Sword of Justice

by Christian Cameron

  Despite all that, we took every precaution. The count’s food was tasted twice: Albin’s lady friend, Caterina, who had become a company regular by then, was at home in a kitchen, and we sent her into the kitchens as soon as we stopped, and she’d get to know the cooks and watch the food prepared. No one minds a pretty girl in the kitchen. Caterina was an excellent spy. Her loyalty was not in doubt. She was an agreeable woman with an air about her that made men want to talk, and her Venetian-Italian was pleasantly foreign.

  Every night, one man-at-arms and a handful or archers and pages would ride out at last light and make a long loop up and down the roads, looking for anything or anyone unusual. Every morning, Francesco Gatelussi would do the same – he was an early riser. He’d get out of the inn gate and check the area around the inn, so we couldn’t be surprised at the outset.

  It was all for naught, but that’s how precautions work. And we did it rain or snow or moonlight or pitch-dark, and it was all routine.

  As we got closer to Chambéry, the count grew increasingly tense.

  ‘He is bound to attack me soon,’ the count said. ‘Once I am at Chambéry with my feudal host, he has no chance.’

  ‘He may think that we have you too well defended,’ I said.

  He shook his head.

  Musard frowned. ‘William, you don’t know these mountains. An avalanche could clear all of us off the road.’

  ‘An avalanche has to be set by men,’ I said. ‘The men have to be up on the hillside, and to get there they’ll leave prints in the snow, and the local villagers will know they are there.’

  The count nodded. ‘He will attack,’ the count said.

  Musard nodded. ‘Camus,’ he said.

  Well, in that much, I knew they were right. But I thought that Camus would give himself away – some elaborate demonstration of the extremity of his evil – instead of just making a cut for the throat. He scared me; yet he was not an opponent I would fear as much as, say, one of the Armenian princes, or a Karamanid chief. What they lacked in evil they made up in sheer experience.

  We stayed at the monastery of Saint François-Longchamp, hard by the defile at La Chambre. We only passed the defile after seizing both ends. That took work, but everyone agreed that it was the most dangerous point on the whole march. L’Angars took ten men and climbed past it and then came down above.

  No ambush.

  We were two days from Chambéry. It was December; my company needed rest, our tack was worn and the horses needed good barns with deep mangers and heaps of oats. Gabriel looked bony.

  We rose very early the next morning, as the days were short and we had to pass what Richard called the ‘Switchback’, a long section of road over which we’d have to pass in single file.

  Gatelussi went out before first light, into a light snowfall. He came back without incident and I sent our scouts out. It was Ewan’s day, and he had two archers and Beppo, the Tuscan gargoyle, who tipped his hat and hunched his shoulders against the cold. The four men rode off into the snow. They would ride to Saint-Pierre-d’Albigny, or perhaps all the way to Chambéry itself, depending on the weather – about ten miles, and some of the hardest terrain of the whole pass.

  As the monks began to sing Prime, we rode to the gate. The count was interested in hearing the service, as he was in his own demesne and the monks were his vassals, and his family had endowed the place. The abbot pressed us to stay and said it was a poor day for travel.

  I rode out into the blowing snow. It was worsening since I’d sent the scouts, and I can remember trying to get the wool of my outer hood to cover my mouth. Gabriel was unhappy with the weather and with being ridden every day, too; he was fretful.

  I rode back to the count. The abbot stood at his stirrup. He was from a local noble family – the two of them obviously knew one another well.

  Count Amadeus spoke to Richard, and Richard stiffened, and then walked his charger over to me.

  ‘The count wishes to stay and hear Prime,’ he said. ‘We will spend the day here.’

  I might have bridled, but I had no need. The weather was blowing worse by the moment. I felt for Ewan and Beppo, but otherwise, most of the lads would be better for a day by a fire, or so I thought. In half an hour we had our beasts back in the stables, with blankets on them and warmed mush – a horse feast. I got out of my wet things – wet almost through from half an hour in the snow – and I put on my Venetian clothes, a little the worse for wear, and went to Prime late. The monks sang very well – surprisingly well for being isolated in the mountains.

  We spent a comfortable day. We didn’t play cards or talk bawdy; the monastery was not like some I’ve seen in Italy, but a place for serious and mature contemplation. Mostly we discussed the possibility of the war between the Pope and Milan heating up. There were merchants at the monastery from as far away as Bohemia. They thought their King Charles, who was Holy Roman Emperor, would crush Milan like a nut.

  Later, some of our merchants put together a deputation to the count, and they found me after we left the chapel, intending to protest the lost day.

  The bearded Italian merchant who presented their protest was unknown to me: well dressed, and, by his accent, a Florentine.

  ‘Will you take this to the count?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. I smiled. ‘That would be foolish. Tell your friends that the count is paying for an escort of men-at-arms to take him at his own convenience to his castle at Chambéry. Your convenience has never been consulted because you are not paying. Despite this, my people have organised your forage and your bedding every night for almost a month. You have had a smooth journey, for men travelling in winter. Don’t be ungracious.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve already told them that,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘I drew the short straw. Some of ’em are right bastards.’

  That piqued my interest. ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Perhaps I should explain to them myself. Take me.’

  So my Florentine, Niccolò something or other, led me down to the hostel by the stables. There were a considerable number of merchants – almost thirty, as I say – and a dozen of them were men without horses or wagons.

  I told them pretty much what I’d said to the Florentine.

  One of the pedlars looked odd. ‘We need to go today,’ he said.

  ‘No one is stopping you,’ I said. ‘You can go, although, given the time, your chances of making it to Saint-Pierre-d’Albigny are not very good.’

  The man looked as if he might catch fire; he was flushed, and his hands were shaking.

  I ignored him, giving instructions for the next morning. When I was done, he came and took my hand.

  ‘My lord,’ he said, like a dog fawning on his master. ‘My lord, is there anything I could do for you – anything – that would make you leave today?’

  I locked his hand against me, wrapped his arm, and pinned him, face down, against the floor.

  ‘Marc-Antonio?’ I called out, and my squire appeared.

  ‘Hold this man. Hold him until I’m ready to question him.’ I looked at the tinker. ‘I’ll send you a friar to shrive you.’

  His eyes were wide. ‘I have done nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Why are you so eager for me to leave today?’ I asked.

  ‘I am eager to arrive,’ he said, but his eyes gave him away. He couldn’t reach mine. He flinched visibly.

  ‘My lord …’

  I shook my head. ‘Take him away.’

  Marc-Antonio took him and pushed his right arm behind his back and then frogmarched him away.

  I got a dozen men-at-arms together and rode out into the snow. It was unpleasant out there, but the tinker had convinced me that Camus was waiting to ambush me, and I was damned if I was going to lose Ewan.

  The further I rode, the more odd it all seemed. The snow was blowing so hard that any idea of ambush seemed insane. I couldn�
�t imagine crossbowmen hitting anything in the wind and snow.

  I couldn’t really track Ewan either. A couple of times I saw tracks that might have been his – a big, shod horse – but we were scarcely the only military party on the road, and some of the local merchants used big horses.

  It was very cold.

  The Birigucci boys were as good as gold, a pair of warrior angels in armour with heavy wool cloaks. They knew mountains, and they were patient, and because they were so young, older men like l’Angars and Lapot were not going to whine in front of them. We kept moving. Sometimes the lead men had to break a trail through a wind-blown drift.

  We were coming up on the ‘Switchback’. I could see the loom of trees ahead and we were climbing steadily.

  A squall hit us. For as long as it takes a priest to say the Eucharist prayer, we were all but blind. I kept Gabriel going – he was deeply unhappy, and trying to tell me so – and the blowing snow was so harsh on my face that I thought of closing my visor for relief.

  Armour has an odd effect in a high wind. It is a windbreak. Even though it can get cold, it stops a high wind as well as it will stop a lance, and that’s something. A few layers of padded arming garments underneath and you’re fairly warm. Until you raise your arm. Then, by God, you are frozen to the skin. Under my arms I have eyelets in my arming doublet – marvellous in Outremer in high heat, but deadly in a Swiss pass in a blast of snow.

  The squall began to taper off, and it was growing dark – it wasn’t just my imagination.

  And then lightning flashed.

  I had, until then, never seen a thunderstorm of snow. Lightning flashed. A crack of thunder roared very close – that bolt probably struck in the trees fifty paces above us.

  Gabriel let out a noise, very un-horse-like – more like a lion’s roar. It was a challenge. There was another horse, very close.

  Armour. The lightning flash had reflected on armour.

  I was already drawing. Instinct took over. My right hand went to the hilt, and I drew, back-handed, thumb up. No idea why I made that choice, but it meant that my great war sword emerged from the scabbard like an enormous dagger.

  The man-at-arms was to my left, and he only saw me when Gabriel let out his battle-roar, but he had his sword in his hand and he cut at me.

  I had enough sword clear of the scabbard to cover his blow, and I stabbed, overhand, and my blow went under his guard and down into the top of his thigh, where he had no faulds, just maille. Blood spurted, incredibly red against the white snow in the now almost continuous lightning.

  I got my sword in both hands – both hands on the blade. I cut at him with the hilt. In fact, I used the quillons like the spikes on a poleaxe, and one went in through his cheek. He spat teeth and fell as the downturn in my quillon caught on his jaw, and he was pulled from his saddle like a salmon from a river.

  I looked around. The man bleeding out at my feet had a red and blue surcoat and a good horse.

  There was nowhere to go but forward. I put spurs to poor Gabriel and he surged with his back legs and we went up the ridge. The road got steeper. There was ice underfoot, and Gabriel’s shoes didn’t grip, and we slid, and I had time to wonder if I was going to die in an ice fall.

  Then he gave a mighty spring and we were moving, up and up. At some point I’d put my visor down – no idea when. Later, Clario Birigucci told me that crossbow bolts were flying about me like a cloud of swallows when a barn door is opened, but the wind spoiled any attempt to aim, and I didn’t even see the bolts. I just went up.

  And then I was at the top. The view was so staggering that I lost a moment, despite my fear. I could see for miles, all the way down the valley, and there were thunderheads below me, and flashes of lightning, almost constantly.

  I couldn’t see anyone to fight.

  I turned Gabriel, left and then right.

  There was no one to fight.

  I turned Gabriel all the way around. And there, behind me, were our ambushers. The Biriguccis and l’Angars and I had ridden through their ambush in the squall. The squall was dying away and I could see them below me. Far below me.

  Pierre Lapot was down, his horse bleeding out in the snow. Gerlain, one of my Bretons, was covering him, trying to pull him up behind and fighting by turns.

  I looked down at the mêlée. There were more men coming out of the woods to my right, but they, too, were below me, and they were focused on Lapot.

  I was looking for Camus. I didn’t see him, and time was passing.

  Lapot was holding his own.

  Rob Stone was just dismounting. I didn’t think his arrows would be any more effective than the crossbow bolts.

  I pointed with my sword, now held more prosaically by the grip. ‘We clear the slope in one charge,’ I said.

  With Marc-Antonio, there were five of us, and we had perhaps fifty years of fighting experience among us. We formed close instinctively as if we were a mêlée team.

  ‘Charge,’ I called out, and we started down the hill like an avalanche of horseflesh. I don’t remember fighting anyone. We had the hill behind us, our horses were better, and we had surprise and luck – a formidable phalanx against which some armoured brigands had no chance. We unhorsed a couple and turned, raising a great spray of snow.

  Gerlain had Lapot up behind him, and he followed us. The archers hadn’t loosed a shaft, just unsheathed their swords.

  We hadn’t lost a man. Lapot’s horse was the only casualty.

  But now I was truly afraid for Ewan and Beppo, and I knew we had to push on, cold and wet and tired as we all were. I led the way, knowing that there were crossbowmen in the wood line.

  We got over the top. I had another moment to admire the view, and I could see four tiny dots moving against the pink-white light on the snow below us in the far valley. Way off to the west, I could see Chambéry, or perhaps just the monastery above the town.

  I had to hope that the four dots in the valley were Ewan and Beppo and the archers.

  I sat, looking down into the Chambéry valley, and it all came to me. I needed to think of this like a battle, not like a road. I had the high ground, and it was very valuable.

  I waved to Rob Stone. ‘I need you and all the archers to clear the wood line,’ I said. ‘And then hold the hill.’

  He looked at the woods. ‘Don’t know how many they are.’

  I pointed to the Birigucci. ‘Help the archers clear the woods.’

  Clario grinned. ‘Watch me!’ he said, and without another word, pivoted his horse and charged, at a gallop, towards the wood line.

  What a fool.

  But a glorious fool.

  Bolts sparkled in the grey light.

  ‘Damn,’ Stone said, and led the archers across the ridge-top field. Benghi let out a war cry and dashed off after his brother.

  I was stunned. I couldn’t believe the stupid young man had just ridden off across a snowfield in the face of an unknown number of crossbowmen, and it was a lesson I’ve never forgotten. Never, ever, underestimate the stupidity of brave young men.

  Clario was down before his horse was halfway across the snowfield. He took two shafts.

  It is terrible to give orders and watch them obeyed. It is terrible, I think, to command men whom you like – with whom you have lived, and perhaps prayed, and grown. It seemed absurd to be fighting Camus inside Savoy, a well-ordered principality, a rich place.

  I looked back over the snowfield. Rob Stone was down too, but Benghi Birigucci was carving a red path through the crossbowmen. I was watching. I had to keep a reserve; I had no idea how many men I was facing.

  I was pretty sure that Camus was out of crossbowmen. Wherever he’d hired them, and my suspicion is that they were out-of-work Genoese oarsmen, he’d used them up. The men looked thin and tired.

  And where was the bastard? I kept turning my horse, looking a
t every stand of trees, every snow pile, every bend in the road. I could see the tracks where half a dozen of his men-at-arms had fled our charge. Only three of the enemy crossbows had stood their ground. The rest had fled, and my Englishmen were butchering them in the open trees. The action wasn’t hard to follow, even at twilight.

  None of it made much sense, but then, in war, nothing ever makes much sense. The four dots coming up the valley grew larger. I was sure it was Ewan and Beppo. By then, Beppo was riding oddly, and his horse was labouring.

  I wanted to go and look after Clario and Rob Stone. Stone was moving, two hundred paces away, but I couldn’t give up my position – the top of the ridge, the perfect view – and five uncommitted men-at-arms. But it was killing me, watching Clario, watching Stone, and doing nothing – listening to the massacre of the crossbows, doing nothing.

  Finally, I sent Lapot, on foot, across the snow, and he went right willingly, jogging along.

  I was busy watching him, when I realised I hadn’t looked at the four dots for a while, and I whirled. They were closer, but they had dismounted. They were on a switchback below me, perhaps four hundred paces down and a thousand paces of road between us. Ewan was loosing an arrow.

  I couldn’t make out any adversary, but the steep ridge could hide an army. The light was failing. If I went to Ewan, I was potentially leaving Rob Stone and Clario to die in the snow, or all of them to be swept up in Camus’s as yet undeveloped counter-attack.

  If I did nothing …

  It was, literally, two sides of a ridge, and me balanced on a knife’s edge between.

  I looked back. Lapot was with Clario.

  He waved.

  Beppo raised a latchet, a light crossbow, and shot it. I didn’t see the bolt at that range, but I saw how fast he pulled the prod.