Christian Cameron: Castillon: Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One

She handed him some wine, which was decent enough. He watched the kitchen staff and listened carefully. Most of them were locals – a few were from the south, and he saw several of the cardinal’s Italian servants move through. One pinched a girl and got a clout on the ear for his pains – another grabbed a loaf of bread and laughed.

Tilda brought him a plate of cut tongue and bread and another cup of wine. “Tell me what medicine you make with honey,’ she said.

Swan smiled at her. She was quite pretty, in a homey kind of way. She had big bones and a strong waist. And large breasts. She was no beauty, and yet her straight back and her graceful carriage would have made her seem so, even if he hadn’t been on the brink of death a day before.

“The white honey is not formed of pure thyme, but is good for the eyes, and for wounds,’ according to Aristotle,’ he told her.

She nodded and smiled. ‘Like enough,’ she said. ‘Likewise my mater always said so.’ She sat back with her wooden cup of wine. ‘You’re a prisoner?’

He nodded. “Sir John Talbot was defeated—’

‘At Castillon,’ she said. ‘It’s common knowledge.’

‘They were killing the prisoners,’ he said. He hadn’t planned to say that. He planned to be light hearted, or evasive, or perhaps heroic. He shrugged. ‘I lived. The cardinal took me in.’

She nodded. ‘Poor dear. But soldiers – live by the sword, die by the sword.’

He laughed. ‘You have a hard heart, madame.’

She shook her head. ‘I followed the armies for a year or two, din’t I? I’ve known a soldier or two.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll get some honey for you.’ She paused, as if weighing him up. ‘Come back when I’ve served the gentles dinner and I’ll see your linens get washed,’ she added. Her eyes met his, just for a moment.

Swan walked out to the stable. He caught Alessandro’s eye – the man was obviously watching him – and waved honey at him. The Italian man-at-arms came over. ‘You have a sweet tooth?’

‘For my servant’s wounds,’ Swan said.

The Italian nodded. ‘What’s his name, this servant of yours?’ He held out a hand. ‘No – never mind. Why complicate this? What’s the honey for?’

Swan shrugged. ‘It’s in Aristotle. Good for wounds.’

Alessandro shook his head. ‘Are you really another bookman? Aristotle is so full of shit about so many things.’ He thrust his chin at the Fleming, lying on his blanket. ‘But my first captain put honey on wounds. The Turks do it. Let’s see.’

The Italian soldier helped him fetch hot water, and watched as he bathed the Fleming, washed his wounds, dried them with the man’s shirt, and then pasted honey over them, pushing it boldly into the suppurating hole in his side where the Frenchman’s dagger had gone in.

‘He’ll probably live,’ Alessandro said. ‘That knife hit his ribs and went up, not down.’

‘I’ll tell him that,’ Swan said. His Italian wasn’t that good and Alessandro made him feel a little light headed.

‘You ought to wrap it, now that you’ve cleaned it and put the salve on.” Alessandro looked at him, one eye raised.

‘I don’t happen to have a spare bolt of linen in my baggage,’ Swan said.

Alessandro gave him a lopsided smile. ‘Perhaps God will provide,’ he said. He swaggered out, and returned a little later with a long piece of linen. ‘I found it,’ he said.

Swan wrapped the Fleming, and Alessandro actually lifted the man while Swan got the bandage under him. He made it as tight as he dared. The Fleming moaned a few times but remained resolutely unconscious.

When they were done, Swan was too conscious of his sweat-soaked shirt and his shit-stained braes to strip, and he felt dirty and unfashionable with the dapper professional soldier. But his mother had taught him that the best defence was a good offence.

‘If you keep helping me like this, I’ll have to assume you aren’t a complete bastard,’ he said.

Alessandro smiled. ‘Maybe I am, though. I am a bastard. If I thought you meant that as an insult, I’d kill you.’

Swan shrugged. ‘Me too,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ Alissandro said.

Swan realised he’d said too much. But the man-at-arms bowed and walked out the stable door.

When the Italian was gone, the Fleming opened an eye. ‘Peter,’ he said. ‘If the bastard asks again.’

Swan dropped the end of the bandage. ‘You’re awake!’

‘You just rolled me over and shoved something sticky inside my fucking body,’ the Fleming said. Peter. ‘Honey?’

‘Yes.’ Swan put his hand on the other man’s head. Everything he knew about medicine was from books.

Peter opened his eyes. He was a big man with a heavy brow, but his eyes held a great deal of intelligence. ‘I’m an archer, and a fucking good one,’ he said. He said ‘fucking’ as if it was two words. Fuck – ink . ‘But I suppose I can be your servant, at least until we’re out of this. They kill everyone else?’

Swan shrugged. ‘I think so.’

Peter’s eyes closed, and then opened. ‘Thanks for saving me.’

‘You saved me,’ Swan said. ‘When you went for the francs-archers , I was next.’

Peter grinned. ‘Kilt one, didn’t I?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Swan said.

‘Bring me some unwatered wine, eh, Master ?’ Peter asked.

Swan nodded. ‘I’m Thomas Swan,’ he said.

Peter shut his eyes again. ‘Aye. Got it.’

Swan ate with the notaries. They had to buy wine and Swan had no money, and he suspected he was going to wear out his welcome eventually, but for the moment, he drank.

They were at the very last table in the hall – the lowest of the ‘gentles’. In fact, some of the upper servants – the cardinal’s steward, for example – sat above them.

Swan didn’t mind. The food was cold, and served on bad pewter with too much lead in it, but he didn’t mind that, either. He saw Tilda at another table. She didn’t serve directly, but directed the younger girls and boys as they waited on the tables. He couldn’t catch her eye. She stood with her back determinedly to him.

That didn’t bode well for clean linens, or for wine for Peter.

The two lawyers wandered off into an argument about the merits of the judicial duel – again, into a bit of theology so tedious that Swan couldn’t, or wouldn’t, follow them – and he took the chance to look around. Well off to his right, on a dais at the head of the hall, the cardinal sat with a dozen local worthies – mostly men. Below them sat his household – Alessandro, for example, was only two tables from the Prince of the Church. In the next row of trestles there was a crowd of French merchants – mostly young men with daggers, but a handful of older men in fine clothes, and one important-looking man-at-arms who sat, proud as Lucifer despite his old coat, and looked angrily at the high table, where, as Swan could see, he clearly felt he belonged.

Swan nudged Cesare. ‘Who are they?’ he asked.

Giovanni shrugged. ‘Rich merchants. Who cares?’

Cesare shook his head. ‘Merechault was the king’s officer for wagons, I think. He will have made a packet off the campaign.’ He looked around. ‘The man-at-arms – no one I know. The man in the blue velvet is Messire Marcel l’Oustier. He is a Parisian wine merchant. My father deals with him.’

Swan nodded.

‘Do you play piquet?’ Giovanni asked.

‘Only when I have money,’ Swan admitted.

Cesare smiled wolfishly. ‘Best get some money, then,’ he said.

Swan left them to it when the Florentine was up by thirty ducats. They both took their gaming seriously, and they were playing for sums ten times those that Swan had ever played for. Swan used the time to learn the game, and to watch the French man-at-arms. He was plainly dressed – but there were details to him that didn’t go well with his old fustian arming coat and his unmatched wool hose. His sword and dagger were worth a fortune – plain hilted in the French style, but beautiful. Swan fancied himself a connoisseur of swords.