Her hand squeezed mine, caressing the ring.
‘I will come back,’ I said. ‘On the sanctity of the cross I swear it.’
She smiled, and then she was gone.
We rode north and west across Normandy to Calais. The company was excellent — Chatillon was years my senior, but a gentler man, a better knight, I don’t think I ever met. He reminded me of Chandos — indeed, they were peers. His household were men of his own stamp, and du Guesclin and I were fast friends by the end of the ransom time.
When we came to Calais, after much sorting of safe conducts and the like, we found that the peace talks, far from being over, were still going strong, with the King of England and the King of France locked in a fight over the precedence of their renunciations. The King of England had to renounce his claim to the throne of France, and the King of France had to renounce his claim to the parts of France being ceded by treaty to England. Neither man relished the prospect. Half a thousand churchmen seemed to gather around them like vultures and ravens at a battlefield.
The first night in Calais, I found a note from Emile inside my chamois gloves. I read it a dozen times. I still have it, and I’ll be damned if I share it with you, but she did mention in an appendage that she was looking into the ransom of my prisoner from Poitiers.
Somehow, that little detail brought home to me that we would meet again.
I was three days in Calais before I could arrange a meeting, through Tom, with the Captal. I attended him at breakfast — he had a whole inn, while I lived under the eaves of a cottage.
‘The Prince will receive you,’ he said. ‘Now that you are ransomed, I’ll try and get you in today. Tomorrow at the latest.’
Sure enough, I attended the Black Prince that very evening.
I bowed my very best bow. The Prince was having a dinner for many of the French knights he’d taken at Poitiers, and the Captal arranged that I be invited. I sat with du Guesclin, who had most definitely not been taken at Poitiers.
Chaucer was there. I found it hard to hold on to my dislike of him, and I greeted him warmly. He, however, kept his distance.
Sadly for me, the Prince’s reception was about the same. Sir John Chandos took me by the arm, the Captal stood by me, and I made my best bow to the Prince as Sir John said, ‘My lord, here is Master Gold, who has done your Grace and his father good service in Gascony since we last heard of him.’
‘We heard of him quite recently, and under circumstances most entirely creditable to a squire,’ the Prince said. He glanced at me. ‘I am told that Master Gold was falsely accused by a man. To the great detriment of his repute,’ he said, somewhat acerbically. ‘The enmity of a peer of France is not timely, Master Gold. Sir John Chandos has been unstinting in your praise. Sir Robert Knolles states that you are the best man of your companions.’
My Prince had never spoken to me so long, or so fairly, and I was almost unable to move.
‘And Monsieur de Chatillon and Monsieur de Guesclin are your ardent admirers.’ The Prince leaned a little closer. Not for nothing was he called the black Prince. He was at the edge of anger, and his scowl was dark. The Captal cleared his throat. ‘Your Grace,’ he said chidingly.
‘John, I cannot have him,’ the Prince said very distinctly.
I flushed.
‘Sir John did not let go my hand. ‘Your Grace,’ he began.
‘I detest to be made to appear ungracious to my vassals.’ He took my hand. ‘Master Gold, you deserve better by me, but while you hold the determined dislike of a peer of France, I cannot have you by my side in a tournament that has enough political difficulties to start a new war.’ His brow clouded over as fast as an April day in London. ‘John — enough. Master Gold, whatever passed between you and a Princess of the royal house of France, the rumour that sticks to you precludes your direct employment by the crown of England. And you have the reputation of a brigand and a routier.’
I stood perfectly still, trying to make the words go away.
‘Perhaps in a year or two, something can be done. In the meantime, I imagine that Sir John will provide you with work.’ He inclined his head.
I bowed. Should I have barked? Spat? Damned him for an ungrateful Prince?
Perhaps I should have asked, ‘Who gives us our orders?’
But I bowed deeply and withdrew.
The Captal clamped my arm in his and pulled me, literally, through a curtain. I knew where I was — this was the side-table where the squires and cooks prepared meats for table.
The Captal looked at me — that look, again; the one that said he was sorry for the injustice of it — but he was going about his business.
Sir John Chandos put a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, lad. I thought, after du Guesclin spoke up for you, that you were made.’ He gave a little sniff. ‘I’ll send you word. You’d best go.’
Tom appeared from the torchlight and took my arm.
I found it hard to see.
I was crying.
I was living in a tent — I couldn’t afford an inn in Calais. I went to my tent, and Perkin, who had already heard the news through the endless network of servants, handed me a cup of wine.
Before I could be drunk, du Guesclin appeared. He came straight in through the flap and caught me sobbing.
Monsieur, have you ever been offered all you want? And then had it taken away?
When I left Emile, it was to fight in the lists as a gentleman beside my Prince, wearing her favour. Win or lose, I would have been made. If the Prince didn’t place me in his retinue, with steady, honorable pay, then some great lord would have done so. Perhaps even Oxford or Lancaster.
In an hour, because of an ugly rumour started by a man whose life I once saved, that was gone. And yet, while I wallowed in it, I also saw that like Sir Gawain, I was the author of my own failure. I lay with Emile, and earned the pettish hatred of this man, who in that hour, I hated more than I hated the Bourc.
Du Guesclin came into my tent. Perkin poured him wine.
‘I’m sorry, my lord. I am unmanned.’ I was helpless to talk.
Du Guesclin shrugged. ‘They are all much alike, Princes,’ he said, and drank some wine. ‘Mine thinks I’m a routier, too.’
In the end, we played chess. I’d like to say we spoke of love, or chivalry, but instead, he offered to sell me a good horse at a reasonable price.
I was moving a piece, and my glance fell on Emile’s ring.
‘Would you take a letter — to a friend?’ I asked.
Du Guesclin’s eyes went to my ring. ‘You ask a great deal,’ he said, and grinned. ‘Par dieu, monsieur, if it were not for the great love I bear you, I might try to know your sweet friend the better myself.’ He leaned back. ‘I will take you her letter. And any other you send me.’
I leaped to my feet. ‘By Christ, monsieur, you are a true friend.’
Du Guesclin shook his head. ‘For an English routier, you are a good man.’
I warmed my hands on the brazier and wrote Emile a note.
Madame,
The writer of this missive wishes you every felicity, every comfort in your delivery and every hope for. . I paused. Women — young women — died like flowers in childbirth. What I wanted to wish her was life. I stared at my small square of parchment — where did Perkin find these things?. . every hope for a speedy recovery for mother and child.
A sudden chill prevents the writer from paying his devotions in person. Be assured, my sweet friend, that the writer will think of no other until. .
Until what? Until I earned so much notoriety that I was just another routier? A hired killer? A collector of patis? What other endgame was there?