The Long Sword(8)

            ‘That coward won’t take the cross. He’ll make some excuse and send King Peter packing,’ I said. Of course, at twenty-four, you know virtually everything there is to know.

            ‘King Charles is a coward?’ Juan was looking at a girl … come to think of it, that girl looked familiar, and when she caught my eye, her face burst into a smile the way a sunflower faces the sun.

            Truly, it is nice to be remembered. Her name was Anne, and she brought us wine, touched the back of my neck lightly with the back of her hand, and went off to avoid the attentions of other patrons.

            Her touch caused me to lose the chain of my thoughts for a moment, and then I shrugged. I was watching Anne. ‘I saw him run at Poitiers. In truth, if he had stood his ground, I think his father would have finished us.’

            And I thought of the terrified man we’d seen at the Louvre in fifty-eight. Remember, Geoffrey?

            Aye.

            But the others wouldn’t have it, that a king could be a coward.

            We were having this conversation, and it led to another about Poitiers, and two young Scottish priests joined us. I remember all this because I wasn’t too drunk, and since they were bound for Scotland, I thought of Kenneth’s letters, and I rose, bowed, and ran to the Hospital.

            And this whole incident only stays in my head because three men tried to rob me. I probably looked unarmed, and because I was running I looked like easy prey.

            I had gone to the Hospital and bounded up the steps, barging into Fra Peter in his robes. He grinned.

            ‘I’ve found some Scottish priests,’ I said, as if that excused everything.

            He went off to hear Mass, and I went to my little cell. I collected the letters and jogged out the gate, down the same alley …

            I saw the movement out of the corner of my right eye.

            The smaller one had a heavy dagger in his right fist, point down, the way most men use a dagger, and he thrust at my head as he leaped. But he’d played this game before – he was a leering bastard with scars, and I saw all that by the flicker of the torches on the Hospital gate.

            As I ducked and pivoted to face him, I raised my left hand to ward the blow, and he flowed around it, changing his blow to the other side, a backhand, descending blow at my right temple.

            And four weeks practice on the road paid off in one heartbeat.

            Unbidden, my right hand rose and covered his right wrist as my left hand passed close to my face, warding me from his point, and in fact he struck his point into the palm of my right hand because I was slow and it was dark, but I was already flowing on, ignoring the pain. My right hand gripped his, and my left rose, the point slipped out of my flesh, and I grabbed the blade and pushed at it, my fingers clumsy with blood and pain, but the grapple on his right wrist and the turning motion did its work and he let go the dagger as I spun him out and to my left, passing my left foot behind his, breaking his arm at the elbow and then throwing him to the ground, a foot on his arm, and his own dagger into his throat.

            But there were three of them.

            The other two had hung back, and I didn’t go to the ground with the small man, but killed him with my back straight and my head up, so I saw the next pair come.

            They had cudgels.

            Cudgels are not to be spat on, friends. A stout oak branch can break a sword or turn a spear, and a strong man can break your arm right through your harness or break your head. Two big men with cudgels are long odds.

            ‘He killed Jacques,’ the nearest man said, as if I’d done him a favour.

            The other man spat.