When Nan told the story, I had been more interested in her, and her face, than in her tale. I had no idea, then, that I would meet Peter of Cyprus.
Any road, the last few leagues, I was as careful as I could be; I saw enemies behind every fence post and inn sign, and my hand was always on my sword and my purse, but looking back, I think we outrode our adversaries, if indeed Robert of Geneva had sent more than the one team of knights. So despite my caution, or perhaps because of it, eventually we reached the inn that bore the arms of the King of Cyprus, and several other blazons across the front.
We dismounted. It was evening, and the sun shining in long rays through the dust. In Krakow, and indeed all of Poland, the greater portion of the buildings are constructed of logs and wood, and the great inn was no different, although it smelled like any other inn from London’s Southwark to Verona; that indefinable air of hospitality and good beer and flees.
We’d crossed half the world to get there, or so it seemed, and then we stood in the street while Marc-Antonio held our horses, straightening our clothes and sorting out all the packets of letters. The Emperor was in the castle and would have to wait for another day.
We paused to wipe off the dust. Nerio’s squire, Alessandro, produced a brush and did his best. I was wearing a peasant’s cote over my red surcoat, to protect it from the dust, and I stripped it off. Fiore emulated me, and Nerio looked meaningfully at our pack horse where we had good clothes. Italian clothes.
Marc-Antonio shrugged. ‘It will take an hour!’ he whined.
Whine or not, I knew he was right. ‘Very well,’ I said, or something equally masterful.
Brushed and combed and still smelling strongly of horse, we walked up the steps, past the porch that was packed with cut firewood, and entered through the great front doors that were pinned back, wide enough for a wagon and team to ride through. A door ward looked us over and made a face.
‘What do you mean, sir?’ I asked. He pointed mutely at my sword, and I unbuckled it off my heavy plaque belt. Fiore did the same, and then Nerio.
Nerio’s sword was one of the finest riding swords I’d ever seen, all blue and gold with a heavy gold pommel that held a saint’s relic, or so it was said. The door ward’s eyes all but popped. He bowed to Nerio again, thus instantly reinforcing my desire to own the very best sword money could buy. Swords command many kinds of respect.
I tried to offer my papers, but the door ward merely bowed silently and indicated the inner door.
We went into the inn and found the King of Cyprus and all his court inside. There were twenty knights there, and as many noble squires, all dressed in the latest Italian modes, with tulip-throated pourpoints and collared shirts as if every one of them was Ser Nerio or Ser Niccolò.
Every head turned to look at us.
A handsome man in white and silver approached us from the right.
‘By what right do you enter our lodging?’ he asked.
I bowed and again offered my papers. ‘My lord, I am a courier carrying letters for the King of Cyprus,’ I said.
The man in white and silver frowned. ‘You are not dressed for court,’ he said.
By that time, my eyes had become accustomed to the light of the interior. The walls were whitewashed, the ceilings were high, even to the rafters, and two great fireplaces lit what, in England, would have been an old-fashioned great hall of logs rather than stone. The heads of deer and elk and bear studded the walls, with tapestries nearly black with age and a magnificent reliquary in silver and gold with jewels that had to have been the property of the king, because it was too rich for any tavern.
Between the fireplaces was a great chair with a beautiful fur of shining black sable hanging over it like a quilt, and sitting on the fur was a young man, not much older than me, in a cloth of gold jupon and hose of red with pearls in the shape of swans as embellishment. He was frowning, playing with a child’s toy of a stick and a ball connected by a string.