‘Please?’ Juan asked politely.
Perkin frowned at him.
‘What, Juan?’ I asked.
He frowned back at Perkin.
‘Gentlemen!’ I said, and thumped my dagger on the table.
‘Why is Fra Peter speaking to this Sir John?’ he asked.
I shrugged and drank more good Piedmontese wine. It was a little lighter and thinner than the Provencal stuff I’d been drinking, but for all that, a better flavour. The blonde lass who waggled her hips as she walked away was pleasing as well. I liked the town, and I liked the sense of. . order that I got from the men I’d seen. There was more discipline here than de Badefol had ever managed.
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘But I’ll guess, if it pleases you.’
Juan nodded. He slipped a glance at Perkin, who frowned.
I remember thinking, Sweet Christ, why can’t they just get along?
‘The Pope is at war with Milan. I assume that Fra Peter brought orders for the English Company.’ I turned to Perkin. ‘How many lances?’ I asked.
‘With yours added?’ Perkin asked sweetly. ‘About two thousand.’
I spat wine. ‘Two thousand lances?’ I asked. ‘Eight thousand mounted men?’
Perkin nodded. ‘We have every village around here crammed to the rafters. We purchased food from Genoa before the winter weather came.’ He smiled. ‘We raid into Savoy when we want sport.’
‘Ever see Richard?’ I asked.
Perkin smiled a lopsided smile. ‘I hit him in the head not a week ago, but his helmet turned the blow, bad cess to it.’ He drank. ‘Fucking traitor.’
Six months with men of religion had had a certain effect on me. ‘I’m not sure that’s how he sees it,’ I said.
‘What?’ Perkin asked. There were other men sitting around — don’t imagine it was just me, Perkin and Juan, because there were sixty of us crammed in a little slope-sided auberge, trying to talk and listen and trade tales all at the same time.
I shrugged. ‘Later,’ I said.
Perkin leaned over. ‘Tell me you are staying?’ he asked.
‘Up to my knight,’ I said. ‘Fra Peter.’
Later, after another round of introductions, reminiscences and war stories, we sat in another inn, the walls crowded with the heads of dead animals, and listened to a pair of musicians play. It was richer music than I’d heard in France — Avignon may have been full of whores, but there wasn’t any music but church music — but these two were fine — a pleasure to hear — and then they sang together with a woman, and the three wove their voices together like a turkey carpet. I couldn’t understand a word they said — it was Italian.
I had just introduced Fiore to Perkin, and he began interpreting the song — gradually the other voices fell away, though, as everyone became quiet because the music was so good.
Darkness fell outside, and when I went out into the sharp night air to piss, I heard wolves. There’s a moral there, I have no doubt.
When I went back into the inn, there was a boy from Sir John. I went with him, and met the famous Albert Sterz.
Sterz was German, from Swabia, and as tall as me, if rather heavier and older. I’d seen him of course — seen him at Pont-Saint-Esprit and elsewhere — but he was a knight, and one of the commanders of the companies, and I was, well, a squire.
But he took my hand with every evidence of good will.
‘I hier you haf a fine array of lances,’ he said. I won’t weary you with my attempt to imitate his Swabian accent, but he spoke fine English.
I stammered something.
‘Your arrival couldn’t have been better timed,’ he said.
Fra Peter sat by the chimney on a stool. His face was blank.
The next morning, he had all his kit in the street at first light. I curried his horse from habit, fetched him some bread and wine from a surly girl whose night had clearly not ended early, and broke my fast with him. We prayed together, and then he went out and looked over his horse.
‘I can’t stay,’ he said. He seemed to be talking to his saddle. ‘William, these men are not. .’ He paused and took a breath. ‘You like it here?’
‘They are better than when I last saw them,’ I said. ‘Better disciplined. Better fed.’
He grimaced. ‘They’ve turned every woman in the town into a whore, and every house into a wine shop. They are even now planning to descend into Lombardy and burn the fields and kill the peasants.’ His eyes met mine. ‘For their master, the Pope.’ He looked away.
I understood. ‘And you brought the orders,’ I said.
‘Orders from the Pope — suggestions from the King of England,’ he said. ‘Do you know that the Visconti of Milan are providing a great deal of the money for the King of France’s ransom?’
I hadn’t known. I tried to work it out.
Fra Peter smiled. ‘I’ll have pity on you. The Chancellor — of England — told me that as long as the King of France’s ransom is unpaid, England keeps the rents and income of twenty counties and a hundred castles. And while that ransom is unpaid, and English garrisons sit in the mightiest fortresses of France, the King of France is powerless to end the truce, break the treaty, go to war or on crusade. You saw what the companies did to France.’ He started to pack his mule, and I stepped to the other side of the animal to help. ‘France is to be kept crippled.’
I bit my lip. ‘Fra Peter, I’m sure they all have Christian souls, but I’m an Englishman. So, when we make war on Milan, we do it for England?’ I confess I grinned. ‘I can’t say I’m worse pleased.’
Fra Peter pulled a cord tight and tied it off. ‘I’m an Englishman, too. But I’m a knight of the church — and watching the destruction of the riches of France sickens me. Is Italy now to be treated the same? I’m sworn to crusade, and without France, there will be no crusade.’ He got one end of a forty-pound bag of grain, I got the other and we hoisted it over the panniers onto the mule and began to tie it down. ‘Have I shown you this lashing, William?’
‘Yes, Fra Peter.’
‘Perhaps I’m just old, and sick of the whole thing. I’d like to fight other men like me, in an honourable way, in a good cause, and not rape anyone in the process.’ He shrugged. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but Savoy demanded of Father Pierre Thomas that we order the English out of his province. He told Father Pierre Thomas that until the companies are gone, he will not swear to go on crusade.’