‘Winning her will require. . some money,’ I said.
Janet laughed and sat back. ‘My father said. .’ she began, and the old shadow fell across her face.
‘Never mind,’ I said.
Janet shook her head, hard — too hard — and leaned forward. ‘He said, “Never count the money and never count the odds.”’ Her eyes met mine.
And I thought, Why is she going with Richard?
‘What do you want, Janet?’ I asked. We were close enough to kiss. I didn’t want Milady, but there is something — when you can feel the warmth of another person’s face — something beyond intimacy.
She pursed her lips. ‘I want to be a knight,’ she said. ‘It is all I’ve ever wanted. My father had no son.’
So. And so.
Sometime after the North Star began to go down, the Hospitaller came. We made him welcome — anyone could see he was a great knight.
‘Wine, brother?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I never say no to wine,’ he said, and he drank a fair amount. He hindered our conversation for a little while, but he was so mild a man that after a time we went back to our own ways. And in truth, Milady had mended our manners with nothing but gentle derision.
Eventually, I raised a cup of Burgundy to Richard. ‘I will miss you. My best friend.’
Richard was drunk. He came and put his arms around me and rested his forehead against mine. ‘I want to be a knight, he said. ‘Not a fucking killer for hire.’ He took a deep and somewhat drunken breath. ‘You should, too. You’re too good for this shit.’
‘Yes,’ I said. I wasn’t worthy. But at least I knew it.
As I left his embrace, I saw the Hospitaller watching me.
I lay under a cloak, looking at the stars, and listened to Richard and Milady make love. Or rather, I listened to him make love. It’s a common enough set of camp sounds, and I wager I’ve made them as much as any man, and yet, almost painful to listen to, especially when you lie alone with only the darkest of thoughts. I thought of us all — me, Richard, Milady and Fra Peter. Three of us wanted to be knights. Half the men in our camp wanted to be knights.
I knew the words. I knew Sir Ramon’s book almost by heart.
When Janet left Richard’s blankets, I heard her movement and I got up. It was early autumn, and I found Milady sitting by the fire. She smiled at me and relieved me from some shadowy apprehensions. I’m not sure what I feared — for him or for her — but her smile seemed relaxed.
‘I don’t think I’ll be a good wife,’ she said. ‘Don’t sell my armour, eh, mon amie?’
‘Of course you will be,’ I said.
She shrugged. ‘Promise!’
I nodded, built up the fire and went back to my cloak.
The next morning, with a hangover of epic proportions, I watched them ride away. His squire, the welsh boy — now a man — went with him. Her squire, Amory, and her archer — my friend John Hughes — stayed with me.
‘I’m not welcome,’ Hughes said.
I sat down with him as he stared at the fire.
‘He wants her to be a wife,’ Hughes said. ‘It won’t work. But Master Musard said if I went with them, I’d put her in mind of her harness and her horse.’
I forced a smile. ‘John, I promise that if I go to get married, I’ll take you along.’
He looked up. ‘You’d better,’ he said. ‘She made us better men. Can we stick to what she taught?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and I meant it.
I left John Hughes to watch my kit, and I went to the Genoese. I extracted my small balance, and I had him write me a letter of credit. I sold him all my nice clothes, and every other item I owned, everything Emile had bought me, except the armour I wore every day, and her favour, and Llull’s book, which I left with him — my sole deposit.
Then I took my money to the Hospitaller. He was praying, and I had to wait for him. Eventually his mild eyes crossed mine, and he rose smoothly to his feet and tucked his prayer beads into his sword belt.
‘William?’ he said. I swear he knew exactly what I’d done.
‘One hundred and seventy florins,’ I said. ‘Every copper I possess. I kept five florins back to pay for fodder for my horses.’
I handed him the letter of credit. He read it and fingered his beard. ‘I share your views of Mother Church,’ he said. ‘Many men do.’ He rolled the letter and tucked it into his purse. ‘My order is very rich. We also spend a great deal on the poor, on arms against the infidel, on nursing and on food. But none of that matters. What matters to you is that you have taken this money by force, and now it will go to benefit your sister.’ Again, his eyes locked on mine. ‘You are better than this life around you,’ he said.
I was looking at the tips of my toes. ‘No, brother,’ I said. ‘I’m not.’
He put his hand on my head and blessed me. ‘My God thinks you are better,’ he said. ‘He made you in his image, not to rob and murder, but to protect the weak and defend the defenceless.’
Rudely, I shrugged off his benison with all the desperate cynicism of a twenty-one-year-old. ‘You have all my money, ‘I said. ‘You can keep the blessings. Besides,’ I said, with a dark joy. ‘I’m an excommunicate, remember?’
I walked away.
Youth is truly wasted on the young.
Later that morning, I took my riding horse and rode out into the country. I was looking for a fight.
Instead, just outside of camp, I found a small crowd of peasants. They were mostly women, and they were looting a corpse.
I knew one of the women; she had sewed for me and her name was Alison. She was bent over the corpse, her breasts showing under her kirtle, her hands bloody. She was taking the rings off the man’s fingers.
She grinned at me. It was a scary grin, but I think she meant it to be comely. I dismounted, dropped my reins — my former cart horse didn’t have the spirit to walk away — and knelt. The women scattered, except Alison — women gave men-at-arms a wide compass, unless they were drunk or liquorish. And for good reason.
He was one of ours, a Gascon. In fact, he was one of the Bascon de Moulet’s men, a corporal. He had good wool hose and clean linen braes — not so clean now that he’d voided his bowels into them.
He had one puncture wound under his jaw. Somewhat idly, I pushed my eating skewer into it, and it went right up into his brain. I cleaned my skewer on his shirt, and yes, I ate with it that night.
Later, I took Alison back to my blankets and we made the beast with two backs — about six times. In daylight. I had been fiercely loyal to Emile for a long time, but word of her second pregnancy gave me the excuse I craved to behave badly. Alison was wild, and not altogether of our world; her eyes glittered in an odd way. On the other hand, she had hair as red as mine and no inhibition that I encountered, and if I wanted to lose myself in a body, her body was made for me.
When we were tired, or sore, I watched her play with my clothes. She knelt, naked, on my blankets, and she tied every set of points on my doublet. She arranged everything, almost like I had the clothes on.
I was admiring her, and wondering why she had to fuss endlessly, when she said, ‘Who killed him?’
If you are a man, a naked man on an early fall day, lying with a naked woman, it’s not murder that comes to mind. More especially, if you are a killer, and murder is done every day. ‘Foot pads?’ I said, running a finger over her hip. ‘A brigand?’ I added, meaning it as a joke.
‘I knew him,’ she said.
‘So did I,’ I added.
‘No, I lay with him,’ she added, without shame. Alison wasn’t much on shame. ‘He was kind the way you are. Why don’t you have points all the same colour?’
Her changes of subject were always too much for me. ‘Who cares?’ In truth, I had leather laces on a third of my points, and four or five different colours of wool and silk cord, and some linen. Half my ‘points’ no longer had their metal tips. I looked like a rag-picker’s child.
‘I care,’ she said. ‘I almost didn’t come with you. You look. . lopsided. Uneven.’ She ran her hand over my stomach. ‘Naked, you look right. Animals are never lopsided. That’s why they look right.’