I knew that his look was neither angry nor amused. It was the look he kept for the condition of man. Which gave him pain.
‘No, my lord,’ I said. ‘She is a friend. I had occasion to render her a service during the Jacquerie. And I had heard she intended to make the pilgrimage.’
‘So you rode two days out of your way to greet her,’ Father Pierre said.
Friends, I was a small boy with a nasty piece of work as an uncle – I can lie with the best of them. And as Emile and I had committed no sin – well, not outwardly – I had the feeling of somewhat hypocritical indignation that sinners get when accused of a sin they have not committed.
‘Yes, my lord,’ I said.
Our eyes locked.
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘She is a very rich woman, and very powerful,’ he said. ‘And she brings six good knights.’
‘Which is good, because we’re bleeding men at arms like a beheaded traitor gushes blood,’ Fra Peter put in.
Father Pierre winced again. ‘My son—’
‘If the King of Cyprus doesn’t get here soon, we’ll have no army, and it will all be for nothing,’ Fra Peter said. I’d seldom seen him angry, but the last four months had aged him. And tired him.
‘Surely the legate can hold the men at arms?’ I asked carefully.
Father Pierre raised both eyebrows. ‘I might,’ he admitted. ‘But our Holy Father the Pope has ordered me to suspend use of church revenues until the whereabouts of the king have been determined. So I have no money.’
No commander and no money. Most of the men gathered around Venice and living in peasant’s houses, squalid, windswept camps and expensive lodgings were mercenaries. Men like me. Our purses are not bottomless and many had come to make a profit – well, to be fair, to make a profit and to save their souls.
‘Tell him about the Genoese!’ Fra Peter said.
Father Pierre smiled at me. ‘I don’t want to overburden his spirit,’ he said.
Fra Peter laughed. ‘I do. He runs about fighting in tournaments and winning beautiful swords and I get paperwork in Venice?’ He glared at me, a mocking glare. ‘Genoa has all but declared war on Cyprus.’
Since Genoa, Cyprus, Venice and Constantinople – the Eastern empire – were the supports of the crusade, war between Genoa and Cyprus would kill the Passagium Generale as thoroughly as a poleaxe blow to the head of an unarmoured man. ‘Why? What for?’ I could vaguely remember discussions about this – hadn’t someone been killed on the docks in Cyprus?
Father Pierre looked away, almost as if he was disassociating himself from Fra Peter’s answer.
‘The charges against Cyprus are trumped-up forgeries. It is all tinsel and make-believe – but Genoa has a fleet in home waters for the crusade, and they are threatening to use it against Cyprus.’ Fra Peter sat back, his nose showing white spots. He was angry.
I leaned forward. ‘Are they in league with the paynim?’ I asked.
Father Pierre laughed. ‘In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost also – Genoa trades with the Hagarenes. So does Venice, as the Doge never tires of telling me, even when I tell him of the traffic in Christian slaves, of the Greek boys and the Venetian gentlemen sold to the cruellest of masters … My sons, Cyprus herself trades with the infidel.’ He shook his head, not in sorrow but in rueful appreciation of the world. ‘We are as God made us, and the world must be as it is,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I wonder if this is a false doctrine, but for the moment I am content with it. Venice, Genoa and Cyprus are all engaged in trade with the Saracens, despite which I am charged with this crusade and I will see it through. I need to travel to Genoa and force them to peace, but I cannot go until the king comes here, to reassure the soldiers.’