‘Give me your solemn word,’ he said.
I knelt. ‘I swear to keep your secret, my lord,’ I said.
‘On his brothel, he swears it,’ Chaucer said.
‘What’s that?’ Sir John asked.
Chaucer smiled. He looked like a ferret when he smiled. ‘Nothing, my lord.’
Sir John looked at me, clearly off balance. Chaucer had the habit of putting you off balance. He was that kind of boy.
‘The King of France has negotiated a peace with our King Edward,’ he said portentously.
Now, in truth, this was mighty news. It struck me in ten ways. First that my employment was going to end, and I hadn’t even worn all my harness yet. In fact, all my looted armour was in pawn with the Italians — why redeem it when there was wine to be drunk — but now the war was going to end.
At another level, it meant there was some hope of getting my prisoner’s ransom paid, which would give me the money to-
Good Christ, what was I going to do?
The war had, at that point, dragged on for twenty years. France was bankrupt; England was better off, but the grumblings I heard from new drafts were that, despite recent victories, parliament wasn’t voting the King any more money to fight.
It was like a lightning bolt. King John had shipped out of Bordeaux earlier that year, taking his growing retinue of fellow prisoners and servants, as well as all of the bloody Count of Armagnac’s silver plate. I only mention that as I was there when it arrived, and I directed its polishing — my goldsmith skills weren’t completely wasted — and King John thanked me.
Well, I think it’s funny.
Where was I?
Oh!
Peace.
Sir John allowed me to digest this information. ‘If you were to take a return letter to Sir John Hawkwood, the Prince would esteem it a favour,’ he said.
‘He means that now we’re to have peace, you’ll be wanting a job at court,’ Chaucer quipped.
‘Of course I’ll go,’ I said, privately agreeing with the annoying boy’s assessment.
Sir John nodded. ‘You’ll need an escort,’ he said.
‘I have a small retinue,’ I said. The arrogance of the seventeen-year-old knows no bounds. ‘And I’d esteem it a favour if I might have Richard Musard.’
Sir John fingered his beard. ‘A retinue?’ He smiled. ‘How many men and how armed?’ He looked at me. ‘I seem to remember you as a cook, lad, not a great noble.’
I glared, preemptively, at Chaucer. ‘My lord, I have an archer and four men-at-arms available for pay.’
He nodded approvingly. ‘Muster them for me this evening in the courtyard with your horses and arms. You will be paid. I’d prefer it you would leave immediately.’
I walked out of the palace floating on air — I was to have my own indenture for four weeks’ service as a direct contractor. It wasn’t just the money. Very well, it was the money, but it was also honour. For the rest of my life, I would be able to say that I mustered a retinue for the Prince of Wales.
I ditched Chaucer at the gate — I didn’t like him — and ran to the inn.
I ignored the castle lawyer — Christopher, as he proved to be called. ‘Where’s Sam?’ I asked Marie.
‘Riding Helene.’ She smirked. ‘He paid.’
Richard made a motion with his hand to his dagger. It was rude, and it conveyed a great deal of information. Sam hadn’t wanted to pay, but he had paid.
‘Gentleman, a knight is with Petit Claire,’ Marie went on. She held up a solid gold Venetian ducat.
‘By Saint George, he can take her home for that.’ I grinned at my leman, who grinned back. ‘And keep her.’ Claire was by far and away our most beautiful girl; she was also a vicious, willful bully who probably needed a whipping from me. She got them from Marie instead — Marie insisted on being the only voice of discipline.
I think she liked it.
I walked over to Richard. ‘We have a contract — a retinue contract — from the Prince. To take a message to Sir John Hawkwood in Brittany.’ I grinned. ‘Four weeks full pay.’
Whores and inns fell away. Richard bounced to his feet. ‘Ventre Saint Gris!’ he swore. ‘My harness!’
‘And mine. Send the inn’s boy to fetch them. Send one of the girls to the market for two wicker baskets. Send round to Rolf the armourer for two apprentices to bring it all up to fighting condition.’
Marie looked at me. ‘You will spend all our money,’ she said.
I rolled my eyes. ‘This is what it’s for, my sweet.’
‘For war? We lie on our backs and fuck strangers so you can make war?’ she spat at me.
‘Yes,’ I said, and went about getting horses.
Richard and I didn’t have horses. Owning a horse in Bordeaux was fiendishly expensive. After Poitiers, I owned a fine golden war horse for a few weeks, but his stall and manger cost me more than I spent on my garret and my food, so he went to the first rich knight who offered.
Now I needed a riding horse and a war horse, and the pleasure of it was that I was buying in a depressed market. The Prince hadn’t fought a campaign all year, and he was about to leave for England; there was no word of any fighting, and knights going with the Prince were selling out. Word of the peace was probably alive among the horse and arms merchants — they always know these things first.
Richard and I issued our orders to servants and girls and went to the horse market under the walls. On second Sundays it was a proper market. The rest of the time it was a dozen dealers with a hundred horses, some of them right hard bargains.
To my immense delight — I felt God was on my side — my golden warhorse was standing in the lines, looking a little dejected. I walked up to the bastard we all called Jamais, because it was the word he used most often, and pointed at my former horse.
‘That horse looks familiar,’ I said. ‘Where’d you get him?’
I sounded not like a customer, but like a man looking for a stolen horse.
Jamais shrugged. ‘I forget,’ he said.
There you go, then.
‘What will you take for him?’ I asked.
‘Fifty florins.’ The florin was a Florentine gold coin, the standard coin of all France, let me add.
I had six florins. I had a lot of other coins, too, and some unminted silver and gold, but I only had six florins. ‘Give me that in Livre Tournois?’
He spat. ‘A thousand. But I won’t take French coins. Fucking Paris has devalued them all. Again.’
I had a great many French coins. ‘What?’ I asked.
He spat again. ‘The so-called Council of Eighty has ordered all the coins withdrawn. They plan to clip them, adulterate the silver and re-issue them at a profit because the fucking peasants won’t pay their fucking taxes. They are reducing the value of the coins by a quarter and charging a fee for the privilege. Got me, squire?’
I did. I’d heard about it, but I hadn’t understood. Now I knew why every customer all spring had paid in French silver. Parisian, especially.
Yes, our horse dealers had to be masters of international finance. So, apparently, did young men who ran brothels.
Richard was looking at horses, and he chose a fine dark bay, big and heavy. Like Richard, in fact. We both chose good riding horses.
‘I’ll let you have the lot for a hundred and fifty florins,’ Jamais said.
Richard grunted. ‘Seventy,’ he said.
‘By the sweet lord who gave his life for our sins, messieurs les gentilshommes, have a little mercy on an old horse thief.’ He had his dirty black wool cap clutched to his breast, as if he were a piteous spectacle while he gouged us for Italian gold we didn’t have.
Richard smiled. ‘Jamais, this is us. Richard and Will, penniless squires. We sell horses. We don’t buy horses. Now we have a contract with the Prince and we need to be mounted.’
Jamais leaned forward. ‘War?’ he asked eagerly.
I shook my head. ‘Courier.’