‘Yes, I admit it is difficult to imagine,’ Fiore said without so much as a smile. ‘Yet I have them. Nerio leans forward when he is excited, Juan stamps his foot like a small boy, Miles bears the marks of a noble upbringing, and has a tell which guarantees that he will never, ever hit me until he rids himself of that foul error. I could name others, gentlemen. Dozens. In the end, we are a bundle of flaws.’
‘Man is but a fleshy doll packed full of sin,’ Fra Andrea said.
Fiore shrugged. ‘Sin is not my business,’ he said. ‘But with William, his misfortune will be his fortune. The men who broke him changed his body. Fra Andrea and I have brought him back from the dead like Lazarus, with better training.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Nerio said. ‘You mean to say Sir William will be without sin?’ He grinned at me.
‘I would like to be stronger than Emile’s daughter, however,’ I said. ‘Right now, I would lose a tug-of-war with a kitten.’
Fiore just looked smug. ‘I am making of you my thesis,’ he said again. ‘And tomorrow we start in earnest.’
By Saint George, the Friulian meant what he said.
Every day except the Sabbath, the nun’s laundry yard rang with the sound of blades. We ran around the island; we fought with sticks and clubs and blades; we fenced with sharp blades. I swung at a pell and boxed with my shadow and sometimes I did this while Fiore lay full length on the wall. Once, I remember that he went to sleep while I was jumping like some antic mime.
I would like to say that he, as the master of the blade, never took his eyes off me, but he was human. And the novices began to congregate in the laundry yard. They would wash their hair and dry it in the new sun; they would wash laundry outside, and they would raise their hands above their heads and stretch to the heavens – I swear there is something in what Nerio said.
I have known many worthy women with a deep passion for the calling, and a real profession. But in Venice, many a penniless younger daughter was forced into the order at Saint Katherine; many a wayward young thing was sent to the island until her scandal was no longer a nine-day wonder among the canals. Or to have her baby.
At any rate, I was not allowed to pause and wonder at the lilies of the field, nor to appreciate the cleanliness of their linen. I was driven until I could not hold myself up. I couldn’t have managed fornication if Aphrodite had risen from the waves at my feet or if Emile had pulled her gown over her head and leapt upon me. I was exercised all day – my hands, my feet, the placement of my feet, my shoulders, my posture. It was endless, like some sort of torment in hell.
And as endlessly corrected – my posture, my feet, the way in which I stepped, the distance I stepped, and angle of my toes. Nay! I am not enlarging! Fiore was insistent on the way in which my feet pointed, and for five long days I wore a rope between my feet to limit my stride to a particular length.
I didn’t argue.
Because I assumed that Emile was watching.
Perhaps she was and perhaps she wasn’t. But I assumed that she was, and I know she did, from time to time. I knew, too, that I was in a struggle for her esteem – at least – with the King of Jerusalem. Rumour had it that he loved his wife, and that she was less than faithful to him and that he, too, was a lovesome man and had lovers in revenge.
He was a king, and not used to being gainsaid. He came at least once a week, and each time he would work to be alone with Emile.
Each time, she would thwart him, usually with me.
And despite this or, by God, because of it, I came to admire him. He was a fine man, and he accepted his lot as commander of the crusade with a humility that I admired. He loved Father Pierre as much as any of us and he admired Emile.