Sword of Justice

by Christian Cameron

  They all fitted there because they were so few. I counted perhaps a dozen gentlemen and as many young men.

  The count sat on a camp stool, almost unattended except for local men of business: a Venetian merchant by his dress; a pair of Jews with long beards and high hats of fur. Behind them stood a party of Greeks; I had heard that at the last moment the Emperor had sent an embassy to the west, but I had not met the men. As the count was clearly engaged, I bowed to the Jews, and greeted them; my Order has made it a policy to befriend and protect the Jews, as I have mentioned, and while I once believed otherwise, my experiences, especially in the East, have taught me that they are a fine group of people, much given to disputation, like Greeks. And I think that their reputation for ill-doing in London and Lincoln is utterly false and based on their not accepting Christ in countries where every man and woman confesses Christ twenty times a day. But when you travel to Jerusalem or Alexandria or Constantinople, or even more, travel into Turkey, you find that you are the only one who confesses Christ, and you are surrounded by men who love Mahomet or Abraham, and the shoe is very firmly on the other foot, or so it seems to me.

  All of which reminds me that I have forgotten Benjamin and Isaac, who we took from Didymoteichon to Corinth and then to Venice. They had vanished into the Jewish community of Venice. I mentioned them to the two merchants, and their careful dignity cracked, and the man with the richer beard bowed.

  ‘So you are the famous brigand William Gold,’ he said, pronouncing my name in good English, so that I knew he’d heard of me from either Isaac or Benjamin. But then they both unbent, and we chatted about horses and grain prices, and the smaller man offered me a scrap of paper with his address.

  ‘Can you read?’ he asked. His tone suggested that he didn’t expect me to be able to read. I thought to bridle, but then, we all make assumptions about other men, do we not? I took the offered paper and I’ll note that I saved a good deal of money on grain because of it.

  I went on to speak to the Greeks, who were, if anything, more out of place – ill-dressed and ill at ease – and I spent some time using my poor Greek and my knowledge of their country to try and make them more comfortable. Marc-Antonio, whose Greek was better than mine on account of his endless habit of lechery, managed a small joke and made them laugh. All of them were priests and monks, and I could see that they were going to be trouble. I couldn’t exactly ask them where they stood on issues of theology, but I had, as my lord of Mytilene had suggested, managed to do some reading on the issues that separated the two churches, and I did not need to be a priest or a scholar to know that these men were not happy to be in Venice and were, perhaps, unlikely to be supporting the union of the two Churches. I wondered why the Emperor, who was no fool, had sent a dozen angry monks instead of just a few monks and some soldiers, men who could speak to westerners, like Sir Giorgios and Sir Giannis.

  Richard came and took my arm and I made my bows and escaped.

  ‘They are very difficult,’ Richard muttered.

  ‘They see us as the enemy,’ I said.

  Richard made a face. ‘The count would like to see you on the loggia,’ he said. ‘In private.’ He looked me over. ‘You need some new clothes, brother,’ he said. ‘You look like a rag-picker.’

  I was stung by the accusation and delighted that he had called me brother, as we used to call each other when we were routiers in France. And I confess that my doublet, my best red one, was out at the elbows and had been patched; it was missing many buttons on the sleeves and front, and the once brilliant red had faded to a sort of russet brown, and not very evenly. My half-boots were shapeless, and my hose, once black, were now a sort of blue-brown. Only the good spurs on my heels, the belt at my waist and the Emperor’s sword gave me any sort of distinction, and when I looked around, I realised that I was shabby, or worse, compared to the Savoyards.

  Richard took me out into the pounding sunshine of a clear August day. The sun seemed as strong there as it was in the Holy Land, but the cool air off the canal made it more tolerable.

  I had quite a long time by myself. I thought of Emile and of her trip home, over the Alpine passes. I had time to consider how little, really, I relished the prospect of joining Hawkwood. Fighting for its own sake was less appealing to me than it had been. And I found that, unlike most routiers, I was forming opinions. I had an opinion about the Union of Churches, for example. I had a notion that the papacy was at the root of the disorder, and I wondered how I might feel if I was called upon to fight for the Pope. A French Pope who was, by all accounts, returning the papacy to Rome from Avignon.

  And I worried about my clothes. There, I admit it.

  Regardless of my sartorial failings, I had time to think about employment. The rumour was that Hawkwood was fighting for Milan against the Pope. It was also whispered, in confident tones, that Prince Lionel was going to marry the ruler of Milan’s daughter. It looked to me as if there was a change in diplomacy going on: Milan was deserting the French. Years in Italy and Outremer had caused me to shed my way of thinking of England as the centre of the world; there were so many irons in the fire of diplomacy that no one could really point at one faction and understand it in isolation. In the old alliances, France and Genoa and the papacy had stood together, with Milan on the periphery. Venice had gone its own way; England had been too far away and too weak to play in the south. Naples and Aragon had resisted the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor. But now, it appeared that all the players were changing sides, and King Edward III of England was as able in the council chamber as on the battlefield. England was a great state, and so, suddenly, was Milan.

  It was a completely new game, and it was being played for the highest stakes imaginable: possession of the new trade and the new ideas; perhaps even the overthrow of the papacy. All that flitted through my mind as I waited for the count. He came out onto the loggia reading from a wax tablet a short time later. In his other hand he had a roll: some sort of accounting. This is not how we tend to imagine our great lords, but a great lord, if he wants to play on the grand stage and fight wars and garner fame, must also cast careful accounts, pay his soldiers, and make sure that everyone is fed. So Amadeus came onto the sun-dappled porch with his documents and stood for a moment in the dazzle of sunlight that reflected off the canal below us and up onto the whitewashed ceiling of the loggia.

  He looked up, and smiled. Again, a little thing, but he was clearly happy to see me, and I confess it, I was happy to see him. A great deal had changed between us. I confess that I had resented his summons, but now …

  ‘Sir William,’ he said.

  I made a full reverentia, down on one knee, as if to a king. He was, to all intents, a king. ‘My lord count.’

  He grimaced, walked a few steps, comparing the scroll in his right hand to the marks on the wax tablet. He shook his head.

  ‘You came with some dispatch,’ he said. ‘You have my thanks, Sir William. You are a good vassal.’

  I bowed.

  He waved the scroll over his shoulder and a page came out from the hall and took both it and the tablet. This is the real difference between a great lord and a knight: forty servants. But I could tell that his staff was thin.

  He turned to face me. ‘I have a matter of some import to propose,’ he said. ‘Listen: do you have a contract with John Hawkwood?’

  I tugged at my beard. Somewhat unwillingly, I said, ‘No. There is an understanding …’

  He nodded sharply, as if to say that understandings between routiers were no concern of his.

  ‘Any other contracts?’ he asked.

  ‘I have a sort of waiting condotta with Lord Renerio for Morea,’ I admitted.

  Again he nodded. ‘Would you consider serving me, at my expense, until spring?’ he asked. ‘And perhaps right through the summer?’

  I took a breath. Why do these things always take me by surprise? In retrospect, I confess it was
virtually the only reason he would have summoned me, but I had no idea …

  I nodded. I thought of my answers, and chose the best. ‘My lord, I would consider it,’ I said.

  He smiled. For all he was a great lord, he was also a man of the world – a paragon of chivalry who also knew how to play the game. ‘I could pay you for thirty lances,’ he said. ‘I would pay fifteen florins a month per lance.’

  Fifteen was below the market. Venice was recruiting at eighteen. Everyone on the Italian peninsula was recruiting; the cold war between Milan and the Pope was warming up slowly, like a posset of wine placed close to the fire, but the players were still recruiting. And as I’ve been hinting, they bid fair to draw in every state in Europe, from England to Hungary.

  I bowed. ‘My lord, it would never do to bargain with one’s feudal lord.’ I made myself smile when I said it. ‘But the Venetians are paying eighteen, and Milan is rumoured to be offering twenty.’

  He barked a laugh. ‘Monsieur, I am so glad we are not actually haggling,’ he said. ‘And since we are not, I will point out that you will be home with your wife, and I will feed your people – so perhaps I might be as generous as sixteen. All I require is escort work.’

  Then I had to reckon quickly. Who knew that life as a knight required so much attention to numbers? But if he was to feed my people, and our horses, then he was paying very well indeed. Usually the wage included money for the soldiers to feed themselves.

  It really took very little calculation. ‘I accept,’ I said. John Hawkwood would have to wait.

  He nodded, as if he had known this all along. ‘For yourself,’ he said, ‘I will offer you wage as a paid captain: three hundred florins a month. Or you may serve me as a vassal, for nothing.’

  For nothing, but as a vassal I would be included in councils, and I would have rights, and frankly, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, I needed reputation more than I needed money. I had estates, and Emile was rich beyond any wage I could collect. Nerio had paid me for the attack on the Acrocorinth, and I’d sold my saffron – that is, most of it – and the rest was going to a Jewish merchant…

  ‘I’ll serve as a vassal, my lord,’ I said.

  He flushed with pleasure. ‘Musard said you would,’ he agreed. He had not thought so; that much was clear. He waved for me to come close. ‘I will include you in my thoughts, then, vassal. I have an insurrection on my hands …’ He glanced at me and our eyes met.

  ‘The Prince of Achaea?’ I asked.

  ‘The very same,’ he said. ‘So Richard told you?’

  ‘No, my lord. Nerio told me,’ I said.

  I made nothing of his grimace. ‘Ah. No surprise there. Very well. Prince Filippo is determined to … let us say … expand his inheritance. I believe that he is being encouraged by the Archbishop of Geneva and perhaps even by my Visconti brother-in-law in Milan. I am sending most of my knights under Sir Ogier, one of my best knights, into the affected areas to strengthen the garrisons there. Too many of my people are on the Lazzaretto; I have more knights sick out there than attending me here. I will need you and your lances to escort me to Rome, and then home. I suspect that I should go straight home; it is my entire inclination. But these Greeks must see the Pope. We are close to a union – so close that I cannot let it go.’ He glanced at me.

  Well. All of Italy was at war, or near war, and here was one of the richest and most powerful princes in Christendom proposing to ride the length of Italy with twenty lances. ‘And then home?’ I asked.

  ‘Chambéry for Christmas,’ he said. ‘I have promised my lady, and you may write to Emile and promise her as well.’

  ‘How soon, my lord?’ I asked.

  ‘I can’t escape Venice for a week, at least,’ he said. ‘But I must leave no later than the first week of September.’ In a more human tone, he said, ‘I’d like to wait for some of my people to recover.’

  He dismissed me with a wave. I spoke at length with Richard Musard, and we agreed that most of my lances would stay at Chioggia until the count was ready to ride south. Richard put a hand on my arm. ‘He is a great lord,’ he said. ‘He is beginning to value you. Please …’

  I smiled. ‘I’m beginning to like him, too,’ I said. ‘But he’s like an actor, always on stage …’

  Richard ignored my grudging praise for his master. He looked both ways. ‘This Prince of Achaea …’ he said. ‘He is not to be trusted. Get me a half a dozen swords, William. We may need them.’

  ‘In Venice?’ I asked. ‘Really?’ I looked around too. ‘He’s not just looking for window dressing?’

  ‘Really,’ Musard said. ‘Trust me.’

  I shrugged. I did trust him, despite everything.

  ‘He can be a great leader,’ Richard said. ‘Right now he needs a little cosseting.’

  I made a face, no doubt. I was coming along with the count; Richard didn’t need to caress me so.

  My thoughts must have shown in my face, because Richard laughed, very like my old friend. ‘Jesu, I’m like a man trying to get his mother to like his girl,’ he quipped, and we parted with more smiles than had been our wont, of late.

  I walked across the city to the Hospital and there reported to the prior, who I knew a little from Alexandria. I got a fine meal and some good wine; I reported on our spring campaign and the diplomacy I had seen with the Turks and then on Nerio’s storming of Corinth, which was news to them and caused some rejoicing.

  My period as a ‘donat’ was at an end. I had volunteered with the Order for more than a year and made a caravan and a complete military campaign; no one treated me like a neophyte, even though I was not a ‘Knight of Justice’ like the men sworn to the Order. But I meant to keep my ties with them, and they seemed happy to have me, and when I explained that I would be escorting the Greek dignitaries to Rome, the prior suggested that I wear my surcoat.

  ‘I do not have a single knight to spare,’ he said. ‘But nothing is dearer to us than the Union of Churches. Wear your red coat with my blessing; be a Sword of Justice for us.’

  That was unexpected, but it was a day of unexpected benison. Of course, the coat of the Order would be helpful in Rome, that cesspool of politics. Instead of being a mercenary captain, I’d be treated as a son of the Church.

  ‘Sword of Justice’ is an odd title in the Order. Some day, when I have time, I’ll look into it, but I assume that it’s a remnant of the days when knights rode abroad, dispensing justice, as you see in the writings of Sir Ramon Llull. Regardless, it was a high honour for a mere donat; it made me, in effect, the Order’s legate to the Green Count. And to the Pope.

  ‘Don’t let it go to your head,’ the prior said with a raised eyebrow. But he gave me a silver sword to pin to my surcoat, and I had a limner repaint my shield, later. The important point is that it made me an officer of the Order. As the title has never been rescinded, I continue to use it; I remain Spatharios to the Emperor and Sword of Justice to the Knights of Saint John.

  From the Order at Venice, I got some sense of the Pope’s movements, and I gathered that he was not at Rome yet, because he feared the city’s politics and factions, but was somewhere in Tuscany, or perhaps Viterbo or Orvieto. He had landed a month before; he was moving down the coast, distrustful of the Visconti of Milan and their allies.

  The prior allowed me to copy some itineraries, and I agreed to return the next day.

  My evening was capped when the brethren offered me rooms. Lodgings in Venice are more precious than gold, as you may remember from my other stories, and I found myself, with Marc-Antonio and my two pages, in a high-ceilinged room at least as good as the Green Count’s. The Hospital is a hundred paces from the nearest canal and gives the impression of being somewhere else; it has a small orchard, for example.

  The next morning, I wrote a long note for Prince Francesco Gatelussi, and another for Sir John. Truth to tell, I doubted that Sir John had m
uch need of me, but I didn’t want to offend him. I felt foolish sending so many letters, like a lovesick swain, but I was new to command and didn’t wish to offend the great man.

  I sent Marc-Antonio with orders to look at our horses as he went down the Lido, and to report back as soon as he could on our people in Chioggia, bringing Sir Giannis and a handful of other men-at-arms for Musard – whoever was available.

  I told him to check on the archers. I suppose I feared what they might be up to in my absence.

  Neither of my young Greeks could do any clerking at all, so I spent the morning writing. A pair of scribes, both civilian employees of the Order, sat with me, eyeing my longsword leaning in the corner, and while they copied at ten times my rate, chattered like magpies about courtesans and wine shops and political gossip about the Bishop of Aquila.

  I kept copying. I was out of practice, and my Gothic lettering all leaned, but I could read it well enough, and as I wrote the town names, I tried to imagine the road south. Maps were far rarer in the sixties than now; the Italian cartographers have begun making pictures of our world instead of using words to draw the pictures, but twenty years ago, we still used itineraries for everything. If you’ve never used one, it’s really just a list of town names, from Florence to, say, Rome, with the name of every village between, and sometimes alternatives. No picture: no mountains, no rivers, although a really good itinerary will include some ‘stages’ with descriptions, like ‘this day you will cross the Po, which can be difficult in flood’, or ‘on your left rises a great mountain, often infested with bandits’. The odd thing is that some itineraries were originally written for pilgrims more than five hundred years ago; the bandits may well have moved. In extreme cases, bridges have been erected, or the rivers have been diverted. Sometimes villages change names.

  Still, a good itinerary will keep you moving and prevent you getting lost, although for cross-country travel you always want a guide. As I have said before and will say again, a good guide is worth his weight in gold.