I smiled. I drew the longsword carefully and handed it to him, and he regarded the Emperor’s sword with something like lust.
It is worth saying that the sword was almost unmarked by a dozen combats. There was not a nick in her blade, not a mar on the surface of the metal between her fullers, except where I had covered myself against the sweep of the Turk’s axe — I had not allowed his weapon anything like a direct cross, and yet his edge had left a cut on her forte.
‘You fought in a tournament,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I admitted.
‘While wearing the surcoat of the order,’ he added. Then he shook himself; indeed, he quivered. ‘Never mind. But please understand that you have flouted some rules that young knights are punished for disobeying.’
‘Are these rules written down somewhere? I asked.
He laughed. ‘Every baillie has his own. Every langue has some few. It’s only ten years ago that we were allowed to keep a copy in English — until then we had to read the rule in Provencal. But I’ll find you a copy of the rule. You won’t find any mention of tournaments.’
Sir Robert leaned forward. ‘Sir William, do you know anything of the — the factions within the order?’
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said.
Sir Robert had the look of a man all too well versed in politics. Certes, he was — and is — a great man at the court of the English king. He played with his beard. ‘Men may join the order and yet remain loyal to their former lords. We are still English. The French are still French.’
I suppose I smiled.
‘What I mean is that there are, no doubt, those within the order who do not relish your legate or his crusade,’ he said.
‘Or his evident partiality for Englishmen,’ Fra William laughed.
Sir Robert nodded. ‘Do you see how this can affect all of us?’
‘Of course he doesn’t,’ Fra William said. ‘Let him breathe, Robert. He’ll come to know us soon enough.’ He waved his hand. ‘Go find your friends and I’ll see you for Lord Grey’s birthday.’
Lord Grey’s dinner was a gathering of all the English on Rhodes, and I was surprised — and deeply pleased — to see how many of us there were. The English Grand Prior, Fra John Pavely, had led a goodly body of knights and men-at-arms out to Rhodes for the Passagium Generale. There was Nicolas Sabraham; there was Steven Scrope, who, like Miles Stapleton, was a squire ready for knighting. Fra William Midleton sat with his friend Fra Robert Hales, who was holding forth of the current state of finance in the English priory. Sabraham whispered to me that I could expect Hales to be Prior of England. We had the Scottish knights, Sir Walter Lindsay and his brothers Kenneth and Norman. We also had Sister Marie who I had not seen in months. She had accompanied Marcus, the legate’s archdeacon, on an errand to Naples and joined us late. There were two other women present in a very masculine party, both sisters of the order. One was Fra William’s sister Katherine. She, too, was nearly perfectly round, and her eyes also had the bright twinkle of intelligence. She was by me during the speeches, and her undertone of comment on her brother was so funny as to be a danger to all around her. And always by her side was young Sister Mary Langland, who I mention only because she was perhaps the most beautiful nun any of us had ever seen, and yet so utterly pious and chaste as to prevent untoward advances, even from Nerio. It was a splendid evening, with fine food and a flow of talk — and ten thousand compliments for our part in the Venetian victory off Negroponte.
I enjoyed Rhodes. By the time we’d been there a few days, it seemed as if we’d been there forever, and by the end of the second week, it was as if it was the only life I’d ever known. We lived, with our squires, in the English langue; we served all the offices from matins to compline. Nerio sang so well — the bastard, he did everything well! — that he was taken to sing in the choir.
I was privileged to be a reader. Fra Peter had known me in London and knew that I was in the most minor order, as a reader of the Gospel. He didn’t seem to know that I had been accorded that status to save me from branding. I confess to you that standing in the great church of St John by the harbour of Rhodes and reading from the Gospel to the knights, brothers, and volunteers — and mercenaries — of the order was a great pleasure, not unmixed with fear. I found reading to be much like fighting in the lists: the attention of hundreds of eyes can confuse or even terrify.
One pair of eyes especially. Emile had a dispensation to hear Mass with the knights. It was not an uncommon dispensation for pilgrims to obtain, but it made Mass all the more important to me — see what a sinner I am — that Emile was there. When I read the Gospel, I was all too aware that she stood very close to me, on the other side of the choir stalls, with the Order’s sisters.
Otherwise I had virtually no opportunity to see her. I had imagined that we would lie in each other’s arms every night of the crusade (how complex a set of sins that is) and of course, when the reality presented itself, she was sealed away among the women. I took consolation, though; without the post-battle darkness of spirit I was not nearly as jealous and the king could no more come to her than I could.
I tried to arrange opportunities to be with her. The one I remember was a ride in the countryside, hawking. The children came, but the duenna I had arranged, the wife of one of the Order’s standing officers, was unable to ride, being sick, and that forced Emile to remain with the nuns. We did manage to smile at each other a great deal in the gate house. And I had a lovely day riding along dusty lanes with the nurse and the three children, as well as Marc-Antonio and Miles, both of who proved far better hawkers than I.
Edouard was five or six, and I had found him a pony — really, an island horse. He rode beautifully. In fact, he rode better than I did, and he was polite, attentive, and very excited to be out in the country with a real knight.
‘You don’t have your big sword,’ he said accusingly.
‘No,’ I admitted.
‘What if the Saracens attack us?’ he asked.
I pointed over the great blue horizon. ‘The sea protects us. Before the Saracens could come here they would have to assemble a fleet.’
‘You would kill them all anyway,’ he said. ‘Maman says so.’
There is something disagreeable in the flattery of a child, second-hand. ‘Eduard, being a knight is not all killing,’ I said.
‘Is it not?’ he asked with the terrible disinterest of the young child. ‘When I grow up, I will kill anyone I don’t like.’
I had not spent enough time with children to know how to handle this.
Miles, on the other hand, had a variety of brothers. ‘Even the ones who surrender?’ he asked. He smiled as he said it.
Eduard looked pained. Here I had been at the point of imagining him a violent recreant. When I knew children better, I learned that they merely experiment with ideas, and look to adults for encouragement. Some children are encouraged even when adults do not mean them to be.
Miles cut across that. ‘Think about the word “gentil”,’ he said.
The boy pointed at me. ‘But Sieur Guillaume is a great knight, and he kills everyone! This is what Maman said.’
‘Look!’ cried Marc-Antonio. He’d found us a target for our birds, and he halloo’ed at the flock of birds. His intervention couldn’t have been more timely.
I resolved to spare someone as soon as possible.
The time passed pleasantly. I suspect it was made better for the five of us that we arrived on the wings of a famous victory, and that we had, apparently, been seen to be important in it. I say this with some amusement. It was a hot fight, and a desperate one, one of the harshest I had seen until that moment, and I had no way to judge the importance of my own role, or my friends’. I had been in fights where I knew I had turned the tide — the bridge at Meux comes to mind — but at the sea fight off Euboea, I fought, and that’s all I know.