The Long Sword(91)

            ‘Emile!’ I said. I’m still not sure what I felt: hope, fear, delight, despair? Why was she not kissing me? But she was alive.

            ‘We were attacked,’ she said, indicating the sword she’d dropped to embrace me. ‘Oh, William. You came.’

            ‘I’m late,’ I admitted.

            She shrugged. ‘My esteemed husband gave himself away, and we were prepared. This is my house, the servants are mine.’ She smiled gently over my shoulder. ‘He’s not an assassin, Amadeus. He is my loyal servante, Sir William Gold.’

            I turned and saw the steward. He was as mad as an angry bull, and his sword was drawn. I had, of course, knocked him down. He was sputtering.

            Well, there’s comedy to be found in most situations, and I bowed to him and begged his forgiveness, which shocked him so much that he forgave me on the spot.

            ‘M’amoure,’ I said, ‘you must leave. Now.’

            ‘Do not call me that,’ Emile said. Her smile said a great deal; injured and injuring too.

            I took that wound like a blow. But I shook it off. ‘Do you know the Bishop of Cambrai?’ I asked. ‘The Bishop, now, of Geneva?’

            ‘The Lord of Geneva’s younger brother? I should think so – I grew up with him,’ she said. ‘He pulled legs off flies,’ she went on. ‘Picked his nose and ate it.’

            ‘He is my enemy and he means to harm you to force me to serve him,’ I said.

            She put a hand on my arm, and the gesture was warmer than her words had been. ‘He may intend to harm me and then to harm you,’ she said. ‘But he won’t care about the consequence. He is not the kind to make a deep and subtle plan. He’s more the kind to wreak havoc and claim later it was part of a plan.’ Her smile was the same difficult glimpse of the inner woman I’d seen when she told me of her husband. Not a smile so much as a defence. ‘I grew up with this man, William. I know him.’

            ‘Then he will not harm you – if you shared—’ I imagine I stammered.

            She sneered. ‘Robert would sell his mother into slavery to advance his ends or satisfy his will.’

            ‘Someone should put him down like a dog, then’ I said.

            She laughed, a true laugh, a hearty one. ‘I promised myself I would harden my heart,’ she muttered. ‘But by God, William, it gladdens me to see you. Alive. A knight.’ She shrugged. ‘Even if you have forgotten me.’

            I bowed. ‘I wore your favour at the Emperor’s tournament in Krakow!’ I said. ‘I have worn your favour in battle in France and Italy.’

            ‘Did you wear it while you swived half the maidens of Europe?’ she asked, and her eyes were blank, and I suspect I stepped back. I knew her well enough to know that she was angry.

            Then she turned her head away. ‘Pay me no heed, William.’ She put on a false smile. ‘We shall be friends and not talk of the past.’

            Hot replies, defences and apologies bubbled to the top of my head, but I ignored them. By God, love can be like combat in this, that sometimes you must take a dangerous decision and live or die by the consequences.

            ‘We must leave,’ I said.

            She looked at me.

            ‘Emile, believe as you like. Three months ago, you were going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem with the Passagium Generale.’

            She shrugged. ‘A beautiful dream of another time.’

            I shook my head vehemently. ‘The Passagium is still active. My lord Pierre Thomas is the legate, and the King of Cyprus is to command us. I have only left him these two fortnights ago at Vienna. He will be in Venice by now.’