Castillon: Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One

‘You’re drowning him,’ Swan snapped, trying to sound as authoritative as his father.

‘Master,’ muttered the Fleming.

Alessandro looked at Swan and raised an eyebrow. ‘Heh,’ he said.

The next evening they came down a ridge into Perigeux, passed the gates after a cursory inspection and a great deal of fawning, and made their way to the Abbey of Chancelade, as Swan heard said repeatedly. The town didn’t seem to boast an inn, but the abbey was huge – like a palace.

There were wagons parked all along one wall, and the stables were full. Swan ate with the notaries and poured watered wine into his ‘servant’. After some consideration, he went to the kitchens.

‘What do you want, shit-stain!’ bellowed a huge woman.

He bowed. ‘To be your lover, madame!’

She screeched. ‘You’d need a prick two feet long,’ she said. She eyed his stained braes. ‘And I don’t think you have one. Eh?’

‘Something tells me you are not a nun,’ Swan said.

‘Something tells me you are not a Gascon,’ the woman replied. She laughed. ‘Eh! Tilda! There’s an Englishman!’

A younger, horse-faced woman came out of the fireplace. ‘What do you want, then,’ she said in English.

Swan turned his charm on her. ‘Honey. A good-sized dollop, if you would be so kind.’ He bowed. ‘For medicine.’

‘Medicine, is it? And honey so dear.’ Tilda had an armload of firewood.

‘I could carry wood for you,’ he said.

Tilda nodded. ‘You can have your honey just for hearing the sound of English spoken. But I wouldn’t mind having you carry the wood.’

After he had carried enough to fill the kitchen’s giant maw of a fireplace many times over, she pointed to a stool. ‘Sit, brother,’ she said.

She handed him some wine, which was decent enough. He watched the kitchen staff and listened carefully. Most of them were locals – a few were from the south, and he saw several of the cardinal’s Italian servants move through. One pinched a girl and got a clout on the ear for his pains – another grabbed a loaf of bread and laughed.

Tilda brought him a plate of cut tongue and bread and another cup of wine. “Tell me what medicine you make with honey,’ she said.

Swan smiled at her. She was quite pretty, in a homey kind of way. She had big bones and a strong waist. And large breasts. She was no beauty, and yet her straight back and her graceful carriage would have made her seem so, even if he hadn’t been on the brink of death a day before.

“The white honey is not formed of pure thyme, but is good for the eyes, and for wounds,’ according to Aristotle,’ he told her.

She nodded and smiled. ‘Like enough,’ she said. ‘Likewise my mater always said so.’ She sat back with her wooden cup of wine. ‘You’re a prisoner?’

He nodded. “Sir John Talbot was defeated—’

‘At Castillon,’ she said. ‘It’s common knowledge.’

‘They were killing the prisoners,’ he said. He hadn’t planned to say that. He planned to be light hearted, or evasive, or perhaps heroic. He shrugged. ‘I lived. The cardinal took me in.’

She nodded. ‘Poor dear. But soldiers – live by the sword, die by the sword.’

He laughed. ‘You have a hard heart, madame.’

She shook her head. ‘I followed the armies for a year or two, din’t I? I’ve known a soldier or two.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll get some honey for you.’ She paused, as if weighing him up. ‘Come back when I’ve served the gentles dinner and I’ll see your linens get washed,’ she added. Her eyes met his, just for a moment.

Swan walked out to the stable. He caught Alessandro’s eye – the man was obviously watching him – and waved honey at him. The Italian man-at-arms came over. ‘You have a sweet tooth?’

‘For my servant’s wounds,’ Swan said.

The Italian nodded. ‘What’s his name, this servant of yours?’ He held out a hand. ‘No – never mind. Why complicate this? What’s the honey for?’

Swan shrugged. ‘It’s in Aristotle. Good for wounds.’

Alessandro shook his head. ‘Are you really another bookman? Aristotle is so full of shit about so many things.’ He thrust his chin at the Fleming, lying on his blanket. ‘But my first captain put honey on wounds. The Turks do it. Let’s see.’

The Italian soldier helped him fetch hot water, and watched as he bathed the Fleming, washed his wounds, dried them with the man’s shirt, and then pasted honey over them, pushing it boldly into the suppurating hole in his side where the Frenchman’s dagger had gone in.

‘He’ll probably live,’ Alessandro said. ‘That knife hit his ribs and went up, not down.’

‘I’ll tell him that,’ Swan said. His Italian wasn’t that good and Alessandro made him feel a little light headed.

‘You ought to wrap it, now that you’ve cleaned it and put the salve on.” Alessandro looked at him, one eye raised.

‘I don’t happen to have a spare bolt of linen in my baggage,’ Swan said.

Alessandro gave him a lopsided smile. ‘Perhaps God will provide,’ he said. He swaggered out, and returned a little later with a long piece of linen. ‘I found it,’ he said.

Swan wrapped the Fleming, and Alessandro actually lifted the man while Swan got the bandage under him. He made it as tight as he dared. The Fleming moaned a few times but remained resolutely unconscious.

When they were done, Swan was too conscious of his sweat-soaked shirt and his shit-stained braes to strip, and he felt dirty and unfashionable with the dapper professional soldier. But his mother had taught him that the best defence was a good offence.

‘If you keep helping me like this, I’ll have to assume you aren’t a complete bastard,’ he said.

Alessandro smiled. ‘Maybe I am, though. I am a bastard. If I thought you meant that as an insult, I’d kill you.’

Swan shrugged. ‘Me too,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ Alissandro said.

Swan realised he’d said too much. But the man-at-arms bowed and walked out the stable door.

When the Italian was gone, the Fleming opened an eye. ‘Peter,’ he said. ‘If the bastard asks again.’

Swan dropped the end of the bandage. ‘You’re awake!’

‘You just rolled me over and shoved something sticky inside my fucking body,’ the Fleming said. Peter. ‘Honey?’

‘Yes.’ Swan put his hand on the other man’s head. Everything he knew about medicine was from books.

Peter opened his eyes. He was a big man with a heavy brow, but his eyes held a great deal of intelligence. ‘I’m an archer, and a fucking good one,’ he said. He said ‘fucking’ as if it was two words. Fuck – ink. ‘But I suppose I can be your servant, at least until we’re out of this. They kill everyone else?’

Swan shrugged. ‘I think so.’

Peter’s eyes closed, and then opened. ‘Thanks for saving me.’

‘You saved me,’ Swan said. ‘When you went for the francs-archers, I was next.’

Peter grinned. ‘Kilt one, didn’t I?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Swan said.

‘Bring me some unwatered wine, eh, Master?’ Peter asked.

Swan nodded. ‘I’m Thomas Swan,’ he said.

Peter shut his eyes again. ‘Aye. Got it.’

Swan ate with the notaries. They had to buy wine and Swan had no money, and he suspected he was going to wear out his welcome eventually, but for the moment, he drank.

They were at the very last table in the hall – the lowest of the ‘gentles’. In fact, some of the upper servants – the cardinal’s steward, for example – sat above them.

Swan didn’t mind. The food was cold, and served on bad pewter with too much lead in it, but he didn’t mind