The Long Sword(126)

            Gradually, though, I grew cold.

            Who knew that getting beaten keeps you warm?

            A freezing rain began to fall and I wondered if a peasant would rescue me – some brave, resourceful lad who hoped to be a knight.

            They carried me to the edge of a precipice. Far below, I could see Genoa sparkle beyond a rain shower. It was a long way down.

            The men who had beaten me had no contrition in them. No one offered me water, even with vinegar in it; no one eased the ties on my hands.

            They dumped me in the road.

            And then one said ‘I’ll take the horse.’

            I cannot remember when hope began. But after they bickered about the horse, and the barrack-room lawyer – there’s always one – argued that keeping the horse would see them all hanged, the first voice roared out, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ and they all fell silent.

            The man must have been bigger. He had a little authority, not much, but enough. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Listen and keep your fucking gobs shut. This piece of shit is someone famous. I’m taking this horse, which is worth more than all the rest of you combined, and I’m walking away. I don’t want to fucking lay eyes on you leprous lads ever again, understand me?’

            ‘We’ll all be caught!’ Barrack-room lawyer piped up.

            ‘No, we won’t. That’s a tale for children. It’s fucking Italy; we can do whatever we want. I found this horse grazing by the roadside. Eh?’ I heard a rustle, and then the sound of Jacques’ heavy hooves.

            ‘Then I’m keeping the Goddamned sword,’ said the barrack-room lawyer. ‘Mister high and mighty can give himself the shits for all I care.’

            ‘Why do you get it, then?’ said another voice, a Gascon. When there’s trouble, there’s always a Gascon.

            ‘Perhaps because I have it in my hand, fuckwit?’ said the barrack-room lawyer.

            Something wet hit the road.

            Men laughed.

            Barrack-room lawyers are seldom popular. I didn’t need my swollen-shut eyes to see what had happened.

            ‘I’ll just take this,’ said the Gascon. ‘I can get a good price for it in Lombardy, or Aquila.’ He had an odd laugh, like a dog’s bark, and his Gascon-French was strangely accented. Catalan, I might have thought, if I’d had a thought in my head.

            That started it, as the removal of Jacques had not. They tore into my kit – my rosary, my surcoat, and my harness.

            In a way, it was like death. Everything that made me a knight was taken: my golden plaque belt, my beautiful spurs. It took the routiers only as long as it takes a hungry horse to eat everything in a nosebag, and they’d stripped my pile. One old man only got my arming clothes.

            The Gascon’s servant got Charny’s dagger.

            And then it was all gone, and men were riding off into the gathering darkness like stray cats taking scraps of food.

            There were dead men on the road, too. Three of them.

            And one hard bastard kneeling at my side with a dagger. ‘Who’d have thought you’d outlive Sweet Willy? Eh, laddie?’

            He spoke English.

            ‘I’m English,’ I said. I suspect it sounded like ‘Mmm gagliff.’

            I felt his dagger touch my throat. ‘George and England!’ I assayed. Which may have been a mumbled ‘org n’ gagle’.