I was sitting at a decent oak table, drinking good wine.
Fiore and Juan were refighting the battle with Perkin and Robert, who’d managed to get his arm broken but was nonetheless in fine spirits because he’d picked up all my prisoners and made himself enough florins to buy a good horse and become a man-at-arms.
A Swiss girl with the face of a London urchin and the manners of a fine lady was hovering around, fussing over him. Smart lass. Tend a man when he’s sick or wounded and you own him.
‘Now you’ve seen a battle,’ I said, only partly in jest. ‘Does it affect your theories?’
He rocked his head back and forth. ‘I killed an armoured knight with a rock,’ he said. He sounded disappointed.
There was something in the way he said it — a combination of pride at having done it, wistfulness at having missed the ransom and annoyance at God’s plan for having to use a rock and not a weapon requiring more skill — that made me burst out laughing, and all the others followed suit. The laughter spread, as laughter does — one man told another, one girl whispered and giggled, and the inn rafters rang with it.
He frowned for a moment, and then he had the grace to laugh with us, though I swear to you he didn’t know why. Maestro Fiore, as we know him now, was not without humour, but in some ways he lived with the gods, not with mere men.
For example, he’d killed the enemy commander, he was young, exceptionally fit and rather handsome; he was the hero of the hour. He was, quite literally, surrounded by attractive young women — English, Italian, German, Swiss and Provencal. He did look at them from time to time, but I don’t think he had any idea how to proceed beyond that.
I’m losing the thread here. We were laughing; he was laughing. And then, through the crowd of camp followers, came a young man. The pretty blonde girl I had been eyeing near the door suddenly flinched aside as she looked at the new man; her nose wrinkled in distaste.
The man had short, dark hair cut in the latest Italian fashion, a sort of bowl cut that went well under a helmet, and he had tight leather boots to the thigh, a neat blue doublet and a matching blue belt with a sheathed dagger — slim and long. He didn’t look like anyone I knew, and my eyes passed over him.
Another girl glared at him and he glared back, then I knew who he was.
He was Milady.
Perkin saw her and shuddered. He knew trouble when he saw it.
I rose and bowed, and she smiled at me. ‘I couldn’t stay away,’ she said. ‘I gather I missed the battle.’
Fiore bowed. ‘I haven’t had the pleasure,’ he said. ‘Do you always dress as a man?’
That was Fiore, too. He watched people in a way that most men do not. He knew she was a woman instantly. Most men didn’t, but many women did.
She smiled at him and offered her hand, like a woman. ‘I do not dress like a man,’ she said. ‘I become a man, if I want to.’ She tilted a head to one side. ‘I missed you, William Gold.’
‘Thanks, Janet.’ I bowed. I hadn’t missed her. Or I had?
I suspect I wore the same face that Richard wore when he saw me.
Why, though? She was a good companion, and what I had of gentle manners I owed to her. ‘How’s Richard?’ I asked.
She smiled. ‘Well, when I left him.’
That could mean anything.
‘Are you. . visiting?’ I asked.
She frowned. ‘No, William. I plan to stay and lead a lance.’ She looked around, daring us to protest.
Fiore bowed. ‘May I be your squire, Madame?’
She snapped her fingers. ‘No, messire. I have a lover — I couldn’t possibly satisfy a second. Even in the most chaste and chivalrous way, men are tiresome. Except when you are one, and then men are a delight.’ She looked up and her eyes met his.
He said, ‘Do you have any skill with the sword?’
She shrugged expressively. ‘I’m a better jouster,’ she said, ‘but I have been known to use the sword and the dagger.’
‘Ah,’ sighed Fiore. A woman who could use a sword.
We were all doomed.
We ate and drank, and in an hour she was part of us again. When Andrew Belmont came by to congratulate Fiore, he noticed her. He put an arm around her waist, and she dropped him on his arse.
Andrew was a true knight, for all his failings, which were many. He bounced to his feet and grinned. ‘Horse or foot, messire,’ he said. ‘If you dress like a man, you’d best fight like one.’
She grinned. ‘Horse,’ she said.
Belmont paused. I think he still thought she was a whore playing dress-up, but he shrugged. ‘Dawn, by the bridge,’ he said.
We were young, and we were still awake when it was time to arm her. She had a fine harness — still some bits we’d picked up in the fight in Provence, which seemed ten years ago but was only two. She was drunk as a lord, and suddenly flirtatious and angry by turns. She kissed Fiore while he struggled to get her brigantine closed, which I promise you is not the best way to get your squires to arm you quickly, or well. On the other hand, it does seem to get devoted service.
It took three of us to get her on her horse, and I held the bridle all the way down to the bridge. Andy Belmont was there, and so was half the White Company, as we had taken to calling ourselves, drunk as only successful mercenaries — and sailors — can manage. The rumour had gone round that the handsome Belmont had run afoul of a whore who intended to fight him. Remember, to us there was nothing funnier than watching two cripples fight with sticks — an incontinent dwarf who could drink wine and piss it in the same action could keep a dozen men laughing for an hour. So a knight jousting with a whore?
The sun was just above the rim of the world.
Somehow I’d become the marshal. I had severe doubts about the whole thing — I was afraid for her, and afraid that someone would be killed. Both of them rode expensive horses, and a dead horse was both dishonour and financial ruin.
They set their chargers at either end of the course. We didn’t have a barrier, but then, we did this for a living.
Andrew motioned to me, and I trotted to his stirrup.
‘She’s not a whore, is she?’ he asked.
‘She wishes to have a lance and fight,’ I said. ‘She used to fight. She’s been with us before.’
He made a face. ‘Very well,’ he said. He was drunk, too. ‘I won’t hit her too hard.’
I went to my place and held my neck-cloth aloft. It fluttered in the cold wind and someone called, ‘Get on with it!’
I let it go.
Andrew leaned forward slightly, and his horse gave a small rear, then began to head down the list.
Milady’s horse came from a stand to a dead gallop in three steps, accelerating like an arrow from a bow.
His lance struck her in the shoulder and rocked her backwards. She was light, and so was her horse, and suddenly both of them were crashing to earth.
Her lance tip caught him dead in the centre of the breastplate, and even as she went down, her lance tip continued to track him, bursting the girth on his saddle and throwing him back over the rump of his horse.
Both of them crashed to earth.
We stood in shocked silence, broken only by the hoofbeats of Andrew’s riderless horse galloping down the rest of the list.
Then Milady’s small horse got to his feet. He shook like a dog and walked a few steps. Uninjured.
Milady sat up and said, ‘Fuck.’
Andrew just lay there for a moment, then he rolled over to get a knee under him — most of us have to do that, in full armour — and he was laughing. He got to his feet, tottered over to her and extended a hand.
She looked up at him. ‘Don’t we have two more courses to ride?’ she said.
‘Absolutely not,’ Belmont said, and we all burst into cheers.
Our victory over von Landau shocked Italy. Von Landau had been very famous, and we killed him.
After the battle, everyone called us the White Company. I don’t know who started it — I’m sure it was the white surcoats, although I’ve met some useless bastards who say it was our spotless reputation — I sneer — or our shining armour — to which I’ll attest that at Canturino, there were maybe fifty Englishmen in white harnesses. Five years later, we all had them, but that’s another story.