The Long Sword(132)

            She was a Frenchwoman to her finger’s ends. Janet is, too – talk of Poitiers and they bridle. But to be fair, Emile lost a brother in the red-washed mud, and Janet lost two uncles.

            ‘Monsieur de Charny had the Oriflamme.’ Well, I told it as I’ve told you: I got him around the knees and helped bring him down.

            De Mézzières locked his eyes in mine. ‘Is that how you would want to die?’ he asked.

            Now I took a breath. ‘On a stricken field, with my sovereign’s banner in my fist, feared by every foe and loved by every knight? Taking twenty men with me?’ I grinned, and for a moment, I was not a man who had been beaten to a pulp by brigands. I was Sir William Gold. ‘By God, sir, give me such a death and I will embrace it.’

            De Mézzières rose and bowed. ‘I mistook you for another kind of man entirely. The king, who is your admirer – and I – pray daily for your recovery.’ He glanced at his squire, who grinned.

            Now we were all standing. ‘I would rather not have killed him,’ I said. ‘I can only say that he would not let himself be taken.’

            De Mézzières looked away. ‘No. He would not.’

            Emile put a hand on his arm, her face still full of concern. ‘Please, the waiting has gone on so long. What of the crusade?’

            De Mézzières frowned.

            Emile smiled at me. ‘I think we could all sit,’ she said. The squire, a bold rascal, smiled with her.

            We sat again. De Mézzières had so much dignity that he found sitting difficult. His back was so straight it never touched the back of the wooden chair that had been brought for him.

            But he sighed, looked at Emile, and shook his head. ‘Genoa has done everything in their power to block this expedition,’ he said. ‘Nor has the Pope been forward, precisely, with the promised money.’

            Emile nodded. ‘My chamberlain in Geneva says that the money collected in Savoy will not come here, and that the Green Count and the Savoyards will mount their own crusade.’

            De Mézzières shrugged. ‘The worldly vanity of the great lords is past anything I could ever have imagined. Sometimes I must admire the Turks and the Sultan in Egypt. Islam is not divided as we are. Nevertheless, the issue is money. Genoa has demanded enormous reparations for our supposed faults, and Venice will not loan the king money that will go directly into her rivals coffers for the war we all know is coming.’

            ‘What war?’ I asked.

            De Mézzières sighed. ‘The war between Venice and Genoa. Next to which, this crusade is but a sideshow.’ He nodded. ‘Few enough of the men-at-arms we raised managed to hang on through the winter and those that did ate their leathers and sold their armour. We will not sail before June, at best. We need money. We need Venice to settle their revolt on Crete. We need to have our own warships repaired, and we need Venice to complete her fleet.’ He waved a hand at the two galia sottil hulls fitting out.

            ‘June!’ Emile said. ‘I will be a pauper!’

            De Mézzières bowed in his seat. ‘My esteemed lady, the king is already a pauper. This crusade has cost him three years of the complete revenue of his kingdom.’

            The equerry sat back, his attitude anything but servile. ‘I didn’t want the job in the first place,’ he said.

            I’d guessed, somewhere in the muddle of telling them of de Charny, that the equerry was King Peter incognito. He didn’t have the posture of a squire, and he was too old. But I might have known him – and I didn’t.

            Emile had known all along. What did her wink mean?