Nerio flashed an eyebrow. ‘But of course, and I was foolish to speak so,’ he said in a tone that robbed his words of any conviction.
I looked at the king.
Mind you, you must imagine my friends all bowing or kneeling in the sand.
He glanced at Nerio. I think he was amused by the young Florentine’s bluster. Perhaps it was like calling to like. His mouth wrinkled in a wry smile, almost like a sneer.
‘I would like you gentlemen to stay with the Venetians as volunteers,’ he said. ‘I would esteem is as a great favour – the more especially if, having chastised the Turks, you ensured that Lord Contarini continued to Rhodes. Without these galleys, I lack the strength at sea to accomplish anything of this empris.’
I snuck a glance at Fra Peter, but there was no help coming from that quarter. Fra Peter didn’t have to worry about King Peter’s attempts to woo Emile; on the other hand, he was charged with protecting the legate, which was probably a more worthy concern.
‘Your Grace,’ I said. ‘Yet I am a mere knight, and not a great magnate of France or England. I have not power to keep a lord of Venice to his promise.’
Fra Peter allowed himself a smile. ‘You are, however, the officer of all my volunteers, and if I send you – or rather, if the legate sends you, and the other volunteers of the order, it seems to me unlikely that the admiral will maroon you or strand you far from the crusade.’ He nodded to me. ‘Sir William, you have a famous name. Contarini asked for you.’
Well. There’s fame for you.
Nerio nodded vehemently. ‘Is this a council of war? Sir William, are you asking my humble opinion?’
The king and Fra Peter frowned at Nerio’s open derision. But I nodded.
Nerio bowed. ‘I, for one, would be delighted.’
Fiore made an Italianate motion of his head, one that had as much pitch and toll as a ship in a storm. ‘If there is fighting?’ he said, as if that summed up all that needed to be said.
Miles Stapleton grinned. ‘Against the Turks?’ he said.
Juan beamed. ‘I will fight the Turks,’ he said.
In fact, we had twenty more donats, knights and men-at-arms. But their enthusiasm was unanimous.
Nerio and Fiore went to the great ships, the round ships, to see if we couldn’t find a few ‘volunteers’ from among the so-called ‘crusaders’, the routiers and mercenaries in the holds of the great ships. Men like me. Or like the man I had been.
I returned to Contarini and swore to follow his orders. We brought him almost forty armoured men, stiffening his marines. They were a mixed bag of crusaders, routiers and volunteers, and included some famous men – we had the Baron Roslynn from Scotland, who is today the Earl of Orkney.
I didn’t see the king again. As you can imagine, I had some thought that I had been used as Uriah by King Peter. I tried to get aboard the pilgrim ship to see Emile, but there wasn’t time. Lord Contarini ordered me aboard his flag, the Christ the King, a galia grossa of magnificent size, with the broadest top deck of any galley I had ever seen. Her hull was scarlet, and she had enough gold-work on her sides to support every gilder in London for a year. He took all five of us and our squires and pages to augment his marines.
As an aside, a Venetian usually ships noble ‘marines’ from Venice; gentlemen-marines are allowed cargo space and decent living quarters. But to press more of the crusaders aboard, Lord Contarini had left all but three of his gentleman-marine berths open.
He put to sea with fourteen galia sottil and two more galia grossa stretching away behind us down the coast of the Morea. I saw Emile and waved.