The Long Sword(15)

            The signal meant ‘A l’arme!’



            We were forced to stand on the steps of the palace by the arrival of prelate with an enormous retinue – a hundred men-at-arms and fifty religious – and I think that we were all relieved to be out of the palace. Father Pierre was silent, already, I think, planning his next step. Fra Peter was looking out over the plaza. I had loosened my sword in its sheath and checked my dagger.

            Juan shook his head on the steps and hit me lightly with his beautiful gloves. ‘I look like an angel come to earth, but the Pope talks to you!’

            Juan thought his voice was low, but Father Pierre stopped and looked up. He was a small, slim man and his wool robes all almost buried him, but his smile pierced like a Turk’s arrow. ‘Juan, do you know the story of the prodigal son?’ he asked.

            Juan shifted. ‘Excellency, I spoke only in jest.’

            Father Pierre – really, the Patriarch and legate was far too powerful a man to be called ‘Pater’ – nodded. ‘Listen, the Pope rejoices, as he should, in the redemption of a single sinner.’

            Juan looked at me. ‘Perhaps Fiore and I should commit more sins,’ he said.

            ‘Be ready,’ Fra Peter hissed.

            Fiore turned and loosened his sword. Juan looked at me.

            Fra Peter was just raising a hand for silence when we saw the men-at-arms of the prelate’s entourage approaching on the street before the palace, their flags a mixture of sable and argent on some men-at-arms and azure and argent on others, all riding behind a gonfalonier bearing a banner that bore the arms of the house of Savoy, a white cross of Saint Denis on red ground.

            Is it happenstance that the great enemy of my youth bore the exact opposite of the arms of England and Saint George?

            At any rate, they were on horseback, arrogant as Frenchmen, and refusing to give way to Father Pierre’s smaller retinue.

            My hand tightened on my sword hilt.

            I had last seen that man lying in the mud, where Fra Peter had put him with a single blow while I sat with a halter around my neck waiting to die.

            The Bourc Camus. He hadn’t changed. That is, he was clean, neat, and his eyes passed over us with obvious contempt. ‘Clear the steps, priest,’ he ordered the papal legate. ‘Your betters have need of them.’

            The magnificent knight to his left on the caparisoned horse, in crisp dark blue embroidered with silver – that was the Count d’Herblay.

            D’Herblay didn’t see me at all. His eyes were on his kinsman (not that I knew that at the time), the Bishop of Geneva.

            But the Bourc’s eyes came back to me.

            There is a great deal of worldly satisfaction in the shock of an enemy. He was dismayed and I rejoiced.

            But I was no longer so very young, nor so afraid of all the world. Or perhaps I was simply inside the warm aura of my priest, and thus immune from the anger of Satan’s messenger.

            I smiled at him.

            He was surrounded by his own men, and in the entourage of a prince of the church – if Robert of Geneva did not yet have the cardinal’s hat, he would. Anne had told me that he was superbly rich in his own right, commanded all his family’s connections, and was, in addition, one of the best minds the church had produced in twenty years.

            The bishop was craning his head to see what had disturbed his arrival; he was in a chair, carried by eight liveried men. He was quite young, with a bulbous nose and no chin to speak of. His eyes were wide set, and seemed to question everything.

            By my side, Fra Peter said ‘Do not draw.’