The Long Sword (35 page)

‘I must ask you what you have been driven to do,’ he said.

As if in answer, the first part of Sabraham’s plan came to fruition. Down on the docks, a warehouse burst into flame.

Bah. Arson has an ugly name, but war without fire is like sausage without mustard, eh?

The same free citizens who own all the crossbows are the same men who fight the fires – and own the cloth. They left us, if they’d ever been watching us, and ran to fight the fire on their waterfront.

We opened the gate to the inn and started through the streets.

The podestà’s men didn’t fight the fires. They were still out there, and the innkeeper had spoiled our surprise for them. We’d planned to start a nice little riot between the local Guelfs and Ghibbelines, but the podestà got there first, or so a panting Sabraham reported to me as we cut north.

It was Verona all over again, except that I had my doubts that we’d be allowed out the gate.

Two streets north of the cathedral, we had our first fight. A mounted fight in the dark is no joy at all – the noise of the steel-shod hooves on the cobbles is so loud that you cannot hear commands, or screams, and the sparks from the horseshoes and the swords give the whole thing a hellish feeling. We were hampered by a long tale of mules and non-combatants. Our opponents were not hampered by the least notion of honour, as they demonstrated by killing Father Hector at the first encounter – a priest, and he unarmed.

The second attack occurred a few streets from the northern gate. Of course, by then, my legate and most of his people were gone. Fiore took them to the left suddenly, so that the legate would not know that we’d divided our efforts in the darkness. I was willing to lose a few priests and deacons, to be sure.

I had a few second’s warning as my opponent’s horse caught a lantern’s light and I felt the vibration as he charged.

I killed his horse.

It’s not done in polite circles, and I’m sure it is the last thing the bastard expected from a knight of the order, but I was down to the training that lets a man survive the hell of France. I put the Emperor’s sword through the horse’s head and down he went. The rider behind him tangled with the first man’s dying mount, and I was backing. I gave them a moment, and then I attacked. I think I killed them both – I certainly left some marks. This in an alley so narrow I couldn’t turn Jacques. But a good horse is the best weapon; I backed all the way to the mouth of the alley even as crossbow bolts began to rattle against the stone walls.

The whole time I had been fighting, Ser Nerio had taken the rest of our feint, our pretend convoy, north to the wall. I saw motion in the right direction – my visor was down, and when your visor is down at night, you almost might as well close your eyes.

But I’d bought time.

I had bought time, but when I turned Jacques, I’d lost my bearings. One scout, even with someone as professional as Sabraham, is not enough to ensure real knowledge. I got the visor open – my new helmet had a wonderful visor.

Nothing. Except that my foes in the alley were coming, and a crossbow bolt – thanks to God, some of its force spent against the alley wall – slammed into my shoulder and ripped the pauldron away.

There were armoured men on horse coming from behind me.

Time to go
I said to myself. I picked a direction and put Jacques at it.

It must have been the wrong direction. Or rather, not the direction that Nerio and Marc-Antonio and the Italian Carmelite had taken, but I was too desperate to care over much. I rode as fast as the alleys and streets would allow. Once I burst through a crowd of footmen – for all I know they were innocents just out of vespers, but I was through them and into the mouth of another street.

It was only when I emerged into the central square that I realised where I was, and how desperate my cause had become. I was almost a mile from our gate and I had a good idea what capture would mean.

A dozen of the podestà’s men-at-arms burst from another street, fifty paces away. They weren’t chasing me, unless they could see in the dark like cats.

Off to my left, by the cathedral, I heard a war cry.

The podestà’s men reined in.

I had no idea what was going on, but I sat on my horse, letting poor Jacques draw a breath while I did the same. Under my very eyes, two groups of footmen rushed each other with clubs and swords. In less time than it takes to tell it, a man was down, another lost his hand, and the first group broke and ran for the cathedral, hotly pursued.

I had my bearings. I turned my horse, picked the archway that looked right in the shadows, and trotted poor Jacques up a narrow street that turned twice before running almost straight uphill. We went up and up, the houses growing narrower and more crowded, and twice I had a glimpse of the gate towers in the moonlight. I stopped in front of a fountain – really, no more than a spring in the naked rock – and let Jacques drink, but not for long. I couldn’t let him get a cramp in the middle of this.

I heard shouts, muffled by my helmet liner. I backed Jacques. It may sound foolish, but you can hide a warhorse and a knight around a corner, at least in the dark. Two men fled past me, on horseback. They could have been the Pope and Father Pierre for all I saw of them, and then they were gone, their hoof beats ringing like the sound of hammers on anvils.

I went the other way, up the hill and around one last corner-

There was an open square in front of the gate, no wider than a bowling green. Men were fighting.

None of them were mine.

Far below me in the dockyards was a red glow where the fire still burned.

It illuminated Genoa with the sort of flickering red that monks and nuns put into manuscript pictures of Hell, and made the armour of the men fighting in the little square seem as if made of liquid metal.

I consoled myself that in the dark they were all Genoese, and put Jacques at the gate. It was open – I could see the lower tips of the portcullis drawn up above us. Jacque’s hooves slammed into soft flesh and hard armour and we were through the square and out the gate, and I was uninjured.

I sat in the darkness and breathed, and so did Jacques.

I must have lost an hour on my party, but it was obvious they’d made it out the gate. There were a dozen little signs – the most obvious was a pack donkey I found half a league on in the moonlight, strayed from the convoy and placidly standing in the shadow under a palm tree that grew in a village square.

But riding into the mountains above Genoa in the darkness proved to be as daunting as carving my way out of the town. I was lost twice, and the donkey, which I was leading, was no help, braying in the darkness like a trumpet and standing stubbornly against a wall and refusing to budge.

In the end, I found myself back in the same town square where I’d found the donkey – showing I have no more sense than an ass – and I dismounted to give Jacques a rest. I got some water from the town’s spring, hung my helmet from my saddle bow, and sat down.

I awakened to find myself looking at a sword held at my eyes. Beyond the sword’s point was the Count d’Herblay.

I’ll pass over the beating. They took my armour and the Emperor’s sword and Jacques. They stripped me naked, and then they beat me.

Let’s just say that I had several humiliating hours.

On the other hand, d’Herblay wasn’t the Bourc. He ordered me beaten and went elsewhere. The men who beat me never really worked themselves up and, thanks be to the good God, they were hard men, but not evil. None of them particularly enjoyed the work.

They were thorough enough, though. I had broken ribs, broken fingers, and a broken nose quickly enough.

Eh bien
. I won’t mention it again.

By mid-afternoon, the pain had become a sort of constant haze; time had lost its meaning.

At some point, d’Herblay came back out of wherever he was. They brought him a seat – my eyes were swollen almost shut.

‘Christ, you are ugly. If only Emile could see you now,’ he said. He laughed, nervously.

In fact, he wasn’t really tough enough to destroy me, even to accept the consequence of his own orders. He fidgeted.

And talked.

‘Really much more satisfying,’ he began, smiling, ‘catching you, instead of that pestilential priest. I’m not even sure these brigands I’ve hired would kill a priest.’ He nodded. ‘Tell me, where is my wife?’

I’d lost an eye tooth – this one – and I’d bitten my tongue because, despite my youth, I’m not as good at being beaten as I ought to have been. And my lips were so swollen I couldn’t speak well.

I didn’t even try to say anything, and to be fair, I suspect I just lay huddled, whimpering.

‘I gather that she is now spreading her favours around the court of King Peter. Perhaps she’s warming the king’s bed.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose there’s some consolation in knowing that one’s wife is not just unfaithful, but a whore. I suppose she suffers from some sickness.’ He leaned over me. ‘I married her for her lands. I knew she was soiled goods, so I suppose I got what I deserved.’ He shrugged. ‘How’d your people slip past my ambush, Gold?’

I suspect I whimpered. Let’s just take it as read throughout this reminiscence, eh?

‘As I say, perhaps for the best. But some people want your legate dead.’ He leaned over. ‘I really only want you dead, Gold. Although it brings me a certain joy to see you like this.’ His riding whip flashed. He struck my head, and I covered up, and his next blow went between my legs.

His heart wasn’t in it. He could have exploded my testicles. He could have torn the nose from my face with his whip. He didn’t.

This is the part that I remember. He didn’t laugh, or groan. He sighed. As if bored, or from simple revulsion.

I’d like to say I spat in his face.

I did not.

He spoke. I couldn’t see, but I could hear.

‘Just take him somewhere and cut his throat. Kill the horse and bury all his kit.’ I could hear him shift his weight.

I hated that they would kill Jacques.

‘Don’t be a fool – any of you. The sword looks good, but every knight in Italy will know whose it is, the same with the horse and any part of the harness. Off a cliff is best.’ I heard him walk away, and then I heard him mount his horse. And I heard every hoof beat as the horse walked right over me.

‘Goodbye, Cook. I find that I get very little in the way of pleasure from this, but I expect the knowledge that you are dead will cheer me up immensely.’ He cleared his throat. ‘By now, your legate will be as dead as you will shortly be. I’ll go and join my wife. Goodbye. Send my regards to hell.’

To hell.

I was unshriven.

I had most certainly sinned.

The brigands – let’s be fair, they were men just like me – tied my hands and feet to a spear and strung me, naked, between two horses. It was cold, although that was so little a part of my troubles that I don’t think I noticed until the swaying had stopped. My parts felt as if they had exploded and I couldn’t breathe.

Gradually, though, I grew cold.

Who knew that getting beaten keeps you warm?

A freezing rain began to fall and I wondered if a peasant would rescue me – some brave, resourceful lad who hoped to be a knight.

They carried me to the edge of a precipice. Far below, I could see Genoa sparkle beyond a rain shower. It was a long way down.

The men who had beaten me had no contrition in them. No one offered me water, even with vinegar in it; no one eased the ties on my hands.

They dumped me in the road.

And then one said ‘I’ll take the horse.’

I cannot remember when hope began. But after they bickered about the horse, and the barrack-room lawyer – there’s always one – argued that keeping the horse would see them all hanged, the first voice roared out, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ and they all fell silent.

The man must have been bigger. He had a little authority, not much, but enough. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Listen and keep your fucking gobs shut. This piece of shit is someone famous. I’m taking this horse, which is worth more than all the rest of you combined, and I’m walking away. I don’t want to fucking lay eyes on you leprous lads ever again, understand me?’

‘We’ll all be caught!’ Barrack-room lawyer piped up.

‘No, we won’t. That’s a tale for children. It’s fucking Italy; we can do whatever we want. I found this horse grazing by the roadside. Eh?’ I heard a rustle, and then the sound of Jacques’ heavy hooves.

‘Then I’m keeping the Goddamned sword,’ said the barrack-room lawyer. ‘Mister high and mighty can give himself the shits for all I care.’

‘Why do you get it, then?’ said another voice, a Gascon. When there’s trouble, there’s always a Gascon.

‘Perhaps because I have it in my hand, fuckwit?’ said the barrack-room lawyer.

Something wet hit the road.

Men laughed.

Barrack-room lawyers are seldom popular. I didn’t need my swollen-shut eyes to see what had happened.

‘I’ll just take this,’ said the Gascon. ‘I can get a good price for it in Lombardy, or Aquila.’ He had an odd laugh, like a dog’s bark, and his Gascon-French was strangely accented. Catalan, I might have thought, if I’d had a thought in my head.

That started it, as the removal of Jacques had not. They tore into my kit – my rosary, my surcoat, and my harness.

In a way, it was like death. Everything that made me a knight was taken: my golden plaque belt, my beautiful spurs. It took the routiers only as long as it takes a hungry horse to eat everything in a nosebag, and they’d stripped my pile. One old man only got my arming clothes.

The Gascon’s
servant
got Charny’s dagger.

And then it was all gone, and men were riding off into the gathering darkness like stray cats taking scraps of food.

There were dead men on the road, too. Three of them.

And one hard bastard kneeling at my side with a dagger. ‘Who’d have thought you’d outlive Sweet Willy? Eh, laddie?’

He spoke English.

‘I’m English,’ I said. I suspect it sounded like ‘Mmm gagliff.’

I felt his dagger touch my throat. ‘George and England!’ I assayed. Which may have been a mumbled ‘org n’ gagle’.