The Leopard Sword (12 page)

“No one wears a helmet made of gold,” said Edmund.

“These were emperors of an empire that stretched from Carthage to Persia,” said Fulke.“Strong men. Gold helmets.”

“Gold is both too heavy and too soft,” said Edmund, lowering his head politely. “No doubt their helmets were tin, plated with the precious metal.”

Fulke had been ordered by Sir Luke to take the two of us on a tour of the legendary sites, while Sir Luke attended the two knights on a similar series of visits. Fulke had made no attempt to disguise his boredom.As he recounted the storied wonders of Rome, his tone of impatience with two simple squires, still dressed in pilgrim's weeds while the tailors stitched our new clothes, was quite evident.

“And you, Hubert, doubted that a dragon sleeps under the temple of Vesta,” said Fulke accusingly. He wore one blue stocking, one yellow. His belt had a silver buckle, and his sheathe had been polished overnight.

“It is possible,” I said placatingly. “Perhaps. A dragon may sleep there—”

“Frozen to stone by a saint's curse,” asserted Fulke.

“It may be so,” I said.

“I tell you the great wizard Virgil carved the mask of Truth,” said Fulke.“He did it so any liar putting his finger in the gaping mouth would have it bitten off—and you choose to not believe me.”

“Virgil was a poet,” I murmured, “not a wizard.”

“I show you where hell opened up on Palatine Hill, and you say it is but a fine big hole in the ground.”

My father had always said that legends are like flies, easy to breed and hard to swat dead. “I want to see real relics,” I said earnestly. “The skull of Saint Agnes, the grave of Saint Peter.Take us to where holy martyrs burned to death to the glory of Heaven.”

“Why did you leave King Richard's army?” asked Fulke.

“Sir Nigel was badly hurt—” I began.

“He looks sturdy enough,” said Fulke.

“Heaven be thanked,” said Edmund.

“You speak of Heaven, squire,” said Fulke.

“That offends you?” I could not keep from asking.

Fulke had sturdy legs, a fact that his stockings were no doubt intended to display. If he knew how to flourish a blade, I believed, he could draw blood in a fight.

“You two footlings dare to utter the holy name of Heaven,” Fulke said. “You who were not fit enough to win Jerusalem.”

He turned and left us.

 

 

 

We were silent for a while.

It was a sunny noon. A beggar approached us, limping across the dried sheep dung and yellow grass of the Circus Maximus. Edmund gave him an entire round bread, a simnel loaf he had been saving for his midday meal.

“Do you think we can find Saint Peter's church by ourselves,” said Edmund,“or do you think some gang of heralds will attack us?”

I said, “I think the danger is very great,” just able to keep from laughing.

I went alone to the roof of the great house late that day. There among the pots of luxuriant rosemary and the late-season, white blossoms of the rose, I was not surprised to see Galena and her serving woman.

I made a better effort of introducing myself now, and she smiled knowingly, as though the house had been abuzz with news about the Crusading visitors. “I am pleased to know you, good Hubert,” she said. “My father has needed some fighting men—Rome is not safe. And as for me—”

Here she stammered, and perhaps there was the slightest shyness about her manner. She wore a gown of
watchet,
a light blue fabric, and she wore her long brown hair in a plait down her back. I was garbed in a rude traveler's tunic—the tailor was outfitting Edmund in royal livery even now, and mine would be ready before we dined. I had brushed my simple garments before climbing the stairs to the roof, however, and had been careful to comb my hair.

She continued, after a long pause, “I am pleased to welcome you for my own sake.”

“You can help protect my lady, when she visits her aunt,” said the servant. “If it please you.”

It was normal for servants to affect a loftier tone of conversation and dress than their charges. This attendant wore blue-dyed silk sleeves, and a coif of dazzling white linen.

“Quiet yourself, Blanche,” said Galena. And to me she continued, “My aunt Alice is ill, in the convent of Saint Agnes, not far beyond the city walls. But with the streets so crowded with outlaws, I have been unable to visit.”

“Are the street churls really so threatening?” I asked.

“Coarse creatures, and they barely deserve to be called men,” sniffed Blanche, in excellent court Frankish.

“They are noble youths,” said Galena, in English, “skilled at both broad and short swords. They have a great deal of time to plan mischief.They take hostages as a violent sport, and wait for payments of ransom. They have pikemen at their command, and they are indeed very dangerous.”

She added, “Not, of course, for a Crusader.”

“I am grateful to the saints for healing Sir Nigel's broken bones,” said Sir Maurice de Gray, King Richard's envoy to Rome.

“We survive to serve our lord king,” said Nigel.

We dined on
haslet,
roast entrails of deer, a favorite of royal hunters, and suckling pig. Boiled lamb was presented on a platter, and servants served us several sorts of wine: blood-thick red wine, sweet white wine, and every other hue and flavor of the vine. Our tablecloth was linen, woven in a pattern of triangles, pleasing to the eye and to the touch. Sir Maurice had announced that he was giving us an English feast to make us feel at home in this foreign land.

I was sorry that the Lady Galena had not joined us, but it was the custom among knights for men and women to dine apart.When a house servant brought a new plate, a turtle pie or lamprey eel in syrup, he bent his knee until Sir Maurice had agreed to allow the presented dish onto the table.A platter of fish maws, a famous court delicacy, was held out for Sir Maurice's inspection. He sniffed, and gave an apologetic smile.

“It's late in the fishing season,” he explained. “Only the old, canny fish have survived so long, and sometimes their flavor is not good.”

“So it would be if someone decided to feast on me,” said Sir Nigel. “Or on Sir Rannulf, by my faith.”

Rannulf tried to smile, his scarred face folding into a caricature of mirth.

Sir Luke had provided us with swords and sheaths, belts and shields, and a cobbler promised us in fractured English that we would soon have new footwear fit for fighting knights. We each possessed surcoats of wool, emblazoned with the royal leopard, his paw raised and his teeth bared in the snarl peculiar to the legendary beast.

Edmund had accepted a two-handed sword with thanks, there being no fighting hammer. He had been silently exultant at donning the
heg wedes
—fine garments. Edmund knew as well as I did that we had arrived to a position filled with possibility. In a matter of an hour or two we had risen from bedraggled pilgrims to a group of royal men-at-arms.

Sir Maurice was a banneret, the highest station of knighthood, a man who had won the personal trust of the crown. He was portly, with the sanguine complexion of a man who enjoyed his drink. His right eye was blind, scarred by a sword stroke that cleft his eyebrow and his cheek as well. Such a wound usually marks the end of a career—a man carrying a shield depends on his right eye. Nevertheless Sir Maurice had become an indispensable servant of the throne, and we were careful to speak our best Norman-Frankish.

“The farmland,” said Sir Maurice, “is riddled with gangs of
brigantes,
rough youths untrained in war who play at being Crusaders. The real war goes on without them, so they harass the traveler.” His remaining eye was green, like his daughter's, and he fixed us with it as though he could know what we thought as well as what we said.

I saw in Sir Maurice the sort of knight I wanted to be someday, and I wondered if Sir Nigel recognized in this dignified man the pinnacle of an ambition he might yet dream of fulfilling.

“The four of us fear no countryside, my lord,” said Sir Nigel.

“If King Richard is killed on Crusade,” Maurice continued, “the entire royal household, in London and abroad—chamberlains, ambassadors, down to the brewers and the bakers—are all released. The new king chooses his own castle keepers. And a new Roman envoy. You are Rome's first travelers from the Crusade, and you have seen the king alive.”

“Alive among the enemy dead, Sir Maurice,” said Sir Nigel.

“Have we sent many Infidels to hell?” asked Sir Maurice, in the tone of a man interrupting himself to make a polite inquiry.

“Many score of the enemy, my lord,” said Sir Rannulf.

“Before King Richard departed on this holy Crusade,” said Sir Maurice, “he made his brother Prince John swear not to set foot on English soil.”

Sir Nigel set down his wine cup.

“Rumor is that Prince John readies a fleet to carry him to England. There he will do mischief.” Sir Maurice poured wine for Sir Nigel, and for himself, and passed the pitcher down to us, a silver vessel with a gillyflower design all around. “I shall send Sir Luke to discover whether Prince John is in England, and to contrive to prevent him from doing harm if he is. Sir Luke will need armed companions. You will all leave for England as soon as the sea weather is safe.”

I met Edmund's eye. I had described Lady Galena to my friend, and he had agreed with me that we should lend the young woman all the help in our power. “I ask your leave, Sir Maurice,” I said, “for one further duty we may perform here in Rome.”

Perhaps I surprised Sir Nigel by speaking up just then. It was something close to bad manners to address my superiors without their assent in such a circumstance, but once I had begun, I could not keep silent. “I ask permission for Edmund and myself to accompany the lady Galena on a visit to her ailing aunt.”

Sir Maurice's reaction to this was a surprise to me. I expected eager gratitude and cheerful approval of this thoughtful request. Instead the old knight put a hand to his cheek, fingering the scar. “I was attacked thirty years ago—in Limoges by a drunken husband. I was not sober myself, and took a short sword to my face before I strangled him.”

“With your naked hands?” asked Rannulf.

“One gloved, one bare,” said Sir Maurice. “And you?” he asked pointedly, looking with grave curiosity at Rannulf.

The Crusader ran his tongue over his scarred lips.“I took a knife in my sleep at Caen. The squire of a knight I had unhorsed that day—a small, quick squire with hairy hands. He fed me a
dague,
a short knife, and nearly forced it down my throat.” Rannulf flattened a crumb with his forefinger. “He escaped unhurt. Some nights I dream of cutting him into quarters.”

I saw again Rannulf cutting the scavenger's throat just days before, and rising from the act with no apparent feeling.

“It's not the tournament that marks us,” said Sir Maurice. “Or the war.”

“Night fighting, cuckolds, and the rivals for women,” said Rannulf. “They are more treacherous than the Infidel.” He turned to Sir Nigel, adding, in a measured tone, “We should leave for England at once.”

“The fighting in a city like this,” agreed Sir Maurice,“can be deadlier than any joust. City felons have a special malice.”

Nigel had been studying me.“My squire is as brave as any young man I have ever known. Both Hubert and Edmund have made worthy companions.”

I cannot put into words the pride I felt then.

“You are blessed indeed,” said Sir Maurice with a smile. “Such young men have a sterling future.”

“Let the four of us,” said Nigel, “accompany the lady Galena on this errand of charity.”

Sir Maurice shook his head.“I fear you underestimate our Roman criminals.”

“My lord,” said Sir Nigel, “none of us has survived both Infidel and shipwreck by being foolish—or feeble.”

Sir Maurice fixed me with his bright, green eye, and perhaps he could indeed see into my soul. He considered for a moment.

“Tomorrow you may accompany my daughter,” he consented with a sigh. “My late wife's sister Alice Longfort suffers a palsy and is confined to the convent of Saint Agnes, outside the city walls.”

Edmund leaned forward into the candlelight, looking every bit as pleased as I felt.

“Wear your swords,” added the banneret. “And be prepared to use them.”

“My family have been heralds,” said Fulke Mowbray, “since the Battle of Hastings.”

The morning was cloudless.

We wore light armor and our new royal surcoats, Fulke outdoing himself in finery, scarlet stitchery around the yellow royal leopard on his breast. The morning was so chilly our breath flickered white at our lips. Edmund and Rannulf stood at a slight distance from me outside the convent walls, Rannulf gesturing and parrying imaginary blows as he recounted some memorable feat of arms for Edmund's benefit. Nigel stood with folded arms, looking every bit the worldly Crusader, the sunlight in his silver hair. He smiled and nodded at the female servants on their way to market, and they whispered, eyeing us as they scurried past.

Galena and her servant Blanche de Lille were inside, behind stout wooden gates, visiting the ailing gentlewoman.

“We have suffered the arrogance,” Fulke continued, “and, if you will forgive me, the ignorance of knights and squires all those years. We observe them trade insults and watch them puff up and try to kill each other with every clumsiness imaginable.”