I breathed carefully and tested my new-found resolutions about. . everything.
‘Mount up,’ I said.
It was a difficult evening. The Green Count himself — Amadeus of Savoy — was the soul of courtesy to Father Pierre Thomas, but he ignored the rest of us as if we didn’t exist. There were fine ladies and gallant gentlemen. Fiore’s instruction had not included dancing, and I was only a squire, so I watched. I served Fra Peter at table, and was content.
It may seem odd that a man who had commanded, who had led men in battle, could stand at the side of the hall and carve roast swan, but there it is.
About midnight, we all trooped out of the Great Hall to hear Mass. There was snow falling and it was very cold. Fra Peter was given high precedence — after all, the Order was pre-eminent in the Christian world — and I was just a squire. I trailed along with the squires.
I stopped at the holy water font by the door and took some, and Richard grabbed my arm.
I bowed.
He just looked at my face. He did so for long enough that other men clearly thought we were about to fight. A savoyard stepped between us. ‘Messieurs!’ he hissed. ‘This is a place of God!’
Richard stuck by me.
Mass seemed to go on for ever. There was no way we could speak. Father Pierre Thomas consecrated the host with the local chaplain. Count Amadeus refused to take the host from Father Pierre Thomas, and I knew in a moment that our embassy, whatever it had been, had failed.
Fra Peter caught my eye and gave me a sign that said, ‘Get ready to move.’
When Mass ended, the courtiers went for the great hall. A very pretty woman dropped me a splendid curtsey. ‘Do you dance?’ she asked.
‘I do not,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘Why are all the handsome men in orders?’ she asked, and flounced away before I could disabuse her notion.
Richard was by me, and he said, ‘You really are William Gold.’
I grinned and tried to embrace him.
He backed away. ‘You are alive?’ he said — three times. And his face was a study in conflict.
‘William!’ Fra Peter said. I turned and saw that he had Juan with him.
I turned to Richard. ‘You are a knight,’ I said. ‘I congratulate you.’
‘You are alive,’ he breathed.
‘Richard,’ I said. ‘It is all right.’
‘William! Now!’ Fra Peter called. I made a sketchy bow to Richard Musard and ran for my knight.
We gathered our men-at-arms in a hurry and got our horses. Fra Peter was tight-lipped, and Father Pierre Thomas looked as if he’d been struck.
‘Get some sleep,’ Fra Peter said. ‘We ride at dawn.’
‘Before the Green Count does something we’ll regret,’ Father Pierre Thomas said.
We did ride at dawn, but after two hours on the road, when we reached the turning point where the alpine passes stretch away to the east and the road runs down to the west into Provence and Avignon, Father Pierre Thomas had a brief conference with Fra Peter. He smiled at me, gave each of us a blessing, which all of us needed, and rode away west with only the men-at-arms he’d brought a week before.
Fra Peter watched him go, a rare look of indecision on his face.
‘What happened?’ I made bold to ask.
‘The last hope for the crusade just behaved like an arrogant child,’ Fra Peter said. hen he took a deep breath. ‘William, please forget I said that. Father Pierre Thomas has to go straight to the Pope. I am going to John Hawkwood.’
We arrived at Romagnano in late October — probably as late as we could come before the high passes closed.
It was like coming home. Yet a different kind of home — new men, new whores, new children. The whole town was ours — that is, it was the property of the English Company. I rode through the streets, suddenly conscious of how I looked. I had been on the road for four weeks, and I was cleaner and neater than most of the men-at-arms I passed.
I saw more and more men I knew as I passed into the heart of the town, where the taverns were. I saw Andrew Belmont — he hadn’t been at Brignais, but he had been at Poitiers. I saw John Thornbury, and he shocked me by running along the cobbled street and throwing his arms around me.
He pounded my back, despite my armour. ‘Will Gold!’ he said. ‘By the good God, Will Gold! We heard you was dead!’
He bowed to Fra Peter. ‘My lord. Pardon we poor Englishmen.’
Fra Peter extended a hand. ‘I, too, am a poor Englishman. Poorer than you, I’ll wager.’
Thornbury cast an eye over our ten lances. He grinned at Sam Bibbo, and reached to clasp hands with Bill Grice.
‘Tell me these men are for us,’ he said.
I probably had a grin as big as my face. ‘Sir John said bring ten lances,’ I said.
There was a whoop of epic proportions from a second-floor window, and John Hughes jumped from a narrow balcony into the streets. Alpine towns are high and narrow and clean, a perfect contract of white plaster and blackened beams. Town houses have high, narrow windows, but John Hughes got through the window, onto the balcony and down to the street faster than you can tell it. He pulled Sam Bibbo down from his horse.
Sam was grinning like a fool, but he said, ‘Now, John, I ain’t your girl. Put me down, you gowp.’
I was still mounted, but I looked down to find a neat young man, only a little shorter than my horse, holding my bridle. It took me a breath or two to realize this was Perkin. Master Smallwood, as I understood everyone called him now. He was dressed soberly, in black, and he looked. . like a man.
I dismounted and we embraced.
‘I. .’ He hung his head. ‘I heard you was alive, but until a month ago we all thought you was dead.’
And then there were all my old mates: Robert Grandice, not seen in a year; Belier, looking like a man-at-arms; even the two wild Irishmen, Seamus and Kenneth, who I hadn’t seen in three years. They no longer looked Irish, except for their facial hair. They had doublets and hose like civilized men.
I almost had my ribs crushed by Kenneth, who was bigger than me — few men are — and kept saying, ‘Been too long!’
Then, while I was introducing men to Fra Peter, Sir John came down from his commanderie. He looked wealthy — his clothes were the best in the street, and that said something. He had gold on — a gold belt of plaques, a gold earring and gold on the mount of his dagger scabbard — and he carried a short staff, like a great noble.
He and Fra Peter exchanged bows.
‘From the Pope?’ he asked straightway.
Fra Peter nodded.
Sir John nodded. ‘None too soon,’ he said. He looked at me and smiled. ‘William the cook, as I live and breathe.’ His smile broke wider. ‘These are your ten lances?’
My forty men — or Fra Peter’s, as the case may be — filled the street. Streets in Alpine towns wind like snakes, and climb and drop like — never mind. They can be steep and the houses press close. It’s like Cumbria, friends, except twice as steep, and on a cold day your iron-shod horse-hooves ring like an anvil against the cobbles as your horse climbs a street. My little column closed the town’s main street to all traffic.
So I turned. I remember my chest being tight with pride at it. ‘Yes, Sir John.’
‘Well, we’re full up at the moment.’ He grinned. ‘And I’ll have to speak to the captain about you.’
Thornbury laughed. ‘Our captain, Sir Albert Sterz.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Full up, my arse. Look at their armour, John! That’s Bill Grice, Bob Courtney and Sam Bibbo. Christ, these are proper soldiers.’
John Hawkwood met my eye and his eyes sparkled. ‘Shut up, Master Thornbury. I’m negotiating.’
We settled on thirty florins a month within an hour.
I confess I was a trifle put out when Sir John took Fra Peter to his rooms and left the rest of us to drink wine. It reminded me of Chaucer and Master Hoo.
Juan sat by me. He pushed in when I was reminiscing with Perkin — in the main, I was reassuring him and my other former mates that I held them no ill-will for riding away when I was to be hanged.