The truth was that by the morning after Brignais, most of the footmen were already hungry. We’d picked the district clean before the battle happened. There wasn’t enough forage for the horses. There wasn’t enough food for the men. The Army of Thieves, as the French called us, had 20,000 human mouths to feed, and we didn’t have a supply train. We lived like animals, from day to day.
Not that our victory was useless. After all, had we lost, we’d all have been executed — our captives were remarkably truthful about that. And we had a great many captives — most of the high and middle nobility of Northern France, and a few from the south as well.
Hawkwood immediately formed a company for the purpose of getting our ransoms paid. He enlisted two Genoese bankers and Petit Mechin, who, as a Frenchman, knew what men were worth and where they lived. I joined his company immediately and handed over the Count d’Herblay and the Frenchman, de Meung. Camus, who had taken a dozen ransoms, also joined the enterprise, and I spent a morning — a damp, dull morning — standing too close to the mad bastard while he glowered at me.
Twice I saw him talking to d’Herblay.
That should have troubled me, but I was having difficulty — exhaustion, combat and too much wine had left me less than half a man. My body ached, my head ached and my spirit hurt. I became disgusted with the whole proceeding — an essential part of the management of war, but a tedious and bureaucratic one, whereby each prisoner was entered into the accounts of the enterprise with his home and his potential value, and negotiations began as to his ability to pay. A single man-at-arms couldn’t hope to force a noble prisoner to pay a ransom, although sometimes we could resort to the courts — the very courts of the defeated country. I do not jest — Richard Musard sued a French lord in the court of Paris and won, for cheating on his ransom! But by then, Richard had the support of the Green Count and all his ‘interest’ in Paris. A small man like me had nothing. We needed to band together and purchase the interest of the great banks. Messieurs, have I said how much I hate banks? They made such a profit from all our fighting.
Hawkwood stopped me at the slanted door of the Genoese pavilion. ‘I’m off to Italy in a week,’ he said. ‘Thornbury and I all but deserted our company to come here.’ He smiled — one of his rare, genuine smiles; not the smile of the fox, but the smile of the friend. ‘I’d like to recruit you, William. Italy is rich and the contracts are regular. It is not banditry.’ His face registered some emotion: disgust? He was a hard man to read. ‘You deserve better than this,’ he said.
I assumed he meant my clothes. In truth, I looked like a rag-picker.
I don’t remember what I said. I probably shrugged; I may even have blushed.
Sir John put an arm around my shoulder. ‘D’Herblay is worth three or four thousand Florins,’ he said. ‘Perhaps more. Meung is worth eight hundred. For that much, you can purchase a fine harness, a couple of good mounts and raise the service of a dozen more men-at-arms.’ He hugged me tight. ‘It’s business, William. Come to Italy and make your fortune. If you still want it, in Italy you can be a knight. But don’t come a pauper. Come with a dozen lances and you’ll make your way.’
I embraced him. He told me that the rendezvous was at Romangnano, in Savoy.
‘Savoy?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘We’re making war on the Green Count,’ he said. ‘Well, in the spring, anyway.’
I went and wandered the camp. I think that I wanted a woman, but I couldn’t find one. What I found was exhausted chaos, in-fighting and desertion. Many of the Gascon lords were already packing — the Albrets were among the first to go. They had a fortune in ransoms, and they didn’t need to form a league with the Italian bankers to get their money.
I was drawn by a man and a woman’s voices shouting, and as I came closer, I realized it was Richard and Janet. I ran the last few steps to find that he had her arms, and she was dressed in my clothes — my worst arming cote, with laced-on sleeves, over a shirt of very dubious origins. He was trying to pull at her arms, and even as I rounded the pavilion behind mine, she snap-kicked him in the groin. He blocked the kick with his knee, and she, with breathtaking fluidity, predicted his defence and threw him over her hip — on his broken arm. He fell with his broken arm flapping like a wing, and I confess that I ran to his side, not hers.
‘His fucking arm is broken!’ I shouted at her.
She spat. ‘He treats me like a woman.’
Richard was writhing on the ground. The pain must have been incredible. ‘I’m trying to get her to pack!’ he spat.
‘I’m not leaving!’ she shouted. ‘I will not go back to being a lap-dog!’
‘Perkin!’ I roared. The poor lad ran up, my dented basinet in one hand and a rag of kirtle smeared with ash in the other. It was almost funny — trying to polish that old basinet was a little like trying to make a real knight of me.
‘Sir?’ he asked.
‘Perkin, get me a surgeon,’ I said. I turned to Milady. ‘We’re all leaving,’ I said. ‘There is no more Great Company. Petit Mechin is going to Burgundy. Sir John Creswell has said he’s going to Brittany.’ I forced myself to smile for her. In fact, she looked like a vicious shrew when she was angry: eyes narrow set, cheeks hard with rage and stubbornness.
She glared like a cat at Richard and then gave me the false smile women use when they are angry. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
John Hughes had been sharpening his long knife, and he stopped. Ned Candlewood was engaged in his usual off-duty pursuit: drinking hard at a bottle of wine. He put the glass bottle carefully on the ground. The brothers Arnaud and Belier — now fully armed and no longer servants — stopped fighting over a good basket and turned to look at me. Jack Sumner and Amory — no longer young Amory, either — stopped playing dice.
For good or ill, I was the captain of my own little band.
I propped Richard up against one of the ash-splint baskets that held my harness — when I had a good harness. ‘Richard? Would you care to come to Lombardy?’ I asked. ‘Sir John made me an offer. He wants me to use my money from the ransoms to raise a dozen lances to fight in Italy.’
‘Oh,’ Milady said. Her exhalation had some of the sound of a woman in the release of love. ‘Oh, Italy.’
Richard’s face darkened with blood. ‘I will never fight for that bastard again,’ he said. ‘I have a lord — the Count of Savoy. He will pay our ransom, and we will return to his court and fight John Hawkwood and his lawless brigands, thieves and rapists.’
I squatted down by him. ‘Richard, I’m not ransoming you. You are free to go. I told you so.’ I put a hand on his shoulder.
He shook it off. ‘You have seduced her!’ he spat.
For too damn long, I had no idea what he meant. I said something stupid, like, ‘What?’
Milady said, ‘Don’t be a fool, Richard.’ She said it with a certain bored lassitude.
Finally I understood. ‘No, by the saviour, Richard. There’s nothing between me and Janet.’
‘Why does she want to go to Italy? Why is she against going to the Count’s court?’ he spat. ‘I have bought her all the pretty dresses a woman could want.’
Now, before you say he’s a fool, remember that we were all twenty years old or so, and our blood was hot. He loved her.
‘I don’t want your fucking prison!’ she hissed. ‘Why do you want a wife who has to have three cups of wine to spread her legs? Go find a nice, normal girl and leave me alone!’
This to an audience of a dozen.
Richard turned to me. ‘You bastard,’ he said. ‘You. . you. . fuck! I’ll kill you when I’m able.’
His hate was palpable. I was young enough to imagine that it would fade. ‘Richard!’ I said. ‘Get a grip, man! I haven’t touched her, and I won’t.’
He spat at me. ‘Thief!’ he said. ‘False Knight!’