The Perfect Sinner. Will Davenport

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СКАЧАТЬ with pants-wetters like those?’ he asked.

      ‘King’s orders. King’s affairs,’ I replied, not wanting to encourage him. Familiarity is to be expected when you’ve spilt blood together, but it wasn’t for me or for him to question the nature of the business my sovereign had charged me with.

      ‘I hear the King’s in his dotage,’ he answered, ‘watching his debts mount up, piling jewels on to this ugly mistress of his and letting the upstart John lord it over the country.’

      The squire stiffened and, unbelievably, I saw his hand go to the grip of his sword.

      ‘Enough, Garciot,’ I said, and I thought I had said it quite quietly until I saw how many turned to stare.

      He raised a hand quickly. ‘My apologies, Sir Guy. While he commands your loyalty, he is still a great king.’

      He turned to the squire and whispered something. The squire’s indignation drained out of him. My hearing is still sharp, but the room was full of the noise of feasting men and when Garciot had gone off to see to his guests I demanded to know what he had said.

      ‘Nothing bad,’ said the squire quickly.

      I wasn’t sure I believed him. Garciot was certainly capable of a final sarcastic quip. ‘Then what?’

      ‘He told me I should study at your feet and mark every word you spoke.’

      Oh really. ‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’

      ‘I don’t lie, Sir Guy.’ For a short, fat studious man, he suddenly looked quite fierce.

      ‘I’m sure you don’t. Please excuse my bad manners. It’s just that I will not tolerate people abusing our king.’

      He nodded. ‘And I won’t stand for people abusing my lord Lancaster.’

      I didn’t show my amusement at the thought of him in hand-to-hand combat with Garciot because he so clearly meant what he said. The fight would have been over before a man could sneeze.

      ‘You have a high regard for Lancaster?’ I enquired.

      That was who Garciot meant by his ‘upstart John’. King Edward’s youngest son, born only yards from where we now sat in Ghent and therefore known as John of Gaunt, as his mother, a Hainaulter, called the town. I wouldn’t have wanted to upset the squire further, but privately I had some sympathy for Garciot’s opinion. John had lately styled himself ‘King of Castile’, which seemed to me to be coming it a bit rich. He was never a man who had much understanding for those below him and I couldn’t fully forgive him for that slaughter at Limoges.

      ‘I had the highest regard for his Duchess.’ The squire sounded sad. He crossed himself, giving a deep sigh. ‘I wrote a poem to her.’

      The beautiful Blanche. I thought of her and joined him in his silence because whenever I had seen Blanche I had thought immediately of Elizabeth, who had the same hair and the same forehead, but who shaded Blanche like a cathedral choir shades a tavern singer. I still long for Elizabeth every single day. We did not have enough time together. I know this life on earth is only our qualification for whichever place comes next, and I would not fear my time to come in Purgatory if it were just for myself. I deserve to suffer. No, what I cannot bear is the thought that I might spend an aeon there, locked away from her. Even worse is the other possibility that, through our sin, I might meet her there.

      They sang her mass every day at Tewkesbury just as they would be singing it now at Slapton. I prayed that would work.

      In the years we had together, right up until the end, she had a way of looking at me which suspended time and conscious thought so that we would gaze at each other in private delight. From across a room our souls could still embrace.

      ‘Sir Guy,’ said the squire, a little hesitantly, jerking me back to this noisy inn.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘I would not wish to upset you or intrude upon you in any way,’ he said, waving a hand for another jug of wine, ‘but I have a great desire to hear men’s stories, and there is still so much I want to ask you in particular.’

      ‘Why me?’

      ‘Because I know that what the landlord said was right. Whenever I have heard your name spoken, it has always been with respect and trust. I want the chance to hear the story of great events told without having to worry about discerning truth and falsehood in the telling.’

      ‘Oh now be careful, young man. My memory is sixty-five years old. All memories are changed in the use and the retelling. I cannot guarantee you truth.’

      ‘I will take the risk.’

      ‘We have a long way to go,’ I said, ‘and precious little other company worth the name.’ It was clear we both felt the same way about our Genoese companions, and my archers, all fine fellows, were men of few words. ‘Ask what you want.’

      ‘When did you first meet this priest?’ he asked, staring over at William who was singing vigorously in the crowd of girls.

      ‘On the twenty-seventh day of August in the year thirteen hundred and forty six, just after the middle of the night.’

      ‘And you question the power of your memory?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘That is a fuller answer than anyone could expect. Where was it?’

      ‘In the Valley of the Clerks.’

      ‘I don’t know of it. Where is it?’

      ‘It is some two hundred yards below the windmill on the down-slope of the plateau beside the village of Crécy-en-Ponthieu.’

      ‘Oh.’ He made a face. ‘That valley. Stupid of me. The great battle. Do you still remember it well?’

      Remember it well? I thought of it almost as often as I thought of Elizabeth.

      ‘It’s an old tale and well-known,’ I said. ‘Were you born then?’

      ‘I was three.’

      ‘I met William in the night when the battle was over. The windmill was burning to light the battlefield and there were fires everywhere to honour the dead.’

      ‘More of theirs than ours.’

      ‘Oh yes. Far, far more. It had been a slaughter.’

      ‘Not just a slaughter,’ he objected. ‘An honourable and magnificent fight, surely? You had been outnumbered by ten to one.’

      ‘Time and willing lips will always twist a tale. Some say it was four to one, others say five. All the same, you could have searched high and low for honour on that field and not found quite enough of it.’

      I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He pounced on it. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘another time perhaps.’

      ‘Please go on. What happened that night?’

      ‘Nobody slept. You never do after a battle. You know that yourself, but the СКАЧАТЬ