On Friday, between eating salt fish and trying to swat the pell with my sword, I was visited by the tailor.
Four young boys carried my panniers up the stairs to my tower and laid them on my floor, and he spent more than an hour showing me the ins and outs of my wardrobe. I had everything he’d written on his tablet, and more — a dozen black scarves, neatly folded; a new purse on a new belt with a hook for de Charny’s dagger, in red and black; a sable hat with a scarlet feather. Two pairs of gloves, one red and one chamois coloured. The malle had a razor and a small horn box for soap, and a sewing kit with hanks of red and black linen thread for maintaining all my finery, and needles, and white linen thread for shirts. There were hose and matching garters in red and black leather with fine buckles.
He insisted that I try every garment. Meanwhile he and his boys sat on my floor, despite his own fine clothes, and re-tailored the lining of my red and sable coat; adjusted the fit of all my hose, the four of them stitching back seams at the speed of running mice. Finally, they all worked on my arming coat, parti-colour in red and black. It came in panels of heavily quilted wool fustian, and they constructed it before my eyes, chatting away merrily.
I felt a pang of longing for my master’s shop. I tried to sit and help, and the master shook his head.
So I watched, and chatted, and marvelled that all these riches were to be mine.
I am only repeating last Sunday’s sermon to say that the outer man often reflects the inner man. At Reims, I did some good for Emile and began to learn a little about chivalry — and in return Emile clothed me. Indeed, she set my taste for life — par dieu, gentlemen, I still wear those colours, as you can see.
I attended Mass on Sunday dressed in my new clothes. No one commented on them, but for a day, I was as fine as Jehan le Maingre and I outshone du Guesclin, who glanced at me at the holy-water basin and said, ‘To look at us, monsieur, men would think you took me. I knew I charged you too little.’ But he winked, and I couldn’t take offence.
I wore Emile’s ring, as well.
My hip hurt, but I could ride and walk and swing a sword.
Emile came to see me after Mass. I had made it to Mass and back under my own power.
She had two women and a man with her, and I heard her laugh from the base of my stairs. She came in like a breath of spring, and even as I bowed, carefully showing a fine length of sable fur trim, she laughed again.
‘By the Virgin, sir, I heard that you were so eager to be gone from us that you leaped from the bed on hearing there was to be a tournament at Calais.’ She had on a high head-dress that made her look like a Turk — or at least, how I imagined a Turk back then. The scarf fluttered in front of her eyes when she curtseyed.
I blushed and stammered.
She smiled at my confusion. ‘Here are some friends of mine,’ she said. ‘This is my sister, the Vicomtesse de Chartres. You remember my friend Isabelle from the castle at Meaux?’
‘How could I forget so old a friend,’ I said.
The small blonde woman frowned, and snapped me a quick and rather empty courtesy. ‘Monsieur,’ she muttered.
‘And the foremost musician of our age,’ she said. ‘My friend Guillaume.’
He raised his eyebrows slightly, gently turning away the flattery. ‘I love music, and I serve it, but there are better men then I and better women, too, in every convent and monastic house.’ He smiled. ‘My lady thought it might please you to hear some music.’
What could I say? I had hoped that she would contrive to visit me privily, and I had imagined. . well, I had imagined things.
Love is jealous. Here I was, with her, and yet already bitter. Why had she brought all these people?
The man called Guillaume was dressed far more richly than I, and I put him down as a popinjay. He played the lute and sang so well that I dismissed him. The three women talked among themselves, and I sulked.
Youth. Wasted on the young.
Thankfully for everyone, my host appeared with du Guesclin. Du Guesclin had two boys with armour. Chatillon bowed to me and then to the musician.
‘Ah, monsieur!’ he said.
The musician rose and bowed with an irony that moved him up in my estimation.
‘Our musician was knighted by the King,’ Chatillon said with a wry smile. ‘Now he is Monsieur de Machaut.’
‘So our worthy captain forced me to bear arms and fight you English in the siege,’ Machaut said.
Now I was interested. ‘How did you find it?’ I asked.
Machault shrugged. ‘Terrifying,’ he admitted. ‘I am not bred to it like your gentlemen.’
‘Monsieur Machaut is too modest,’ du Guesclin said. ‘He stood in the gate for an hour, crossing swords with the flower of English chivalry. He honoured his name and the act of his knighting.’
Machaut laughed. ‘I was beaten to the ground by three men wearing Clarence’s colours, and then I lay under their feet, trying not to be killed or taken for ransom.’ He was competely at ease — unafraid, in this company, to own up to his failure as a man-at-arms.’
Suddenly, I saw a great deal in him to admire. ‘We are all terrified, are we not, messieurs,’ I said. ‘Not once the fighting starts, but before, yes?’
‘Faugh!’ said Chattilon. ‘I wouldn’t admit to such a thing. For myself, I know no fear. I sometimes shake with eagerness to be at the foe.’ He bowed to the ladies. ‘Sometimes I shake so hard in my eagerness that my knees strike together.’
Du Guesclin nodded his approval. ‘It is in facing the fear that we are brave, not the absence of fear,’ he said.
Machaut caught a louse in his collar and killed it between his nails. ‘Yes — well. I fought three times, and it was harder to make myself go forward each time.’
My eye met du Guesclin’s and we both knew what we knew.
It gets harder to go forward.
For all the seriousness of the conversation, I had a new appreciation of Machaut’s quality, and now I listened more attentively to his music. In some way, he reminded me of Chaucer. He was witty and widely read. Every time he mentioned a writer — he sang us a poem by the great Italian, Dante, and then he said the words in French — I was determined to read everything they’d written.
I was determined to learn to ride better, to read more, to learn to fight better and to joust constantly. What I needed was enough money to live like a gentleman. A gentleman could do all these things.
My little room was crowded with all these people and my panniers of clothes and armour, and Chatillon graciously allowed us to move to his wife’s solar, which was the next level in the tower and a much larger room. I was the last out my door, and Emile was just ahead of me — she rested her hand on mine in the doorsill, leaned back as if to speak and put her lips on mine.
I have met Catherine of Sienna, the living saint. She said that God came to her like colour to a blind man. In the minute she said as much, all I could imagine was that kiss of Emile’s.
She moved away, and I was left unable to breathe.
The rest of the afternoon slipped away — idyllic. I tried to touch her again, but there was no chance and too many eyes. I told a few tales, and du Guesclin recounted how I took him in the darkness, and Chatillon told some tales from the sieges. Machaut sang us a lay of Lancelot, and another of Sir Tristan.
When the ladies rose to leave, du Guesclin’s eyes met mine.
‘Next time I find myself questioning the value of chivalry,’ he said, ‘perhaps I will think of this afternoon.’ He glanced at Machaut. ‘He surprised you, yes? He surprised all of us. He was really very brave.’
‘I can see that,’ I said.
As Emile made ready to depart, I took her hand and bowed. ‘I owe you a great deal,’ I said to her hand.
‘Ma fois, my dear,’ she said. ‘It was a pleasure, and doubly so to see you so fine, and with men of your own caliber. This is where you belong. I wanted you to taste this.’ She leaned forward. ‘Come back to me, my Lancelot. I shan’t always be fat as a hog.’