The Long Sword(6)

            On the other hand, Fiore was pitifully sorry to have hurt me, and yet from that moment he had his theory: the theory of the weapon ‘off ’ line versus the weapon ‘in’ line, and the theory of the shorter versus the longer. I can say all this better in Italian. The phrase ‘off line’ sounds like something a scribe would say, but fora di strada conveys more. As if a common fight happens on a road, and you have had the courage to step off the road.

            And, of course, there were the young women who had been watching. I have observed this many times: some girls relish the sight of blood, and some do not. Some desire the man who sheds the blood, and some seek to care for the one bleeding.

            I compounded blood loss and trauma with fatigue by staying awake all night.

            Fra Peter was not amused; not amused by my injury, and not amused by my lechery.

            For three nights running, I was ordered to wash the dishes. And I was given several forms of penance, including standing with my sword by the pommel, held out at arm’s length, while Juan prayed some rapid pater nosters and tried not to laugh at me.

            The third day, my cut cheek hurt like an imp of Satan had it in fiery tongs, and my hips hurt, and my arms hurt, and I’d had enough of Fra Peter.

            He came to see how I was doing. In fact, I could barely stand, and I was kneeling by the hot water in a tin basin, trying to wash his handsome Prague glass while keeping my hair out of the puss and blood coming out of my cheek.

            ‘Let me see your cheek,’ he said. He played with it, none too gently, and then smeared honey over the wound, which burned all over again.

            ‘Fuck, that hurts,’ I said, or something equally English.

            He sighed.

            That was enough to set me off.

            ‘By Saint George!’ I swore. ‘I am a knight, not a squire! I don’t polish armour and carry dishes! I fight! I do as I will!’

            ‘Hush, you will split your cheek – ah, there, you’ve done it again.’ He looked at me. ‘Truly, William, perhaps it would be best if you went back to Sir John.’

            ‘Sweet Christ, because I tupped a lass? I did her no harm, I assure you. Nor did I take her maidenhead.’ I leered, as the young are wont to do when they know perfectly well that they are in the wrong.

            ‘Really?’ he asked. He sat back. ‘And if she kindles, what kind of life will your red-haired bastard have, got on a serving wench in a barn? Is that the life you want to give to God?’

            A thousand hot answers entered my head. ‘She will not kindle,’ I said. ‘She knew her courses.’

            ‘But you don’t care, do you, Sir William?’ he asked quietly, and his use of my title of knighthood hit me like a lance. ‘I mean, whether she kindles or no is her loss, not yours.’

            By God, I’d thought of those very words and almost said them to him.

            ‘She should guard herself from lust, if she doesn’t want to pay the consequence, eh, Sir Knight?’ he said.

            I was breathing as hard as a man in a fight.

            ‘After all, knighthood does not lie in protecting the weak, does it?’ he asked quietly. ‘It lies in taking whatever you will. Does it not?’

            He didn’t threaten to send me back to Italy, where I would be rich, famous, and where pretty girls were available to me at any time. He didn’t ask me to do any more peasant work; any more, that is, than we all did to get through the day.

            In fact, he embraced me. ‘It is hard,’ he said. ‘Please stay with us.’