The Long Sword

by Christian Cameron

  Well, there’s comedy to be found in most situations, and I bowed to him and begged his forgiveness, which shocked him so much that he forgave me on the spot.

  ‘M’amoure,’ I said, ‘you must leave. Now.’

  ‘Do not call me that,’ Emile said. Her smile said a great deal; injured and injuring too.

  I took that wound like a blow. But I shook it off. ‘Do you know the Bishop of Cambrai?’ I asked. ‘The Bishop, now, of Geneva?’

  ‘The Lord of Geneva’s younger brother? I should think so – I grew up with him,’ she said. ‘He pulled legs off flies,’ she went on. ‘Picked his nose and ate it.’

  ‘He is my enemy and he means to harm you to force me to serve him,’ I said.

  She put a hand on my arm, and the gesture was warmer than her words had been. ‘He may intend to harm me and then to harm you,’ she said. ‘But he won’t care about the consequence. He is not the kind to make a deep and subtle plan. He’s more the kind to wreak havoc and claim later it was part of a plan.’ Her smile was the same difficult glimpse of the inner woman I’d seen when she told me of her husband. Not a smile so much as a defence. ‘I grew up with this man, William. I know him.’

  ‘Then he will not harm you – if you shared—’ I imagine I stammered.

  She sneered. ‘Robert would sell his mother into slavery to advance his ends or satisfy his will.’

  ‘Someone should put him down like a dog, then’ I said.

  She laughed, a true laugh, a hearty one. ‘I promised myself I would harden my heart,’ she muttered. ‘But by God, William, it gladdens me to see you. Alive. A knight.’ She shrugged. ‘Even if you have forgotten me.’

  I bowed. ‘I wore your favour at the Emperor’s tournament in Krakow!’ I said. ‘I have worn your favour in battle in France and Italy.’

  ‘Did you wear it while you swived half the maidens of Europe?’ she asked, and her eyes were blank, and I suspect I stepped back. I knew her well enough to know that she was angry.

  Then she turned her head away. ‘Pay me no heed, William.’ She put on a false smile. ‘We shall be friends and not talk of the past.’

  Hot replies, defences and apologies bubbled to the top of my head, but I ignored them. By God, love can be like combat in this, that sometimes you must take a dangerous decision and live or die by the consequences.

  ‘We must leave,’ I said.

  She looked at me.

  ‘Emile, believe as you like. Three months ago, you were going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem with the Passagium Generale.’

  She shrugged. ‘A beautiful dream of another time.’

  I shook my head vehemently. ‘The Passagium is still active. My lord Pierre Thomas is the legate, and the King of Cyprus is to command us. I have only left him these two fortnights ago at Vienna. He will be in Venice by now.’

  She looked at her steward.

  He looked at me. ‘I suppose it is possible that the bishop’s brother is lying,’ he said.

  ‘We have virtually been under siege in this house for three weeks,’ Emile admitted.

  ‘Why would I lie?’ I asked. ‘There are four thousand men-at-arms in and around Venice. We will cut our way to Jerusalem or die trying.’

  She smiled. ‘You really have not changed, have you?’

  ‘Come with me!’ I said insistently.

  She looked at me. ‘I was attacked in my home,’ she said carefully. ‘If I leave, I will forfeit my right to bring my attackers to trial in the courts. This is my home. My people have owned a piece of this rock for six hundred years, William. I do not intend to leave that to Bishop Robert and his thugs.’

  I had not considered that she was, in fact, of the haute noblesse. ‘How could he imagine he could have you killed?’ I wondered – that’s how fickle the mind can be.

  ‘He tried to have the bishop killed so that he could have the See of Geneva,’ the steward said. ‘That’s how all this started. The old bishop was the count’s enemy.’ He turned to his mistress. ‘I think you should go. If you trust this man, go.’

  She blinked. ‘Ah, Amadeus, I long for Jerusalem with all my soul, but I am a daughter of these mountains, and I will not be beaten.’

  Amadeus shook his head. ‘Take your children and go. If there are none of you left as potential hostages, we will be safe. I will get a notary, some fine plump black cock, to try your case.’ He raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Will your legate write us an indemnity?’

  ‘Of course!’ I said. It was against the law to seize or despoil a pilgrim or a crusader or their land or moveable property.

  He looked down his long German nose at me. ‘See to it that I receive a copy with a seal,’ he said. ‘Lady, take some men-at-arms and go.’

  Emile looked at me a moment. ‘Leave us,’ she said. ‘I thank you for your council, but I need a moment with Sir William.’

  Amadeus withdrew.

  When the door was closed, Emile looked at me under her lashes. ‘With my children,’ she said, ‘I will have no scandal.’

  I bowed and, I suspect, protested.

  ‘Please give me my favour,’ she said.

  I was stricken. ‘My love!’

  She tapped her foot impatiently. ‘You are a fool, William. Do you imagine that I, a countess, will ride to Venice in the company of a man who openly wears a favour I gave in my misspent youth? Do you know what a reputation as a wanton I had at Jean le Bel’s court? I have two sons and a daughter to defend. I will not have them besmirched with foolishness.’ She wore a look – a smile that included anger. ‘You wore my favour at Krakow. People who know me were there.’

  ‘Was it all foolishness?’ I asked. ‘I love you, Madame.’ Then it struck me – what she had said. ‘Oh, sweet Christ.’

  ‘Were you thinking of me when you made love to your Italian girl? She figures prominently in tales of your amours,’ she snapped. ‘Pamfila di Frangioni?’ She extended her hand. ‘Nay, William, it will not wash. You are a fine knight and a bad lover, and I am no prize either. So help me get to Venice and we will be friends.’

  Again, I might have complained, or set her down with a rebuke – surely she had slept with her husband often enough!

  But age brings a little wisdom, and my battle sense was on me. I reached under my scarlet surcoat and unpinned the worn blue scrap and knelt. ‘I am sorry I have been unworthy,’ I said, and I meant it.

  She took it and laughed. ‘You really are too good to be true, William,’ she said softly.

  I was old enough not to berate her, but not old enough to do what I should have done.

  She called for her servants to pack. I had a two hour nap, and when I woke and bathed, two of her men servants shaved me and dressed me in beautiful clean clothes and a pair of deerskin boots worth as much as a good riding horse.

  I would like to tell you that the loss of Emile cut like a sword, but I was too tired and too sure that we were in immediate danger. And perhaps I was a cocksure young man who thought he could have his way with his woman in the end.

  Bah. We’re all fools with love, are we not?

  The sun was high in the sky when six men-at-arms rode out of the alley behind her little palace – for her ‘town house’ had more rooms than half London. She wore her harness and we had no pack mule. We had a wet nurse with a baby boy, mounted on a donkey and wrapped in a dozen blankets, and two young children in the panniers of a second animal, a large Spanish mule with a nun mounted on it. She was the children’s governess.

  Her captain, Jean-François, told the gate we were bound with the children for the abbey on the heights above. It was a fair story, as we had no baggage and darkness was a mere four hours away.

  The gate accepted the story at face value and we were away into the snow of late autumn in the Alps.

  I longed for an ambush in which I could prove my love with my sword, but none eventuat
ed. Men underestimate women constantly, and I’ll guess now that Robert of Geneva never believed that a mere woman would take her babies and ride through the snow. I’m sure her husband didn’t even see her as human. But she was. In truth, she would have been a great captain, had she been born a man. Did I not say that audacity is everything, in the dark? Hah! Audacity is everything all the time. And she had it.

  We rode over the mountains and down the French side of the passes as far as Turin, and we were unmolested; indeed, we were virtually unnoticed. I had time to be jealous of my lady’s attention to everyone but me and I had time to get to know her children. I was the odd man out: while I was forced to live with her men-at-arms, I was not one of them. They were professional, but not like my comrades in Italy nor yet like my comrades in the order. I suppose I was an arrogant prick, but they were scarcely friendly.

  And not a single bandit showed his face.

  An hour’s ride north of Turin, I made my decision. I rode up to Emile in a shower of snow and bowed in the saddle. ‘My lady countess,’ I said.

  She offered me a cold little smile. ‘Monsieur?’ she asked.

  ‘I left my squire to recuperate in an abbey above the western gates of Turin,’ I said. ‘I should go and reclaim him.’

  She nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said.

  Well, par dieu, I could tell she was angry, but I was sufficiently a fool to not understand why.

  ‘May I catch you south of Turin?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. ‘I may stay in Turin some days,’ she said. Her eyes met mine, and there was the rage again. ‘But I imagine that you are none too anxious to meet Sir Richard Musard.’

  That made no sense to me at all. ‘I have no fear of Sir Richard,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ she asked. Her eyes touched mine again, and they were hot and full of the emotion she kept out of her voice. She had her youngest wrapped against her, and she looked down at her baby and smoothed his hair before pulling the wool wrappings carefully around the little head. ‘My understanding is that he has sworn to kill you?’

  I lowered my voice. ‘Richard Musard was my best friend,’ I said hotly. ‘He betrayed me to the Bourc Camus and your husband, Madame. They sold me to the French authorities.’

  ‘And when you escaped, you avenged yourself on him by taking his wife,’ Emile said. ‘Yes, I know it all full well.’

  She rode on.

  One by one, her men-at-arms passed me on the narrow trail. I thought of a dozen responses.

  Par dieu, gentles, of course that’s how Richard told the story. But I hadn’t seen it coming and had no defence.

  It took me a day of riding through the mountains to realise that when Emile reached Venice, I might be able to send for Milady. And then Emile might change her mind.

  Because, in the meantime, I had hours to think about just what my love had heard of me. And even to consider those things I had actually done. I can remember riding, and wincing, physically, to think of the times I’d been unfaithful. Writhing in the saddle, cold and weary and mortified.

  I have always been a fool for a fair lady, and no mistake.

  Marc-Antonio was eager to go, having spent too much time on his knees and too much time eating gruel and, I gathered later, too much time defending his virtue from one of the more lecherous monks. Well, close a hundred men in a small box, and see what happens. But I had had time to think of many things, and I was profuse in my thanks to him for saving me in the village fight, and he was, perhaps unsurprisingly, delighted at my praise. When we camped, I made him go through the postures of defence, and we traded a few blows – gently, as our swords were sharp and he was inexperienced. But the sword I’d taken from the blue and white was a good one and all those days in the saddle were habituating my squire to life with and on horses.

  At any rate, we made good time out the gate, and with the help of a pair of shepherds, we cut south and east, bypassing Turin on the plain below us and riding through an early snowfall. I was wary: we were no longer ahead of our foes, or so I reckoned. But we made the passes unharmed, and high in Saint Bernard we caught up with Emile and her party in a monastery. She was withdrawn, and in fact I saw her only at a distance. She was avoiding me, and that was yet another blow.

  For the next four days, we travelled like two separate groups, the two of us, and the nine of them.

  We were well over the pass, and on our descent, dismounted to lead our horses, when I fell. I was showing off every minute, I now confess, riding too hard, scouting too far, wearing all my harness all the time, trying to earn back her good opinion in the foolish ways boys woo girls. But high above the plains of Lombardy, I tried to ride over the narrow remnants of a bridge instead of crossing lower down at the temporary ford. I was driven by no nobler motive than that Jean-François, her captain, had ordered his men not to try the bridge as being too dangerous.

  Three steps across and my riding horse paused, lost his footing on the icy logs, scrambled, and then we were in the rushing water. Autumn is not as bad as spring in the passes, but the water rises, and trickles of meltwater from summer can be swollen by rain to raging torrents.

  I went all the way under, and my riding horse came down atop me driving my hips into the stone bed of the stream.

  The shock of the cold stole my wits, and my full harness held me under for a long time, long enough that I might have screamed for breath; long enough to repent my sins, and wish that God had granted me time to commit more of them.

  And then Raoul, my riding horse, shook himself and rose to his feet and his weight was gone, and the stream was narrow enough that I got my head above water by getting my elbows on a rock before the current swept me away. I went a horse-length downstream and was thrown on a sloping boulder. And there I might well have drowned except that Jean-François was there with a spear. He wrestled me from the grip of the icy stream. Water ran out of my harness, my helmet drained down my back, and my helmet liner was soaked through, all my arming clothes were inundated, and I was very cold.

  Jean-François got me to the far bank, and Marc-Antonio had my horse. I was almost in another world: I had come so close to being dead, and I had the oddest view of the world.

  Emile came up while I was mounting. ‘We have to get him to a fire,’ she said with her devastating practicality.

  Perhaps I made some feeble protest. I felt terrible; terrible as a man who led men, and terrible in that the cold was like a vice on my feet, my head, my hands. Only the warmth of the horse between my legs steadied me, and when the wind blew I groaned.

  ‘Thanks,’ I managed to Jean-François.

  He smiled, the first time I’d seen him smile. ‘Bah! ce n’est pas rien, monsieur,’ he said. ‘If you are not from these valleys, it is a simple mistake to make.’

  An hour later I was all but inside the fireplace in a wealthy farmer’s house at the top of the valley, and warmth began to make it into my hands and feet, but the cold had settled deeply and I was sick.

  I do not remember much of that illness, except that I woke to find my head in Emile’s lap. She looked into my eyes.

  ‘You are a fool,’ she said.

  It was the nicest thing she’d said to me in two years.

  Or perhaps I dreamed that.

  When I returned to consciousness, it was to find that we were snowbound. The snow lasted two more days, and we played cards and sang and I became friends with Jean-François and his men, close enough to exchange a few blows with them in the stable yard. They were very good for country trained men, and Jean-François had a cut to the hands with a feint that caught me again and again.

  Thanks to Fiore, though, I had things to show them, as well.

  And Marc-Antonio got better every day. He was still fleshy, but no longer plump by any means, and his angelic face now had a harder line to it. He’d been in the saddle for three months.

  Where the Alp
s were in winter, Lombardy might almost have been in late summer. There was plague around Padua, or so we were told by frightened refugees, and I avoided Verona as if it had the plague. We had heard south of Turin that there were avalanches due to the sudden thaw, and I had a notion that if we were pursued, we had a respite. But I was cautious.

  Despite my tomfoolery with the stream, by the time we left our snug farmhouse south of Turin, Jean-François and his silent companion Bernard were no longer sullen companions, and when I suggested a plan of march, they were perfectly willing to accede to my wishes, with due courtesy to their mistress. We made our way south of Verona, and it was almost painful to watch Emile bloom: sun, good food and wine and freedom conspired to make her almost luminous.

  By Saint George, gentlemen. I loved her full well. And every moment brought me more to love. She was a mature woman now, grown strong, I think, in motherhood and ruling good estate. And yet sometimes she was still the young woman I had known in France – playful, determined, audacious.

  And there was the matter of her children. She had three: a boy, Edouard, and two girls, one just a babe in arms, Isabelle, and one a little older, named Magdalene. At first, she was scrupulous about keeping them clear of me. Or rather, the nun seemed to have them whenever I approached the countess, and when she had care of her children, I was clearly not welcome. But then, one afternoon in the countryside south of Verona, I came upon her on the lawn behind an inn, sitting on the sheep-cropped grass in a kirtle like the embodiment of beauty. She had the older girl in her arms and the boy sat watching Bernard on the close-cropped turf and Bernard was whittling – he was a preux cavalier, but he was always making something – toys, dolls, wooden knights for the boy. I could already see the shape of the cavalier’s great helm coming out of the billet of wood.

  I could hear Sister Catherine calling her in her Savoyard French from a window of the inn. She shouted something about the child she had – Isabelle, as I remember – and something about blood. Emile leaped to her feet. Her eyes met mine – it’s difficult to describe her look. Questioning? And yet – they held some promise …