The Long Sword(103)

            I have seen a troupe of prostitutes turn on one of their number who has married, screaming at her about the men she’s had and the services she provided, as if these things should bar her from marriage. So too with some of my former comrades.

            I noticed, though, that none of my lances was with Sir Walter. I saw this with mixed emotions; I would have liked to see friends, and have swords at my back that were closer than family. Yet, it meant they were still together and with Sir John, and I rather fancied that, too.

            I visited the English and the Gascons, too, Among the Gascons I met was Florimont, Sire de Lesparre. He had served the King of Cyprus before, but he’d also served the King of England. He had a famous name as a fighter, and an infamous one as a knight. I had been ordered to visit him in the legate’s name and a squire pointed him out to me.

            He was sitting under an awning in front of a great pavilion, playing chess with one of the King of Cyprus’s nobles, when I rode up. I had a very small tail; just Marc-Antonio and Juan, both in the scarlet surcoats of the Order. Marc-Antonio was a penniless bastard and Juan was the scion of a brilliantly old and wealthy Catalan family, but luck, and some of my money, had given Marc-Antonio a fine horse and saddle and a good sword, and Juan had donated some ‘old’ clothes to the cause so that we did no shame to our order.

            At any rate, Lesparre glanced up from his chess game and made a little moue with his mouth. ‘By the Virgin’s Holy cunt,’ he swore. ‘Some nuns have come to visit us.’

            I have lived in military camps since I was fifteen and I had never heard a man refer in such a way to the Virgin, not even the Bourc. Juan’s face flushed.

            Marc-Antonio giggled.

            Lesparre saw my stare. ‘Eh, little nun? Does my bad language disturb you?’ he roared. ‘Perhaps you’d like to make me shut up?’

            I slid from my saddle. When you most desire to make a good entrance, that is, of course, when your spurs get stuck in the mud under your heels. It never fails.

            ‘Perhaps she has never worn spurs before, the pretty thing,’ Lesparre said.

            His companion laughed.

            But I had spent years at this sort of thing and then been with the order for more. So when I’d sorted out my spurs, I said a little prayer to Saint George, put out my inner fire, and squelched my way to the awning and bowed.

            ‘We are to be favoured with some—’ Lesparre began.

            I nodded and cut him off. ‘If you want to fight, all you have to do is ask,’ I said. It was, to be fair, Richard Musard’s line – he’d trot it out when he was taxed for his colour. I always admired it.

            Lesparre’s mouth shut.

            ‘In the meantime, the legate is solicitous for your comfort, and sends his greetings and blessing,’ I went on. ‘You are, I assume, Monsieur Florimont de Lesparre?’ I took a small twist of parchment with the legate’s seal from my purse.

            ‘Did you just challenge me?’ he asked, and when he stood, he was a head taller than I.

            ‘No, my lord,’ I answered. ‘I am forbidden to challenge while I wear this coat, but if you insist, I will be delighted to oblige you.’

            He nodded. And as he drew, he stepped out into the drizzle from under the awning.

            Marc-Antonio reached out my sword hilt – he was carrying my sword over the crook of his arm. I took it and drew, cut the air once, and rolled the sword over the back of my hand.

            ‘You have beautiful eyes, sweet,’ he said, and a dozen other fanfaronades to distract me.

            When he struck, he meant business. He flicked his sword up from a low guard, back over his shoulder, and cut at my head.