The Long Sword (40 page)

And yet, as swordsmen who trained each day, we wore good gloves, chamois, or stag skin, for fencing. And wearing gloves for such work stretches and discolours them.

Now, we were poor. Or rather, Fiore was very poor, but cared little about dress; Miles had an allowance; I had no money at all but good credit, and Juan seemed to have money all the time, but seldom spent any. Only Nerio had all the money he required. And his money was always at our service – he would buy us whatever we asked, and never request repayment. And yet, this paragon of generosity never seemed to own a pair of his own gloves. He wouldn’t get fitted for them, or purchase them.

And it happened that he and Fiore had hands exactly of a size. Now Fiore was not a pillar of courtly dress – in fact, he cared very little for his appearance. But two things he fancied, because he felt they contributed to his Art; shoes, and gloves. He would spend half a day being fitted for the plainest shoes, fine slippers with minimal
toes at a time when all of us sported poulaines with toes outrageously endowed; and he would linger like a lover in a glove-makers.

He was poor as a dock rat, though, and he hated to borrow money – any money. He never borrowed from Nerio. Instead, he would scrape together a few ducats and resort to a brothel that had cards and dice, from which, sometimes, he would emerge as poor as a
shaved
dock rat, but at other times, he would be as rich as Croesus. One evening he went with Juan, of all people, and returned laughing. He had lost all his throws but the last, and his fool of an opponent had accused him of cheating. The two of them had retreated to the alley, where Fiore had relieved the man of his life, and then his purse – such things were thought perfectly honourable.

And he used his winnings – by the sword or the dice cup – to buy his gloves. He always kept one pair inviolate: virgin, as we all called them. One pair of perfect chamois gloves sat on top of his portmanteaux, and he would wear them in his belt, clean, uncreased, unstretched.

Nerio, who never purchased gloves, had a tendency to pick up Fiore’s virgin pair as if by right. He would lift them off the Friulian’s trunk and put his hands into them before poor Fiore could speak.

Fiore would scrunch up his face in rage.

This happened several times, until it threatened to return them to the state of enmity from which they had begun. And Nerio never did understand why because he could replace Fiore’s gloves and his horse, sword, purse, and all his clothes if he wanted. Every time, he’d say ‘For Christ’s sake, I’ll pay for them!’

And Fiore would shriek, ‘Buy your own gloves, you whoremaster!’

The story had a happier ending that shows, perhaps, the utility of having your friends in fives. We were sitting in our tower – it might have been May or June – and I was reading a bit of Petrarch from a manuscript I had borrowed from de Mézzières. Juan was reading the gospels, and Miles was sharpening a dagger, and Fiore was staring off into space. I think it was the day we met the Vernonese artist Altichiero and he had sketched Fiore in some of his postures of fence; anyway, Nerio was going out to church with the grocer’s daughter and he snapped up Fiore’s gloves. He didn’t even think about it; he took them and thrust his left hand deep into the virgin chamois, and Fiore screamed and lunged at him.

Nerio had his dagger in his hand – without thinking, I expect. Fiore grappled for the dagger hand and made his cover, of course.

Miles leapt between them. That was a braver action than it sounds and Miles did it without a thought. He smothered the dagger. When he rolled away, Juan had Nerio, and I had Fiore.

‘Whoremaster!’ Fiore roared. ‘Sodomite! Banker!’

Nerio was white and red with anger. He struggled. ‘You
idiot
,’ he said. ‘They’re only gloves! I’ll buy you a pair!’

The bell was ringing for Mass.

‘I want my
own
gloves,’ Fiore bellowed.

Of course it makes no sense.

Juan stepped between them. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it is time to go to church. But I propose, to solve this problem, that Ser Nerio give Ser Fiore one hundred ducats, and Ser Fiore, of his courtesy, take him to the glovers and get him ten or fifteen pairs of these gloves. And that he takes half for himself, for a penalty of Nerio’s poaching. And that Ser Nerio take the other pairs for his own, stack them in a drawer, and use them, and not Ser Fiore’s.’

I laughed. Nerio and Fiore were still full of fight, but we got them to agree to Juan’s plan. Indeed, Nerio eventually referred to it as ‘The judgment of Solomon’.

My point is that Nerio had little respect for the possessions of others. He could be a bad friend, but by God, he was a worse enemy, as I discovered. He would use the full power of his father’s house against any rival, however pitiful and he would not stint to bribe or threaten. After I began to recover, he informed me one evening of the steps he’d taken to ruin d’Herblay.

He laughed. ‘You’ll be pleased at one of my little stratagems,’ he said. ‘Do you remember forming a society for sharing ransoms?’

‘After Brignais? In sixty-two?’ I asked. He nodded, and I said something like ‘Of course. I’ve told you—’

‘And you recall that my father bought your account from the Bardi,’ he went on.

I struggled not to feel a little humiliated, but they were bankers. ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘With that purchase came the documents on your unpaid shares of the society and your share was collected by Sir John Creswell, an Englishman. He in turn divided the money with the Count d’Herblay and the Bourc Camus – I have a witness statement, signed.’ Nerio smiled.

I writhed. I had known it, and yet at another level, to hear it this way …

‘So I’m suing them in a French court, and again in a Savoyard court, and again in a Genoese court.’ Nerio laughed. ‘I have a suit against the Bourc and d’Herblay in Avignon that’s making him smart as if he’d been stung. The irony is that Father Pierre had d’Herblay taken up for attacking a man on vow of crusade – that’s you. And because he’s held at Mestre, he cannot escape my suit for debt!’ Nerio roared. This pleased him inordinately.

I wanted d’Herblay’s neck between my hands and I said so.

But Nerio said I was a barbarian. ‘Or do you want the rich widow?’ he asked.

I put my hand on my dagger, but I bowed.

‘Bless you, your account was worth two thousand ducats when I bought it, and I’ll make five thousand off your court cases. You can borrow all you like from me. And I can punish your enemies. Isn’t it droll?’ He smiled. ‘I’ll break d’Herblay financially.’

I shook my head. ‘He’s very rich. I don’t think five thousand ducats will break him.’

Nerio played with a rich ruby on his finger. ‘It will cost him three times that to fight the case, and he’s enough a fool to fight.’ He shrugged. ‘Pater owns the college of cardinals, or at least, he should. He’s paid them enough. Perhaps not enough to get
everything
the Queen of Naples wants, but certainly enough to ruin a little French nobleman.’

It was a little like kissing a beautiful maid and finding that she had the eyes of a serpent. Nerio was too fond of money and power.

And Juan – Juan was more nearly the perfect knight than any. He was a perfect jouster, a cool swordsman, a deadly hand. He rode better than any of us, and he had the eye for horses that makes a great rider even better. He, too, had riches, but he had a childish temper that too often got the better of him, especially when there was wine involved. With three cups of wine inside him, he could suddenly turn to a waspish pedant given to telling the rest of us about our failings. And he hated to be compared to Miles Stapleton. Just as Nerio detested, or affected to detest, Fiore.

And Fiore? Petty, self-aggrandising, foolhardy and miserly. He hated poverty and dreamed and schemed for worldly fame and fortune in a way that Juan and Nerio found tiresome, even infantile, the more especially as they sometimes paid his bills in secret. He resented their money and breeding, and as his fame as a master of arms spread and more men came to him for lessons, he used his money to buy clothes and cheap jewels. But – and I hate to say this of a friend, but it still makes me laugh: his taste was on a level with his talent for wooing, and just as he could ignore a comely girl to discourse on a lance blow, so he could wear a jupon of the most virulent orange with hose of a deep scarlet, simply because each individually had been expensive and fashionable.

And second-hand. He never bought anything new. He and Nerio almost came to a fight one night when Nerio accused him of following coffins to get dead men’s clothes.

They were not perfect, and none of us
always
loved the others. But taken all together-brawling, playing dice, praying, going to Mass, in the street or in the Doge’s palace or going into action by sea or land, they were my comrades. For every display of rancour or selfishness, I can name ten of selfless friendship.

Which was all to the good, because we were to be sorely tested.

It was a good time. I have seldom known a better. And about that time, I had a meeting with Nicolas Sabraham.

He was a strange man: an Englishman who spoke ten languages, a well-travelled man who seemed to know everyone and yet often passed unnoticed. He often served the legate as a courier, and he was often away.

Some men disliked him. He could be very slippery – he was often guilty of agreeing with other men merely to escape controversy or debate, which bored him. He once pulled me away from a fight and told me that I could not kill everyone I disliked. I never had better advice.

But in June, he sat across a chessboard and a pitcher of wine from me. He was dressed for riding, in thigh-high boots and a deerskin doublet. He’d been away, all the way to Avignon, or so Fra Peter said.

‘So, is the Countess d’Herblay your lover?’ he asked.

What do you say?

He leaned forward. ‘It’s palpably obvious, to those who can read faces. Listen, my friend, I took note when d’Herblay acted against you. Even if no one else did. Eh? I had a look at some letters – best not to ask. And I had the briefest of discussions with one of the lads who had
taken
you. If you
take
my meaning.’

I suppose I looked away. I knew I couldn’t meet his eyes.

He grabbed my hand. ‘Listen, Sir William, you love life, and the state of your mortal soul is nothing to me. Have her every day – on the altar, for all I care. But this is crossed with the legate, and that makes it my business.’

I was speechless, filled with anger, shame, panic, rage.

‘D’Herblay was supposed to take and kill the legate at Genoa, yes?’ Sabraham nodded. ‘I wondered how on earth we escaped. I begged the legate not to go. I find that we escaped because d’Herblay put all his energy into taking and killing
you.
’ Sabraham leaned forward. ‘D’Herblay is out of the game for a while. Off the board.’ He lifted a knight – a red knight – and took him off the board.

‘Camus hates you, you know this?’ he asked. He smiled a nasty smile. ‘Quite the piece of work, the Bourc. Fra di Heredia sends his regards, Sir William, and says that Camus is toothless, for the moment.’ He took another red knight off the board.

‘Do you know who the king is, Sir William?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘Robert of Geneva,’ I said.

‘Soon to be Archbishop of Geneva. His brother, the Count of Turenne, is coming on crusade with us.’ He picked up a red knight. ‘I want you to imagine this piece transformed to have all the powers of a queen. But appearing only to be a humble knight.’

‘Turenne?’ I asked.

‘Turenne is a fool. Possibly a coward.’ Sabraham shrugged. He put the red knight back on the board. ‘But in his retinue is d’Herblay. And a Hungarian.’ Sabraham smiled. ‘A man like me. Do you understand?’

I thought of the Hungarian with the pearls in his hair, standing coolly over the corpse of the man who’d stolen the Emperor’s sword. ‘I think I’ve met him.’

‘He has been paid to kill the legate,’ Sabraham said. ‘And you, of course.’

My friendships with men were not the only relationships being strained.

One evening I returned to the convent and Fra Andrea let me in the wicket. He led me silently through the rose garden and then walked silently away.

Emile was there. She was with the King of Jerusalem and he was on one knee, kissing her hand. She was looking out over the lagoon.

She turned and saw me. She didn’t start or flinch, but merely smiled and gently tugged at her hand.

The king would not release it. ‘How long will you make me wait?’ he asked.

She stepped back, and he rose suddenly and collected her in his arms.

I allowed my spurs to ring on the stone steps.

The king turned but did not see me. ‘Begone! This is not for you, Mézzières,’ he spat over his shoulder.

I cleared my throat. There was plenty of light left in the sky to see Emile’s relief.

‘Your Grace,’ I said.

‘You may
walk on
,’ he said without turning.

‘Your Grace, I live here,’ I said.

‘Your presence is not wanted,’ he said quietly. He looked at me, then. An expression crossed his face, an indignation annexed by a secret amusement.

‘Countess?’ I asked. Of course I was pray to rage and jealousy, but also to good sense. Was she the king’s lover? I would have to fight for him, either way. And her look …

‘Sir Knight,’ she said. ‘I would be most pleased … if you joined us.’

The king backed away as if I had struck him.

But I’ll give him this, he did not lack grace. ‘Ah … my lady countess, I had mistaken you,’ he said. ‘And truly wish you every happiness.’ He bowed to her, touching his knee to the ground.

She turned her head away, obviously mortified.

The king glanced at me.

I shrugged – a very small shrug.

He shook his head, a slow smile crossing his face. ‘I suppose,’ he allowed, ‘that I will have wine with the abbess as a consolation.’

He walked away and in that moment, he reminded me of Nerio. He was not defeated. And he turned his own disappointment to amusement, as Nerio did on the infrequent occasions he was balked.