Lord Geoffrey's Fancy Page 5

  Sir Geoffrey had one private worry which did not afflict his comrades. He might find himself charging with couched lance against his father-in-law. So far the Megaskyr stood neutral, but it was no secret that his sympathies lay with the dalle Carceri.

  We saw to the shoes of our horses and gave them extra corn. The armourers were busy. Sir John de Catabas, the constable, inspected us frequently, and made us joust at the quintain. For a long day the whole mesnie of Carytena practised wheeling and charging as a squadron, to make sure that our horses would gallop in close ranks without fighting their neighbours. Perhaps we should have practised this more often; but near the castle there was no ground level enough, so that for that single drill we must ride many miles.

  Then we heard the news of the colloquy at Rupo, which made war inevitable. I did not like what had been done, though most people saw nothing wrong in it. After all, the law is the law; if right is on your side you should take every advantage of it. But taking advantage of the letter of the law is an old Villehardouin custom which does not appeal to me.

  Prince William had summoned the two leading dalle Carceri barons. Most astonishingly, they obeyed the summons. They had just concluded an alliance with Venice, which probably gave them courage to face the Prince. Besides, they may have expected, as most people expected, that he would argue for a few months more before proceeding to extremes. But the two dalle Carceri barons were loaded with fetters as soon as they defied the Prince, and sent across the lordship of Satines to lie in gaol in Andreville.

  So we were summoned to muster under the Villehardouin banner at the bridge of Negripont. We also must ride across the lordship of Satines, which might be about to join our enemies; so we could not start until the whole knight-service of Lamorie was ready to ride with us. Meanwhile we heard that Prince William, with only his own mesnie, had captured the town of Negripont and most of the island. But as we were passing the isthmus news came that the Venetian bailey, a man of great energy, had collected sergeants from the dalle Carceri castles and thrown back the Prince across the strait.

  The knight-service of all Lamorie made up a good army, though we were not at full strength. No one came from Argue or Naples, the fees held by the Megaskyr as vassal to the Prince; it was even more serious that no one came from Veligoute, one of the twelve baronies of the conquest. That barony had come by marriage to Sir William de la Roche, younger brother of the Megaskyr, so that its allegiance was always doubtful. Now Sir William had openly turned felon, as a party to the treaty between Venice and dalle Carceri.

  But we had Sir Geoffrey de Bruyere to lead us, the best knight in all Romanie; we would soon make short work of Lombard city-nobles and bow-legged Venetian horse-marines. When we reached the narrow strait we could see the island beyond, open country where Franks might charge and overthrow their enemies.

  This was the first time I had been so far to the eastward, and the geography was puzzling until I grasped that a great many different places are all called Negripont. This was originally the name of the strait between the island and the mainland, a strait so narrow that is often called a river though its water is salt. At the narrowest point of the strait is a bridge; half-way along the bridge is a little rock, on which is perched the castle of Negripont, At the far end of the bridge lies the town of Negripont, at that time in Venetian hands. Stretching for a long way north and south, and for a short way to the east, is the island of Negripont. I hope this description is clear to the reader; it was a long time before it became clear to me.

  Our first task was to capture the castle, and then the town behind it. This looked to be a very dangerous assault. Like any other knight, I hate to leave my horse and fight on foot; but no one can ride up a scaling ladder. However, the war was still in its half-hearted beginning, and no one's blood was up. The Venetians had no ships in these parts, and so could not harass us as we defiled across the bridge. At sight of our great army their courage failed, and they withdrew from the castle without fighting.

  The town is encircled by sound masonry walls, but these fortifications are badly planned. At the far end of the bridge a rocky foreshore leaves room for attackers to deploy in line. Of course the wall ought to rise sheer from the water, but it was laid out by Grifons at a time when their Emperor had undisputed command of the sea. His engineers thought it more important to provide shelter for his fleet than to close the gap at the bridgehead.

  We had to fight for the town, but not very desperately. After a night in the castle we rode to the end of the bridge. Sir Geoffrey had been given command of the van, so his mesnie came first in the host. Somehow we got off the bridge, our horses stumbling over the seaweed-covered rocks. Then a party of Grifon foot brought up some kind of machine with which they broke down the gate. Grifons are clever at making siege-engines; the trouble is to persuade them to get close enough to the enemy to use them.

  When the great oaken gates fell inwards the Venetians withdrew from the walls. Sir Geoffrey led us at a gallop into the town, though I flinched under my shield as we passed through the archway; we were sitting targets for anyone above with a cauldron of boiling pitch and his wits about him. But Italian burgesses don't like facing knights in full career, and we got through unhurt. At the end of the street stood a group of crossbowmen, but they were only keeping an eye on us. We drew up to see what they would do, for no one wants to ride a good warhorse against crossbows at short range. When they saw the town gate firmly in our hands they very sensibly dodged round the street corner.

  Technically, the town had fallen by assault. But there had been so little fighting that Sir Geoffrey was able to persuade us to forgo our right of pillage. This was still a friendly war, between two groups of Franks who saw themselves as exiles in foreign Romanie; we had no blood to avenge, except for a few Grifons shot down while working their machines. We did not want to sack the shops of harmless Italian merchants.

  Prince William took formal possession of the town of Negripont, and then went home to defend Lamorie from seaborne raids. Sir Geoffrey was left in command, with instructions to reduce as much as he could of the island before winter. For a few days we were quartered in the castle, where we lived very well; the leading merchants had collected a good ransom, grateful that we had spared them from sack. Sir Geoffrey distributed it honestly, and my share was three golden hyperpers.

  Negripont is more than a hundred miles long, though you can ride across it in half a day. Our mission was to hold the open country for the Prince; a large undertaking, but made easier because the land is flat and more suitable for cavalry than most of the mainland. Besides, we had allies on the spot, for not every baron of those parts upheld the shocking breach of the laws of inheritance which had been procured by the Venetian bailey; in the far south Castel Rosso was held for the Prince by Sir Otho de Cicon, a Burgundian who did not like Italians. But the disputed barony of the Princess Carintana lay round the castle of Oro in the north; perhaps the most northerly of all the castles of the Franks, looking across a strait to the hills of Wallachia. After a few days of rest Sir Geoffrey led us northward.

  It was a scrambling little campaign, amusing and not very dangerous. Lombard knights at the head of their Grifon peasants disputed our advance, but nowhere were they strong enough to challenge us to battle. To conquer as much land as we could we split into small groups; every day there would be a joust with a few Lombards or a skirmish with local archers.

  I was among the dozen knights who rode always behind Sir Geoffrey; and I saw why he had won his reputation as the best knight in all Romanie. He was a very fine jouster; that is a thing that can be measured, and there was no doubt of it. Whenever a Lombard challenged us he would ride out alone, at a trot, his horse playing with the bit under perfect control. Not until the last few yards would he set it galloping, but then he bounded along, his legs seeming rooted to the saddle. The distance was judged so accurately that he always seemed to jump into his opponent, with a crack of steel lancepoint on wooden shield that could be heard
far off. Usually his opponent shot out of the saddle; but if he met a good horseman then both horse and rider would be overthrown together.

  But skill in jousting is not much more than a social accomplishment, a trick to win smiles from ladies and prizes in peaceful tourneys. In a genuine battle you can only joust once, in the opening charge; and some good jousters are notoriously little use on a stricken field. What made Sir Geoffrey a good knight was his skill in foraging, his management of his mesnie, his eye for country. At the end of the day he always led us to a small but prosperous village, where there was enough to eat and we could not be ambushed among crowded houses; he saw to it that our horses had full mangers, and that we ate a proper dinner of mutton and bread. Then we slept all together on clean straw in some weather-tight barn, with sentries posted. He would not allow us to rape, or burn houses, or plunder the church. In the morning we would ride on, having taken from the peasants no more than they were accustomed to give to peaceful travellers. Except that we did not pay for our food and lodging, we behaved as though we were stopping at an inn.

  Word of our conduct went before us. Peasants did not flee from their villages at our approach. As a result we lived in comfort. Of course this method of waging war gave us no chance to grow rich, and there was some grumbling. Sir Geoffrey answered that we were not ravaging the lands of our enemies but taking over a fee which belonged by right to the Prince our lord, and that it was our duty to hand it over in good condition. Besides, in a strange country to have the peasants friendly is a great advantage.

  We never rode into an ambush. Sir Geoffrey could spot from the movement of sheep or the behaviour of birds where armed men might be hiding; and he kept a good look-out without ever relaxing. He could see, from the layout of the farms, where there must be a ford or a pass through the hills, so that we never wasted time in a blind alley. He made us ride in close order, shield on arm; so that even if his precautions should fail a sudden onset would not do us much harm. Every morning he inspected our horses, and the duty of keeping watch at night was fairly apportioned.

  We were as safe as men at war can ever be, we were well fed, and we seemed to be on the winning side. Sir Geoffrey was the perfect leader for a campaign of this kind. Every man in his mesnie would have followed him anywhere, or risked his life to get his leader out of a tight place.

  After ten days of this pleasant excursion we reached the castle of Oro, a strong place and the centre of Princess Carintana's barony. The small Lombard garrison was not provisioned for a siege and not very fervently attached to the unrighteous cause of dalle Carceri. Sir Geoffrey offered to let them go free, with horse and arms and baggage, on condition they yielded the castle undamaged. They accepted gladly. As far as the mesnie of Escorta was concerned the war was over, for we had won it.

  Until autumn we remained in the castle of Oro, collecting the harvest on behalf of Prince William. The peasants gave us no trouble. They are a peaceful, cowardly race, for many generations oppressed by pirates; sheeplike compared to their cousins on the rocky mainland. They were not truly loyal, as were the peasants of Escorta; for they could see across the water the Wallachian hills, where the schismatic church of their allegiance flourishes in freedom. But they were glad to see Oro garrisoned by competent warriors who could keep the pirates at a distance.

  Shortly before Advent Sir Geoffrey received permission to go home. The whole island of Negripont was safely in Villehardouin hands. But the Venetians had not admitted defeat and the war would begin again in the spring, so we left a strong garrison in Oro. I was one of the lucky majority who went home to keep Christmas at Carytena.

  That was a good Christmas. My dear Melisande had given birth to a son. My lord was his godfather, so we named him Geoffrey. We hired a peasant-woman as nurse, since I had brought home a little plunder; and lived in great content in our warm snug room at the top of the tower.

  But Sir Geoffrey still lacked an heir, for the lady Isabel had miscarried. All that winter she was ill and discontented, blaming her misfortune on the cold water and mountain air of Escorta. She went about telling anyone who would listen that she would never bear healthy children in such an unhealthy place; if Sir Geoffrey wanted sons to come after him he must bring back his wife to breezy lowland Estives.

  Another of her grievances was the lack of company. She had married a neighbour, she would explain, because she had counted on frequent visits from the brothers and cousins who had been the companions of her childhood. That year no one travelled the isthmus road. So far the Megaskyr had taken no part in the war, though the lord of Veligoute had openly adhered to the enemies of his lord; but everyone knew that the house of la Roche favoured dalle Carceri and Venice. Sir Geoffrey, the champion of Lamorie, was not invited to pass Christmas at Estives. For the first time in her life, as she frequently reminded us, the lady Isabel must celebrate the feast of the family without her kindred.

  Melisande and I, and little Geoffrey Briwerr, passed a happy Christmas. We were together, and soon I must leave to continue the campaign; so we wanted no outside company. Carytena as a whole was not a happy place, and Sir Geoffrey went about with a hangdog air. It was hard to believe that the best knight in all Romanie was bullied by his wife; but very courteous knights are peculiarly open to feminine blackmail.

  Meanwhile the war, which we thought we had won, spread on all sides. During the winter it caused grave inconvenience throughout Lamorie. As usual, the Venetians were at the bottom of the trouble. They had been taken by surprise, with their eastern fleet at Constantinople to help the Emperor or at Acre to carry on their eternal feud with Genoa; that was why we had been able to drive them from the castle and town of Negripont. Now reinforcements came from the Adriatic, Venice sent only three galleys, but Prince William had no warships whatever. The Venetian ships held the River of Negripont, so that castle and town were closely besieged. But we supposed that the ships could not stay there for long, since there was no harbour nearby where they could take in fresh water and rest the rowers.

  As a counter, Prince William blockaded Coron, the Venetian harbour on the south coast of Lamorie. The investment was very strict, so that the merchants of the town could not deal with their customers inland. But we could not harm the Venetians behind their walls. They just treated Coron as an island, like the many other islands they hold in these seas; and sent in stores and reinforcements by ship.

  Prince William tried again. Since he had no ships of his own he called in the Genoese, who are always willing to fight the Venetians anywhere. We hoped that the Genoese squadron would attack Coron from the sea. But our allies were looking for plunder, not for hard knocks; instead of attacking where their enemies would fight back they sallied out from Malvoisie, the harbour the Prince had placed at their disposal, to prey on unarmed Venetian merchantmen sailing to the Black Sea.

  The Venetians besieging Negripont found a harbour nearer than Coron. The Megaskyr allowed them to use his port of Naples, which he held in fee from Prince William. He still pretended to neutrality, and made the Venetians pay cash for their fresh water and provisions; but even neutrality was felonious after his lord had summoned him to war. On the other hand, though Naples was a fee of Lamorie he had never done homage for it, so there was something to be said for him. There are few wars in which one party is wholly in the wrong.

  In the south our peasants passed a very disturbed winter; for the Venetians from Coron and Naples, and even our Genoese allies from Malvoisie, preyed on coastal villages when more valuable quarry was scarce. In these conditions few merchants dared to cross the Adriatic, and the trade of Andreville and Estives declined. Even the Pope took a hand in the affair, though I cannot see that it was in any way his business. Papal letters commanded Prince William to cease attacking his fellow-Christians, and to set free the dalle Carceri barons whom he had imprisoned at the beginning of the war. Of course we were all of us faithful sons of Holy Church; that was our justification for taking the lands of schismatic Grifons. But Prince William de
cided that the Pope was misinformed about the affairs of Romanie and his letters mistaken. It was all the easier to defy the Curia because King Manfred and his Ghibellines held the greater part of Italy. Unless Romanie was to be cut off from the west we must keep on good terms with the King of Sicily, even if he happened to be excommunicate; and so far as we took any interest in the troubles of Italy we were more Ghibelline than Guelf.

  The prisoners remained in their dungeon and the war continued.

  In the spring of 1257 the mesnie of Escorta once more rode out to war. But this year we must defend the lands we had won in the last campaign; and defence is never so interesting, or so remunerative, as the overrunning of enemy territory. Sir Geoffrey went first to the open country of Negripont, where his mesnie must ride hard to repel Venetian raids. By seaborne descents the Venetians and Lombards had won a few castles on the coast, and the whole island was exposed to raiding at every hour of the day and night. It was like being watchmen in a riotous city; no proper rest, hurried riding in mail, and neither glory nor plunder to be won if we did catch up with the enemy.

  In midsummer we were fetched back from Negripont to guard the southern shore of Lamorie. That was an even worse occupation. The Grifons of those parts are the most desperate ruffians, especially those who inhabit the mountains of La Grande Maigne. They are not notably loyal to their schismatic church; in fact their neighbours will tell you that they are not Christians at all, even of the wrong kind. But they cut the throats of any Franks they can catch, because they don't want foreigners in their native land and they do want Frankish mail without paying for it.