He dismounted and bowed. ‘Messire du Guesclin. I have long wanted to meet you.’
Du Guesclin smiled bravely. ‘Sir John Hawkwood. I cannot say I feel the same about you, messire.’ Nonetheless, he took Sir John’s hand.
Sir John turned to me. ‘You took him?’
I nodded.
Sir John nodded. ‘William, you have just made your reputation.’ He looked at me — not old man to young, but man to man. ‘What do you intend?’ he asked.
Everyone was quiet. I felt very much out of place. The sand was back behind my eyes. I was aware, in some dark part of my head, that I hadn’t taken this man fairly — it was simply that his horse had stumbled in the dark.
‘He’s offered a hundred florins ransom and I’ve accepted. I intended to let him go. Saving your Grace.’
Sir John laughed. ‘Christ, I have Galahad serving in my convoy. But yes, William. You have my grace.’ He nodded to me. He turned back to du Guesclin. ‘Yesterday, I’d have strung you up from the nearest tree, messire. But. . things change. May I take you aside and whisper in your ear?’
Du Guesclin tensed — I think he expected to be taken aside and killed — but his sense of his own dignity overcame his desire to live, and he bowed. ‘I put my trust in you, sir,’ he said.
I put a gauntleted hand on Sir John’s steel-clad arm. ‘I’d take it amiss if he was to die here,’ I said.
Sir John gave me a cold glance. ‘Galahad,’ he spat, and beckoned to du Guesclin, who followed Sir John into the woods.
They were gone for far longer than I expected or liked. I was walking across the meadow, my thighs burning with fatigue and my head swimming, when I saw the sun dazzle off Sir John’s steel arms.
Du Guesclin was with him, and not face down in the forest.
When they emerged, du Guesclin nodded to Sir John.
Richard bowed. He ordered John Brampton to dismount and share Christopher’s horse, and gave the boy’s horse to the French knight.
Du Guesclin embraced us both. ‘I thank God I was taken by two such gentle knights,’ he said.
‘Two such great fools,’ Sam muttered.
‘The Inn of the Three Foxes,’ Richard said. ‘At Bordeaux.’
Du Guesclin mounted, got the feel of the little horse and smiled. ‘I’ll pay by the end of the day,’ he promised us.
And he trotted his horse away.
Sir John rode with me on the long road back to his keep. ‘You have become a canny man-at-arms,’ he said. ‘But that might have gone badly for all of us. It might have been better if you’d put your whittle into his eye, eh?’ He looked at me. ‘You heard Sir Robert say we were to kill him.’
‘I didn’t hear you agree,’ I said. ‘And to the best of my knowledge, my lord, we are not at war with France. Indeed, Master Hoo is carrying the word of the truce far and wide, is he not?’
Hawkwood looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. ‘So, there is something inside that head besides empty chivalry. You know that, eh? Do you know what else Master Hoo is saying?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
‘Thank God, then. Listen, my young friend. Things change. Kings change. Their policy changes. Kings are the most inconstant creatures — more so than young maidens.’ He laughed.
‘But you are a routier — you serve your own ends, and not the King’s,’ I said.
Sir John stroked his beard. We rode on a ways, and he played with the length of his stirrup for a while. He spoke to one of his scouts. I assumed we were done when he turned to me.
‘I serve the King as surely as if I wore his livery and served under his banner,’ Sir John said. ‘Routier, my arse.’
It is odd what can sting a man.
That night, I dined with Sir John and his men-at-arms in the great hall of his keep. Master Hoo was there, and young Chaucer waited on the table. I worried he might piss in my wine.
I was pleased to be allowed to dine with the knights. Richard and I sat quietly. Nothing was said of the capture of du Guesclin. Nor of peace.
In fact, they were all planning to march on Paris. It sounds absurd, but a few hundred Englishmen were planning to take Paris. Hawkwood was in on the enterprise, and so was Sir Robert Knolles and Sir James Pipe — all the King’s officers in Normandy, in fact.
I found myself sitting by Master Hoo late in the evening. I leaned over, emboldened by wine. ‘How can they attack Paris?’ I asked. ‘We’ve made peace with France?’
Master Hoo looked at me over his nose and grunted.
He was almost too drunk to talk.
I admit I was shocked.
Chaucer leaned over, sloshed wine into his master’s cup and sneered at me. ‘Paris isn’t currently held by the King of France or his son, either,’ he said. ‘Paris has declared itself. .’ he seemed at a loss for words.
‘Communes,’ Master Hoo enunciated clearly. ‘Paris and Amiens and the northern cities.’ He nodded gravely. It would have been more impressive if his cap hadn’t slipped further down his head at every nod.
‘So Sir John and the other bandits plan to plunder the Isle de France while no one can protect it,’ Chaucer said. ‘King John will return to find he is king of a graveyard full of corpses.’
‘Which will suit our master perfectly,’ Master Hoo allowed.
Lads, until that moment, I had imagined there were two kingdoms, France and England. I had thought that in France, a bad king ruled a hard nobility who abused hordes of ignorant peasants, while in England, a good king and a fine parliament ruled benignly over good men and true. Laugh all you like. I thought that our king went to make war in France by right, and to protect England from the deprivations of France. And did so openly and honestly, making war justly.
Following Sir John and listening to Master Hoo was undermining these assumptions as surely as a good engineer undermines the walls of a town.
So I turned to Sir John — full of indignation as only a young man can be — and I couldn’t contain myself.
‘You are destroying France?’ I asked. ‘For the King?’
He laughed. ‘Destroy? France is ten times the size of England.’ He shrugged. ‘But France will never threaten England again, that I can guarantee you.’ He grabbed my shoulder suddenly. He was a little drunk and very strong. ‘Come!’ he said, and he started to climb the tower’s stairs, which coiled like a worm up one flank of the keep. Up and up we climbed, the stairs turning so tightly that a misstep could send an unwary man crashing to the bottom.
My calves were burning by the time we emerged on the castle’s roof. There were four men on duty — Sir John was very a careful captain. He led me to the edge of the roof and pointed east, towards Paris.
As far as the eye could see, there was fire.
All the way up the Seine valley, towns and hamlets burned.
‘Do you not think the silken girdle that binds all of France is parted this night?’ he said and laughed. ‘Listen, virgin. Every man of blood in England is here this autumn. We’ll take ten thousand ransoms, we’ll burn their fields, we’ll throw down their churches, we’ll unbind peasant from lord. There’s no one to stop us. By the time King John returns from his tournaments and festivals in England, he’ll have a merry time finding his own ransom.’
It was. . horrifying, and yet so bold. So much fire. Like the twinkling of all the stars in the heavens.
‘But surely the King is against this-’
‘Judas,’ Hawkwood smiled. ‘William, the King, ordered this.’
At last I understood, or thought I did. ‘Ah!’ I said. ‘And Master Hoo has come to order it to end.’
Hawkwood shook his head. ‘I’m drunk, or I wouldn’t say so much,’ he said. He looked at me from under his brows. ‘But I want you to understand, lad. Master Hoo has come to order us to work faster. And to turn over the towns we take to his officers, and not those of the King of Navarre, as per the treaty.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s why I sent the letter to you.’ He sat with his back against the wall. ‘That, and it seemed a pity that you waste your youth in Bordeaux when there’s a fortune to be made here.’