The Green Count

by Christian Cameron

  That night, in a sort of Christian caravanserai, a fine travellers’ inn – we could, at last, lie in the same bed, although not in glorious sunlight – Emile asked me if I thought she could pass as a man.

  I tried to use my hands to show some things that she had that might give her away; but she was insistent.

  I had found that my love was whimsical, and that it took time and energy to satisfy her whims; but also that she was deeply thoughtful, and it was often worth the effort. I leapt out of bed, naked, and rummaged in my malle, pulling out a threadbare but perfectly clean linen shirt, a pair of linen hose I kept for when all else was filthy, and a pair of long braes more fit to wear on a cold day in Scotland.

  ‘Let’s try,’ I said.

  She produced a long linen scarf – quite possibly someone’s white turban. By then, every one of our men-at-arms had a turban, and some atop their helmets; the women had them, too.

  We wrapped her torso tightly. I admit there was some play, but the wrapping gave her the chest of a muscular young man. She put on the braes, hose, and shirt, and I laced her into my sweaty doublet.

  I piled her hair under an arming cap. She practised walking like a man; I slapped my thighs and laughed.

  She picked up my sword belt and put the emperor’s blade on her hip.

  She had strong hands for a woman; she had the heavy leg muscle of a horseman, and her legs were almost as long as mine.

  ‘Not bad,’ I admitted.

  ‘I’m going down to buy wine,’ she said. ‘Let’s see. Give me your purse belt and dagger – I’ll die on the stairs if the sword catches on something. How do you wear this thing all the time?’ she asked stripping off the sword. ‘My hip hurts just thinking about it.’

  In a purse and dagger, she looked like a handsome squire.

  ‘All the girls are going to want you,’ I said.

  She blew me a kiss. ‘I’ll bring a couple back,’ she said.

  She was only gone a few minutes, and then she came back, red in the face, with a jug of wine.

  ‘Well, no one took me for a woman,’ she said.

  ‘But?’ I asked.

  ‘Madonna, you were right about the girls,’ she said. ‘I could get used to being a man.’

  So the next day when I was going to the souk, the market of the town, Emile would insist on coming, and as a man. This presented all sorts of problems, but to me, the most pressing was that if she was with me, she’d be more easily recognised. Also that I didn’t really have many clothes.

  But Emile had an answer ready, and I was fitted for two suits – simple stuff, in brown and gold wool. And then Emile and Helen unpicked them, shortened the hose, and re-cut the doublets.

  I left her to it and went to the souk with Miles. Nerio was sulking, and Fiore was in the caravanserai yard, practising. Sister Marie had been watching Fiore, but she joined us, tucking in her veils to cover most of her face.

  Miles and Sister Marie and I walked with Marc-Antonio carrying my purse. It wasn’t far; the whole purpose of the caravanserai was to allow foreign merchants easy access to the market. I had some notion, having summoned a tailor, of buying fabric; I had seen superb silks in Jaffa.

  I was lucky enough to find both Parmenio and Doria in the souk. They stood in the center of a huddle of local merchants – Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Jews. They were bidding on lots of saffron.

  Parmenio waved us over, and we were served a sweet drink I’d had in Jerusalem – sugar cane and spices, delicious. The merchants all fawned on us, briefly and perfunctorily.

  Parmenio grinned. ‘I think I’ve just made a fortune,’ he said. ‘They’re bringing in the second harvest of saffron, and I’m taking as much of it as I can buy. Worth more than gold, by weight. It’s not cheap here, but it is cheaper here than anywhere else.’

  Sister Marie nodded. ‘Might I purchase a little, Capitano? For my friends in Venice?’

  At the name ‘Venice’ Parmenio made a face. ‘I suppose there are good people, even in Venice,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘Yes. Perhaps you would like to buy one of the smaller parcels I’m not taking – half a pound.’

  ‘Goodness, how much is half a pound?’ she asked me.

  Miles blinked. ‘Bonne Soeur, an ounce is enough for a feast of many people, in the rice, or on the goose.’ He blushed – Miles was delightfully like a maiden at times – and tilted his head. ‘My mother loved to cook. And she loved to entertain Father’s friends.’

  Messire Doria and Parmenio were paying in silver for their purchases, and they had perhaps forty pounds of saffron, an enormous amount. It made a sizeable bundle, too, I can tell you, and yet a small bundle to represent so much potential profit.

  With Messire Doria’s permission, I too thought to buy some, and I approached the disappointed huddle of saffron sellers who had not managed to sell to Captain Parmenio.

  Parmenio caught my arm. ‘How much money do you have?’ he asked.

  ‘I have two hundred gold florins,’ I said. ‘I could perhaps triple that.’

  Parmenio scratched under his chin. ‘Listen, friend,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent all my capital, and you won’t sell yours in Genoa anyway, will you? If I had two hundred gold florins, I’d spend every silver soldi on saffron. I’d borrow more, if anyone in this blighted town would accept a note of hand. Indeed, my brother captain is actually considering tacking back to Ladiquiya because there are better banks there.’

  I turned to Marc-Antonio. ‘Would you be kind enough to run back to the inn and fetch Lady Emile?’ I asked.

  He bowed. I took the purse and he walked off into the market.

  There were other wonders in the souk. I looked at fine horses, and some curved swords, and some very fine maille, and some silk, but Parmenio told me that Adalia would have better silk and for less. The saffron merchants were patient, and I wandered a little, and then a young man leaned past me, fondled a piece of velvet, and frowned. ‘I’ve seen better at Bruges,’ he said.

  My first thought was that he was insolent, for someone’s page boy, and then, of course, I knew it was Emile.

  ‘Mistress wasn’t available,’ s/he said. ‘She sent me.’

  I took ‘him’ at face value. ‘Come along then,’ I said. I led the ‘young man’ to the merchants. ‘I’m considering buying a parcel of saffron, to sell at a profit in Europe. What do you think?

  ‘I love the stuff,’ Emile said.

  She gave me the most marvellous look, redolent with memory; saffron, and the hot sun by the spring.

  I bought almost ten pounds, and then, taking a risk, I bought another parcel almost as large for Nerio. And as we carried it back to our inn, I began to think of the unaccustomed wonders of being able to walk out with my wife in public. I wondered if we had fooled anyone, but she went unchallenged.

  I knocked on Nerio’s door.

  ‘Your saffron,’ I said.

  ‘Go away,’ he said.

  ‘Open the door,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘I spent all my money and I need yours,’ I said.

  He opened the door. ‘How on earth could you spend two hundred gold florins in this shithole,’ he said.

  Then he smelled the saffron. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You cornered the market?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted. He’d explained the concept. ‘The Genoese have twice as much or more.’

  Nerio had been crying. I could see it – face blotchy, eyes red. And there was a wax tablet open, and it looked as if it had been savaged by badgers – deep score marks through and through the wax.

  He opened a small parcel and took the saffron out. It was a brilliant orange, even in the dingy light of his room.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s very good.’ He looked at Emile. ‘Where’s Marc-Antonio?’ he asked.

  Fiore came in. I didn’t even know they were sharing a room, as
they were often unfriendly, to say the least. But Emile and I had the only really good room, and Nerio, who could be an arse, had quietly resigned himself to being cooped up with Fiore.

  Fiore glanced at Emile. ‘Very suitable,’ he said. ‘You’ll find lessons much more agreeable that way.’

  Her face fell.

  Fiore went straight on into the room.

  ‘Lessons?’ Nerio asked.

  ‘I’m teaching the women to fight,’ Fiore said. ‘It’s fascinating.’

  ‘What women?’ Nerio asked.

  Fiore laughed. It happened seldom, and it was never nice when Fiore found something funny; it was usually because someone had done something stupid.

  ‘Imagine!’ Fiore said. ‘A beautiful woman that Nerio can’t see!’

  Nerio frowned. ‘Dannazione!’ he spat. ‘What bullshit is this?’

  Fiore fell on his bed laughing. He was really convulsed.

  I ignored him. ‘This is your saffron,’ I said. ‘I spent your money.’

  Nerio smelled it again. He allowed himself a small smile. ‘Bless you,’ he said, glancing at Fiore. ‘I am distracted. I should buy all I can. I may land in Rhodes to find that I have nothing. This has all taken too long – I should never have played pilgrim so long.’

  Emile sat down on his bed. ‘Say rather that you miss your lady and that colours all your thoughts.’

  ‘And who in the Devil’s name are you to be so free with my lady?’ asked Nerio.

  His hand was on his knife. He was in a state; the state where men like a fight.

  ‘Nerio,’ I said, ‘That’s Emile.’

  Fiore snorted so hard that snot came out of his nose.

  Nerio’s head shot around.

  Just for a moment, I feared we’d gone too far. His nostrils were white, and his forehead flushed an angry red.

  But then he began to laugh.

  A little later, when Nerio had gone out with Miles and John the Kipchak to buy more saffron, I flipped over his wax tablet. Love poetry. I turned to Fiore. ‘How’d you know?’ I asked. ‘About Emile?’

  He looked at me with what might well have been pity in a man with any empathy at all. ‘How could I not know? Shoulders, hip musculature, pelvic tilt, cheekbones. Ears.’ He shrugged. ‘What’s saffron, then?’

  We sailed in the morning. I tried to convince Nerio to ask Arnaud for Eugenia’s hand in marriage, or permission to address her. He set his face and waded out to the longboat.

  We wafted along the coast as if on a cruise for pleasure. Even the sailors were relaxed; we apparently had the perfect wind to get to our next port. Our consort stayed just to seaward of us, and men called back and forth. Sister Marie said her prayers on deck, and then read sermons aloud from a book she had, and then I had a Latin lesson and worked on Vegetius – fascinating stuff on scouts and spies. And words you never hear in Mass, like exploratio.

  We spent the night at sea, on the deck, and late the next morning we were inspected by a Turkish customs boat manned, as Parmenio explained to me, by men who twenty years before had been Byzantine customs officials. Some of the Greeks had converted to Islam, and some had not; the border between the two was not as clear-cut as you might think. The inspector himself was Christian, in a gown that would have been at home in Pisa or Florence. He went through our bills very carefully. After some consultation with Messire Doria, he summoned me and Nerio.

  ‘You are merchants?’ he asked. ‘With wares you are not landing in my master’s lands?’

  I opened my mouth, and Nerio trod carefully on my foot.

  ‘Yes,’ Nerio said.

  ‘Excellent,’ the inspector said. ‘Will you go ashore?’

  I said I would.

  Nerio said he would not.

  The inspector bowed to me. ‘Here is a pass for you and one servant. Enjoy our poor little town of Alayie, Frank.’

  Indeed, from the ship, it looked like a veritable garden of earthly delights. Unlike the towns of Syria, it was rich, vibrant with life and business, and thirty minarets rose over it. The call to prayer, when it rang out, was startling; all the muezzins seemed to compete at discord and disharmony, and yet the sound was haunting and oddly beautiful.

  My palms itched with my eagerness to go ashore and see it.

  I was unsurprised to find Emile in men’s clothes.

  ‘I need a name to call you,’ I said. I had fears, very real fears, about taking her ashore. But I could tell that this was important to her, and that, perhaps, it was this kind of adventure that she’d wanted when she fixed her eyes on me in the first place. You see, I can see through a stone wall, in time. I could tell that if I craved adventure, so did she; that perhaps this was what tied us to each other.

  So Marc-Antonio sulked with Achille on the ship, and ‘Edouard’ came with me. When she chose the name, tears came to her eyes.

  ‘I miss my children,’ she said. ‘This is longer than I expected.’

  ‘Even though it is the best time of your life,’ I said.

  ‘I can be both people at once,’ she said.

  Well, I understood that all too well.

  Once ashore, we found we were to be guarded by half a dozen ghulami, good men-at-arms, all Turcomans, with heavy dark beards and long coats of maille over their kaftans. I had a few words of Arabic by then, but these were men of the steppe, and all they spoke was Turkish, and not even John’s version of Turkish, although I greeted them correctly and made them smile, a promising start.

  We walked the market, the souk, and then, with the help of our escort, we went to a mosque. ‘Edouard’ had always wanted to see one, and we took off our shoes, washed our feet, and went in.

  When I came out, one of our ghulami pointed at ‘Edouard’s’ feet and said, in French, ‘Woman.’ But he shrugged. And smiled.

  I’m going to guess he was a Bektashi, or one of the other Sufi orders; I’ve met more of the steppe peoples now, and their Islam is more … elastic than the Arabs’. I think we were very lucky; we might, indeed, have caused a terrible incident, or even been killed. Instead, we had a pleasant adventure, bought some coral and some carnelian from far to the east, and returned to our ship.

  Our consort, however, had found a cargo – the results of the overland trade. I feel I need to explain.

  Out east, somewhere, is India. And beyond that, China, if that is not just a name, and the Venetians assure me China is real, far across the ocean to the east.

  But the goods of India and China only reach Syria and the Holy Land by camel train across the high steppe. There is no ship that goes from China to Syria, and Samarkand, the centre of the silk trade, is in a desert.

  But in the Inner Sea … Listen, we lost the Holy Land to the Mongols and the Mamluks before I was born, but the Italians and the Aragonese never lost the sea. Not a Moslem ship sails much outside sight of land along the coast from Egypt to Anatolia, and while the coastal emirs all have galleys, the Italians hunt them. About the time I was born, the Turkish emirs began to fight back, with the help of their recently conquered Greek ship builders; that’s when the Order took Rhodes, and it became a base for Christian ships.

  I mention this lest you find it odd that a Genoese ship was welcome in a Turkish port. The truth was, without our trade, they’d have had no way of shipping their goods, because pirates of all races and faiths, or none, attacked any small merchant. Only big, heavy ships could sail that coast.

  There’s another truth, an ugly one; Parmenio was delighted to have us aboard because we were donats of the knights. The knights were reputed the most dangerous pirates in those seas, and Parmenio claimed that the Order was not above taking a rich ship and butchering the crew. I wasn’t sure I believed it, but it seemed possible.

  So when the other capitano, Messire Florico, found a cargo of spices and ivory from Africa and Yemen, it was not so unnatural. A Moslem merchan
t would move his goods as far west as he could, and then hope to find an Italian ship to carry them to a buyer in Europe. I didn’t know any of this before I went out to Rhodes; by the time we were in the market of Alayie, I had began to understand why veteran knights of the Order all seemed to know everything about being a Levantine merchant.

  And knights are supposed to have contempt for merchants, but I found it fascinating; not just the possibility of profit, but the adventure of seeking out a cargo in an alien land and then getting it home undamaged.

  So, that afternoon, we learned that the second Genoese ship would stay another day or perhaps two. Messire Florico attempted to convince Parmenio to stay with him, but we all wanted to be on Rhodes.

  So we sailed the next morning – another perfect day, with a blue sky and lovely white clouds.

  I was on the deck with Sister Marie, doing my hic, haec, hoc while Emile and Helen used sword and buckler under Fiore’s watchful eye – and Sister Marie’s. I enjoyed watching them, and I enjoyed the Latin, and I was not paying any attention to the world outside the deck of the Magdalena until Messire Doria let out a volley of curses.

  ‘Arm!’ he shouted, and men raced in every direction.

  I closed my Vegetius on a bit of tape that Emile had woven for me, and as soon as I rose to my feet I saw them – a pair of predatory shapes close in with the coast, but coming hard under oars.

  I looked at the helm, and at Parmenio.

  He nodded. ‘Arm yourself. I can edge away, but I can’t outrun them. On this wind, the best I can do is make them wait an hour.’ He smiled thinly. ‘You gentlemen will have to earn your passage after all.’

  ‘Mayhap they are Christian ships?’ I asked.

  Parmenio gave me a pitying glance. ‘Pirates,’ he said. ‘Don’t imagine a cross, or a crescent, makes much difference to them. Dogs. Scum.’

  Marc-Antonio had my brigantine on deck, and my arms and legs; I pulled maille over my arming coat, and watched the galleys.

  Our Persian passenger came on deck, took one look, and went below.

  Parmenio had no marines. His deck crew were well enough armed, and every man of them had a crossbow. We had a dozen fully armed men, and John, Ewan, Rob and Ned as well as Bill Vane, and they were already on deck.