We descended into the Grand Duchy of Burgundy, an amalgam of appanages and inherited towns owned by the King of France’s brothers and uncles, a feudal empire that was partly French and partly Imperial and that shared territory and feudatories with Lorraine and with Savoy. But we continued north and east, following Fra Peter’s instructions. We were careful, believe me. I used our Venetian passports and had reason to thank God for them. Papal passports had many foes.
It appeared that the King of Cyprus was his own man, and not the Pope’s tool. And he had decided to enlist the Emperor in his scheme for a great crusade in the east. The Emperor and the Pope were not actually at war, but neither were they friends – the Emperor tended to side with the English, or anyone else who could weaken mighty France.
Fiore knew the roads of Germany, having spent time there learning from the German masters and having followed their tradition of fighting on errantry, travelling from town to town challenging strangers. Ser Nerio knew how to get good accommodations in any town, usually by showing a letter of credit and a Florentine ambassadorial letter. I truly think that we escaped harm because we had so many different letters of passage that no spy could pin down our ‘side’. Nor were we much given to chatter.
In southern Germany, they took us for knights on errantry, and by God, gentles, we lived the part. We were challenged from time to time. Fiore was disposed to fight, but I had a mission and a fine sense of my own rank; well, arrogance is the specialty of the young, I think. I would flourish my various commissions and ride on.
But a day’s ride east of Nuremberg, we passed through a small village and saw a party of knights whose colours we knew from the day before. They were obviously French; German heraldry is very different from French, and even the colours they use in a blazon are different.
I didn’t know any of them, nor did I question how they’d got ahead of us on the road. But they barred the square, and tallest man – I called him the knight of the ship for the device on his shield – raised his arms and cried a challenge.
I sent him Marc-Antonio with my papal commission; I was chary of using it, but I did not intend to be delayed. I dismounted in the yard of the town’s wine shop to have a bite with my bridle over my arm. Fra Peter had been correct – again. The Emperor had indeed moved his court east to Prague.
I was considering all this when the Ship Knight struck my squire to the ground with his spear.
I was not fully armed. In fact, I had on a habergeon and a good brigandine of many plates, my ‘riding armour’. I had no leg harness and nothing on my arms, and wore only a light sword. Fiore was wearing even less – just a haubergeon. Germany is far too civilised a place to require a man to ride abroad in harness, and ours was packed in straw baskets on the panniers of our spare horses.
‘Don’t send me a peasant. Come and fight like a man,’ Ship Knight shouted.
He meant business.
I drank off the wine in my cup – sheer bravado – and vaulted into my saddle. Fiore was two ells away, negotiating for a sausage, but he was alert and he knew we were attacked. With the ease of long practice, he reached on to the pack horse, extracted a spear, and threw it to me overhand.
The Ship Knight had his lance couched against me, set in his lance rest. He wore good armour on all his limbs and a heavy breastplate under a full helm. His heavy warhorse was half again the size of my riding horse.
Behind him, his friends lowered their visors.
Very chivalrous.
I rode at the Ship Knight, and as he put spurs to his horse, I shifted my weight as du Guesclin had taught me, and my horse sidestepped, the mounted equivalent of stepping fora di strada in a foot combat. His big horse leaped forward and I stood in my stirrups and threw my spear. It wasn’t a full-length lance, but instead one of the six-foot spears we used to fight on foot, with a long, sharp head.