by Terry Jones
‘Right!’ said Squire John, who was always anxious to do his master’s bidding. He glanced sideways at Sir Thomas, however, and then took a deep breath and began:
‘Sir Thomas! Talking of Bernabò’s children, there’s something I must . . .’ but he never got any further because that was the moment when the first dog started howling.
Why the dogs had been so quiet up to now is anybody’s guess. Normally Bernabò Visconti’s dogs kept a sizeable proportion of the population of Milan awake in their beds at night with their constant barking and howling.
You see the Lord of Milan kept a lot of dogs. Not just two or three to fawn on him as he strode around the palace, nor just a couple of dozen for hunting. Bernabò Visconti kept a lot of dogs. And Tom and John’s shortcut to the stable led through the place that was known by the good citizens as the ‘cà di can’ – the doghouse. It was here that the tyrant of Milan kept the majority of his dogs.
And when I say ‘a lot’ of dogs, I mean ‘a lot’. He didn’t keep fifty or even seventy dogs. He didn’t keep just a couple of hundred dogs. He kept a lot. Five hundred dogs? Uh uh! The Lord of Milan never did such things by half. He kept more like a thousand dogs. At least that’s what the good folk of Milan reckoned.
The truth was even more preposterous.
In all Bernabò Visconti the Lord of Milan kept around five thousand dogs. He couldn’t resist buying more and more of the creatures. It was a mania.
He knew that the majority of his fellow rulers – the princes, kings and emperors of Europe – regarded him as a beast himself, and so he surrounded himself with even more beasts, as if to dilute his own beastliness. Outside his chamber he kept a menagerie, including an ostrich, and in the grounds of his palace you could find lions and leopards and even a sad gazelle that could hardly raise its head above its knees, so sick it was for the prickling heat of the veldt that it remembered in the pores of its skin.
What was the matter with the world? Didn’t they know the Lord of Milan commissioned books? That he paid his minstrels more than any other prince in the world? That he built almshouses and churches to the glory of God and the worship of his own magnificence? And yet those snobs that sat on the lofty thrones of Europe still saw him as a monster! As a beast! Well, he was worth more than any of them. And that was why he kept so many dogs.
But five thousand dogs take a lot of feeding. So he housed many of them in the homes of his subjects and cut off the hands or heads (depending on the weather) of those who either underfed or overfed those precious animals.
It was, perhaps, the single most resented imposition that the good people of Milan suffered under their lord.
By the time Tom and John had taken another step, a second dog had taken up the howl. By the time they had reached the third kennel, forty other dogs had joined in. The next footstep caused the palace walls to echo with the howling and barking of two thousand dogs.
Perhaps Tom and his squire John should have turned and fled there and then, but they didn’t. They kept on their way through the cà di can, heading towards the stables.
The uproar from the dogs, however, had not gone unremarked in the guardhouse, and, even though the barking of the dogs was a daily event, one or two guards appeared round the corner to investigate. They were in time to see Tom and Squire John disappear round the back of the doghouse.
In the meantime, more guards emerged from the stables, and were now blocking the narrow alleyway of the cà di can ahead of Tom and John.
‘Should we keep walking to allay suspicion?’ asked Squire John.
‘No fear!’ replied Tom. ‘Run!’
To their right Tom had noticed another alleyway, and it was down this that he now plunged with John hard on his heels. It was a dead end. Tom came to a stop and so did John. And so, luckily, did the pursuing guards.
That was the good news. The bad news was that the guards had stopped in order to release several of the dogs, and these now came hurtling towards the fugitives.
It’s pretty unnerving to be charged at by guard dogs at the best of times, but it was even more unnerving in this instance since these particular guard dogs were reputed to have developed a taste for human flesh, upon which the Lord of Milan was supposed to feed them from time to time.
‘Uh oh!’ said John, as the dogs fought each other for the honour of the first bite.
‘There’s only one way!’ said Tom.
‘Which is . . .?’ John was always keen to hear his master’s opinion.
‘Up!’ said Tom, and the next minute they had both vaulted up onto the low kennel at the end, and were running across the uneven roofs of the cà di can, and the dogs were left jumping up and sinking their teeth into nothing more satisfying than thin air.
‘And then down!’ yelled Tom, and before John had the chance to say: ‘But down’s just water!’ Tom had leapt and landed in a shower of spray.
Squire John hesitated for no longer than it took a couple of the hysterical dogs to bark once before he too plunged into the dark water of the Milan canal and was following his master, swimming desperately towards the postern gate.
Some time later Tom’s head bobbed up above the glinting surface of the canal outside the city of Milan. He was gasping for air and his lungs felt as if they had already burst. He clung to the bank of the canal while he coughed up a considerable portion of it back into the proper channel. Then he looked around for his squire, and was surprised to find him grinning cheerfully from the shore.
‘You look like you’ve drunk half the canal, sir!’ said Squire John.
‘How the devil did you get up there so quickly?’ panted Tom.
‘I used to be village champion,’ replied Squire John. ‘I could swim right round the castle moat without coming up for breath more than twice! Grab my hand, sir!’ And Squire John pulled Sir Thomas English up out of the Milan canal.
They stood there for some moments, catching their breath and dripping water into the puddle that had formed around them. They could hear the dogs of the cà di can still shattering the night with their howling and barking.
Eventually John broke what would have otherwise been the silence.
‘Sir Thomas, I hate to say this, but there’s something I haven’t told you.’
Tom shook the water out of his ears and said: ‘Well, it’ll have to wait. We’ve got to do something first.’
‘What’s that?’ asked John.
Tom looked at his squire and hesitated. He was not at all certain how the young man was going to receive what he was going to say next.
‘Well . . .’ ventured Tom. ‘We still haven’t rescued Bucephalus . . .’
‘So we need to get back into the city to rescue him at once!’ exclaimed Squire John.
‘I thought you wouldn’t be very keen on the idea.’ Tom was slightly surprised at John’s enthusiasm.
‘No! No! It was exactly what I was going to suggest, sir!’
‘Let me get this clear, John,’ said Tom. ‘You were going to suggest trying to get back into the city?’
‘Well, that’s what you’re suggesting too, sir . . .’ replied John.
‘Yes, but . . .’ Tom thought for a moment. ‘This anxiety of yours to return to the city, John, it couldn’t have anything to do with a certain young lady by the name of Beatrice?’
Squire John flushed.
‘She visited me in prison!’ he said. ‘She swore to come with me to the ends of the earth!’
‘John!’ Tom sounded rather exasperated. ‘I do not think that is a sufficient reason for undertaking an enterprise that is so risky . . . so fraught with danger . . .’
‘But you want to do it too, sir!’ pointed out John. Tom closed his mouth and stared at his squire.
‘All right!’ he said. ‘How are we going to do it?’
John shrugged. ‘Er . . .’ was the best plan he could come up with.
‘Er is not a plan of action,’ Tom pointed out.
‘No,’ agreed John.
‘
Well, I suggest we start at the obvious place,’ said Tom.
‘Which is?’ asked Squire John.
‘The main gate,’ said Tom. And with that they set off around the path that followed the perimeter of the city wall. John was not quite sure that the main gate of the city of Milan was the most obvious place to effect an illegal entry, but he told himself that Tom would have worked out a plan and that in the fullness of time he would get to hear of it.
If the truth were to be told, however, Tom had absolutely no plan in his head whatsoever. He just hoped something would suggest itself by the time they reached the gate. That, however, was something they were not destined to do.
They had walked at least halfway round before the gate came into sight, and Tom still hadn’t worked out much of a strategy. He thought that he might try and talk his way in, but what he was going to say still hadn’t progressed beyond the ‘good morning, how are you?’ stage.
He had just moved the hypothetical conversation on to: ‘My friend and I have business in the city but we were waylaid by bandits and all our papers were stolen . . .’ when the two of them froze in their tracks. The main gates of the city of Milan were opening.
‘Why are they opening the gates at this hour!’ murmured Squire John.
‘Maybe they’re looking for someone . . .’ muttered Tom. ‘Like us.’
At which point they heard shouts and the clatter of horses’ hooves on stone and a troop of mounted soldiers rode through the gates, with the distinct air of looking for someone.
‘Uh oh!’ said John.
‘Uh oh!’ agreed Tom, and before the last soldier had passed under the portcullis, the minstrel-knight and his squire had disappeared down one of the narrow lanes of the city beyond the gates. The heroic rescue of Beatrice and Bucephalus was going to have to wait.
They ran as fast as their wet shoes allowed them, and turned a corner.
‘Sir Thomas!’ exclaimed Squire John.
‘What?’
‘Look!’
‘The guards?’ gasped Tom.
‘No!’ whispered John, his voice almost quivering with excitement. ‘There! D’you see?’
‘No!’ whispered Tom. ‘Where?’
‘It’s you!’ Squire John was pointing at the wall of the grand house that featured the pittura infamante of the red-haired man dangling upside down from the gallows. ‘Look, that’s your hair!’
‘What’s my hair got to . . .?’ began Tom, but at that moment they heard hooves and shouts. ‘Quick!’ Tom pulled his squire away from the portrait on the wall, and into a courtyard.
It was a small enclosed court, with several doors leading off it. Tom and John shrank back into the shadows behind an old barrel that was standing outside one of the doors, as the clatter of hooves approached. The troop of guards rode past the wall that bore Tom’s pittura infamante, without looking at either it or the courtyard in which Tom and John were hidden.
As luck would have it, however, a thin, meanlooking dog had taken it into its head to follow the horses, and this creature now strayed into the courtyard. It wandered past them and proceeded to sniff around the corners of the walls.
Tom slipped out of the shadows and stuck his head around the building to see that the troop had reached the further end of the street.
‘Let’s go!’ hissed Tom, whereupon the dog assumed that he was included in the invitation and gave a bark of excitement!
‘Sh!’ hissed Squire John, but the dog was determined to show how much it appreciated its new friends and started alternately licking the back of John’s legs and yapping cheerfully.
‘Sh!’ whispered Tom, but it was too late. The last soldier had turned in his saddle as the pair ran out of their hiding place and back down the road pursued by the extraordinarily elated dog.
‘There they are!’ cried the guard, and the troop reined in their horses and turned them round with some difficulty in the narrow street. By the time the entire troop had changed direction, Tom and John had disappeared round the next corner.
Tom and John ran and ran, desperately looking for an open doorway or side alley, but there was none. Meanwhile the increasingly rapid rhythm of hoof-beats behind them drove them forward like drums beating forward the vanguard on the field of battle.
Then suddenly there they were! The troop rounded the corner, the leader yelled, his horse snorted and whinnied, and they charged towards the fugitives.
Instead of running, however, Tom suddenly stopped in his tracks and span round. John was so preoccupied with escape that it was a dozen strides before he realised that his master was no longer by his side. When looked back, he saw Tom raising his fingers to his mouth, and as the horses bore down on him, he gave three shrill whistles.
At once the leading horse reared up in the air and bucked – taking the leader of the troop totally by surprise. The man was thrown off the saddle and into the path of the other horses, who had no room to manoeuvre. The hooves of the next horse struck the fallen guard and the horse stumbled and fell, bringing total confusion into the narrow street, as the following horses either shied away or followed suit, pitching their riders onto the roadway.
‘Bucephalus!’ shouted Tom, as the leading horse galloped towards him, and before a single guard had scrambled to his feet, Tom had leapt onto the saddle of his old horse. The next moment he had pulled his squire up behind him and they were both speeding off into the night and out of the southern suburb of the city of Milan.
Chapter 34
The Wolf’s Leap 1361
Peter de Bury stood there smiling coolly, with the beautiful Emily’s hand holding his. Tom found himself staring at Peter’s hand. Had that hand taken Ann’s life? Or would Peter de Bury have got one of his men to carry out so menial a task?
Tom’s mind was about to explode in an excess of anger, resentment, sadness, hatred, loss, regret, envy, rage and several other emotions, when Jean the Frenchman came up behind him and asked:
‘What’s happened?’
‘He’s murdered Ann!’ was all Tom was capable of saying.
The cool smile on Peter de Bury’s face grew even cooler and wider, showing off his remarkably white teeth for a brief instant.
‘Why do you think I would do that?’ he asked in a voice pleasant enough to freeze a lobster in its tracks.
‘What have you done with her?’ yelled Tom, and before he knew what he was doing, he had leapt at Peter de Bury, with his fists flying in all directions . . . though mostly in the direction of Peter de Bury’s extremely handsome nose.
What happened next was unclear to Tom, but instead of finding himself triumphantly standing with one foot on the defeated Peter de Bury’s chest and the grateful Emily gazing admiringly up into his eyes, he found himself flying backwards across the room and landing with a crunch against the far wall. His head snapped back and hit the doorpost and the next minute Peter de Bury was on top of him. A knife jumped into Peter’s hand as if by magic, and a second later Tom lost consciousness.
The sequence of events which Tom consequently missed was as follows:
The Lady Emilia de Valois shouted: ‘Look out!’ Whereupon Peter de Bury looked up from the unconscious Tom in time to see Jean the Frenchman draw his sword. Now Peter was well aware that size really does count when it comes to cold steel, so he leapt to his feet and in a single deft movement positioned himself behind the lovely Emily. He stood there with his nine-inch knife pointing at Jean’s two-foot sword.
‘If I were you I’d take your friend and get out of here!’ he advised the Frenchman.
Jean looked down at the unconscious Tom and then across at Peter de Bury and the lady. Then he grunted, swung Tom up onto his shoulders and stumped out of the house. It was good advice, Jean decided, for no matter how much longer his sword might be than Peter’s knife, there were other things to consider . . . like the return of the other bandits, whom he could already hear swearing and cursing as they stumbled back empty-handed.
Tom started to come to his sen
ses as Jean staggered through the night.
‘What happened?’ he muttered.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ mumbled the Frenchman, as he helped Tom up into Bucephalus’s saddle. He then jumped onto his own horse, and led Tom away from Le Saut du Loup, towards the north.
Dawn was just putting a little colour into the red roof tiles of the village of Nonette, as Tom and Jean the Frenchman rode up through the thin morning mist that had gathered in the valley. A few women were already fetching water from the stream, and the occasional dog raised its head to watch the two men ride by, but decided it was too early to make the effort to bark.
Jean and Tom sat by the stream that ran by the side of the road and splashed the cold water on their faces.
Tom was silent, and Jean kept glancing at him sideways.
Eventually he said: ‘There was nothing you could do.’
‘I should have killed him,’ said Tom. He’d never imagined those words would pass his lips.
‘He said he hadn’t murdered her,’ said the Frenchman. ‘He said he didn’t know where she was.’
‘Do you believe that?’ asked Tom.
‘Well . . .’ said Jean, ‘what reason would he have to kill her?’
‘You saw him,’ replied Tom. ‘He was hand in hand with Emily. She says he’s going to be her knight and she’s going to England with him to rescue her brother.’
‘That’s still no reason to kill Ann,’ observed Jean.
‘Don’t you see? He got rid of Ann because she was in the way! As long as she was around he couldn’t make love to Emily!’
The pallor of Tom’s face had now been replaced by a red flush. Perhaps it was the action of the cold water.
‘He’s the devil!’ he muttered, and suddenly the image of Ann, dressed as Squire Alan and standing in front of the Duke of Lancaster, bold and fearless, leapt into his mind and he couldn’t stop a howl of rage and sadness escaping from his lungs.
And with that howl, a dozen other images of Ann flashed through his head and lit up his clouded brain like lightning strokes: Ann, dressed as Alan, climbing the city wall when they first met, Ann riding alongside Sir John Hawkley as his squire, Ann dressed up in the armour of Sir Geoffrey de Bernay, Ann leaping from the roof of the Pope’s palace in Avignon . . .