She set her jaw. ‘That is not who you really are,’ she said. Her eyes locked with mine, and they were as hard as diamonds. ‘We do what we must, eh, monsieur? But that need not be the sum of who we are.’ She pulled the ring from her finger and reached it out.
I tried to snatch her hand. She pulled it away.
‘If you aren’t faster than that, you’ll never beat Jehan le Maingre for me.’ She had avoided another attempt by my left arm to pin her to the bed. ‘I will visit again. Don’t get well too soon.’ She smiled and extended the ring again.
I held out my hand, and she placed it gently on my finger. ‘Be my knight,’ she said.
It is uncomfortable when you meet another person’s eyes for too long. It is as if you have no secrets left.
I cannot say how long we were like that.
It was long.
Like a fool, I broke it. ‘You are beautiful,’ I said. ‘Pregnancy makes you. .’ I tried to find a word for her.
‘Fat,’ she said. ‘A demain, m’amour.’
My ransom didn’t appear from the Captal. The tailor came every day for three days, measuring, cutting and showing me fabrics at my bedside. The truth is that I agreed to everything he suggested. If I had any taste of my own, it was mostly direct emulation of older men I had admired: Sir John Cheverston, Sir John Chandos, Jean de Grailly and, most especially, my sometime mentor and nemesis, Jehan le Maingre, whose slim good looks seemed to mock my large build and bright-red hair. I told the tailor, in some detail, what I liked on each of these men.
He was a patient man. He heard me out and asked some questions about styles. After two days, he pursed his lips and said, ‘Scarlet and black.’
‘What about them?’
‘Those will be your colours. Your, mmm, patroness has suggested that I design arms for you, as well. Gules and sable.’ He fingered his beard. ‘I have a little scarlet broadcloth — a very little, dyed before the war. Black is expensive, but everyone wears it. Your hair, coming out of a sable cap, will be. .’ he smiled. ‘You will be wanting a new arming coat,’ he said.
I agreed.
He nodded. ‘Two cotes, two doublets, two gowns, one with fur, six shirts, six braes, six black hose and six red hose. A hood hat. The short gown, trimmed in sable, and a second gown plain. Two pairs of shoes and a pair of boots.’ He smiled. ‘A pair of wicker panniers and a leather male, or trunk. A full cloak and a half cloak. Six linen caps.’ He looked up from his wax tablet. ‘Anything else?’
‘Gloves?’ I asked hopefully. I loved gloves. They protect your hands in brush, or in a street fight.
‘Gloves, for monsieur. My god-brother can make them. Chamois or deerskin?’ His stylus poised over the wax.
I had no idea what the difference was. ‘One each?’ I asked.
Judging from his face that was a foolish answer, but that’s what I got.
In between visits from the tailor, I read about chivalry. My host had de Charny’s questions, and I read them. Some of them made little sense to me — his refined sense of what might constitute right and wrong in the taking of a man’s horse and arms in a tournament were beyond my experience — and he didn’t seem to ask the questions to which I wanted answers. How many peasants can you torment for their grain before you cease to be a knight? Must you fight, regardless of the odds against you? When is surrender still ‘worthy’?
But other questions fascinated me.
And Vegetius might have been a captain of routiers. Some of his advice bore no relationship to war as I knew it, but his views on ambush and the chance of battle seemed solid enough. And scouting. Par Dieu, monsieur, the old Romans knew about scouts and spies, eh?
My host, the Captain of Reims, Gaucher de Chatillon, appeared at my bedside the next morning, dressed in immaculate green and gold. Three days closeted with a tailor had caused me to examine clothing. I still do.
He bowed at the doorway. ‘Monsieur, please accept my apologies for not attending you before. My lord the Marshal has told me how you helped to defend our cousin the Dauphine, and all French gentlemen owe you a debt of gratitude.’ He bowed again. ‘I am also given to understand that you preserved my friend the Duke de Bourbon in the face of the foe, and the Comte d’Herblay.’
It is very difficult to bow from a bed, but I tried.
‘Your lordship does me too much honour,’ I protested.
‘Faugh,’ he coughed. ‘I do not. But I am here with the pleasant duty of telling you that your ransom is paid and you are a free man. Indeed, I can go further and suggest that we travel together, as I am going to the King of England’s tournament and passage of arms at Calais, in honour of the peace, and I thought you might care to come. Peace may be in the air with spring.’ He coughed in his hand. ‘But the roads are still full of brigands.’
He handed me a scroll. I opened it to find a letter from the Captal.
‘I didn’t bring a man to read it for you,’ the Captain said with a bow. ‘I gather monsieur is a voracious reader, as I’m given to understand he is galloping through my small library.’
‘Ma fois, my lord! I had no idea there were so many fine books about chivalry!’ I said, or something equally passionate.
The Captal had arranged for me to fight on the Prince’s English team, if I was recovered.
I all but leaped from my bed. This was recognition — forgiveness — perhaps a permanent appointment, all at the tip of my sword.
A spike of pain rose from my right arm to the middle of my chest, and I gasped.
De Chatillon caught me as I stumbled. ‘I took a bad wound in ’57,’ he said. ‘It took me months to recover. Muscles forget their duty in bed.’
The French had treated me as a gentleman — in fact, as an aristocrat — so I couldn’t very well tell this famous knight that I needed the tournament at Calais as my chance to prove myself. Or perhaps I was just too proud.
‘I’ll be ready to ride,’ I said. ‘When?’
He smiled. ‘So eager,’ he said. ‘I won’t be at leisure until Monday next.’
So I had five days to be in shape to ride.
Du Guesclin came to tell me I was free. I undervalued you,’ he said ruefully. ‘Five hundred florins would have been a better price.’
‘At least I pay,’ I said, more nastily then I had intended.
When he asked, I told him about the knight I’d taken at Poitiers, who had never paid.
Du Guesclin tugged his beard. ‘This disappoints me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know the gentleman, but I will endeavour to find him.’ He came and sat on my bed. ‘Your horse and arms are safe,’ he said. ‘A certain person paid me a small patis to release them. I shouldn’t charge for your arms at all — really, my friend, you need a new harness.’
‘Alas, I would have to capture two or three worthy gentlemen to have the cost of a harness,’ I said. ‘Rather than enjoying your hospitality.’
‘It would seem unpatriotic if I wished you good luck,’ du Guesclin said, but he grinned. ‘Will you fight at Calais?’
‘If I’m healed enough. It means. . everything to me.’ I wasn’t afraid to admit this to du Guesclin. He knew me.
‘May I. . loan you some armour that I’m almost positive will fit?’ He looked away to hide a smile. ‘I have a fair amount. Captures and the like.’
As a brag, it was clever.
‘I can’t wear your captured English armour at Calais, you rogue!’ I laughed.
He made a very Norman shrug. ‘Armour has no name,’ he said. ‘And I have a nice cuirass from Italy — with a lance rest.’
‘Well. .’ I had tears in my eyes. Life hadn’t prepared me for people to be so kind. To be frank, I was suspicious, but I couldn’t imagine a reason for du Guesclin to humiliate me.