The Green Count

by Christian Cameron

  Almost instantly the little light went out. I kept ours going until the boat was in close enough to see, and then we slipped into the cold water and swam.

  We were at Tenedos that evening, with wind and current behind us, and the change couldn’t have been more sudden. As the boat ran down towards the harbour of Tenedos, Aldo and I were chatting away amicably, and he was asking me how exactly I’d spiced my fish stew. But not much later, we went up the side of the Venetian galley, and in a moment I was Sir William Gold and he was Aldo the oarsman.

  I marvelled at it, though. In the space of a few days, I’d been a baggage slave, an escapee, and now, a knight. It is interesting, is it not, that as much as we prize who we are, we also remain the results of other men’s thoughts? When I was a slave, I spake as a slave … Richard thought me a mere routier still, I could tell; it was essential to his image of himself that I was a routier.

  I suppose that all those years, I assumed that when Richard and I were together, we’d make it up.

  We prepared to sail for Negroponte, and I was afraid for John, but I also felt that some part of me had died. Richard could not let me be myself. He could not change his views of who I had to be. Would he, in the end, make me a routier?

  We never made Negroponte, however. The first morning, on a little beach on the coast of Thrace, we exchanged greetings with a fishing boat that sold us some clams, warily, and they told us that the ‘Great Frankish Fleet’ had sailed for Lesvos.

  Lesvos. Where my wife was.

  Something prickled in my head, and I was afraid.

  The fear was with me for the next two days. Maybe it was only that without my friends about me, I began to fear the Hungarian, the Count of Turenne, and the distant Robert of Geneva. Mayhap even the Bourc Camus.

  Being a prisoner of the Turks was almost a comfort by comparison.

  And I worried about John. I was sailing away from him, and it went clean against my notions of what was fitting. I wanted to rescue him on the spot, with fire and sword; especially now that I had braes and hose and a cote-hardie on, and felt like a knight.

  Two difficult days. I remember fencing with Zeno on the catwalk, with sharps. He was a good swordsman, well trained, and yet he formed his parries so late and so suddenly that he could never make a play from the crossing, a habit I have seen in many men who imagine themselves slow. I offered to improve his covers, and he bridled, looked down his long nose, and told me that he knew enough about fighting with a sword to write a book.

  Richard watched for a while and then went aft. Later he frowned at me.

  ‘Why do you imagine that you know more about fighting with a sword than other men?’ he asked.

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘I practise. I think about it. I have studied with Fiore.’

  Richard shrugged. ‘I do not see that you are any better than the capitano.’

  This all seemed very petty to me. Richard seemed angrier and more distant every day, at sea; I had no idea why. But it contributed to my growing sense of distance.

  I note that men, in general, all believe that they are born knowing how to impress women, chop firewood with an axe, and use a sword. Most men were quite wrong about the first, and I have noticed that almost all men were wrong about the second. Fiore had opened my eyes to an entire philosophy of swordsmanship, an entire way of imagining the sword and its use – the body, direction, motion, all of it. Thanks to him, I was to other swordsman the way a priest is with theology to a flock of his parishioners.

  At any rate, on the third day we raised Lesvos, and we were racing along the north coast for Mytiline when the lookout hailed to say that the harbour of Methymna was full of shipping, and he could see a galia grosse on the beach. We were almost past the town, and the sailors were standing to the sheets and halyards to take in the sail for our turn into the strait between Asia and Lesvos, Zeno cursed in Veneziano, spat once over the side in a thoughtful way, and issued a volley of orders which, thanks to my time with Contarini and my lessons with Fra Robert, I was mostly able to comprehend. Then the sails came down, and the oars came out, and we turned in perhaps twice our own length to creep back into the wind. Closer in, we could see the ten miles or so to Antissa, a Genoese trading town along the coast, and the harbour there was also full of masts.

  Zeno looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘my whole life, we have done nothing to fight the Turks or the Hagarenes in Egypt. And now, in just two years, we show them our teeth.’ He grinned – a feral, pirate’s grin. ‘They must be shitting their braes from Alexandria to Gallipoli.’

  ‘Certes, they cannot face us at sea,’ I said.

  Zeno nodded. ‘All the Turkish emirs and sultans together might have seventy galleys – and they hate each other almost as much as they fear us. The Egyptians just lost their fleet to us last autumn – perhaps they have twenty more galleys laid up in ordinary, or up the Nile, but I doubt it.’ He nodded to his timoneer. ‘It will be rich pickings on these coasts for years to come.’

  ‘While we hold the sea,’ I said.

  And then he spat over the side again. ‘Can you imagine if Genoa and Venice were to combine?’ he asked. ‘Throw in Sicily and Aragon, and the Christian fleet might be three hundred galleys and that again in round ships.’ He shrugged. ‘You know why we don’t own Jerusalem, Guillaume? Because no one gives a shit, that’s why.’

  I looked out at the bright summer sunshine and the breathtaking sight – a Venetian fleet at Methymna and a Genoese fleet at Antissa; probably, between them, more ships than the whole might of the infidel in the world.

  No one gives a shit.

  Those words bit deep.

  Listen, when you are in something – a fight, a war, a romance, a friendship – you take if for granted; it is the totality of experience, it is what you are.

  Take a step back …

  It is a very dangerous step.

  ‘These ships are not going to Jerusalem,’ Zeno said. ‘They never were. They’re going to rescue the emperor, now, but they were only, ever, going to fight on the count’s behalf in the East. Rumour is that the emperor has offered to renounce his schismatic ways and join the Latin Rite, if the Green Count will clear the Asian shore of Turks and push back the Bulgarians for him.’

  ‘Christ,’ I blasphemed, and bowed my head.

  ‘Yes,’ Zeno said. He spat again, looked at his masthead, watched his rowers, and then turned. ‘Yes. The Pope is more interested in forcing the emperor to obey him than in taking Jerusalem.’ He looked at me.

  I watched the harbour. I was thinking about Robert of Geneva; about Richard Musard; the Hungarian; Nerio, Venice, Genoa, the Pope. All of it.

  The sun was all around me, and the day was dark, and Father Pierre Thomas was dead. For years, he had been my anchor. Sometimes, now, my prayers took the form of talking to him.

  No one gives a shit.

  Indeed.

  We landed on the superb beach at Methymna – one of my favourite places. I still own a house there. I went ashore fearing everything, and found that my wife could protect herself; she’d ridden around from Mytilene with the Gatelussi entourage, and made her bow to her feudal lord with her three children. Edouard had already sworn his fealty to Count Amadeus. Emile was seated with him in the hall of the castle of Methymna when I climbed the seven hundred steps from the harbour to render my report with Richard and Carlos Zeno. Up on the castle gates hung two bodies, eviscerated and left to be pecked by gulls. I wondered who they were. But my eyes were only for my lady.

  She gave me a brilliant smile. I returned it, but bent my knee to Count Amadeus. He was dressed like a great lord, in emerald silk, lined in fur, and his face was sheened in sweat. It was hot in the hall – not as hot as it was outside in the summer sun, but hot. And his face was burned.

  Richard reported all our adventures. The only mention of me he ma
de was that I had been sick. At one point I turned my head to look at him, I was so amazed at his telling. He left out John; he left out Zeno, except to note that he had been captured and rescued; the story was about him.

  He also left out the existence of a military camp – the pestilence in it – and the strength of the Turkish army at Carnak. And he neglected to mention the daily expectation of a Genoese transport fleet by the Turks.

  When Richard was finished, the Count uncrossed his legs and looked at Zeno. ‘And milord Capitano?’ he asked.

  Zeno smiled. It was not a nice smile. ‘I am not sure that Sir Richard and I were on the same empris,’ he said.

  Zeno’s manner of recitation was very different from Richard’s. Where Richard had spoken – fluently – the language of chivalry, speaking always in terms of honour and prowess, Zeno spoke a different language, although in good French. He spoke of distances and petty difficulties and discoveries; so many Turks at this camp, so many at this other; difficulties in landing or anchoring. It was like listening to a shipwright explain how a ship was built – very professional and very dull, and ten sentences in, he’d lost his audience. The count smiled at my wife and offered her a cup of wine on bent knee, in one of his many extravagant displays of chivalry.

  Emile was trying to say something with her eyes.

  I assumed she was saying Do not react.

  So I did not. I let the count ask a few languid questions of Zeno and dismiss him with thanks, waiting my turn, but my turn did not come. When Zeno was dismissed, the count waved at Richard.

  ‘My thanks, Sir Richard. Bravely done. We could not perform these actions without you.’ He rose, and embraced Richard a few feet from me, and the two of them walked off down the hall together.

  I won’t lie.

  I was angry.

  But Emile was there, and I was wise enough to remind myself that as she was not murdered by the Hungarian or arrested by her lord, the count, I had little to worry about and a great deal for which to be thankful. I embraced her, smelled her hair, kissed Magdalene and Isabel, and exchanged bows with Edouard, who was standing with Domenico, the Prince of Lesvos’s younger son. Both of them had hawks on their fists and they looked like what they were.

  ‘You look like a fine young lord, Edouard. And you, Prince Domenico.’ I nodded.

  ‘I am a lord, now,’ he said. ‘I am the Count d’Herblay!’

  I bowed to him.

  ‘People say you killed my father,’ he said suddenly.

  He said it quite spontaneously. There were a hundred people watching and listening.

  I was kneeling, so I was at eye height. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I did not.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s good. I didn’t believe them. But … people keep saying it!’

  ‘What people?’ I asked.

  ‘The count’s confessor, his secretary, and his esquire,’ Emile said. ‘So one can guess where this might arise.’

  ‘My father would never say such a foul thing,’ Prince Domenico put in.

  Quite without thought, I put my arms around Edouard and hugged him. He grinned.

  ‘I didn’t kill your father,’ I said. ‘And if I had, My Lord, I would tell you, man to man.’

  ‘Because you are a knight,’ he said, nodding.

  We were not even clear of the hall when a page in the Gatelussi colours came and tugged at my sleeve.

  ‘Prince Francesco requests the honour of your presence,’ he said.

  ‘Tell him I will attend him directly,’ I said. I kissed Emile. ‘I may yet kill someone,’ I said with what I thought was humour.

  ‘I fear, my love, that we are now at the point where that may be required.’ She sighed.

  You look surprised, Chaucer. Listen; this is the world of arms, the law of Chivalry. I could not allow my own repute and my wife’s to be assaulted forever.

  Then I bowed deeply to her and followed the page to a big solar with a fine window, almost as good as a church window, with two knights fighting. There were coals in the hearth, and the room was cool despite them – cool, while outside the summer sun grilled the island.

  I found the Prince with not one but two of his captains; Sir Richard Percy, and the captain of Eressos, another Englishman I’d met the year before, Sir John Partner. We all bowed.

  Prince Francesco sat in a big, carved chair. He wore a simple linen cote-hardie worked with flowers in fine embroidery, and his hawkish face wore a wry smile.

  ‘You had a cool welcome from my cousin-in-law,’ he said.

  ‘That I did,’ I admitted, allowing a little of my annoyance to surface.

  ‘For whatever reason, I was not invited to hear Sir Richard’s report,’ he said. ‘I expect I’ll do as well to hear yours.’

  I bowed and rattled off the report I’d prepared while listening to Richard.

  Prince Francesco fingered his beard. ‘Disease, eh?’ He looked at his captains. ‘You think there are ten thousand ghulami at Carnal?’

  ‘Yes, My Lord,’ I answered.

  ‘As many again at this camp behind the town?’ he asked.

  ‘No, My Lord. Perhaps three thousand, and many of them sick. May I intrude a personal comment?’

  ‘Be my guest, Sir William.’ He leaned back and waved to the page, who brought me a big cup of iced sherbet. It was made with lemon and almonds, and was perhaps the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.

  ‘My man-at-arms, John, is a Kipchak,’ I began. Percy raised a finger, as if to say the man about whom I told you.

  The Prince nodded that I should continue.

  ‘We were dependent on him every day, and he kept us alive. However, on the last day he was taken, right in the gate of Gallipoli. He was not taken for being a crusader, but for being a Kipchak, and I saw him in the camp with two dozen of his fellows. I would very much like to rescue him. I imagine that his friends would also be grateful.’

  The Prince nodded. ‘And the citadel?’ he asked.

  ‘Difficult to storm,’ I said. ‘Quick enough with trebuchets.’

  ‘But the walls of the town are breached,’ he said, confirming my suspicion that even though he had not been invited to Richard’s report, he knew its contents.

  ‘Yes, My Lord,’ I said.

  He reached into a basket by his side and withdrew a scroll in a wooden tube. ‘For you,’ he said.

  It was from the Order; it bore the seal of de Midelton. I bowed and cracked the seal and read it.

  It confirmed what I already suspected – that the Order accepted that the capture of the emperor trumped operations on the coast of Cilicia. But it bore the thanks of the Grand Master, and the news that the admiral would join the count with two galleys.

  I read it aloud to the prince, who nodded.

  ‘Have you considered my offer, Sir William?’ he asked.

  ‘My Lord, saving any feudal duties I prove to owe to the count, saving my faith to the King of England, and saving my contract with Nerio Acciaioli, I am at your service.’ I bowed. And I had no interest in serving the Green Count. Paragon of chivalry that he was, I disliked him. Somehow, my disappointment with Peter of Cyprus attached itself to Count Amadeus; they were both brilliant knights, and probably good men, but they both had enough vanity for a hundred pretty women, and they both lived by their favourites.

  Prince Francesco, by contrast, reminded me enormously of someone. I couldn’t place it, exactly, at our first few meetings, and then I hit on it; he reminded me of John Hawkwood. He was like a slightly older and more refined Hawkwood.

  When I think of the leaders I have admired most, they were none of them the greatest knights. The Black Prince and the Green Count and King Peter all come to mind – fine lances, all. The best leaders, the men I loved to follow, were Juan di Heredia, for all his scheming, and John Hawkwood; Prince Francesco; Pisani, the Venetian. Well, and Fat
her Pierre Thomas, but he was a saint from God, and not a war leader at all, really. But even Father Pierre Thomas, for all his saintliness, played no favourites, was unstinting of praise, and careful and accurate with censure.

  The Prince smiled at me. ‘Well, I will ask the count directly,’ he said. ‘I assume, from the venom he allows to spread about you, that he has no intention of requiring your service.’ He met my eye. ‘Gentlemen, give me a moment with this good knight,’ he said, and the other Englishmen bowed and took their leave.

  ‘You seem a careful man, Sir William,’ he said to me when we were alone. ‘My wife tells me that the count has made not one but two attempts to seduce your wife. A nun attends her – not the nun with the children, but the one who writes so well.’

  ‘Sister Marie,’ I snarled.

  ‘My wife has arranged that Sister Marie is with your wife at all times.’ His eyes met mine. ‘There is absolutely nothing you can do. He is an amorous man, as my wife’s maids can attest. However, I can protect you and your wife.’

  I was, thank God, clear-headed. And it was like talking to Hawkwood.

  ‘From the count?’ I asked.

  ‘You have quite a variety of enemies, for so young a man,’ Gatelussi said, with a thin smile. ‘May I be frank? You need a good lord who will protect you. I would be happy to be that man, and my hand is not light. I will be even more direct – not only will I protect you, but I would be happy to see your friend Nerio prosper, as well. I am Genoese, but I need friends in Florence and Venice. It is summer now – the flood tide is on us, and my harbours are full of Christian ships. But when I look out from my battlements, I see Asia, and when the wind blows, I know that winter will come.’

  I knew he told me about the count to make me more malleable; I knew him, in a way. But I also recognised that I was in over my head; I could not afford to face the Count of Savoy and the Count of Turenne on my own resources, much less the Bourc Camus and Robert of Geneva.