I didn’t even trouble to reply. Just for a moment, I considered drawing my basilard and killing my way through to him.
To the ruin of my career.
And the death of my soul, perhaps. Or perhaps I’d be making the world a better place.
He tried to whip the Gascons into a fury against me, but they didn’t think highly of him, and he left us with a trail of imprecations that might have earned immediate heavenly retribution and made him sound weak – and I found that Fiore’s hand was heavy on my shoulder and Nerio was pressed against my side.
‘Wine,’ Nerio said.
Of all people, Chretien d’Albret came and stood by me when d’Herblay was gone. He was older, heavier, and had a scar on his left arm that ran down on to his hand, a bad wound. He approached me with reserve.
I bowed and then reached out and embraced him. We had, in fact, survived some hard times together. His face brightened as I embraced him.
I introduced him to Juan, and to Fiore, and Nerio, who greeted him with no warmth at all.
Fiore hadn’t met him, but by happenstance had heard me speak of the youngest d’Albret.
‘Ah!’ Fiore said. ‘Sir William speaks of you often.’
As a method of warming an old friend, this line cannot be beaten, and Fiore’s sincerity was indubitable. When we had collected all of John’s winnings we took him back to the English inn, and gave Chretien d’Albret and his friend Henri – I cannot remember his style – at any rate, we gave them some wine and were treated to a long dissertation on the state of politics in the Duchy of Aquitaine, which was of interest only to me. Fiore shuffled in his seat, eager to be back in the yard, and Juan took to peering out the mullioned windows, and eventually I let them go.
D’Albret shook his head when Fiore made his excuses. ‘You are so … mild,’ he said. ‘I remember you, you and Richard, running the inn in that little town we held all winter when you were fighting Camus. When you took me. You remember?’
I laughed. ‘Of course I remember.’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t swear. You are dressed like a monk. D’Herblay says you fucked his wife. Is that true? Or are you really a monk?’
‘He is a coward and a bad lord,’ I said. ‘You should not serve him.’
D’Albret fingered his beard. He had a louse crawling out of his collar, headed for his hair. I remembered living in clothes full of lice.
It seemed a long time ago.
‘You think you could kill d’Herblay?’ he asked, and he cocked an eyebrow.
I didn’t say in a single blow. I shrugged. ‘Any time. But I will spare you my boasts,’ I said.
‘You ran a brothel,’ d’Albret said. He said it in accusation, but the accusation was not hypocrisy. The accusation was You used to be one of us.
The truth of it was that by changing my spots, I accused him. And he knew it. He was uncomfortable. Even as we sat in the inn, brothers and knights would come in from exercise, or divine office, or mounting guard, with many a pleasant word, or the benison, or a saint’s name on their lips. I had grown used to the company of men who used courtesy at all hours – d’Albret still lived in the world from which I had come. Even when he swore, he did so only to try me.
I shrugged. Again. D’Albret seemed to be trying to say something; he kept rising to it, and then slipping away. ‘I enjoy serving the Order,’ I said. ‘Have another cup of wine.’
‘What do they pay?’ he sneered.