I shrugged. ‘I imagine I can, ma soeur. I made all the fittings for a Bible once.’
‘Hmmf,’ she said, or something like it. ‘Well, that was a good trick, that with the tallow. If I break my scabbard, I’ll come and find you.’ She turned to go, and paused. ‘My old memory is playing me games,’ she said. ‘I came with a curious letter. Addressed to “Guillaume D’Or, Miles Dei”.’ Her eyes met mine.
I shrugged. And reached for it.
‘The bishop of Nantes included it,’ she went on, her eyes fixed on mine. She was withholding it.
I sighed. ‘Truly, Sister, I have no idea.’
She placed it in my hand. ‘The legate’s couriers are not for your private letters,’ she said. She raised one eyebrow, as if to suggest that she knew a thing or two, which I did not doubt for an instant.
She slipped out of the room.
Juan shook his head. ‘She thinks all men are fools,’ he said. ‘She is too forward.’
Miles frowned. ‘I like her,’ he said.
I was starting to open the parchment, which was folded eight times and sealed with a heavy archbishop’s seal in purple wax, when Ser Nerio pushed in the door.
‘Christ, what are you doing? Roasting heretics?’ Nerio wrinkled his nose and put a perfumed glove to his face.
‘I suppose you would know the smell,’ Fiore shot back.
Nerio ignored Fiore. ‘What is this? Some foul English food?’
I raised my eyes, still struggling with the parchment. ‘I fixed my scabbard,’ I said.
Nerio laughed. He saw it leaning, point up, in the corner and went to pick it up.
‘With stinking glue? Maria Star of Heaven, messire! Pay a leatherworker to fix your scabbards! I have to sleep here!’ He waved his perfumed glove in front of his face.
I got the parchment open.
Juan said something about it being useful to know how to look after your own gear.
It was from Emile. Well, it seems obvious like this, but it wasn’t obvious to me.
My heart paused – then it beat again, very fast.
Love and war – so different. But not, perhaps, so different.
Dear William,
My husband and I are determined to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Our preparations are made, and he has taken every precaution, including the arranging of a special dispensation at Avignon. His intention is to join the crusade at Venice. My intention is to travel with my children. Please be kind enough to inform me when the legate thinks that the fleet might sail, so that I will not be late. I will come with my own household, and my own knights.
But be assured that I will come.
Emile d’Herblay
I looked up. Juan was glaring like a basilisk at Nerio. He turned and looked at me.
‘He just said you were a peasant!’ Juan said.
‘No,’ Nerio shook his head. ‘I said he worked like a peasant.’ The young Italian realised he’d gone too far.
I beamed my happiness at them all. ‘Let’s go out and have a cup of wine,’ I said. ‘On me.’
Under my happiness was the knowledge that she had also sent me a warning. But I’d already seen the man. I knew what I was up against. I thought of him as the man I’d bested at Brignais, the man who wouldn’t face me in an alley in Avignon. He wasn’t worth spit.