‘I’m not going with Sir Walter,’ I said.
‘He says he’s recruiting for the King of Cyprus,’ Hawkwood said. He drank a little more. ‘But right now, he’s in the pay of Florence. Stealing my men. For the fucking Pope.’ He looked at me. ‘If you go with him, you are, in effect, leaving the service of the King of England for the King of France.’
I was used to this; Sir John had the habit of using patriotism against us. And I knew – none better, as Master Chaucer will allow – that Hawkwood was always the king’s arm in Italy. ‘I thought we were serving Pisa against Florence,’ I said.
‘Florence is aligned with the Pope, who is raising the French king’s ransom,’ Sir John said.
I smiled, then, because Fra Peter had passed me a titbit of news when he gave me Emile’s letters, and I had assumed Sir John already knew it. But he didn’t.
‘King John of France is dead,’ I said.
Hawkwood froze for a moment. And for the first time in the conversation, his eyes met mine. ‘Says who?’ he asked quietly.
‘Fra Peter Mortimer,’ I said.
Sir John pursed his lips, but he didn’t protest. The Hospitallers had superb sources of information – they were the Pope’s mailed fist, and their intelligencers, too.
‘And you go to Avignon,’ he said.
I nodded.
He took a deep breath. ‘The Spaniard and the Friulian are donats, too. But I can’t let you take my master archer and ten lances. Nor Courtney nor Grice nor de la Motte. I know they are your men, but by God, William Gold, if you take all your companions, I’ll lose the rest by morning.’
‘I’ll come back!’ I said.
He embraced me, one of perhaps three times he did so. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘If you don’t – God be with you.’
John Hawkwood embraced me and invoked God. My eyes filled with tears, but I clasped his hand and left the tent.
Say what you like about John Hawkwood: he could have made my leaving him a test of loyalty and allegiance. But he didn’t. Which is why, when the lines were drawn later, I went back to him.
Fra Peter agreed with Sir John. ‘I’m not hiring your lances,’ he said. ‘You are volunteers for the Order, and you have to pay your own way. The Order will feed you and your horses; we’ll find you lodging, but there is no wage.’
Crusading is a rich man’s sport, and no mistake.
I sat down with Sam Bibbo and laid it out for him, and he laughed. ‘You needn’t make a fuss,’ he said. ‘I’m your man, but I wouldn’t go to the Holy Land for all the fish in the sea. Italy is rich, the fighting is easy, and this is all I need.’
I had hoped that he’d insist. I relied very heavily on Sam Bibbo – he knew how to do everything, and when he didn’t, I still felt better for his support while I made things up. But I understood.
Bibbo also embraced me. ‘Bring me a piece of the true cross,’ he said.
We were sitting at a camp table in a sumpter’s tavern one of the wine shops that served the army. I shaved a splinter off the table and gave it to him, and he laughed and slapped my back.
‘John Hughes won’t want to go to the Holy Land,’ he said. ‘But he’s had a message from home, and if you are headed north across the passes, he’ll want to ride with you.’
I went and found John Hughes, a Lakelander from Cumbria or Westmoreland. I got to know that country later, as you’ll hear, if this goes on long enough, but to me they were names, as alien as Thrace or Turkey, far off in the north of England. He was Milady’s archer, and he was a damned good hand. He was also devoted to Janet – Milady – and seldom left her.