The Long Sword(10)

            As it proved, they were passing so close to John Hughes’ home that they engaged him as a guard and thus got him on their French passport, solving all of his travel problems. The Scots are far more popular in France than the English.

            I hugged him. ‘Go well,’ I said, and I gave him twenty gold florins.

            ‘Christ, I can buy a new farm for that,’ he said. ‘Milady gave me the same,’ he admitted.

            I shrugged. ‘You’ve kept us both alive. I’ll think of you, sitting by your fireside in whatever godforsaken hamlet in which you settle. Go be a farmer and forget your wicked ways.’

            Hughes grinned then and we hugged, and hugged.

            ‘To think I almost killed you in an inn yard,’ he said.

            ‘No, I almost killed you!’ I answered, and we both laughed.

            ‘Make me a promise?’ he asked.

            I nodded.

            ‘If you see Richard Musard, kick him in the crotch for what he did to Milady, and then help him up. For me. I miss him.’

            John Hughes shrugged as if he couldn’t help himself. ‘Good fortune out east, Sir Knight. Come to Kentmere and tell my children tales of the wars.’

            ‘All right, John. I will,’ I said. ‘Go in God’s grace and stay safe across France.’



            I awoke the next morning and had no idea where I was, but my companion smelled like lavender and spices. I looked down at her when she rolled towards me, and she was Anne, and I was in her garret room in the inn, which meant her three friends were shivering out in the narrow hall or under the eaves.

            She leaned over; we were on a pallet of linen filled with new straw, and it smelled healthy and wholesome, as Anne did. She drank water from a pitcher and gave it to me: it had mint leaves in it and I remember that trick still. Her breasts were heavy, white against her brown arms, and the mere sight of them aroused me, despite my painful awareness that I had just broken my oath. In fact, my cheek hurt.

            I’ve known many a witty titbit exchanged between lovers at this point, the first sally of the morning so to speak; I’ve heard recriminations and I’ve heard love babble.

            She lay back, unworried by her nudity. ‘A girl does prefer a soldier to a priest,’ she said. She rubbed a hand over the muscle in my belly. ‘Do you know that Cardinal Talleyrand is dead?’

            Cardinal Talleyrand had been appointed the Cardinal Legate of the crusade. He was leading it, and he was paying for a great deal of it. He intended to be Pope, after all.

            Women are different from men in this way, I think. She was already flushed – I won’t go into details – but she intended to start our day as we’d ended the last, and yet she could talk church politics with me.

            I could see nothing but her lips, her nipples, the sharp line of her side where it met her hip.

            At some point another girl pounded on the wooden partition. ‘Stop your lechery and let us dress or we’ll all be beaten!’ she said.

            Anne responded by pushing her hips up into mine and making a little emphatic noise.

            ‘Marie had a customer, a papal courier,’ she said. ‘From the coronation at Rheims,’ she went on, her voice raising a little, speaking in the rhythm of our lovemaking.

            I’m sure we talked of other things. But I can’t remember them.

            See now, I’ve made Monsieur Froissart blush.



            Almost the first person I met outside the inn while I was still tying my points of my hose to my doublet, was Father Pierre Thomas, with Miles Stapleton.