I share with Marc-Antonio a certain willingness to spit at my superiors, but as they had him and I didn’t, I thought I’d be meek. I bowed my head. My sword was already loose in my sheath and they hadn’t taken it from me. Marc-Antonio threw me a glance as they escorted him down the hall and into a small room that opened off the great fireplace.
‘The last time I summoned you, you chose not to come. This time you have come, and this is the wiser course. Agree?’ His voice snapped like a silk flag in the wind.
‘Yes, my lord,’ I said.
‘You suffer from weaknesses of the flesh. Many do. If I eradicate them, you will be a better man, will you not? Agree?’
‘I agree that I suffer from weakness, my lord, I am a sinful—’ I tried to sound contrite – and stupid.
‘Save your false piety, Gold. You are a dog of a killer like the mongrel at my elbow. I know your kind. You have more loyalty than most, although I am not surprised that a man and not a woman brought you running. He’s quite pretty and Camus wants him. Don’t you?’
Camus spat something.
‘You are forbidden to speak, monsieur,’ the bishop said.
‘I am not a sodomite!’ Camus said.
The bishop laughed, and his ringed hand struck Camus – hard. The Bourc went a livid red-brown. Blood emerged from where the bishop’s amethyst ring had cut him. ‘Please do not speak,’ the bishop said.
Camus mastered himself.
The bishop went on, ‘I know your kind, as I was saying. I want you to understand that, and to understand that if you do what I tell you, you will be rich and well-contented, and if you do not, you will be dead and so will everyone you value. I am spending the time to speak to you in person because men like you and John Hawkwood are becoming very valuable. But not because you are valuable enough to me to make bargains. I give the commands, you obey. Clear?’
I met his eyes. Sadly, they were not mad. Not crazed. I had seen the poor creatures in London and Paris and Venice who are mad clear through, who believe they are Prester John. I saw one, caught in London, who had killed four women with a knife.
The Bishop of Geneva looked at me with the eyes of a banker, or a clever merchant. Or a bad priest. Or a great lord.
‘No, my lord,’ I said. ‘I will not obey you.’ I gathered courage and spoke. ‘My spiritual lord is Father Pierre Thomas—’
‘Spare me the recitation of your devotion to that penniless adventurer. He has no see and no hope of every commanding one. Patriarch of Constantinople – I wish he would go there and martyr himself with the schismatics!’ His spit flecked me. Mention of Father Pierre made him angry.
‘He is my lord,’ I said.
The bishop smiled and squirmed in his throne, resettling himself. ‘How much would it cost me to have you kill him?’ he asked. ‘Would a hundred ducats cover it?’
I made myself breathe. I was scared, but he had taken too long. My terror was past the point of incoherence. And I had my sword, given me by the Emperor. I stood. My knees hurt, and I had been kneeling in front of the bishop all through our interview. Camus stepped back – and drew.
I did not. Camus was too far from me to strike in one step. ‘You have spent too much time with the carrion crow you employ,’ I said. ‘You imagine things that are untrue, my lord. I ignored your first summons, as you call it, because I was not here at all—’
‘Please shut up,’ the bishop said.
‘I came this time to retrieve my squire, who I will now take, and if you, my lord, or the Bourc, your slave, crosses my path, I’ll kill you right here.’