He frowned. ‘I had to be sure.,’ he said.
I sobbed a bit – relief, mostly. I’m not proud of that part. Finally, when I was master of myself, I dried my eyes. ‘What in God’s name is this about?’ I asked. ‘I can’t make sense of it!’
Juan di Heredia smiled his thin smile. He got his beads off a hook, and pulled a full robe on over his arming clothes, which he wore all the time. He sat and tapped his teeth with his thumb. ‘That you cannot make sense of it speaks only to your youth,’ he said. ‘It is about power.’
‘Power?’ I asked.
Di Heredia nodded. ‘If the crusade succeeds, the man who is legate will be the Pope. Even if it fails, that man will probably be Pope. The bishop of Geneva and his friends need the papacy to remain as it is.’ He made a sign I didn’t know. ‘Come, let us sing.’
I shook my head and followed him.
He paused. ‘Do you know the gospels, my young knight?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But not by heart.’
He nodded. A lay brother passed him, and a sergeant, too old for service, smiled at me and beckoned me to come faster. The chapel was half empty.
‘If I told you all I knew, you would scourge me with whips of fire,’ di Heredia said.
After chapel, I grabbed Marc-Antonio by the hand and led him to my cell.
‘Pack!’ I ordered.
He wept a little and swore he had not betrayed me.
I hardened my heart – not that hard, for me – and gave orders. Then I went down to the scriptorium and took a scrap of parchment (the strips from the edge that are of no use to God or man) and I wrote Fra Juan di Heredia a letter.
I told him that I had to go. That I would rejoin Father Pierre in Venice, and that I had a duty outside the Order that I had to fulfil.
By the time I returned to my cell, my malle was packed, my harness was in baskets, and my white-faced squire had buckled on his dagger.
The ‘bandits’ had taken his sword.
‘I’ll solve that for you later,’ I said. ‘Wear your mail.’
Di Heredia was waiting for me in the stable. He was armed. I have occasionally got the better of him, but not often.
‘You are not making this easy for me,’ he said.
I shrugged and saddled my riding horse.
‘I would rather you were where I could see you for a couple of days. The guilty flee where no man pursueth.’ His hand was on his sword hilt.
I understood then, as never before, that this was all very, very serious. That di Heredia didn’t trust me.
‘I must go,’ I said. ‘I have put someone’s life in danger. I have no choice.’ I shrugged.
‘Who?’ di Heredia asked.
I shook my head.
‘Tell me,’ he ordered. ‘Guillaume! I do not care whose knees you push apart. This is war. And a nasty kind of war.’
My face went hot, but I got my girth done up.
‘Guillaume!’ di Heredia said, and he was coming around my horse.
‘She’s called Madame d’Herblay!’ Marc-Antonio said. ‘I’m sorry, Sir William!’