Fra Andrea must have granted some permission or other, too, because suddenly all my friends were there. Miles Stapleton came and taught me to play chess – which is to say that I had played chess, but Miles taught me to play well. And he taught Emile as well. No man I ever met did aught but enjoy her company, and she was full of life that spring.
Ser Nerio came so often that I suspected him of a liaison with a novice or a nun; nor was I alone in my suspicions.
Juan came with Fiore. In fact, they all came together after a few scouting missions. They would sit in the nun’s parlour, and they would join Emile’s men-at-arms behind the convent where the novices and the servants hung the laundry, and we would fence. As I grew stronger, I would wrestle, box, try a spear or a staff.
I remember one golden day, late April, I think, perhaps the fourth Sunday after Easter. I hit Fiore with a spear thrust after a cavazione – a feint. He laughed, although he’d have a bruise. He thrust back at me, and I made my cover – and he pushed it aside and ran the pole-end into my gut.
As I picked myself up, I whined.
‘I suppose I’ll never be the knight I was,’ I said. I was cursedly weak.
Fiore grinned. ‘You will be my thesis,’ he said.
Perhaps it was that night, or the next. The Abbess of St Katherine had delivered an ultimatum and an offer, and we took dinner together with the handful of monks who had their own dormitory.
The Abbess had offered my friends free passage into her kingdom, in exchange for nothing but their words of honour that they would not outrage, seduce, charm, or even flirt with her charges.
Ser Nerio drank off a glass of a local wine and raised an eyebrow. ‘I would be giving up a great deal,’ he said.
Miles Stapleton raised his eyes and sighed. ‘We are soldiers of Christ, not seducers.’
Nerio ruffled Stapleton’s hair, which the younger man hated. ‘No one seduces a novice,’ he said. ‘You lie back and let them seduce you.’
Juan blushed. ‘I would very much like to – to help Guillermo to make his recovery.’
Nerio sighed theatrically. ‘Well, I will prove that I’m the best knight among us by making my knee bend to the Tigress. Although I suspect I’m the only one making any real sacrifice.’ He leaned over. ‘You don’t suppose she just needs a good fuck herself ?’
Fra Andrea laughed aloud. ‘You are brave,’ he said. ‘Listen, young pup. Go suggest it to her. I will stand here and take wagers on how long you live.’
Nerio’s sense of his own place in the world did not accept much derision. ‘I’m sure I can outlast the old witch.’
Fra Andrea shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen anyone slain by raw scorn, but I imagine that it desiccates the corpse.’ The other monks were laughing. Nerio frowned.
Nerio did not like to be told ‘no’.
I think it was that same evening that Juan was complimenting me on how well I was recovering. I shrugged off the praise: I did not want their pity and Fiore laughed.
‘I am making you anew,’ he said.
‘How so?’ I asked. ‘Teaching me not to flinch?’
‘Teaching you everything. Listen, every swordsman is a blob, a sticky mass of all his own flaws and all the bad teaching of his masters and the injuries he has and all the errors of thought and decision and control. Even I am riddled with these flaws.’
‘Even you?’ Nerio quipped. ‘I can’t imagine that you have any flaws.’