‘Turenne?’ I asked.
‘Turenne is a fool. Possibly a coward.’ Sabraham shrugged. He put the red knight back on the board. ‘But in his retinue is d’Herblay. And a Hungarian.’ Sabraham smiled. ‘A man like me. Do you understand?’
I thought of the Hungarian with the pearls in his hair, standing coolly over the corpse of the man who’d stolen the Emperor’s sword. ‘I think I’ve met him.’
‘He has been paid to kill the legate,’ Sabraham said. ‘And you, of course.’
My friendships with men were not the only relationships being strained.
One evening I returned to the convent and Fra Andrea let me in the wicket. He led me silently through the rose garden and then walked silently away.
Emile was there. She was with the King of Jerusalem and he was on one knee, kissing her hand. She was looking out over the lagoon.
She turned and saw me. She didn’t start or flinch, but merely smiled and gently tugged at her hand.
The king would not release it. ‘How long will you make me wait?’ he asked.
She stepped back, and he rose suddenly and collected her in his arms.
I allowed my spurs to ring on the stone steps.
The king turned but did not see me. ‘Begone! This is not for you, Mezzieres,’ he spat over his shoulder.
I cleared my throat. There was plenty of light left in the sky to see Emile’s relief.
‘Your Grace,’ I said.
‘You may walk on,’ he said without turning.
‘Your Grace, I live here,’ I said.
‘Your presence is not wanted,’ he said quietly. He looked at me, then. An expression crossed his face, an indignation annexed by a secret amusement.
‘Countess?’ I asked. Of course I was pray to rage and jealousy, but also to good sense. Was she the king’s lover? I would have to fight for him, either way. And her look …
‘Sir Knight,’ she said. ‘I would be most pleased … if you joined us.’
The king backed away as if I had struck him.
But I’ll give him this, he did not lack grace. ‘Ah … my lady countess, I had mistaken you,’ he said. ‘And truly wish you every happiness.’ He bowed to her, touching his knee to the ground.
She turned her head away, obviously mortified.
The king glanced at me.
I shrugged — a very small shrug.
He shook his head, a slow smile crossing his face. ‘I suppose,’ he allowed, ‘that I will have wine with the abbess as a consolation.’
He walked away and in that moment, he reminded me of Nerio. He was not defeated. And he turned his own disappointment to amusement, as Nerio did on the infrequent occasions he was balked.
Emile slumped back against the brick wall. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said.
I watched the king. ‘Shall I go?’ I said.
She put a hand to her face. ‘Do as you like,’ she said.
Then she burst into tears. They weren’t the loud tears women and children use to get their way, nor the sobs you hear with heartbreak. They were quiet tears, and they sparkled in the last light, which is the only way I knew for sure she was weeping.
I summoned my courage. Let me tell you, I can stand the charge of cavalry better than face a woman in tears, and I knew what I had to do without apparently being able to will my limbs to move.
Step by step I walked to her.
If I tried and failed …
I saw, in a levin-flash of the mind, that I had enjoyed my spring with her because it had no tension. Because I didn’t have to engage or risk her good opinion, or discover what she really thought, or what, or whom, she loved.
One more step.
It is one of the hardest moments in the Art of Arms, to make yourself step forward into a blow. Every sinew cries out for a retreat, with its guarantee of safety — a pass back, and the opponent’s sword whistles harmlessly through the air.
But you will seldom win a passage of arms by retreating.
If you pass forward and make your cover, you have your adversary at abrazare, the wrestling distance. The close distance.
I suppose it is risible to you gentleman that I saw that last step as a combat pass, but I drove forward on to my left leg with the same effort of will that I would make to face Fiore’s sword. I felt the tension in the muscles, and I raised my arms, and I put them around her shoulders, enveloping her.
She raised her eyes. Took a breath. And her head snapped round, so that she was looking, not at me, but out over the lagoon. ‘If you hadn’t come,’ she said with bitter self-knowledge, ‘I would now be in his arms.’
By the suffering of Christ, she was soft. Hard and soft against me.
For some time, we only breathed.
I was supposed to say something. As a knight, it was my duty to avenge my honour. But I was unmoved. I wasn’t without jealousy, but … she was in my arms.
Bah! I was not unmoved. I was uninterested in her life with the king.
‘Do you understand me, William?’ she asked.
I shrugged.
I tried to kiss her, and her lips brushed mine, but then they were gone. And yet her hands crossed behind my head and she leaned back to look at me.
‘When I was young, I was quite the wanton,’ she said.
‘So you have said,’ I put in, which may have been ungallant and was certainly unnecessary. She frowned.
‘No, listen, if you wish to kiss me. Listen.’ She stepped back, out of my arms. ‘I would kiss any boy who put his lips on mine. Any one of them who wanted me. It was enough … merely to be wanted.’
In a way, it was like the blows in the village square. Not because it should have hurt me, but only because it hurt her. She hated saying these things.
‘I had the reputation of a slut, and I was almost proud of it, or pretended so.’ She laughed, but the laugh was wild. ‘But my father was rich, and powerful, and made me a good marriage. To a man who held me in contempt, because I came as soiled goods to his bed.’ Now I had her eyes on me in the dying light, and now I could feel every blow as she stuck herself with words. ‘His contempt spurred me to greater efforts.’
I wish I might have thought of something clever to say.
‘And then I met you,’ she said. She bit her lip. Slowly, she said, ‘William, I would like to say that after you … but no. I have had other lovers.’ She looked me in the eye. ‘I did not come to constancy in a single leap,’ she said with her old humour. She narrowed her eyes. ‘I find it … difficult,’ she said.
She turned away. ‘You know what would be easy? It would be easy to be your mistress. Or the king’s! Par dieu, I’ve never climbed such heights.’ She turned. ‘Perhaps both of you at once.’
Oh, I writhed. Women were not allowed to speak this way of love. But she was angry. I think now — but no. I will take some secrets with me.
At any rate, she smiled. ‘But at some point I had babies. And babies make changes. Do you know?’
‘Know what?’ I asked.
‘Edouard — my son.’ She smiled. ‘He is yours. D’Herblay has no idea.’ She laughed and she leaned back against the brick wall, and I didn’t care about any of it. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever known.
I had, in fact, counted months and seen a certain hint of freckles in Edouard.
‘So?’ I asked.
In a fight, there’s a moment when you throw the blow. The blow. And long before it hits, you savour it. When your opponent’s sword reaches for it and fails to find it, you have time, long indivisible aeons of not-time to savour the blow.
Mind you, sometimes your opponent makes his parry, and you are shocked to have such a perfect blow stolen from you.
But my studied nonchalance was the equal of her self-anger.
She turned. Slapped me playfully. ‘I’m pouring out my soul!’ she said.
I looked out over the waters. ‘Just tell me when I can kiss you,’ I said. ‘I’ll listen until then.’
She choked. I can’t say whether she sobbed or laughed. Perhaps both.