Sir John nodded. He had a hint of red to his beard and moustache, and I had seldom seen him look so much like a fox. ‘That was a different empris,’ he said. ‘We had too many Gascons. Too many brigands.’ He shrugged. ‘Here, we are professional soldiers, and we have some faith in each other. I’m sure Albert would ride away and abandon the Pope for enough money.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I would myself. A hundred thousand florins?’
‘Par dieu!’ I said, shocked. That was a King’s ransom. Swearing was returning to my vocabulary.
‘No,’ he said. ‘The world is changing, William. If we were someone’s army — your friend the Green Count’s, for example — and the Visconti offered him twenty thousand florins to go away, why, he’d take it. Twenty thousand florins is a fortune.’ He nodded. ‘But in our army, a hundred thousand florins is still only forty florins for each man-at-arms.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s one month’s pay — not enough to break the contract. It only makes it less likely the next bastard won’t hire you, or play fair on the condotta.’
Condotta was the first word every Englishman learned in Italy. It means ‘contract’.
Sir John reined in and looked back at the Milanese camp — the German and Hungarian camp. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘this is the richest country in the world. The banks are here, William. All the money comes here from all over Christendom.’ He watched as fires sprang into being, like the rising of the evening stars. My little company passed behind us, harness rattling.
‘In France, we took grain from peasants,’ he said as he turned and looked at me. ‘Before we’re done here, we’ll take the gold from the banks.’
The next morning, a Flemish merchant came over the passes behind us. He sent a pair of his men-at-arms to negotiate with Sterz, who charged tolls like a lord, of course.
Perkin led one of the patrols, and told me that evening that the merchant had 200 mules loaded with wool — a fortune — and another 100 loaded with goods meant for us.
‘Good English wool — undyed and white as virtue.’ He laughed. ‘And all the things we need: thread, bronze kettles, tin bottles, wool cloaks.’ He showed me his new water bottle.
The next day, the merchant opened a small fair in Romagnano. Now that we were back at our base in the Count of Savoy’s lands, I wondered how he was doing in his negotiations with the Pope.
I was slipping away from the life of a donat, and becoming an officer in a mercenary company.
At any rate, 2,000 lances of soldiers is a fair number of customers, and this man’s company had many things we wanted — razors, for one. Cups, Flemish cloaks, goatskin boots, pewter chargers.
His wool shipment was for the dyers of Florence, but fashions spring up very quickly among soldiers. Andrew Belmont, who was a devilishly handsome fellow, bought three cloth yards of white wool and a tailor threw him off a fine surcoat in an hour — it didn’t have to be lined, of course, because he wore it over his armour. The wool was beautiful and warm. A dozen of us saw him in his fine surcoat that evening — and laughed when he spilled red wine on it — and in the morning there were fifty of us, me included, in white surcoats. Three days after the Fleming arrived, he’d sold 4,000 cloth yards of his fine white wool.
Most soldiers can sew. I made my own coat; I hung my breast and backplate on a cross of wood and tailored the wool, coached by Perkin, who was working his own and teaching Fiore, while Juan emulated him from afar while pretending he wasn’t involved. We had to send a boy to buy shears — from the Fleming.
I dagged my sleeves. Hah! There was a rumour that Sir John Hawkwood had been an apprentice tailor in London — not true, on my honour — but we had some tailors, and they taught us, so we were all popinjays.
At any rate, we were still retreating — very slowly — before von Landau’s advance. But the same day the Fleming arrived, Sterz told the Milanese envoys that he saw no further point in their sending spies to his camp dressed as heralds — a mortal insult, even though the honest truth. And our German challenged their German to a contest of arms. He offered to meet von Landau on horse or foot, with lances, spears or swords — man to man, twenty against twenty, a hundred against a hundred, or army to army.
The very next morning, Konrad von Landau led his 12,000 men across two small streams and formed in close order by the castle of Canturino. We rode down the opposite ridge.
We were formed in six divisions and mine was commanded by Sir John. I had fifteen lances on the right flank of the centre battle.
I have some things to say that might matter to your account.
I was wearing the best armour I’d ever worn into a fight, and I was with better men then I’d ever had around me, except at Poitiers, and I didn’t know anything, then. I trusted the men on my right and my left; I trusted the man leading my battle, and I trusted the man leading the battle to the left and to the right. I trusted Albert Sterz.
I ate well the night before the fight, the week before and the month before and, in fact, most of the year before. I was in the best physical state of my life, and I had slept well. I prayed, and was shriven by a priest.
I had changed. The order had changed me. But at the same time, the whole world of the companies had changed. These men around me were not routiers. Like me, some had been, but in Italy, they were professional soldiers, and war was about to become an entirely different affair.
When you ride at the enemy on a good horse, in good armour, surrounded by your friends and well rested and fed — truly, lads, you have to be a coward to fight badly. Or a fool, which may be the same.
We were all afraid — the Germans outnumbered us — but not with a fear that paralyses, but with a fear that pushes you to strive harder.
We stared at each other across the stream for half an hour.
Sterz rode down our front. ‘Dismount!’ he called. We dismounted in a orderly way — the pages came forward, took the archers’ horses first, then the knights’ chargers, and there was, I confess, a moment of chaos as every man sought his place in the ranks. Then, like a sword going home in the scabbard, we were set, with only a few unhandy sods still pushing.
Front rank: knights and men-at-arms.
Second rank: armoured squires and pages.
Third rank: archers.
Fourth rank: men with less armour.
In my lance, I stood in front, armed cap-a-pied. Behind me stood a new man, Richard Grimlace, both of us with heavy-headed seven-foot spears. Then Sam Bibbo. Then Arnaud, in a good jack and brigantine, with a second quiver of arrows for Sam and a spear and a sword and buckler, a basinet on his head. We had 2,000 of these little units.
Sir John stayed mounted, and so did Sterz, Belmont and a few other officers.
Sterz trotted to our front and waved his baton. ‘Front!’ he roared. ‘Let’s go!’
We moved forward to the very edge of the stream.
It was fairly full of ice-cold water, and I remember staring down into the depths of the stream at my feet. It was, of course, a mountain stream, filling its stone banks to the brim.
There was a trout in it.
The old Romans lived by signs — animals, birds — I was reading Ovid by then.
That trout made me absurdly happy.
‘Ready!’ called Sterz.
All along the third rank, the archers nocked arrows. Heavy, quarter-pounder war-bow arrows.
Opposite us, the Germans were 100 paces away, sitting on their horses, listening to a trio of Germans address them.
I had a long look at the Hungarians. They were moving; their horses fidgeted.
I pointed them out to Sir John, who was sitting on his charger just behind Arnaud.
‘They’re not happy and they haven’t been paid,’ Sir John said with infinite satisfaction. ‘Watch and learn, William the Cook.’