My hazel-eyed Venus appeared. I was sitting on a barrel in the yard with Perkin under my arm, unlacing my left arm harness while I drank water with my right hand. She curtseyed.
‘You were brilliant,’ she said. ‘The Dauphine sends you this as a token of her esteem, messire.’
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I don’t think I’d ever wanted a woman as much.
She had an embroidered riband in her hand, and she was, I think, a little put out that I wasn’t leaping to my feet. She leaned down.
I smiled at her. ‘My lady, I beg your pardon, but I’m not at my best,’ I said.
‘You could unlace his right shoulder,’ Perkin said.
‘Oh!’ said my beautiful visitor. She took the cup from my right hand and drew off the gauntlet. She smiled at me and draped my right arm over her shoulder as Perkin had my left.
‘There’s blood-’ I said.
‘Christ on the cross,’ Perkin muttered. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
But my chivalrous lady reached in and unlaced the right harness at the groin — her eyes flicked to mine — and then she unbuckled the straps inside the thigh — one, two — and brought her hand away covered in blood.
She smiled at me and licked at the blood on her fingers.
I swear to you.
‘I love a brave man,’ she said.
By our sweet and gentle saviour, I was ready to be transported to heaven in that instant — or to kill every Jacques in the town.
Or to have her on the straw.
She wiped her bloody hand on her fine gown and got to the buckles on the greaves. She and Perkin took the whole right leg off in one pull.
There was a lot of blood in my hose.
And then I was gone.
I awoke when the hot iron touched the back of my leg. I wanted to scream, but there was something nasty clenched between my teeth.
My first thought was, Sweet Christ, I’ve lost my leg. And it was my last.
I wasn’t out long. A barber was rubbing ointment over the whole wound, and it hurt as if all the demons of hell had decided to torment my right knee.
Then he pasted honey over the ointment. He looked at me. ‘It’s really nothing,’ he said. ‘Happens to horses all the time — get a wound right on a blood vessel. Easy physic, if I get to it in time.’ He held out his hand and Perkin handed him a length of fine white linen, which he began to wrap around the wound.
Perkin leaned me forward and looked into my eyes. ‘You in your right mind?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said.
He smiled and handed me a cup of mint tisane with honey. ‘Drink this. Here, chew on these,’ he said. He handed me two wizened red things like dried flowers. They had a wonderful taste.
‘Chew. Chew more. Now spit,’ he said, holding out his hand.
I obeyed.
‘Now drink the rest of the cup,’ he said.
The surgeon tied off the cloth. ‘Change it twice a day. Tell me if the flesh gets proud.’ He smiled. ‘Horses don’t get gangrene,’ he said, then he bowed and withdrew.
‘What was that stuff?’ I asked.
‘Drink it all,’ he said.
I complied.
He took the cup. ‘Good night, m’lord.’
It always made me feel funny when men addressed me as ‘my lord’, as I was lord of nothing but a horse, a sword and some armour.
I lay back, wondering what the sharp-tasting drug had been.
There was a very quiet knock and my chivalrous friend opened the door. She smiled sweetly and slipped in, carrying a wax taper in a stick. ‘The Dauphine says one of us must sit with you all night,’ she said.
She had on a plain working woman’s kirtle with an apron.
‘I’m sorry that I bled on your lovely gown,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘I will wear it at court. My dear man, there is no better adornment. I will say, ‘Oh, that’s the blood of William Gold, who saved the Duke de Bourbon on the Bridge of Meaux. I was helping him with his armour.’
There was another knock, and she went to the door and took a covered cup.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘It’s honeyed milk with a little spice. My father used to take it when. . he was hurt.’ She smiled.
I had seen rings on the fingers of the hand holding the cup.
‘Am I being served by all the Dauphine’s ladies?’ I asked.
‘Two at a time,’ she said.
‘Am I so dangerous?’ I asked.
‘I imagine that you are quite fearsome to your enemies, messire,’ she said. For the first time since the courtyard, she let her eyes meet mine. ‘But as I have a high heart of my own, I believe that I can meet you in an encounter — alone. I felt that two of us might put you. . at a disadvantage.’
‘Ah, mademoiselle, I’m afraid I am no match for you, and you alone have me at a grave disadvantage,’ I said. I’d listened to a romance or two. The girls at the Three Foxes used to read them aloud, those as could read. And players would recite them. The Provencal ones and the Italians were the best.
She settled gracefully on the edge of my bed. ‘Drink from our cup,’ she said.
‘Does the cup come with a kiss of friendship?’ I asked.
She leaned over, almost bored, and kissed me lightly on the lips. I caught her — my hand against her back — and kissed her harder.
I’m not sure what I expected from a high-born girl. But I didn’t expect her mouth to melt open under mine, and for her to lean into me and breathe into my mouth.
Later, she said, ‘Did you expect me, then?’
I denied it, and she jumped off the bed and hit me lightly. ‘Liar!’ she said. ‘I’m too predictable. A light of love.’
‘My sweet and beautiful friend, I had no expectation but of an uncomfortable night with a nasty wound.’ I smiled at her — winningly, I hope.
She frowned. ‘And yet you chewed a clove. I can taste it in your mouth.’
‘Medicine,’ I said.
‘Only for foul breath,’ she said, but she laughed. ‘Perhaps our horse doctor uses it.’
‘Please come back,’ I said, patting my narrow bedstead.
‘No, messire. Too many such kisses and a girl may find herself with an unwanted swelling about the waist.’ She smiled. ‘Do you think my blood is any less hot than yours?’
I knew the answer to that.
‘I do hope that you stay on watch all night,’ I said, ‘because I’m not sure my strength is up to two or three or four of you.’
‘Fie!’ she said, swatting me. ‘That was ungentle.’
‘Benidictee! You may tax me, and I may not tax you back.’ I was getting the pace of her conversation.
She smiled. ‘Precisely, messire. I am to be adored, not to be teased.’
‘I could, perhaps, adore you more effectively if I knew your name.’ I smiled.
She nodded. ‘I am Emile de Clermont.’
I put my hand on hers without thinking about it. ‘Your father was the Marshal of Normandy?’
She dropped her eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘I met him. At Paris. With the Dauphin.’
‘You did?
‘Last autumn. I was acting as courier for the Prince of Wales. Your father came to the gate of the Louvre, fully armed. We-’ I smiled. ‘We almost fought. Par dieu, we were so cold and wet.’ I smiled at her. ‘Clermonts must be destined to rescue me.’
I was prattling on in this manner when I realized that she was crying. Like my touch to her hand, her tears were not in the game. She was truly crying.
‘They killed him,’ she said. ‘By My lady the Virgin, the canaille killed him. And two days ago, I saw my mother’s castle burn. Christ — I want to be braver than this.’ She stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Master Gold, you are a better man than I thought. Let go my hand.’
Instead, I pulled. I didn’t pull hard.
In a fight, you can learn everything — everything — from an opponent at the moment when your swords meet. The contact of the two blades is so intimate that a more experienced swordsman can read intentions, skills and weaknesses in one quick beat of a man’s heart.
How much more, then, can a boy or girl learn from the touch of a hand?
She didn’t want to go.
She came into my arms and turned her head away.