The knights knelt. If you have never knelt in steel leg harnesses, let me tell you that it is God’s own penance for the Orders of Chivalry.
After a pause of a breath most of the people in the crowd knelt, too, but my horse sensed my tension and began to fret, tossing his head and moving his back feet.
Father Pierre raised his hands and began the paternoster.
All the people in the street began to say it with him.
It isn’t listed as one of his miracles. But I was there. He glowed. And not a man or woman died.
The crowd broke up quickly. I waited by the gate, eager to follow my quarry, but Father Pierre was on to me as soon as he rose to his feet and walked back in to the walls. He saw me and smiled.
‘Your whole body speaks of violence,’ he said. ‘Jesus came to speak of peace. Walk inside.’
‘But—’ I began.
He didn’t frown. He looked pained.
I took a deep breath, took my hand from my dagger hilt, and turned away from the gate.
In truth, had I killed d’Herblay in Verona that night, my Emile would have been a widow, and I might have been a much happier man. Yet, as Fra Peter said to me, the habit of obedience is essential to honour. Once you put your trust in a man, you must be prepared to obey. And perhaps, in my scarlet surcoat, I would merely have walked out into the streets and been killed.
We left Verona very early. I didn’t sleep much, and neither did Fra Peter or Ser Niccolò, but in the end we had everyone saddled and ready in the courtyard as the darkness began its retreat from morning’s light. We opened the gates on an empty street, and we rode into the next square, formed our column, and moved to the river as quickly as we could manage.
They were just opening the gates, a fine triple arch to the north. I presented our travel documents to the officer on the gate.
He flicked through them. And nodded.
The gates continued to open.
We passed through them, bags and baggage, in about the time it would take a man to say the Ave Maria. No one was disposed to linger. I saluted the gate officer, took our travel papers back, and rode through. When I emerged on the other side, I found I’d hunched my back against … well, boiling oil, which I feared all the way under the arch.
We passed Montorio, a Cavalli castle, a little outside of town, and one of the knights of that house rode up to us with his banner displayed. He knelt in the road and accepted the cross of a crusader, and we rode for Vicenza – and Venice.
Vicenza was beautiful, although not as beautiful as Verona. Padua was richer yet. The plains of northern Lombardy were, if anything, yet richer, and the hills were incredibly lush. Everything smelled wonderful – the hills smell of flowers and crushed grass even at the height of summer.
Fiore looked at the country north of Verona with a predatory eye. ‘They say the cows give butter,’ he said. ‘That’s how rich they are.’
Indeed, as we passed from town to town and city to city, I was struck nearly dumb by the riches. Every town had a cathedral and some had two. There were monasteries and castles on every hill; vineyards covered the hillsides, and there were almost as many olive trees as I had seen around Sienna and Pisa.
As far as I could tell, this country had never known war. And having just come from Avignon, the contrast with France couldn’t have been greater – the difference between a beautiful house and a burned-out shell. The peasants wore good wool, and many had Egyptian cloth shirts; women wore fine gowns, often well fitting, and with enough buttons to pass as the gentry of England. They ate good bread and drank good wine and their sausages were among the best I’ve ever had.