailing away, back into the town. Looking for breakfast, the lucky sods.

I drew de Charny’s dagger from my belt. ‘I took this from Geoffrey de Charny at Poitiers!’ I roared.

Men cheered.

‘I will give it to the first man to touch the barricades!’ I called.

They roared.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

Twenty yards into the empty field, I raised my fist, and my lances flowed forward from the right and left. A well-trained company can array itself faster than most folk can imagine. I didn’t finish the first five lines of my paternoster before they were ready.

‘Forward!’ I called. I turned to look back, and saw Sir John with Thornbury’s battle coming up on my left.

I didn’t wait. I was, I hoped, doing what I’d been told. And I thought, To hell with it. Hell was probably where I was destined.

The Germans looked half armed and asleep. All 2,000 of them.

We covered fifty paces at a fast trot. Then another fifty. Not a bolt was loosed at us. Another fifty. We were moving well – I was proud of my lances, because we were in good order and well-bunched up.

We crossed the line I’d imagined for crossbow range, and since we received no bolts, I let us go on. Every heartbeat ate another pace.

A dozen bolts came out of the barricades. I’d aligned my attack with the rising sun. I looked back – it was a red ball behind us.

Another flight of bolts, and most of them went well over me. Somewhere one struck with a nasty hollow metallic sound. A horse screamed.

The crossbowmen would be spanning.

‘Halt!’ I roared. And then, ‘Dismount!’

I swung my leg over, turned sideways, put my breastplate against my saddle and slithered to the ground.

My page emerged from behind me, slipped past me and took Pierre, who gave me a look.

The page dropped my spear at my feet. I stooped to get it, rose and looked right and left. I turned back towards Florence and began to walk the last 200 paces to the barricade.

A bolt struck my left spaulder and skidded away. It felt like a heavy punch from a strong man. There was a rattle of bolts – a dozen must have struck – but as far as I could see, all my men were still moving forward. And, of course, when you are going forward, you can’t see your dead.

I looked down at the ground beneath my feet. Green tufts were springing to life in the old cart track, and there were the remnants of a house, probably pulled down the night before.

There was another rattle of crossbow bolts and a long, joyless scream.

The crossbow bolts were coming faster now. I took one more look, right and left, and closed my visor.

I think I laughed. I was empty. Empty of need or desire. I didn’t care about my next meal or about John Hawkwood’s next plan or Emile or our saviour. I was going to touch the barricade.

The barricade was eighty paces away, a little lower than a man and lined with men in armour that lit up red in the sun.