‘And when you escaped, you avenged yourself on him by taking his wife,’ Emile said. ‘Yes, I know it all full well.’
She rode on.
One by one, her men-at-arms passed me on the narrow trail. I thought of a dozen responses.
Par dieu, gentles, of course that’s how Richard told the story. But I hadn’t seen it coming and had no defence.
It took me a day of riding through the mountains to realise that when Emile reached Venice, I might be able to send for Milady. And then Emile might change her mind.
Because, in the meantime, I had hours to think about just what my love had heard of me. And even to consider those things I had actually done. I can remember riding, and wincing, physically, to think of the times I’d been unfaithful. Writhing in the saddle, cold and weary and mortified.
I have always been a fool for a fair lady, and no mistake.
Marc-Antonio was eager to go, having spent too much time on his knees and too much time eating gruel and, I gathered later, too much time defending his virtue from one of the more lecherous monks. Well, close a hundred men in a small box, and see what happens. But I had had time to think of many things, and I was profuse in my thanks to him for saving me in the village fight, and he was, perhaps unsurprisingly, delighted at my praise. When we camped, I made him go through the postures of defence, and we traded a few blows – gently, as our swords were sharp and he was inexperienced. But the sword I’d taken from the blue and white was a good one and all those days in the saddle were habituating my squire to life with and on horses.
At any rate, we made good time out the gate, and with the help of a pair of shepherds, we cut south and east, bypassing Turin on the plain below us and riding through an early snowfall. I was wary: we were no longer ahead of our foes, or so I reckoned. But we made the passes unharmed, and high in Saint Bernard we caught up with Emile and her party in a monastery. She was withdrawn, and in fact I saw her only at a distance. She was avoiding me, and that was yet another blow.
For the next four days, we travelled like two separate groups, the two of us, and the nine of them.
We were well over the pass, and on our descent, dismounted to lead our horses, when I fell. I was showing off every minute, I now confess, riding too hard, scouting too far, wearing all my harness all the time, trying to earn back her good opinion in the foolish ways boys woo girls. But high above the plains of Lombardy, I tried to ride over the narrow remnants of a bridge instead of crossing lower down at the temporary ford. I was driven by no nobler motive than that Jean-François, her captain, had ordered his men not to try the bridge as being too dangerous.
Three steps across and my riding horse paused, lost his footing on the icy logs, scrambled, and then we were in the rushing water. Autumn is not as bad as spring in the passes, but the water rises, and trickles of meltwater from summer can be swollen by rain to raging torrents.
I went all the way under, and my riding horse came down atop me driving my hips into the stone bed of the stream.
The shock of the cold stole my wits, and my full harness held me under for a long time, long enough that I might have screamed for breath; long enough to repent my sins, and wish that God had granted me time to commit more of them.
And then Raoul, my riding horse, shook himself and rose to his feet and his weight was gone, and the stream was narrow enough that I got my head above water by getting my elbows on a rock before the current swept me away. I went a horse-length downstream and was thrown on a sloping boulder. And there I might well have drowned except that Jean-François was there with a spear. He wrestled me from the grip of the icy stream. Water ran out of my harness, my helmet drained down my back, and my helmet liner was soaked through, all my arming clothes were inundated, and I was very cold.
Jean-François got me to the far bank, and Marc-Antonio had my horse. I was almost in another world: I had come so close to being dead, and I had the oddest view of the world.