‘I am a knight,’ I said with all the pride of Lucifer. Ego miles.
She clapped her hands together. I suspect that it is a universal truth throughout the Christian world that women – working women – prefer soldiers to priests. Mayhap not when the soldiers are burning your barn, but in a bath or a bedchamber –
‘You are with the King of Jerusalem?’ she asked. Tu es cum rege Hierusalem. Not the best Latin, perhaps. She was saying I was the king of Jerusalem – su es should have been sis. ‘You will fight?’
I snorted water.
She said something in Polish, not to me but past me. Across the little linen screen that hid us from the other tubs, a girl’s somewhat shrewish voice shouted back.
I must have looked my question. She swirled water and looked demure, a fetching trick for a girl wearing two yards of wet linen. She was in the tub with me by then. The better to wash me, of course.
The shrewish voice said something that caused my girl – Katerina, that was her name! – to look surprised. She shouted back, and a male voice shouted indignantly.
‘King of Jerusalem’s men fight last night,’ she said. ‘Drunk. Stupid.’ She shrugged, indicating that this was the limit of her Latin and that any fool knew how stupid men were. ‘drunk’ and ‘stupid’ were conveyed with hand signs.
When I went to fetch my clothes, I found them neatly ironed. A closed-faced young woman, clearly not amused by the goings-on, was busy killing lice in a pair of hose with an iron so hot it made the wool sizzle and the insects pop. They were not, par dieu, my hose. But the service was good and I paid her. Who wants to put on dirty clothes on a clean body?
And at the desk, the table where money was taken, I counted over my silver cheerfully enough. The man at the desk was enormous – fat and tall. He smelled as if he had never used the services of his own establishment. Despite which, he had a smile almost as winning as Katerina’s and I gave him a small tip as well.
‘Speak French?’ I asked.
‘Non volens,’ he said. Not willingly.
I laughed. The Poles are a nation of Latinists.
But I left with my mood changed, and sin made me humble. Aiming for the humility practiced by Father Pierre, I went back to our much plainer inn – although it still sported a dozen coats of arms, including, I say with pride, my own red and sable. I had Marc-Antonio dress me, ignored his sullen looks, took the packets of letters and went to the king’s inn, which I entered through the kitchens. There, cutting capons and rabbits with heavy knives, were two enormous women at the main table, and at the next table, two equally fat women were putting eggs and bread in a basket with a tall pitcher of new milk and some cider. I couldn’t understand a word they said – Polish is not in my list of languages – but they giggled a great deal and waggled a sausage at each other. I blew kisses at them and snagged a piece of bread and a cup of cider, and watched the great hall from the kitchen door while my eyes grew used to the gloom.
De Mézzières was there, and silver and white, now dressed in more practical clothes, and with his arm in a sling. With them were a dozen other men in arming clothes and younger men who looked to my practiced eye like squires. There was armour all over the floor and on benches long the far wall.
I could see that now I was the one who was overdressed, and my embroidered scarlet pourpoint, the very best of Bolognese fashion, was as out of place today as my dusty riding clothes and riding boots had been the night before. But it is far better to be overdressed than underdressed.
I could see the king, in his shirt, waiting while a pair of squires laced his arming coat. I caught de Mézzières’ eye.
He nodded and came towards me. ‘From where do you come, young man?’ he asked. ‘I must apologise for yesterday,’ he said quietly. ‘The king had had a very difficult day.’