Christian Cameron: The Ill-Made Knight

The French knight Geoffrey de Charny — the one who had fought so well the day before — came to the shop. The younger knight was with him. De Charny had a dagger, a fine thing, all steel — steel rondels, steel grip, steel blade — and better than anything I’d seen in London. It was a wicked, deadly thing that shouted murder across the room. He laid it on the counter and asked how much it would cost to put it in a gold-mounted scabbard.

After I named a price, he looked down his nose at me. In French, he asked me if he hadn’t seen me at the passage of arms the day before.

I spoke French well, or so I thought until I went to France, so I nodded and bowed and said that yes, I had been present.

He pursed his lips. ‘With the very handsome woman, yes?’ he asked. He looked at the younger knight, who grinned.

I nodded. I didn’t like that grin.

‘And the English knight, Sir Edward, is your cousin?’ he asked.

‘Yes, my lord,’ I said.

‘But you are in a dirty trade. Your hands are not clean.’ He made a face. ‘Why do you betray your blood like this?’

Perhaps my anger showed in my eyes, but he shrugged. ‘You English,’ he said. ‘I have insulted you, and truly, I mean no insult. You look like a healthy boy who would not be useless in arms. Why not turn your back on this dirt and do something worthy?’

I had no answer for that. I do not think that trade is dirty. Good craft still makes my heart sing like sweet music, but something he said seemed to me to be from God. Why was I intending to be a goldsmith?

You might ask why I wasn’t seeking the law and revenge for my sister. I’m telling this badly. In fact, I spent the morning taking her to the nuns before I opened the shop. I went to Nan’s father and swore a complaint. I did all that, and the French knight’s visit was, if anything, a pleasant diversion from my thoughts. Perhaps I should have killed my uncle myself. That’s what a man-of-arms does — he is justice. He carries justice in his scabbard. But in London, in the year of our lord 1355, an apprentice went meekly to the law, because the King’s courts were fair courts, because the Mayor and Aldermen, despite being rich fucks, were mostly fair men, and because I believed then — and still do, friends — that the rule of law is better than the rule of the sword, at least in England.

My uncle wasn’t bound by such rules.

When I closed the shop, I didn’t want to spend another minute under his roof, so I went to evensong, and then I walked. I’d been in the great passion play at the hospital as Judas — I already mentioned that — and I knew a few of the knights, that is, the Knights of the Order. They sometimes allowed me to watch them while they practised their arms, and my sister worked there. Now my sister was lying on a bed among the sisters, so my feet took me out Clerkenwell way to the hospital priory. I saluted the porter and went to find my sister. I sat on her bed for three quarters of an hour by the bells, listening to the sound of sheep cropping grass, and to the squawking of hens and the barking of dogs and the sounds of a Knight of the Order riding his war horse, practising, in the yard. Twice I went and watched him.

The Hospitallers — the Knights of St John — have always, to me, been the best men, the best fighters, the very epitome of what it means to be a knight. So even while my sister wept with her face to the wall, I watched the knight in the yard.

When I went back to her bedside and tried to hold her hand, she shrank into a ball.

After some time, I gave up and went back to get some sleep. I walked up to the servant’s door of my uncle’s house, and two men came out of the shadows and ordered me to hand over my sword.

I did.

And I was taken.

I want you, gentlemen, to see how I came to a life of arms, but I’ll cut this part short. I was taken for theft. My uncle swore a warrant against me for the theft of the knight’s dagger. I never touched it — I swear on my sword — but that boots nothing when a Master Goldsmith swears a case against an apprentice. I was taken. I wasn’t ill used, and all they did was lock me in a plain room of the sheriff’s house. I had a bed.

The next day, I went for trial.

Nothing went as I expected. I have always hated men of law, and my trial for theft confirmed what every apprentice knows: the men of law are the true enemy. I could tell from the way they spoke that none of them — not one — believed me guilty. It was like the passion play, they acted out the parts of accuser and accused. My uncle said that I had always been bad and that I had stolen the dagger. The French knight, Sir Geoffrey, appeared merely to say the dagger had been his. He looked at me a long time. When the court thanked him formally for attending, he bowed and then said, in French, that my case was what came of forcing a nobly born boy to ignoble pursuits.

Given it was a court of merchants and craftsmen, I’m fairly sure his words did me no good. Most of the court talk was in Norman French, which I understood well enough. My advocate wasn’t much older than me, and seemed as willing to see me hanged as my accuser. No one seemed to care when I shouted that my uncle had raped my sister.

I was found guilty and condemned to be branded.

They branded me right here, on my right hand. See? Of course you can’t, messieurs. I was branded with a cold iron, because Brother John and the Abbott appeared as if from a machine and told the court that I was in lower orders. I read one of the psalms in Latin when the Abbott ordered me to. It was like having a fever — I scarcely understood what was happening.

I was dismissed from the guild.

My uncle burned all my clothes and all my belongings. He had the right to do so, but he made me a beggar.

Nan’s father told me never to come to his house, but in truth he was decent about it. He didn’t say it in words, but he made it clear that he knew I was no thief. And yet. .

And yet, my life was done.

I went and slept on the floor of the monks’ chapel, where I swept their floors. I was there three days, and they gave me some cast-off clothes, while the Abbott made me a reader — I read the gospel two mornings — so as not to have lied in court.

I’ll never forget those mornings, reading the gospel to the monks. I am a man of blood, but for two whole days, I loved Jesus enough to be a monk. I considered it and the Abbott invited me.

But the third day, Brother John came and took me on a walk.

We walked a long way. I was still so shattered I had no conversation, and he merely walked along, greeting all who looked at him, winking at the maidens and sneering at the men. We walked along the river to the Tower and back.

Just short of our chapel, having walked the whole of London, he stopped. ‘I’m giving up the habit,’ he said suddenly.

I doubt I looked very interested.

‘The Prince is taking an army to Gascony,’ he said. ‘The indentures to raise the troops are written — it’s spoken of in every tavern. I’m not cut out for a monk, and I mean to try my hand at war.’

I suppose I nodded. Nothing he said touched me at all.

He put his hand on my shoulder.

‘Come with me, lad,’ he said. ‘If you stay here, you’ll be a thief in truth soon enough.’

I see you all smile, and I’ll smile with you. It is the hand of God. I was born to be a man-of-arms, and then the plague and the devil and my uncle came to stop me. But every work of the devil rebounds to God in the end. The Abbott taught me that. My uncle tried to hurt me, and instead he made me tough. Later, he made me a criminal, and because of him. .

I went to France.

Brother John and I left the monks without a goodbye and walked across the river at the bridge. I had to pass my former master’s shop, but no one recognized me. We walked out into the meadow, and there were the city archery butts — really, they belonged to Southwark, but we all used them. And John — no longer brother John — walked straight up to an old man with a great bow and proclaimed himself desirous of taking service.