Lord Geoffrey's Fancy Page 10

  Of the ancient Empire of Romanie the Franks held the city of Constantinople, the islands, and the mainland provinces of Satines and Lamorie. The rest of the mainland, from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, was divided between the Grifon lords of Nice and Wallachia. Nice had the lion's share, from the strip of Asia on the frontier of the Turks as far west as the great town of Salonique. Wallachia was a land of mountains and mountaineers, poor, warlike and savage. According to Melisande, Michael Angelus the Despot intended to alter all that with the aid of his Frankish sons-in-law.

  "Every Roman knows what is coming," she ended her exposition. "The Wallachians and the Franks will drive the Nicenes back to Asia. Then the Despot Michael will proclaim himself Emperor, with his capital at Salonique; and Lamorie will be enlarged. Sir Geoffrey is sure to be given some part of our new province. That's where you must ask him for a Briwerr fee, which one day will come to our little Geoffrey."

  "It all sounds very hopeful," I answered, still mildly puzzled. "The geography is a bit beyond me. Where is Wallachia? And will any share of the conquered land go to our Emperor Baldwin?"

  "Wallachia? North and east of Satines. You must have seen it from the castle of Oro in Negripont. It's called after the Wallachians who pasture their flocks there, but Romans live in it as well. As for the Emperor Baldwin, it's no use pretending he has a future. The Romans take it for granted that soon Constantinople will change hands. The only question is whether it will fall to Wallachia or to Nice."

  I was nettled. Why should these Grifons suppose that the famous trophy of the Fourth Crusade was about to fall into their hands?

  "Grifons in Constantinople? What next? The strongest city in the world, and a garrison of Frankish knights and Venetian sailors. Can you imagine Grifons storming those walls?"

  "I have seen the walls and you haven't, William, so don't get excited. I agree that they are very strong, and that it would be hard to storm them. Nobody hopes to turn out the Emperor by force. They expect he will go away of his own accord, because he has no land to enfeoff his knights and no money to pay them. One day the Venetians will get tired of keeping their ships in the Golden Horn with no chance of profit. The Romans of the city dislike Frankish rule. When the Frankish garrison leaves the Emperor must leave with them."

  I did not answer. Melisande sometimes complains that I cannot discuss public affairs without losing my temper, and I did not want to give her cause for legitimate complaint. The trouble is that we look at public affairs from different angles. I see Right battling against Wrong, and assume that Right must triumph in the end. She sees only strength and weakness, and assumes that the weak will be beaten. When I argue with her she will admit that God defends the Right sometimes, though not always. But she says that in questions of sovereignty and dominion there is no right or wrong, but only a struggle between tyrants. She supports the Franks against the schismatics of the east; but merely because it is the cause of her husband and her dead parents, not because she holds it to be righteous.

  By the time we reached Andreville I knew all about the politics of Romanie; in fact I knew too much, so that I saw subtleties and significant hints in every casual word. But that also is one of the customs of the country, A Grifon cannot hear a pedlar cry figs without wondering whether a hidden meaning is concealed in the message.

  The wedding in the family church of the Villehardouins was an elaborate ceremony, a mixture of the ritual of east and west. A crown was held over the head of the bride, but the bridegroom stood bareheaded. The canon of the nuptial Mass was sung in Latin by the Bishop of Andreville, the Gospel and Epistle and the proper were intoned by priests of the Greek rite in their own tongue. The questions and answers of the marriage were repeated in both languages, so as to be binding everywhere.

  All the same, the bride's relatives did not receive Communion. There might be Grifon priests on the altar. But those priests had sworn obedience to Rome; to any Grifon that is more disgusting than the Bulgarian heresy.

  Afterwards there was a short breakfast at tables set up in the main square (for in Romanie you can count on fine weather). In the afternoon we all rode a few miles to the castle of Clarence. The decaying town of Andreville could not lodge such a large company.

  The tournaments and feasting must have cost a mint of money, but the new Princess had brought a great dowry with her. Everyone was happy, even the bridal couple; which is not always the case when a middle-aged widower marries a pretty young girl.

  The Princess Anna was an attractive girl, with some Frankish blood; her saintly mother had been born a Petralipha, descended from a knight named Petrus de Alpibus who had settled in the east long ago. But for two generations the family had followed the customs of Romanie, and in sentiment Anna was entirely Grifon. She wore the heavy shapeless robes of a Grifon lady, so that from a distance you could not tell whether she was male or female; but at close range the paint on her face made her look like a western whore. In eating she used a golden fork, with a great pearl in the handle. She used it gracefully, without dropping her food or missing her mouth, so that even the most hidebound Frank saw that the custom could be courteous in those who had been trained to it from childhood.

  Prince William was delighted with her. She had been educated in the true spirit of royalty, to marry a stranger and please him so that in old age she might rule through her children; she was more than twenty years younger than her husband, and prepared to endure married life while awaiting the consolations of widowhood. Her manners were charming, a little more formal than the Frankish mode; she was one of those tender, shrinking, feminine wives who leave everything to the gentlemen, confident that the gentlemen will follow their advice.

  In addition to her suite of ladies and clerks she brought a small bodyguard. On their first formal appearance, at the wedding feast, these guardsmen made a sensation. They were not a bit like the Grifons we were used to.

  The vulgar legend that all Grifons are cowards is not believed by the Franks of Romanie; we know that when Grifons choose to fight in earnest they can be very tough customers. But it is true that they are slow to take up arms, swallowing slights and challenges that would have a true knight calling for his sword whatever the odds. In general Grifons want to die in their beds, not on the field of honour; and they value bodily prowess lower than cunning, provided the cunning leads to victory.

  The attendants of Princess Anna were not at all that kind of man. They wore heavy Grifon robes and towering Grifon head-dresses, so unlike our tight surcoats and fiat coifs; their eyes and lips were improved by paint after the Grifon custom, which always startles a Frank when first he sees it. (But this custom is not really wicked. As Melisande pointed out to me, if it is right to alter the colour of your face by washing it, it cannot be wrong to improve the colour of your lips with red paint.) Their beards were plucked to a point and strongly scented. They must have taken a long time to get dressed for the wedding.

  But in their long robes they moved easily; their boots of scented leather were apt for walking; their under-tunics were girdled with wide silken sashes, and in the sashes were three or four short swords or long daggers. These men were warriors, as much as any Frankish knight. There was something in the way they strode up the nave of St. James that reminded me of the Esclavons; after four years in Romanie I could recognise a mountaineer, even when his legs were hidden under a long gown.

  Seeing my interest, Melisande whispered to me. "Those are the chieftains of Wallachia. Their fathers carried the Angelus banner into Salonique. Now do you see why I expect this alliance will give us new land for a Briwerr fee?"

  At the feasting in Clarence the guardsmen attracted a good deal of attention. Of course some people were saying that our Prince disparaged himself by marrying the daughter of a savage hill-chieftain, but to that there was a crushing answer. If the lady Helen Angelina was good enough for King Manfred Hohen-staufen, then her sister must be good enough for Villehardouin of Champagne and Lamorie.

  For a week there wa
s jousting and hunting all day, and feasting in the evening. To live in such a crowd of strangers seemed odd, almost like living in a large army. It was like being in an army in another way also, for everyone you met talked of the coming war.

  No war had been proclaimed; this was not a parliament, and Prince William had not even spoken publicly to his followers. But everyone knew that war was in the offing. A great lord does not marry a schismatic foreigner merely to have a foreign mother for his children.

  Sir Geoffrey was delighted at the prospect of battle. Riding back from a hunt I had a long talk with him. One of his hounds had been injured by a boar, and I had volunteered to take it on my saddle back to the kennels; since I was riding a hackney borrowed from the Carytena stable this was more or less my duty. Sir Geoffrey rode with me because he wanted to oversee the dressing of the hound's injury.

  "Next month we shall be riding destriers," he said cheerfully, "and properly dressed. I hate the feel of a riding boot against my stirrup, where there should be mail. That last battle at Mount Caride was no fun at all; just one joust and then a lot of galloping in the heat, and afterwards a tedious lonely imprisonment to pay for it. But after the next charge we shall be digging our hands to the elbows in caskets of rich Grifon jewels. Romanie is a wonderful land to plunder, and a most difficult land to defend. Thank Heaven next time we shall be on the attack."

  "Do you enjoy killing men, my lord?" I inquired. It may sound an odd question, but I was not trying to be impudent. Sir Geoffrey was by common consent the best knight in all Romanie; I myself wanted to be a good knight, and I was eager to know how a good knight felt about war.

  Sir Geoffrey stared at me, but he took my point. He thought for a moment before answering.

  "I don't look forward to killing men," he said consideringly, "though it comes easily enough and I sleep well afterwards. Besides, how often do you kill a knight? You knock him off his horse and leave him to take his chance on the ground. As to the common foot, there's seldom any need to hurt them. They will run, or surrender, as soon as their leaders are beaten. No, the real thrill of battle is seeing all that crowd of men eager to kill you, and not letting them do it There's no finer sport in the world."

  "I don't think I have ever killed a man, unless you count Esclavons," I went on, pursuing my own train of thought. "I find killing horses rather horrible."

  "Who doesn't? Sometimes you can't avoid it. A pity no one can train a destrier to surrender when he has had enough. By the way, cousin William, how are you horsed for this campaign ? Your last destrier broke down, didn't he, when we ran away so fast from Mount Caride? No offence meant, I ran faster than any of you. But you will need a good horse in the summer."

  "I have my eye on one, my lord. He's more or less half bought. We are still haggling over the price. An import from Italy, not a local nag. A gelding. But he may be safer than a stallion among those precipices."

  "I'll lend you the money for him, if that's the difficulty. But you must pay it back out of your future wages. I had to give a good many presents in connexion with my trial, and at the moment I'm hard up. A gelding will carry you well enough, but one day you ought to try a local charger. Your horse wouldn't have been exported from Italy if the Italians had thought he was any good."

  "Perhaps I know better than the Italians," I answered shortly. Anyone takes offence at a slur on his judgement of horseflesh.

  "Perhaps you do, cousin William," he said pleasantly. "It won't be long before the matter is tested. We march at Pentecost, I believe,"

  "We all look forward to it, my lord. But could you tell me whither we shall march, and whom we shall attack ? Nothing has been said in public about this campaign, and today we are at peace with all the world. Perhaps it's a silly question, everyone else seems to know all about it. But I have been in Romanie for less than five years, and I find local politics most baffling."

  "It's quite simple, really. The big surprise is that uncle William has despaired of Frankish Constantinople. I dare say he is right. He thinks about these things and I don't. But if the Emperor Baldwin is chased out some Grifon will get the city. Two Grifons are in the running, the fellow in Nice who hates Franks, and the fellbw in Wallachia who has a more open mind. So we all help the fellow in Wallachia against the fellow in Nice, and when our man has Constantinople he gives us some of the land he holds now, land he won't want then because to a Grifon Wallachia is not really civilised. It ought to work out very well. In fact it must be a sound scheme, because everyone backs it."

  "Everyone, my lord? Do you mean we have other allies?"

  "Indeed yes. It's all fixed up. Michael Angelus leads his army to the eastward; you can see it's a good army from the bodyguard who came with the Princess. All the Franks of Romanie march with him; not only Lamorie but Satines and La Sole and La Bondonice, everyone who fought at Mount Caride on either side. But the big news is that King Manfred will join in. Some say he will come with all his power, but I think that's too good to be true. It's definite that he has promised to send three hundred knights to fight for his father-in-law, and Manfred is a man of his word."

  "That's news indeed. Why, it will be practically another Crusade!"

  "You may think that, cousin William, but don't say it. You can't have a Crusade led by an excommunicate King. At least, it's been done, and by Manfred's own father, but it wasn't a success. Besides, talk about Crusading annoys our Grifon allies. We shall march to bring peace to the disordered Empire, and to thrust back the Turks. Grifon burgesses like that kind of language, so they won't defend their cities against us. But in these parts Crusaders have a bad name. Oh, and by the way, I've just remembered that all this is highly confidential. I heard it at the Prince's council, and he doesn't want it known. So don't tell anyone until uncle William announces it officially."

  After a minute he added: "But in Nice they will have known it since the marriage was proposed. Probably earlier, for that matter. Grifons know everything that a Frank plans to do."

  "That's true, my lord," I agreed. "But in this case advance knowledge won't help them. No Grifon lord can stand up to the power we shall bring against the east. May I tell my wife ? I value her advice on local matters."

  "Don't bother to tell her—wait until she tells you. The lady Melisande has many friends among the Grifons. But that's enough about war and politics. Mind the hound doesn't fall. With a gash like that on his leg he'll never be sound again. But even though he can't hunt I want to breed from him."

  After a week of tournaments and feasting Prince William left Clarence for La Cremonie, and we went back to Carytena. There had still been no official summons to the coming war, but everyone in Lamorie knew it was to begin before Pentecost. It was a bad time to buy a destrier. I had to close the deal without further bargaining, and to borrow heavily from my lord's steward to make up the price. The horse I bought had some high-sounding Italian name, too grand for an animal not in the top class; I called him Tom, so that too much should not be expected from him. He was a big brown eight-year-old gelding, sure-footed and a good jumper and up to any weight, quiet in a crowd and willing to do what was asked of him. But his large body stood on short though sound legs, so that he was slow; and he leaned on the bit and bored whenever you made him hurry. A mule could have caught him on the flat; if I got into a tight place I must jump a wall.

  The lady Isabel came with us to Carytena. She was to be castellan while we were on campaign, and it was rumoured that her uncle had advised her to live with her husband lest she lose him. This year she was not pregnant (in fact she never started another child), and in spring Carytena can be reasonably bright and cheerful. But she was not getting on well with my lord. He could not forget that her advice had persuaded him into the felony which lost him the rank of a baron of the conquest; she sometimes murmured, so Melisande told me, that the best knight in all Romanie should have taken over the defence of Estives and avoided a humiliating peace. They shared the state bed in the state chamber, but they were rarely together
in the daytime. When the formal summons came to muster at the isthmus everyone was prepared for war. It was an unusually fine spring, with birds singing in every tree; we all longed to be ravaging in hostile territory. There was a veteran sergeant who could remember the vanished kingdom of Salonique, destroyed by the Bulgarians before I was born; he told us that it was much better land than Lamorie, flat and full of hard-working and obedient peasants. Salonique was reputed to be the wealthiest city in Romanie after Constantinople; it had been sacked more than once in the last twenty years, but there should still be plenty left. If this campaign went according to plan it should make us all rich.

  Melisande prophesied that it would not go according to plan. She turned down my suggestion that she should ride with the army, partly because she thought a third little Briwerr might be on the way, partly, as she frankly confessed, because she was frightened.

  "Those Wallachs are not ordinary Romans," she explained. "In Constantinople they are regarded as treacherous savages. Michael Angelus himself is not an ordinary Roman. If he were a man of honour he would not have called in Frankish allies; no honourable Roman would lead foreigners against his own people. Franks never understand how Romans hate and fear them. And since he is not a man of honour he may very well betray his allies. Mind you stick in the middle of the mesnie. If Sir Geoffrey tries to send you off with a party of mountaineers make some excuse; they would murder any Frank who rode with them alone. The worst of it is that even if you beat the Nicenes you are sure to quarrel with your allies immediately afterwards."

  "That's going too far, my dear," I said as soothingly as I could. "We are setting off to plunder between Salonique and Constantinople, and in that rich land there will be enough for all."