Hawkwood shrugged. ‘It’s a dirty business,’ he said.
‘That’s all?’ I asked.
He looked at me. ‘Ambrogio made a point of telling the Malatesta heralds that we were a Free Company. Brigands and routiers.’ He looked around. Bibbo was nodding.
‘This is how the Milanese pretend they are not making war on the Pope. But that made us bandits, not knights, and Albornoz, the old one, the famous one, had said that any time he took a routier he would hang the man.’
Perhaps it was thinking about brigandage, and being a routier, but I suddenly realised that Richard was missing. He had been there, listening …
‘Where’s Janet?’ I asked.
Hawkwood leaned over. ‘That woman is as mad as … one of those old women who live on the outskirts of villages. Dresses like a man. Wears armour. Won’t go home.’ He raised his hand. ‘I know, we are her home. And she’s a good gens d’armes. But I told her to keep the books and stay out of sight. She’s probably in her tent.’
I looked at Belmont, who had once been her lover, or so I understood.
He wouldn’t meet my eye.
‘I’ll just go see if Musard is doing well,’ I said, and I rose.
Bibbo slipped out with me. ‘It’s not so bad as it looks,’ he said. ‘Sir John left most of the lads north of Bologna. He said that following Ambrogio would be a shitshow, and no mistake there.’
‘I never doubted Sir John,’ I said. ‘I was more worried that he’d doubt me.’
‘Ye’re a little more like a great lord than I expected,’ Bibbo said. ‘It suits ye, tho’.’
Now that I was out of the little wine shop, it was almost pitch-black; little towns have no lights and no watch.
I didn’t need a light. I could hear Richard shouting.
It made my stomach flip just listening to the anger and the pain in his voice, but I ran there, with Bibbo at my heels, and we found them shouting like a fishmonger and a fishwife at a watchfire.
I hadn’t seen Janet in three years.
It wasn’t so much that she was beautiful. She’d always had simple good looks – a straight back, broad shoulders, a good figure. Perhaps it was just that I’d never seen her dressed as a woman. There she stood, dressed like a lady going to church: a long blue kirtle and a matching overgown, dark, heavy silk. Her blonde hair seemed to burn in the firelight, and her face was red with anger.
‘We were never married!’ she shouted.
‘You loved me!’ Richard shouted.
‘You never even knew who I was!’ she shrieked. ‘You wanted a great lady, to make you greater. You wanted what I was. You didn’t want who I was.’
‘You are my wife,’ Richard said.
There are few tasks more thankless than stepping in between two friends having a fight – more so if they are lovers.
‘I am not,’ Janet said. ‘And I never will be.’
I was fairly certain that Richard had another wife in Savoy, and absolutely certain that he had other consolations.
Bibbo grabbed my sleeve. ‘They ain’t using their fists,’ he said. ‘Leave ’em be.’
That seemed wise. Bibbo was always wise, and I realised how much I’d missed the man.
Janet looked at me across the fire. Her anger vanished; she was always mercurial.
‘Will Gold,’ she said. She made a delicate curtsy, and I returned as good a bow as I would have made for the count. She smiled. ‘Aren’t you a proper lord,’ she said in French.
‘Damn you,’ Richard said to me.
‘Me?’ I asked.
‘Don’t interfere,’ he snapped.
‘Richard, she is my friend too …’
He turned on his heel and walked off into the darkness.
I was my brother’s keeper, and in some way, he was my brother. I followed him into the darkness. I found him leaning against a tree, and what we said is nobody’s business.
But we … were friends. Not just allies.
That was good.
In the morning, there were many hard heads, and the Count of Savoy was more than a little surprised to find that he was riding north with one of the very routiers he most despised. The two men looked at each other like two terriers over a bone, but in the end neither of them bit, and they were, if not cordial, at least courteous. Hawkwood only came with us as far as Florence.
He rode up to me at the crossroads. ‘Well, Sir William,’ he said. He grinned. ‘Listen, lad: in the spring I expect we’ll have real war. Good hot, juicy war, with a lot of hard fighting and good pay. You seem well suited here – how long is the contract?’
‘Christmas,’ I said.
‘Well, then, if you want employment in the spring, I’ll be raising five hundred lances,’ he said.
‘Free Company?’ I asked.
‘Milan,’ he said. ‘Good money, William.’
‘Milan?’ I asked. ‘Against the Pope?’
‘Everyone will be against the Pope, in the spring,’ Hawkwood said. ‘You’ll see.’
We went north from Florence without Hawkwood, but my lances had been paid there, as the count was suddenly in funds. The first day north of Florence, I rode by the count for the first time that trip, and he hawked from time to time and shared his wine with me from a glass flask prettier than anything I owned. Later, we watched Stefanos and Demetrios throwing quoits. Both of them could throw anything with accuracy – a shell, a stone, a dart. I called out my praise in Greek.
‘You speak Greek,’ he said.
‘A little, my lord.’ It was tempting to point out that he’d known that for two months, but I could tell he was trying to get to something. The great cannot always, or easily, bridge the gap to the rest of us.
He nodded. ‘What do you think of our monks?’ he asked.
Again, it was very tempting to ask him why he hadn’t asked me that back in Venice. I probably didn’t shrug; the count was not the sort of man with whom a shrug was good communication. But I met his eye. ‘Arrogant. And far, far too sure of themselves.’
He nodded. ‘I suppose I saw them as monks …’ he said.
I couldn’t think of anything witty to say. So we chatted about his little sparrowhawk, and about the weather, and he smiled.
‘Your compagnia has been a revelation to me, as if one of the saints appeared at my side and whispered to me.’ He looked back over our column, with his two banners prominently displayed and our own small Virgin back in the centre, carried that day by l’Angars.
‘I hope that we gave satisfactory service,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Better than satisfactory, Messer Guillaume.’ He glanced at me, and just for a moment his eyes kindled with what appeared to be delight. ‘You are not wearing your surcoat,’ he noted.
I had taken it off at Florence. I can’t tell you exactly why. I suppose that I felt that our mission was over. No one had ever challenged my wearing it, but I had taken the monks and the count to Rome, seen the Pope in his eternal city, and now I felt … secular. Perhaps it was meeting John Hawkwood; perhaps it was seeing Sam Bibbo.
Perhaps I was done with the Pope.
Bibbo had come with us, and Messer Antonio Visconti had gone with Hawkwood – we called it a trade.
‘I am getting the worst of this deal,’ Hawkwood said. ‘Take care of Bibbo. He’s one of my best.’
‘It’s only until spring,’ I said.
We’d pulled off our gauntlets and clasped hands. ‘In the spring,’ I said.
Any road, I wasn’t wearing any surcoat – just my sword belt over my polished breastplate. I didn’t feel naked. If anything, I felt free.
‘I wore it to serve you,’ I said, with more than a grain of truth. ‘Now it would be no service. And, my lord, if I may be blunt, I am happy to be done with the Pope.’ That was as far as I was willing to go.
He nodded.
It took us a week to ride to Pavia. The count was in no hurry to get there, I could tell, and he made diversions, but for the most part we were on the Via Francigena, and the count stopped and prayed at many shrines, and distributed alms. I gathered from titbits, and from Musard, who was glum and silent since he’d seen Janet, that the Pope had refused to accept or pay any share of the count’s expenses, even though he’d promised to do so at Avignon two years before. I knew that the count had paid Nerio almost thirty thousand ducats in the spring, and even a man as rich as the Green Count of Savoy had to be challenged to find such sums on a regular basis.
But I was allowed further into the count’s thoughts and, as we rode, I came to understand, even through his carefully guarded conversation, that he, too, was done with the Pope: we were going to Pavia to negotiate his part in the coming conflict. In alliance with Milan.
We were almost at the magnificent gates of that city. I had taken to riding with the count; it would be me and Richard, Fiore and Mayot, most days. We’d ride ahead to a shrine, or watch the count hawk. One day we raced our horses like boys – Juniper won easily. I was quite conscious that we’d replaced his usual circle, but Fiore was undemanding and Mayot was usually quiet and sometimes actually morose, so Richard and I bore the brunt of conversation.
Perhaps I spend too much time trying to explain the count; but most people have never lived with a great noble, and they do not understand how complicated such men and women can be.
He turned to me, apropos of nothing.
‘I will be in Pavia a week,’ he said. ‘I wish to assure you that I can pay your company.’
Odd. Out of character. But I’d already seen that he was deeply unhappy and that he dreaded Pavia.
I smiled. ‘We are here for you,’ I said, or something like that.
‘This is not a friendly city,’ he said carefully, looking at Musard, who winced.
‘Count Galeazzo and I have been allies and enemies,’ the count said, ‘and I do not know where he stands on the matter of the Prince of Achaea. But let me say that, careful as you have been of my person, now we need more care and perhaps actual protection. If there’s a perfect place for a murder, it is Milan or Pavia. If the Visconti want me dead, it will be difficult for me to stay alive.’
I reined in, forcing him to do the same. ‘My lord, if it is so dangerous, then do not go.’
He smiled ruefully. ‘Any brave knight knows he must go where he durst,’ Savoy said. He shook his head, looking at the towers of Pavia. ‘I am conscious that all of you watch over me. Help me get through Pavia alive, and we will, I promise you, be avenged for all this inconvenience and fear. Yes, gentlemen, I say fear.’
He was moved, I could tell. And yet, he was not wrong. I had some loyalty to him by then. He was no longer merely the patron, the employer. He had become ‘my lord’ as Francesco Gatelussi had. It is one thing to serve, for money or habit. It is another to serve from genuine love, and regard.
We entered Pavia by the great southern gates, and we were escorted through the pretty streets to the old palace, which was more like a fortress than was quite right. But they had plenty of stables and barracks space, and as we were visiting officially, and for a week, I needed to put our horses out for good, cheap fodder. I lost most of a day seeing our horses cared for and put out to pasture – no need to spend sunny days in a stinking stall.
And November had sun. The warm Lombard sun poured down, disdaining the coming winter and giving us balmy air and loving breezes.
A few evenings later, young Francesco told me most of the court news over dinner, with Richard and Fiore interrupting.
‘It was a lesson in diplomacy,’ Gatelussi said. ‘I saw it happen, and I wish I might have recorded it. My father would have been impressed.’ He took a drink.
Musard frowned. ‘My lord is pursuing his own sovereign policy …’
‘He’s changing sides,’ Gatelussi said quietly. ‘They’re all lining up all over Europe for the big fight, and Savoy has just left the Pope and come over to the Visconti.’
‘Who have, themselves, just left the French for the English,’ Fiore said.
‘That’s too simple,’ Musard said. ‘My lord is following his own policies for the good of Savoy. Savoy needs good neighbours …’
‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘might I understand what has happened?’
Gatelussi looked around and spread his hands, and Fiore nodded, indicating that the younger man could hold forth.
‘The first day, Galeazzo Visconti met with us and made a great show of offering to “mediate the dispute” between the count and his cousin, the Prince of Achaea. The message was, “Watch yourself, or I will back Achaea and you will have a war on your hands.”’
‘Jesu!’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ Francesco said, sounding more than a little like Nerio. ‘But let me say that our count was clearly expecting such …’
Musard leaned back. ‘He was.’
‘Just so,’ Francesco said. ‘And he suggested, fairly graciously, that he didn’t need “mediation” in a discussion internal to the House of Savoy between a lord and his vassal. Anyway – and here I put words in the count’s mouth – with the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor descending on Milan in the spring, the count didn’t imagine that the Visconti needed another outlet for their glorious knighthood. Or rather, that between the wedding with Prince Lionel of England and the armies already in the field, Milan lacked the money to fight Savoy.’
‘You’re like a diplomatic jester or jongleur,’ Musard said. ‘I wouldn’t have put it that way, but the summation was accurate, if impertinent.’
‘Impertinent should have been my middle name,’ Francesco said.
‘The second day opened with the count telling tales of his adventures in the east. My father, and Messer Musard, and even Messer d’Oro here, were singled out for praise, and the count dwelt at length on the Union of Churches.’
‘Oh,’ I said, or something equally witty.
‘Exactly. As the Visconti have many investments in Greece and are neither Genoese nor Venetian, they would be happy to see the Churches unified. In fact, the Visconti might be happier if the Western Church joined the Eastern and the titular head of the world Church sat in Constantinople and not in Rome.’
I could see it. The Visconti and their allies had a fair number of cardinals and power in the Church. The first Visconti to take power in Milan had been an archbishop, or so I’d been told. ‘The Visconti would support Union.’
‘Exactly. And the Visconti, despite Violante’s dowry, Bernabò’s mistresses, and the war over Bologna, have more money than anyone else. Galeazzo even offered to help defray some of the expenses of the Green Count’s crusade.’
‘He paid for Antonio and all his lances to go with the count,’ Musard said. ‘But then, Antonio is Bernabò’s bastard.’
Gatelussi nodded. ‘I believe that he offered the count fifteen thousand florins.’
Musard looked away, Mayot pulled on his beard, and Fiore laughed aloud.
‘That’s it, then,’ Fiore said. ‘So I assume that Galeazzo offered the count a free hand with the Prince of Achaea …’
Richard growled.
Francesco smiled. ‘My pater would have been impressed, Messer Musard. He did no such thing. Instead, he simply allowed himself to boil over in his indignation at the young Prince of Achaea’s impertinence and incautious behaviour, and the count was allowed to see the diplomatic letter being sent by the Count of Pavia and the archbishop, declining to be involved in a purely internal Savoyard matter.’
‘Masterful,’ I said.
We all ate our cervit of hare and noodles and drank wine and thought of what was to come.
In the morning, I was the count’s attendant. We went into the audience hall, which was larger than the Pope’s and hung in tapestries of real mag
nificence, every one of which depicted scenes from Lancelot du Lac. The Count of Pavia’s court were dressed elaborately, in tight cotes, buttoned from neck to crotch or lower, with great hanging sleeves and tall collars that made them look like tulips. It was not the Venetian style, and it used a lot of fabric, most of which was silk brocade of the most expensive kind. Galeazzo had his in cloth of gold, with vipers embroidered all over it. He was the most richly dressed man I’d ever seen, and I thought of the Pope in his old English gown and his riding boots and tried not to make a face. Even Galeazzo’s poulaines appeared to be gold. The toes, which were long, were stiffened to rise slightly, which, to me, made him look a little antic, or even ridiculous, but he was not in any way a silly man, for all his love of the dramatic.
We bowed; the Count of Savoy bowed as to an equal, and then we were seated with effusions of praise and congratulation. Count Amadeus introduced me, and the Count of Pavia asked flattering questions, made me draw my sword, and then, when he’d toyed with me, dismissed me with a look, as if to say that soldiers were easy enough to buy.
‘You must run a few courses with my son,’ he said. ‘Gian Galeazzo is at the age where any man might want to be a knight, or a soldier, eh?’ His comment implied that, on mature thought, most men found better things to do, like running city states. He beckoned, and we all stood silent, even Count Amadeus, while a messenger was sent for Gian Galeazzo.
Instead, a train of noble ladies appeared. They were led by a woman of such excellent carriage that I knew she must be the countess. Her facial resemblance to Count Amadeus, and their instant regard for each other, showed me that this was indeed Galeazzo’s wife, Bianca. She appeared to me to be no more than twenty-five or so – Emile’s age, or close to it. She had blonde hair and clear blue eyes and a very serious face. She had the reputation of being a pious lady. At that first meeting, I could only mark her down as an extremely well-dressed woman, in a rose and gold silk kirtle with a matching pink silk overgown trimmed in fur and a high headdress in a style I had never seen before. We had another round of introductions. Because I was standing with a sword in my hand, I drew the countess’s eye and she asked after me, and her brother bade me put my sword away and I gave her my best bow.
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