‘I’m not letting it out of my sight,’ said the young man, then he stopped. ‘Pardon, my lord.’
‘Think nothing of it. Come in and share my hippocras.’ I motioned to the other stool. My solar was the size of a lady’s closet, you have to imagine.
He was my own age — smaller, but his hands looked as hard as mine. ‘Squire?’ I asked.
He grinned. ‘To Milord de Grailly,’ he said. ‘One of six,’ he added. ‘My da is one of his great friends.’ He grinned. ‘Tom Folville.’
I considered that this was exactly the kind of sprig of nobility who had tormented me during my first campaign. On the other hand. .
Perkin touched up the razor and handed the squire the strop. ‘Nice kit,’ he said.
‘You know how to use that thing,’ the squire said. ‘By the saints, Perkin, will you teach me?’
‘Mayhap after the peasants kill us all,’ Perkin nodded, ‘I’ll have time.’ He grinned.
If you haven’t guessed that Perkin was as great a find as Sam, well, think again. He had that gift of making people like him. Lords and commons, men and women. He wasn’t big or handsome. He was brave enough in a pinch, but he was not a doughty man.
Well, you’ll hear more of him.
He shaved me, all the while telling me the state of the food in the castle and how little fodder was left for the horses. He didn’t tell it like gossip — he noted where he’d heard each titbit and what validity he attributed to the teller.
I hadn’t been shaved neatly in so long I’d become used to looking like some wild hermit in the tales of Arthur. It felt odd to have most of my beard gone. He put beeswax into my moustache.
‘Ladies about,’ he said with a twinkle.
‘How’d you come to be a potboy in Poissy?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘My knight died,’ he said. ‘You came along, eh? And you needed me.’ He smiled.
That was that.
‘You are from London, though,’ I said.
‘Temple Bar,’ he said proudly. ‘Apprentice tailor.’ He shrugged.
‘I was to be a goldsmith,’ I said suddenly.
He grinned. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I aim to be a famous knight, meself.’
Well, well.
Groomed and clean, wearing clean clothes and with all the lice out of my arming coat, I went down into the hall. There were no women to be seen. I ate some bread and cheese, and walked across the hall to where the curtain wall steps rose into the smoky heights of the rafters. Since no one challenged me, I climbed the steps and walked out onto the wall.
There I found twenty young women on the wall, watching a fight on the bridge.
Most of them had their hands to their mouths.
One had already fainted.
I leaned out over the wall and saw why.
A dozen young knights — on foot — were trying to hold the main bridge over the river. Two were down.
‘Where are the other knights?’ I snapped at the nearest girl. ‘Where is the Captal?’
My pretty friend from the day before, still wearing her ‘gates of hell’, pointed down the north wall. ‘They have gone across country!’ she shouted.
Sometimes, folly is so rampant it’s hard to credit. But the party from Prussia had elected to probe north and find food, and in the absence of any professional soldiers, a dozen young sprigs had vowed to hold the bridge all day.
I watched for ten breaths.
‘Christ almighty,’ I said aloud.
My pretty friend put her hand on my chest. A very, very affecting gesture.
‘Will you — save them?’ she asked me.
Her eyes were a beautiful hazel-brown. She had a snub nose, and a dress that showed little glimpses of her naked flanks. She was tall, and better born than me, and she was, in effect, asking me to go die for her.
‘Yes,’ I said into her eyes.
I armed as fast as I ever had in my life. I had Perkin to help, and Jean de Grailly’s squire. Tom Folville got my arms on me, laced them to my hauberk and stood back.
‘I could come with you,’ he said.
I thought about it. To be honest, I thought that if he came with me, it might lessen the glory, but there were an awful lot of militia on the bridge, and only the eight knights.
‘Will you run when I say run, and retreat when I say retreat?’ I asked.
He nodded, his eyes huge.
I wondered suddenly if he had been hoping that I would say no.
‘Ever fought before? For real?’ I asked.
‘Every day, in Prussia,’ he said.
That was reassuring. I had my legs laced and Perkin was closing the straps. ‘Get in your harness,’ I said.
He vanished. Perkin finished the buckles on my legs and got my breast and back — opened them on the hinges and closed them again and began buckling me in. ‘This doesn’t really fit you,’ he said.
‘What?’ I asked. I’d worn that harness for more than a year.
‘It’s too big. Too much play at the hips.’ He slapped my back and the backplate moved. ‘Made for a fatter man. Can’t be helped. Hold out your hands.’
He put my gauntlets on, raised my helmet, slipped the aventail over my head and seated the cloth liner with two practiced jerks, one front, one back.
I took my longsword and walked, clanking softly, down the hall and down the steps to the main hall, then out into the bright June sun. There were four crossbowman on the bridge gate. I turned and looked up at the battlement, and there they were: twenty beautiful women.
Well.
Tom came at a run — high boots, a good brigantine, plate arms, and an open-faced basinet. Let me remind you that most men wore them open-faced back then.
‘Stay with me and keep men off my back,’ I said. ‘You’re too lightly armed to step into them. Understand me?’
He nodded soberly.
Perkin appeared with a pottery cup of. . water. ‘Drink,’ he said.
Sam came across the courtyard in his shirtsleeves and hose. His hair was unbound, and he had his bow and a big quiver of arrows. He shook his head. ‘Lost your wits, lad?’ he asked.
I raised my visor. ‘I won’t be long,’ I said.
‘By St George,’ he began, but a fluttering handkerchief caught his eye. ‘Good Christ,’ he said. ‘Women.’
Perkin collected the cup, refilled it and handed it to Tom.
Sam tossed his hair. ‘If I kill ten men, you think I’ll get one of they?’
Perkin smiled.
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘professionally speaking, yon’s a fine audience. Just don’t die.’
I nodded again.
The sergeants on the gate got it open. Suddenly, there was a great deal of screaming from the ladies on the wall.
I thought it was for me, so I pranced my way out onto the bridge like, well, like a young man performing for young women. This was just like a London square, except that I had a lot more armour.
The rights and wrongs of it meant nothing to me, in case you wonder.
But as soon as I was clear of the gate, I saw what they were screaming about. Two of the young knights were down.
I ran.
Running in plate legs is — not as hard as it sounds, but it requires some practice. Legs are soft. Steel is not soft. Everything has to fit, or the top of your greave pounds into the top of your instep, or the back of your greave slams into your ankle, or your knee gets clamped in the main plates of the articulation. .
Really, there’s a lot to go wrong.
I ran.
It was about fifty paces to where the two knights were down. They were in full harness, but the nearer of the two had a Jacques on his chest and another towering over him with an axe.
I didn’t save him.
Sam did. His first arrow spitted the lad on the knight’s chest the way a butcher spikes a carcass.
The axe man swung, and buried his axe in the Jacques who’d just swallowed Sam’s arrow. Bad luck.
The axe man could see me coming. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. He got his axe up over his shoulder and stepped back for room to swing.
I cut off his hands. Maybe not ‘off ‘, but I didn’t stop to check.
Then I knocked him flat as his limbs pumped blood onto the cobbles of the bridge.