Christian Cameron: The Ill-Made Knight

Fra Peter nodded. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Come and walk with me.’

‘Are we going to pray?’ I asked. I meant it as a jest.

‘We might, at that,’ he allowed. We walked a ways, stepping carefully over tent ropes and horse dung. I was still in armour and I had that bone-wrenching fatigue you can only experience from wearing iron on your body.

‘That was. . a woman. In arming clothes, at your fire,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I agreed, instantly on my guard. ‘She’s a fine lance. She’s won her place here.’

Fra Peter nodded again. ‘Women can be trouble in war,’ he said. ‘But that’s Sir John Hawkwood’s business and none of mine.’ We’d come a long way, by then, right to the bank of the river. It was a soft summer night in Tuscany, and we sat under a chestnut tree as doves cried their haunting cries.

‘She is not my lover,’ I said, with all the righteousness a young man can project.

There were campfires across the river — so close, in fact, that the conversations of the men at those fires carried. A loud voice proclaimed that someone was a ‘fucking sodomite’ and a ‘son of a whore’ in Thames-side English.

Fra Peter’s craggy face — he had a big nose — was outlined against the firelight of the enemy camp, and he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking across the river.

Finally, he spoke. ‘Will you come on crusade?’ he asked. ‘The King of France has taken the cross. Father Thomas has even convinced the Green Count to take the cross.’

I thought that through. ‘Because the pope got John Hawkwood to leave his lands?’

Fra Peter’s head made an odd motion. ‘Perhaps. I prefer to think that it was Pierre Thomas and his preaching.’ He shrugged. ‘You served with Hawkwood. What do you think of war in Italy?’

‘I think it is much like being a routier. Except we behave a little better and we are paid a great deal more.’ It was my turn to shrug.

‘You are a corporal now. You have rank — men follow you.’ Fra Peter turned, and his eyes were dark. ‘Aye, tis possible that you have all you want here.’ He continued to look at me, then he looked away. ‘I am wasting time, I think. I want you to come with me on crusade, but before I ask you, I have to give you something. This thing. .’ His dark eyes were on mine like the heavy blade of an adversary. ‘This thing came into my hands without my seeking it. I think it may be wrong for me to give it to you. Father Thomas says no. He says that you must have your free will.’

He reached into the breast of his red coat with the white cross and handed me a small envelope. It was of coarse brown cloth, covered in oil, and inside was another envelope of heavy parchment.

I took an eating knife from my purse. ‘Is it. .’ I think my voice was full of hope. ‘Is it from Richard?’ I asked. ‘Richard Musard?’

Fra Peter blinked. ‘No, lad. Hah!’ His laugh sounded grim. ‘I’ll have to call you Sir William soon. No, but it is from Turin. When I took Father Thomas back to Turin, I was at the Green Count’s court for some days.’

I got my eating knife and carefully slit the old cloth to get at the parchment. There was a small seal.

Even in the dark, as soon as my thumb touched the seal, I suspected.

My heart beat as fast as it would have in combat. ‘She sent me a letter before she died!’ I said.

And Fra Peter shook his head. ‘No, William. She is still alive.’ He paused. ‘I have seen her — and spoken to her.’

I ran. Wearing my armour, I ran to the nearest campfire, leaving the older man sitting with his back to a chestnut tree. I came up to a fire where a dozen servants sat — not men I knew. They scattered in real fear — fear of an armed man running at them for the darkness.

I knelt by the light of their fire and used my eating knife to break her seal. The parchment unfolded, slim and short, and there was a tiny enclosure, shaped like a sacred heart.

Dear William.

I have learned that you think I am dead. I am not. I have so much to tell you.

My husband, it would appear, used this story of my death to hurt you. I had a long recovery from my second child — I might have died — but — I smile to write this — I did not. In the last few days, at the court of the Green Count, I have learned many things, about you and about the Count d’Herblay and the part he has played. I have had opportunity to talk with Sir Richard Mussard.

Monsieur, my husband has done all in his power to destroy you. I think it is worth adding that short of physical violence he dares do nothing to me, as I am not only the mother of his children, but the holder of his purse strings. I have my own retainers, indeed, now I have my own household. And so it shall remain, this I promise you.

I send you this letter by means of the very good knight Fra Peter of London, in hopes that he will find you in good health — the way I imagine you every day — a true knight. Be all a knight should be, and if God so wills it, perhaps we will yet see a day.

But I will commit no more to this parchment. Nor will I say adieu. Only, let your deeds so shine before men that I will hear of them, and clap my hands together.

Emile d’Herblay

I read the letter five or six times. I remember trying to decide. . anything. It all went around like a meaningless whirl of words. She was alive.

Alive.

Apparently, I cared very much. I remember that letter the way I remember wounds I have taken — the shock of the pain, the shock of the blood.

I actually fell over. I was kneeling by the fire and I lost my balance and fell. I lay there as if I had taken a blow, and then, as I got to my feet, the heart-shaped scrap of parchment came out of the envelope and fluttered to the ground like a moth.

It was very small. On it, a fine hand had written, ‘Perhaps I will go on a pilgrimage.’ There was no signature.

Pilgrims, like crusades, went to the Holy Land by way of Venice. And Rhodes.

Fra Peter was standing a distance away.

I pushed the letter and the heart into my purse and went to him.

‘I will go on crusade,’ I said.

Fra Peter’s eyes twinkled in the firelight. ‘God works in mysterious ways,’ he said.

Sir William smiled his half-smile at Master Chaucer, who was leaning his elbows on the table. Froissart was awake — wide-eyed, scribbling notes on a wax tablet. John de Blake couldn’t take his eyes off his master. Aemilie had, at some point, acquired a stool and was asleep with her head against the wall.

‘You came back, I see,’ the knight said.

Chaucer grunted. ‘What choice did I have, with your archers raising the roof?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Worse than satyrs, and louder.’

‘Such a story!’ Froissart said.

Chaucer’s eyes met Gold’s across the table. ‘Some of it’s even true,’ he said. He said it with venom, but Gold threw back his head and laughed. He roared.

And Chaucer couldn’t help it. He laughed, too.