But the Bourc’s eyes came back to me.
There is a great deal of worldly satisfaction in the shock of an enemy. He was dismayed and I rejoiced.
But I was no longer so very young, nor so afraid of all the world. Or perhaps I was simply inside the warm aura of my priest, and thus immune from the anger of Satan’s messenger.
I smiled at him.
He was surrounded by his own men, and in the entourage of a prince of the church — if Robert of Geneva did not yet have the cardinal’s hat, he would. Anne had told me that he was superbly rich in his own right, commanded all his family’s connections, and was, in addition, one of the best minds the church had produced in twenty years.
The bishop was craning his head to see what had disturbed his arrival; he was in a chair, carried by eight liveried men. He was quite young, with a bulbous nose and no chin to speak of. His eyes were wide set, and seemed to question everything.
By my side, Fra Peter said ‘Do not draw.’
I had already used my thumb to break the seal of sword to scabbard. I had slid the sword an inch free, ready to pull her free, all without any conscious thought. This, on the steps of the papal palace.
And yet I was not so far wrong.
The Bourc was still mounted. So was d’Herblay.
I could tell from the set of his mouth and the movement of his eyes that he recognised Father Pierre. And remembered him and his role. But more — his eyes kept going back to my priest, and I thought of di Heredia’s warnings.
‘Clear this hedge priest off the steps,’ he shouted to his men-at-arms.
Then a great many things happened at once. All of us, even the nun, closed in around Father Pierre. We were his bodyguard and, even then, we had already begun to practice how we would defend him, if it came to fighting: on the crusade, of course. It had not occurred to any of us that we’d defend him from an animal like Camus on the steps of the papal palace, but we locked up around him in a few heartbeats.
Camus put spurs to his warhorse and aimed it at Father Pierre. He had a staff in his hands, the sort of baton that commanders carry, and he cut down at the nun who, by ill-chance, was in front of all of us.
She got an arm up, but he cut hard. I heard her arm break, but she didn’t flinch, and her struggle cost him time. As her action bought us a few moments, I pushed past Father Pierre and caught Camus’s blow on my crossed arms. My steel vambraces were easily proof against his oak baton, although I felt each blow. He threw three, very fast, and half a dozen of his other men-at-arms were charging us on the steps.
If this seems insane to you, remember who he was. And what he was. And what Robert of Geneva has become.
I had never faced a foe in full harness, but without a weapon or a helmet. A man can spend a great deal of effort protecting his own head; indeed, the piece of armour everyone gets first is a helmet. But by Camus’ third blow, I had his tempo. My left hand trapped his descending right, just for a moment, and my fingers closed on the cuff of his gauntlet covering his wrist.
The oak staff carried on and smacked me in the nose, a light blow that nonetheless almost took me out of the fight, and my right hand closed on his baton and I almost screamed with pain. It was only a few days since I’d had a dagger blade in the palm — and despite all that I managed to get my left on to the flange of his right elbow cop. I pulled.
He came off his horse. The horse was trying to bite my face — a warhorse does that — but Father Hector put his crucifix into the horse’s teeth with a two-handed blow that would have done honour to many a belted knight and the horse reared, finishing Camus’s attempts to retain his seat, and they went down, the horse one way, and Camus at my feet.
To my left, Fiore had another man-at-arms flat on his front and was kneeling on the man’s back, and Juan and Fra Peter had their arms up, covering Father Pierre. But more and more black and white men-at-arms were closing in, and it finally penetrated my head that this might be a real assassination attempt and not mere arrogant happenstance.
The blue and white men-at-arms took no part. They merely watched.
Miles Stapleton put a horseman down by throwing himself under the man’s arm and lifting his foot. And Lord Grey opened the papal banner, so that every man in the Place de Palais could see the papal arms in glittering gold on white silk.
I had the Bourc at my feet. ‘Call off your dogs,’ I shouted, and rotated his arm a little farther in its socket. It was already dislocated.
He screamed. That scream got more attention than any call to arms — four paces away, a mounted soldier reared his horse and fell back. D’Herblay had his sword in his hand. He pointed it at me and shouted.
‘Let him go,’ Father Pierre said, gently. He put his naked hand on my armoured one, and lifted my thumb. My hand was locked in place on the Bourc’s arm. I was rigid with anger, with shock — with not-really-suppressed violence.
‘I’ll kill you all,’ Camus said. ‘I’ll kill you and then I’ll flay your souls in hell.’
Father Pierre shook his head, his mild eyes unmoved. ‘No, my son, you will not.’
‘I am not your son!’ roared Camus. Even then, his right shoulder dislocated, a swarm of men-at-arms around him, he went for his dagger.
I was too slow.
Fiore dei Liberi was not. He stripped the dagger from Camus’s left hand as if he was taking a pie from a street seller. Fra Peter picked up the oak staff that Camus had dropped and held it high.
The Savoyard prelate was just watching. He wore his gown with long black gloves so that he appeared entirely black except his head, where his ferocious, inquisitive, bulging eyes and his narrow, chinless face made him look more like a cat than was quite right. If he cared at all that one of the captains of his escort was lying flat with his arms pinned and his own dagger at his throat, he betrayed nothing but an intense interest, as if we were a troupe of travelling players performing something vaguely obscene. Those eyes of his!
Fra Peter gave Father Pierre a gentle but very commanding shove away from the Bishop’s men and towards the open steps to our left. ‘Move, Excellency,’ he said.
Now the blue and white men-at-arms were also moving, working their way to block the ends of the street. Robert of Geneva leaned down from his chair to speak to his cousin d’Herblay.
Father Pierre was not used to being called ‘Excellency’ and he didn’t react at once.
‘By Satan, I will find the peasants who are your father and mother and flay them alive,’ the Bourc Camus spat at Father Pierre. This, let me say again, on the steps of the papal palace.
‘You are like a child,’ Father Pierre said. ‘You seek to break things-’
‘Don’t patronise me, you low-born hypocrite. You were born on the dung heap, and I will fling you back to it.’ Camus’s voice had taken on an odd, sing-song chant and a sibilant hiss.
Father Hector had his crucifix in Camus’s face, and Liberi had the man pinned, despite his demonic strength — demons, for all the aid of the netherworld, have a hard time with one shoulder dislocated and the other locked by an expert man-at-arms.
Fra Peter stopped talking, caught Father Pierre around the waist and carried him away.
I found that I was standing over the nun. Her face was white and her left arm was clearly broken, but she got to her feet without using either hand, rolling forward over her hips like a knight. She tucked the broken arm into the cord that bound her habit and met my eye. I moved my head, indicating that she should follow Father Pierre and then I looked past her at Liberi.
He had the tiniest smile on his face. With a look of pleasure on his narrow face, he rolled Camus off his hip and threw him down the steps and into his own men-at-arms.
Chaos ensued — shrieks, bellows of pain — and under their cover we slipped away to the left, moving fast. Juan was one step ahead of me. None of us had drawn our swords.