I had no duties that day, so after a contemplative walk across the river, where spitting over the edge of the bridge was considered a proper gentlemanly pursuit, I assure you, I searched my empty purse — a habit — and was properly amazed to find a half a silver bit wedged under the rivet that held the strap on the outside of the flap. I stood there like a fool, staring at the value of a night’s lodging.
A girl of perhaps my own age, if one is generous, approached along the bridge, dragging her sister, who was a year younger. Both were pretty, in a plain, wholesome French way, and dressed in smocks that did them no justice.
‘Suck your cock, messire?’ said the older girl. She smiled prettily. In fact, for a prostitute, she was the most cheerful creature I’d met with. ‘My sister’s a virgin. You can have her for. .’ She paused, my little merchant. ‘A gold ecu.’ She looked at me expectantly.
I must pause to mention that apparently I looked like a lord. I confess that I spent my loot — and I had some — from Poitiers on clothes and whores and their clothes — and some wine. I did not, for example, travel home to see my sister, or send her money. I thought I’d send her money when the ransom came in. I agonized about it, and as the weeks dragged on, I grew despondent. And despondent men sin. When you feel you are bad — well then.
‘An ecu for your sister’s ecu?’ I asked. I thought I was quite witty. Par dieu, possibly that’s the only reason I still remember this episode, mes amis.
She shrugged, unimpressed. ‘Well?’ she asked.
‘If I had any silver at all, I would buy the both of you dinner,’ I said. It was my turn to shrug. I held up my half of a silver penny. ‘This is all the cash I have, sister.’
She grinned. ‘It would buy all three of us dinner,’ she allowed.
‘I have a dinner engagement with some gentlemen,’ I admitted.
She frowned.
While we were flirting over money, there was an altercation at the south end of the bridge. I thought it was merely traffic, as the narrow streets of Bordeaux were never built for the traffic the English brought, but it was worse. It was a crowd. A mob.
Mobs formed quickly. The war and the Black Death had robbed us all of any pretence of common morality. We fornicated, and God did not care much. We killed each other — you know, eh? The two go wonderfully well together. Sin and sin. Murder and fornication. If you wish to understand my peers, know this: we were killers because of the Black Death.
The mob was made up of poor men, and they had a Jew. And some sort of African — black as pitch.
I’ll be honest, I want to tell the truth, messires. Had it just been a Jew, I might have let him die. I’d like to think I might have tried to save him, because Our Lady was a Jew, and Jews, despite what the Dominicans say, are people just like you or me, and if you deny it, I will cheerfully prove my assertion on your body with that sword right there. No takers? The ecumenical conference is over, gentles.
But the black man — I’d seen him at the palace. He was a big, pleasant fellow called Richard Musard, and men called him ‘The Black Squire’. Like me, he lived in the half-world, neither lord nor peasant. Men said he’d been a slave.
Either way, he was one of mine — whatever mine were.
The two men were tied to heavy wooden boards. I assume they were to be burned.
The two girls froze.
‘Get behind me,’ I said as kindly as I could. See, I went to hell from kindness!
Bah, don’t believe it.
At any rate, I handed the older girl my silver penny. ‘Run and eat,’ I said. ‘Meet me at the Three Foxes after evensong and you can work off the meal.’
She smiled. ‘Pleasant enough, messire.’ She took her sister by the hand, kirtled up her skirts and ran.
The crowd started up the span of the bridge.
I drew my sword. It’s worth noting that I wore my beautiful longsword all the time. And as a squire in royal service — even unpaid — I had every right to wear it. All the time.
When I drew it, I put myself above the crowd.
A knight carries justice in his scabbard.
‘Halt,’ I yelled. My adolescent voice was against me. My shout was more like a squeak.
The sword was loud enough, though.
The men at the front shuffled to a stop, while the men behind pressed them forward.
‘Halt!’ I shouted again. I pointed at the black man. ‘That man is a royal squire, and you will all die if you do not let him go.’
There were seventy or eighty men, a handful of hags, and more people gathering every minute.
I doubt they heard me. When you confront a crowd, you need to act quickly and decisively, and you must speak the same way.
‘Fuck your royals and their fucking taxes,’ roared one emaciated farmer at the front. He was almost speechless with rage and something else — something a crowd brings to men.
I cut him down. I knew how to use my point to open a man’s guts, and I was too fast for him. He fell to his knees on the bridge, looking at his intestines.
And I put my sword’s point into the chest of the next man in the crowd. ‘Want to die?’ I asked.
The farmer whimpered once and died at my feet. I killed him to quiet the crowd. No other reason. Just so you understand.
The fellow pressing against my sword spat in my face, so I cut him in the neck, and he pitched forward, spouting blood.
Now they flinched back from me.
I walked towards them. I had the upper hand and, like any other bully, I revelled in it. They backed away, crouching like the canaille they were, and then they began to run like whipped dogs.
I cut Musard off his log, and gave him my rondel in case they came again, then I cut the Jew free.
He hugged himself a few times, pulled his beard and, of all things, smiled.
Smiled.
He bowed. ‘Suleyman Bashid, at your service,’ he said, bowing, with a hand on his heart.
Good Christ — he lent money to the Prince. The crowd had been about to kill one of the Prince’s tax farmers and one of his servants.
Musard was as pale as old ashes, and he shook for a moment. Hell, I shook for a moment. Then he embraced me, and he was a big man.
‘By the lord our God, I thought this son of Israel and I were dead men, and that as barbarously as could be done.’ He was shaking.
‘Let’s get you away,’ I said.
‘Suleyman was due at the palace before vespers,’ Musard said.
I walked them back across the bridge, and right to the ruined brick gates to the palace courtyard, where a pair of belted knights sat in a shelter with fifteen men-at-arms day and night — the Prince’s guard, all in black with white ostrich plumes on their chests. I aspired to be one of them some day. Sir John derided them and said that real men-at-arms spent their days fighting, not watching the Prince eat.
Sir John Blankford received Musard and Bashid, paid me a thousand compliments and gave me a rag to wipe my sword clean. I still had it in my hand. I had rather hoped the Jew might reward me with something a little harder than his handshake, but I was to be disappointed. So I bowed to the knights and made my way back across the bridge, watching the corners and alleys carefully. I’d killed enough men by then to know that the two I’d just put in the mud had brothers, sons and cousins who might want me dead.
I made the Three Foxes in time, and Seguin de Badefol was sitting with Sir John, one of the younger Albrets, and Bertucat, known to everyone as the Bourc Camus.
Sir John rose to his feet and took my hand. The Gascons all grinned.
‘It’s the little cook,’ barked the Bourc. His eyes glittered. ‘What are you making for us tonight?’