‘Lord Niccolo has long been a supporter of our legate and the order,’ I said. ‘Nerio rode to tourny with me in Krakow and even now-’
Emile laughed. I knew her well; it was the laugh that expressed more discomfort than joy. ‘You know Nerio Acciaioli? The world is too small, indeed.’ She frowned. ‘I scarcely know him, only that my mother and his mother were great friends and had a — a falling out.’
This was the longest speech I’d heard from her in three weeks on the road. But we were almost to the gate. ‘Countess, I will endeavour to find Mademoiselle Magdalene a doll.’
Emile favoured me with a smile, her real smile, the smile that struck me like a poleaxe to the head. ‘I would be in your debt, if you would.’
Indeed, I felt a fool for not thinking to find the girl a doll on my own. Magdalene was a delightful child, as long as she got her way. Like most children, really. I was searching for a way to prove myself to my lady and here was one I’d overlooked. I was not good with children — but I was wise enough to see that I had better adapt to them.
In my own defence, I’ll say that while there was some good wine and good cheer and staring at beautiful mountains on that trip, I’ll also say that Bernard and Jean-Francois and I rode and scouted as if we were in hourly danger of our lives. I didn’t know if d’Herblay was ahead of us or behind, or what other agents Robert of Geneva might have deployed against us.
Any road, on the causeway into Chioggia I felt we were safe. And I wanted to triumph with the doll.
I reined in and waved for Marc-Antonio, who was preening like a peacock. And why not? He was about to ride into his home town as the squire of a knight. Wearing a sword, even if it was in a plain brown scabbard. Bernard, Jean-Francois’s silent friend, was not just a fine blade, he could work leather, and together the four of us had tinkered up a fair scabbard for my squire’s longsword. He wore silver spurs and hip-high boots and he was long, lean, and a little dangerous looking — and he knew it. Women were already watching him with the appetite that belies many of the things men say about women.
At any rate, as he became more like a squire, so it was more of a pleasure to be served by him. He clattered up the causeway in a show of devotion and reined in by my side.
‘Can you get us lodgings with the Corners?’ I asked. ‘Go and ask once we pass the gate.’
He bowed in the saddle. I was doing him a favour: now he could go to his home as my messenger, puffed in self-importance, his status on his hip.
The gate guards welcomed us like long-lost friends — an odd reaction, but due, I found, to the esteem in which Father Pierre was held in Venice, where they well-nigh worshipped him for his part in making peace between France and Milan and the Pope. At any rate, I covered my surprise. Gate guards can be officious, obsequious, venal or rude, but I’ve seldom known them to be friendly, and it put me on my guard. Marc-Antonio clattered away after exchanging a lewd jest with one of the guards, and we were in the wide streets and canals of Chioggia.
Emile rode with her head going back and forth.
‘These houses are as elegant as those in Paris,’ she said as we came to the grand central square. ‘They must have a fine run of noblemen for such a small town.’
I nodded. ‘Countess, these are all merchants. The town owns all the land; it is a commune. They rent the land on the condition that the merchants built rich houses.’ I shrugged as if disclaiming my own knowledge. ‘My squire is Chioggian, so I know a fair amount about the town.’
‘By Saint Mary Magdalene, this town is a delight,’ she said. We ambled along the main street with a canal on our left running on the far side of the church and the great town hall and the fine tower that could be seen all the way across the marshes. But we were on terra firma; the square was paved, and the houses around it tres riches, with three-storey stone facades and arched entryways.
Marc-Antonio emerged from the Corner facade with the padrone at his back. Messire Corner bowed extravagantly on his own front loggia. ‘The famous knight Sir Guillaume le Coq!’ He grinned. ‘Or perhaps you are too great to be a cook, eh?’
I shook my head. ‘Master Corner, I am at your service. This is the Countess d’Herblay. This is her captain, Jean-Francois de Barre, and these gentlemen are all her men-at-arms.’ I bowed from the saddle. ‘May we impose for a night?’
‘A night? You may come for Christmas if you want. My wife will be in heaven — a countess? I’ll have to buy her new everything.’ He smiled. ‘Countess, I am entirely at your service, and my house is yours. What brings you to my humble town in the swamps?’
Emile dazzled him with her most gracious full-face smile; her eyes all but gave light, they sparkled so much. She spoke French — she had very little Italian, although like most Savoyards, she understood it well enough. ‘My lord, I appreciate this welcome,’ she said.
Jean-Francois and I translated together, and we both laughed.
‘Tell your lady I’m no lord, but a free citizen of Venice,’ Messire Corner said. ‘But be gentle. Aristocrats are easy to insult. Eh? Come, there’s food. I see you have taken good care of my scapegrace bastard. He looks like a man.’
‘He is a man, messire. He has served me well, and I have made him a squire. Indeed, he served as a squire in front of the Emperor.’ No harm in laying it on thick. This sort of thing can be a better reward than money. It is honour. Word fame is honour.
If Emile could be said to be luminous when she was happy, Marc-Antonio glowed.
The padrone glanced at his bastard son. He gave a long, steady nod. ‘I am delighted, Ser Guillaume, and deeply in your debt. Will you keep him?’
‘Indeed, I have undertaken to make him a knight, in time,’ I said.
I was busy dismounting, handing Emile down — the first time I’d been allowed to do such a thing in the whole of our ride, and the touch of her hand caused me to miss the padrone’s next words. But when I turned, he enfolded me in a velvet embrace. ‘You are a true friend,’ he said. He had tears in his eyes, and he led me by the hand into his house, shouting for his wife.
In England, a man, no matter how rich, does not brag to his wife of how well his bastard son by another woman has done. But Italy is different, I suppose, though no fool would call Italian women weak.
You might think that she would be angry, or spiteful — certainly she had no time for the boy when he was a servant. But now she sat Marc-Antonio at the family table and his sword was hung with pride by the chimney.
Emile favoured me with one of her smiles. Par dieu, it is good to play the great man sometimes, especially when you are young, and it is a pleasure to do a good thing, perhaps the greatest pleasure in the world for a Christian.
Emile went off with the lady of the house, whose French appeared equal to the occasion and who gave, as I can testify, every evidence of being delighted to host a countess — so much delight that I fear that every matron in Chioggia was treated to an evocation of Emile’s gentility and demeanour for many weeks to follow. But perhaps I do the lady an injustice.
I remember that evening well. We ate a simple meal (so our hostess claimed) and I had octopus in a dark-brown sauce made with its own ink, which was delicious, and curiously like a succulent beefsteak. We had it with a heavy red wine, something local. Ah, messieurs, it is not all wading in blood, the life of arms, and we sat and listened to the Corner daughters play the lute and sing, and then we all sang some Italian songs. In those days, my Italian was far from courtly, and I did not know the fashionable songs, the ones Boccaccio and Dante made popular in the upper classes. But I knew several new songs by Machaut, in French. I sang ‘Puis que la douce rousee’ and Emile laughed so hard I thought she might injure herself.