The Leopard Sword

by Michael Cadnum

  “Sir Gregory died a week before Michaelmas that year,” said Fulke, “drowned in a puddle outside the north gate of Chester.”

  “Mourned only by his family, no doubt.”

  Fulke gave a slight bow. “If I had known you were willing to aid Lady Galena,” he confided, “I would not have been so tart with you.”

  We had accompanied the Lady Galena and her attendant Blanche de Lille along a broad avenue, passing through the city gate, and traveling the Via Nomentana to a handsome church and convent.We had passed fruit stalls and stonecutters, monks sweeping the byways, and children tossing balls of wax and twine, but nowhere had we seen any evidence of armed men.

  But there had been watchers—silent, robed figures leaning in doorways, ducking back into shadows.

  “There will be bloodshed today,” said Fulke pensively. He wore an anlass, a short sword, at his hip, and had brought only a small target shield. Heralds dressed in the finest livery, but were not expected to go heavily armed.

  In the many weeks before this, I had sometimes pretended a courage I did not feel. When I recalled the carnage of Acre—and I worked hard to force the images from my mind—I could not imagine putting myself or my companions through a similar experience.At that moment, however, I was genuinely indifferent to whether fighting came my way. I was even hopeful that some noble bravi might suffer punishment at my hand—if it served Galena’s interest.

  Fulke might have sensed my willingness to do battle, because he added, “Beware of a man wearing yellow silk.”

  I had to laugh at this ominous-sounding advice.“Did you seek the help of a ghost-wife, Fulke?”

  Ghost-wives were legendary fortune-tellers, able to raise phantoms and deliver the most telling omens.

  Fulke gave a smile. “His name is Tomasso Orsino, and he studied sword fighting with Sir Baldwin of Bec.”

  Baldwin of Bec was a legendary knight, by reputation the killer of scores of men. There were many songs about his prowess, and about his death a few years before, falling from a tower in Constantinople.

  “Tomasso has a small army of pikemen,” Fulke further advised. “And he would love nothing better than to steal Lady Galena right out of our hands.”

  Lady Galena and Blanche joined us outside the convent walls, thanking us graciously for allowing this visit, and reporting that Lady Alice had been well enough to share a dish of stewed figs.

  “They were flavored with cinnamon,” said Blanche, eager to show her appreciation for expensive pleasures.

  “But we would have savored stony bread,” said Galena, “just as happily for the opportunity to see my dear aunt, and I thank you, every one, again for this blessing.” She had, I do believe, an especially meaningful glance for me as she said this.

  We rode back to the Porta Pia, and passed through the impressive city gate. Edmund and Rannulf went on before us, bareheaded but carrying their bucklers. Fulke and I followed. All of us, including the ladies, were mounted on gentle, soft-mouthed palfreys, the sweetest-tempered sort of steed, nearly every breed of warhorse having been taken by the Crusade.

  Nigel brought up the rear—he and Rannulf had noted more than once that the rear guard should always be an experienced swordsman.

  We made our way into a side street, our passage blocked by an overturned cart and a scattering of sacks of meal. I thought nothing of this accident, or of the two carters going about the business of stacking the spilled sacks. But as we detoured into a narrow street, with overhanging balconies and deep shadows, despite the late morning, I puzzled over the furtive slowness with which the carters had gone about their duty.

  I knew for certain that something was wrong when I heard the long, chiming hiss of Edmund drawing his two-handed blade, and the chik-chik of Rannulf urging his palfrey forward, the mount snorting, frightened.

  Someone gave a shout, and the portals up and down the street opened.

  Out poured armed men.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Many warhorses love the sound of battle and prick up their ears with excited pleasure at the clash of steel on shield.

  Our city horses, soft-mouthed and unused to clamor, panicked.

  I found no way to strike an accurate blow with my sword, even as several eager hands tugged at me, pulling on my mail skirt, seizing my leg. Galena called out, and to my surprise and relief she produced a knife from within her cloak, and slashed about her at the hands that tried to drag her from the saddle. Our attackers were outfitted with cudgels, staffs, and short swords, and some fought with one hand while flourishing a wineskin in the other.There was a howl as she sliced a hairy wrist, and another just as anguished as she cut open a wine sack, held up as an improvised buffer against her dagger.

  Without warning I was unseated and sprawling in the muddy gutter down in the middle of the street. It was one of the primary rules of war—a mounted man has power over footmen, both psychological and tactical. Now I had lost that advantage, although I was quick in regaining my feet.

  The closeness of my immediate assailant’s body kept my weapon angled downward, so I struck him on the bridge of his nose with the edge of my buckler. He cut at the air with his short sword, baring his teeth, and I sliced his neck with my blade. Drawing back a half step, and taking a stance, I readied a fatal stroke, commending my adversary’s soul to Heaven.

  He dodged my death cut, my sword striking sparks from the stone wall. He lunged low, his blade driving toward my privy parts, his sword wounds sucking and rasping. He darted and feinted, fighting with a bloody grimace. But I was fast, and my attack was steady. My teachers would have been proud as my opponent weakened, stanching the wound in his neck with one hand, making erratic swipes with the other. He faded, fled, and I took a moment to consider our position.

  Galena was safe, still mounted, the knife in her hand. Fulke was wrestling with a wiry little man, and our herald looked equal to the challenge. Edmund chopped at his opponents with the determination of a woodsman. Edge blows are all that matter with a big sword, and the two-handed broadsword was smithed and honed with a large man like Edmund in mind. My friend’s lack of experience kept him flat-footed, but his heavy sword knocked his assailant down with a sickening, snapping sound from somewhere in the attacker’s body, a rib or shoulder breaking.

  Rannulf was punishing a knot of assailants, and I could tell by Nigel’s snarling, “Drop your swords, by Jesu,” that he needed little help. I seized the bridle of Galena’s horse but was too out of breath to utter any reassurance. Blanche was white-faced, clinging to the neck of her mount, but Galena’s voice was steady when she said, “Are you hurt, good Hubert?”

  Someone lifted a command, and our attackers fled, a clumsy, wine-soaked retreat. Footsteps splashed the gutter, and wounded men were hauled along and into the waiting doorways.The street was silent except for the shuddering of our mounts and the clapping, aimless flight of pigeons far above.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked again.

  I told her I was uninjured, and asked, with what I realized was, under the circumstances, a nearly comical courtliness, “And do I see you well?”

  “Quite well, good Hubert, and thank you.”

  “You may sheathe your blade, my lady,” I said with a breathy laugh.

  She slipped the dagger back into her cloak with a practiced air. Fulke was breathing heavily but uninjured, slumped against the wall. Edmund was freckled with gore and panting hard; he reported that he was not wounded, either. His voice was high-pitched with relief. “All well, Hubert. All sound and well.”

  Rannulf had found a long, thin knife with an extravagant amber hilt, dropped by one of our attackers. He was examining it in a lance of sunlight, when he looked up and said, “Listen!”

  Liste!

  THIRTY

  A tangle of footmen, their halberds clattering together, advanced on us from the street ahead.

  Behind them on a well-muscled steed rode a man with a yellow tunic and a flowing yellow cap. Drawing a broadsword with a flourish, he g
ave a piercing whistle that echoed in the narrow street.The remaining mob of assailants limped from doorways and did what they could in our rear, harassing Sir Nigel.

  I’ve always particularly hated the halberd. Edmund and I had agreed that our great fear is that one of these cruel, long-shafted weapons might gouge out our eyes—or some other essential organ. Rannulf started in on the attackers, quick with his sword, and the weapons were proving clumsy, the shafts too long for this crowded little street.The pikemen themselves were knock-kneed and unsteady, wine spilling from their goatskin sacks.

  Throwing my buckler to one side, I seized Galena’s palfrey by the reins, and leaped into the saddle of my own wild-eyed mount. Nigel was fighting effectively, laying about him with his sword, but unable to be of any further help to us as we rode past him.A blade ripped the hem of my surcoat, and another barked the leather of my gauntlet. I kicked one attacker in the mouth, more or less accurately, and urged my mount forward, pulling Galena’s horse along.

  I kept one hand tight around Galena’s reins, until we were all the way across a large, sunlit square. Blanche followed on her mount—hunched, a hood over her head. Galena was laughing. “How far do we have to ride, Hubert,” she called, “before we are safe?”

  “No distance is too far,” I said, “if it pleases you.”

  “Are all squires,” she asked, “so well spoken?”

  I gave her a wordless smile, shaking so much inwardly that I could make little in the way of further conversation.

  The two carters with their scattered sacks of meal had righted the wagon, a pair of oxen lowing with a dull, heartfelt impatience.The two wagon drivers now took a moment to listen to the clash and outcry of fighting that echoed from the narrow street. They put their heads together, a sluggish caricature of conspiracy. Then one of them drew a weapon from within the bags of flour, a rusty broadsword.

  I thanked Heaven that these two men were as drunk as all our other attackers this fine noon. My complaining palfrey tossed and snorted, foam flying, but I beat the carters with the flat of my sword, and sent the two of them flying.

  Sir Maurice met us outside the iron-studded door of his house, splendid in freshly oiled mail.

  Tomasso Orsino, without his yellow cap, his silk tunic torn and soaked with blood—not, it seemed, his own—sat on a weary palfrey. Sir Rannulf rode beside him, so close that the two appeared to be companions, except that Tomasso’s sheath carried no weapon.

  The Roman nobleman was pleasant looking, with a small, pointed beard. He was more than a few years older than Edmund and I, with the deep chest and thick neck of a man who both ate well and practiced swordplay. Sir Nigel walked behind him, bereft of his buckler but apparently unhurt. Fulke and Blanche brought up the rear, looking exultant.

  Sir Maurice had evidently received word of our trouble, and had been on the verge of leaving to join us. The banneret wore a sword with a golden pommel, a dagger in a sheath on the other hip.

  “Are you harmed?” he asked his daughter sharply.

  “Father, I am not,” she said.

  “In any way?” he asked.

  “No, please Heaven,” she responded.

  He breathed a prayer.

  Then, pointedly ignoring our prisoner, like a man in the most ordinary circumstance, he went on to ask his daughter, “And how was the health of the noble lady, your aunt?”

  “Worshipful and sound,” she replied, “in flesh and soul.”

  “It pleasures me to hear it,” said Sir Maurice, and then, as though just now recognizing a guest, he smiled and exclaimed something in the Roman tongue.

  Tomasso replied with an equally studied air, artful and convincing, words that conveyed the meaning, I have come to visit you with my new English friends.

  The sound of approaching footsteps and the clang of steel against armor reached us from an adjoining street. Tomasso straightened in his saddle and smiled, and Nigel drew both his couteau and his broadsword; a knight who had lost his shield often defended himself with a weapon in each hand.

  “That, my lords,” said Fulke, with his lofty herald’s accent, “will be a mob of Orsini cousins, ready to dispute Tomasso’s capture.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  I sat beside a large red clay urn that was bursting with rosemary, the fragrant medicinal herb luxuriating in the afternoon sun.

  I turned at the sound of a step nearby, but to my surprise it was Nigel. He was dressed in a smock of rich blue, a leopard in scarlet on his breast. Hours before, we had hurried through the gates of the envoy’s dwelling, and Fulke had successfully persuaded the Orsini allies to retreat and be prepared to negotiate for Tomasso’s release.

  “I’m told,” said my master,“that if I stand way over at one end of this roof garden, I can gaze across the River Tiber and see the tomb of Hadrian the Great.”

  I hid my disappointment that my visitor was not the person I had been expecting. “A great emperor of Rome,” I said, remembering my studies. “He mastered the pagan tribes of England, or do I confuse him with some other champion?”

  “He’s long reduced to bone dust, I’m sure. But his monument remains.”

  I wondered if Nigel, who was capable of both interesting and tedious discourse, had climbed the stairs to provide me with a lesson in Roman history.

  I had been wanting to ask all afternoon, “How did Sir Rannulf capture Tomasso?”

  “In my friend’s usual manner,” said Nigel. “He took a blow or two, I’m sorry to say, but then he used his sword to snap a few halberds. He killed Tomasso’s horse with one blow to the neck—you’ve seen it done—and then he stood, one foot on the stunned Roman’s throat until the fellow had wits enough to surrender. I believe Rannulf would have killed him, if I hadn’t asked him not to.”

  “It was not a pretty fight?”

  “Is it ever?” Nigel laughed.

  “What will Sir Maurice do with Tomasso?” I asked.

  “Treat him well, with meat and drink,” said Nigel. “Politics is often a matter of taking hostages, and holding them until some favor is produced.These Romans are accustomed to this—it is a dangerous sport, I believe. Sometimes the lord Pope helps negotiate a particularly difficult agreement.”

  “Perhaps,” I said with a laugh, “I am fortunate to be so ignorant of the ways of great cities.”

  “I have tidings for you, Squire Hubert,” said Sir Nigel, sitting down beside me. “Sir Maurice has offered you a position, here in Rome.”

  “Doing what duty, my lord?” I managed to stammer.

  “The lady Galena, it seems, has high praise for your alertness and courage today. If you wish to be an assistant to the royal envoy in Rome, and learn the ways of royal intrigue, here is your future.”

  And, I told myself, if I wished to stay close to the envoy’s daughter.

  “And you, my lord—would you be able to stay?”

  “I have a mission to London with Sir Luke.” Neither Nigel nor Rannulf had admired King Richard’s prowess as a commander. It was true, however, that Richard was an anointed monarch, and the opportunity to serve him was an honorable way to secure the future.

  “And Edmund?”

  “The position is yours alone, Hubert—if I give my consent. Edmund will travel with us to England, and we leave tomorrow on a trip that could take months.”

  A richly detailed vision rose within me—a dream of myself as an envoy in the making, ordering servants, receiving messengers, washing my hands in a wide, silver bowl held by a servant.

  A dream of taking Galena in my arms.

  Rome is a city of bells, every church and chapel sounding forth its glory. Now a distant bell beat out a cascade of sounds, and where a moment before I had heard only a bell’s clapper striking bronze, now I heard the far-off bell make a sound like words: Stay here, stay here.

  Or was it Go home, go home?

  THIRTY-TWO

  “Look!” exclaimed Maurice. “See here what the kitchen servants found in the gizzard of tonight’s goose.” />
  He held up a coin and passed it around, the inscription and profile on the money worn nearly smooth.

  We were dining, as before, without Galena, although Tomasso joined us, dressed in a sunny tunic, an amber ring on his forefinger. Two spearmen accompanied us tonight, standing against the wall, and Rannulf kept a pleasant but proprietary eye on our prisoner-guest. Occasionally Tomasso ran his eyes over to the shadowy spearmen and back to Rannulf, who met the Roman’s glance with a friendly glance of his own. The two made efforts to communicate, searching for common words for salt, bread, bruise.

  Rannulf’s brow was discolored, and a cut along his neck bore a smear of medicine, some knight’s concoction no doubt, perhaps carrot root and cooking grease. Rannulf often behaved like a man who believed himself made of hardwood—but he was not.

  I had not discussed the opportunity Sir Maurice had offered me with anyone—and certainly not with Edmund. I suffered keen inward turmoil, even the freshly baked bread tasteless in my mouth. I wished I could ask Father Giles for advice on how to guess the will of Heaven.

  “I’ve seen objects show up in fowl from time to time, my lord,” Nigel was saying. “I believe there are English geese that feed strictly on lost buttons.”

  “And I heard of a goose cut open in Derby,” I said, “with a red agate ring in its crop.”

  Tomasso listened to our conversation, perhaps with a little comprehension, and passed the coin along to Edmund.

  “But surely,” said Sir Maurice, with a slightly exasperated smile,“it is just a little unusual to find gold in the innards of the evening’s meal.”

  “It isn’t fine gold, my lords,” said Edmund. “If you’ll permit me—it’s copper with a bare alloy of gold and perhaps tin.”

  “Ah,” said Sir Maurice. He took a sip of wine, and inquired, “And how does a squire from Nottingham know that?”

  Edmund blushed, his eyes suddenly downcast. “No doubt I’m mistaken, my lord.”