That’s all I remember, except that I kept my sword by me.
Emile had a town house in Geneva. I learned as much from the monastery’s abbot, and as soon as he said it, I realised that I was a fool, for I’d heard her speak of it as the place she spent the autumn and winter and lay in with her babies. More comfortable than her damp castles, she had said with her laugh that hid pain and pleasure equally. Few knights go to battle as well armoured as my Emile is in her laughter.
But the passes were closing with snow …
I left Marc-Antonio with money and all my letters except those for local men, and I left my riding horse and took Jacques. I rode for Geneva.
I was three days too late.
That said, remember that it was Emile’s courage — well, and her beautiful body — that first attracted me, and her good sense that held me. I was three day’s too late to stop her abduction: luckily, she never needed me to save her.
I arrived at the door of her town house in as pretty a town as ever you need see, on the shores of the most beautiful lake in the world. The door had been hacked about.
The steward himself was in half-harness, and he only showed his face through a grill at first. I suppose that shaving might have helped me, but I looked like a routier after three days on the road, except for my scarlet surcoat. That got the gate open. Her steward still didn’t like the look of me, and behind him in the entry way, I could see a brown blood-splash on the whitewashed stone.
‘You say you are a knight of the order-’ he said.
‘Emile!’ I roared. Or perhaps I squeaked it. I don’t know. I got past the man in half-armour, roaring her name.
I might have expected that her husband was there or had let the attackers into the house.
I made it as far as the solar above the entryway, and I saw her.
She was wearing a breast and back, and had a sword in her hand. And the ice-cold feel of a sword pricked the back of my neck, too.
Some princesses rescue themselves.
It is very unsatisfying when two people in armour embrace. There is no warmth to it.
We managed.
I put my lips on hers and she turned her head away so that I kissed the nape of her neck clumsily. I stepped back.
‘Emile!’ I said. I’m still not sure what I felt: hope, fear, delight, despair? Why was she not kissing me? But she was alive.
‘We were attacked,’ she said, indicating the sword she’d dropped to embrace me. ‘Oh, William. You came.’
‘I’m late,’ I admitted.
She shrugged. ‘My esteemed husband gave himself away, and we were prepared. This is my house, the servants are mine.’ She smiled gently over my shoulder. ‘He’s not an assassin, Amadeus. He is my loyal servante, Sir William Gold.’
I turned and saw the steward. He was as mad as an angry bull, and his sword was drawn. I had, of course, knocked him down. He was sputtering.
Well, there’s comedy to be found in most situations, and I bowed to him and begged his forgiveness, which shocked him so much that he forgave me on the spot.
‘M’amoure,’ I said, ‘you must leave. Now.’
‘Do not call me that,’ Emile said. Her smile said a great deal; injured and injuring too.
I took that wound like a blow. But I shook it off. ‘Do you know the Bishop of Cambrai?’ I asked. ‘The Bishop, now, of Geneva?’
‘The Lord of Geneva’s younger brother? I should think so — I grew up with him,’ she said. ‘He pulled legs off flies,’ she went on. ‘Picked his nose and ate it.’
‘He is my enemy and he means to harm you to force me to serve him,’ I said.
She put a hand on my arm, and the gesture was warmer than her words had been. ‘He may intend to harm me and then to harm you,’ she said. ‘But he won’t care about the consequence. He is not the kind to make a deep and subtle plan. He’s more the kind to wreak havoc and claim later it was part of a plan.’ Her smile was the same difficult glimpse of the inner woman I’d seen when she told me of her husband. Not a smile so much as a defence. ‘I grew up with this man, William. I know him.’
‘Then he will not harm you — if you shared-’ I imagine I stammered.
She sneered. ‘Robert would sell his mother into slavery to advance his ends or satisfy his will.’
‘Someone should put him down like a dog, then’ I said.
She laughed, a true laugh, a hearty one. ‘I promised myself I would harden my heart,’ she muttered. ‘But by God, William, it gladdens me to see you. Alive. A knight.’ She shrugged. ‘Even if you have forgotten me.’
I bowed. ‘I wore your favour at the Emperor’s tournament in Krakow!’ I said. ‘I have worn your favour in battle in France and Italy.’
‘Did you wear it while you swived half the maidens of Europe?’ she asked, and her eyes were blank, and I suspect I stepped back. I knew her well enough to know that she was angry.
Then she turned her head away. ‘Pay me no heed, William.’ She put on a false smile. ‘We shall be friends and not talk of the past.’
Hot replies, defences and apologies bubbled to the top of my head, but I ignored them. By God, love can be like combat in this, that sometimes you must take a dangerous decision and live or die by the consequences.
‘We must leave,’ I said.
She looked at me.
‘Emile, believe as you like. Three months ago, you were going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem with the Passagium Generale.’
She shrugged. ‘A beautiful dream of another time.’
I shook my head vehemently. ‘The Passagium is still active. My lord Pierre Thomas is the legate, and the King of Cyprus is to command us. I have only left him these two fortnights ago at Vienna. He will be in Venice by now.’
She looked at her steward.
He looked at me. ‘I suppose it is possible that the bishop’s brother is lying,’ he said.
‘We have virtually been under siege in this house for three weeks,’ Emile admitted.
‘Why would I lie?’ I asked. ‘There are four thousand men-at-arms in and around Venice. We will cut our way to Jerusalem or die trying.’
She smiled. ‘You really have not changed, have you?’
‘Come with me!’ I said insistently.
She looked at me. ‘I was attacked in my home,’ she said carefully. ‘If I leave, I will forfeit my right to bring my attackers to trial in the courts. This is my home. My people have owned a piece of this rock for six hundred years, William. I do not intend to leave that to Bishop Robert and his thugs.’
I had not considered that she was, in fact, of the haute noblesse. ‘How could he imagine he could have you killed?’ I wondered — that’s how fickle the mind can be.
‘He tried to have the bishop killed so that he could have the See of Geneva,’ the steward said. ‘That’s how all this started. The old bishop was the count’s enemy.’ He turned to his mistress. ‘I think you should go. If you trust this man, go.’
She blinked. ‘Ah, Amadeus, I long for Jerusalem with all my soul, but I am a daughter of these mountains, and I will not be beaten.’
Amadeus shook his head. ‘Take your children and go. If there are none of you left as potential hostages, we will be safe. I will get a notary, some fine plump black cock, to try your case.’ He raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Will your legate write us an indemnity?’
‘Of course!’ I said. It was against the law to seize or despoil a pilgrim or a crusader or their land or moveable property.
He looked down his long German nose at me. ‘See to it that I receive a copy with a seal,’ he said. ‘Lady, take some men-at-arms and go.’
Emile looked at me a moment. ‘Leave us,’ she said. ‘I thank you for your council, but I need a moment with Sir William.’
Amadeus withdrew.
When the door was closed, Emile looked at me under her lashes. ‘With my children,’ she said, ‘I will have no scandal.’