thing.
‘You tell tales for your living,’ Sir William said. ‘Why leave me to tell the story?’
Chaucer took his turn to shrug. ‘I like to see what you do with it. You take all the blood and shit and make it into something. As if it mattered.’
Sir William paused, his hand on his paternoster. ‘Of course it matters,’ he said. Then he paused. ‘It matters to the men who are in it. Even when the cause is worthless.’
Chaucer grimaced. ‘You would say that.’
An hour later, and they were served a series of dishes – a meat dish with noodles, a game pie, a dish of greens. The inn’s food was renowned wherever Englishmen gathered, but it was not all English food, and the greens showed the influence of the new French fashions: fresh food, in season, and especially vegetables.
Chaucer eyed his beet greens with a certain distaste. ‘French clothes, French manners, and now French food,’ he said. ‘You’d think we’d lost the war.’
Messieur Froissart, on the other hand, inhaled his with every evidence of pleasure – or perhaps the hunger of a poorer man.
Sir William put a pat of butter on his and ate them quietly. ‘In Italy,’ he said.
Froissart quivered like a hound.
‘My faith!’ Sir William said, and laughed. ‘I wasn’t going to speak of fighting, messieur, but of food! In Italy, Sir John – Hawkwood, that is – has introduced an English dish, a true beefsteak, and it is all the rage, although they serve it with their own vegetables and salts. In truth, it seems to me that every country benefits in borrowing some food from their neighbours.’
Chaucer shrugged. ‘Mayhap, William, but travel turns my ageing guts to water and I don’t need a boil of green weeds to soften me.’
Froissart, endlessly fascinated by Sir William, ignored the English courier and leaned forward. ‘And Saracen food? You are a famous crusader.’
Sir William looked up to meet the eye of Aemilie, the serving girl and the landlord’s eldest. He smiled, and his eyebrows made a little motion; she returned the smile, and curtsied.
‘My pater says to serve you this,’ she said. ‘And says to add that it was sent down from the castle for your enjoyment.’
Chaucer looked up. ‘Come, that’s handsome. Stapleton can’t expect to keep you here forever, if he sends you a nice Burgundy.’
Sir William tasted the wine in the heavy silver cup set before him, and his eyebrows shot up. ‘Bordeaux,’ he said.
Aemilie poured for Chaucer and then for Froissart, and the three gentlemen drank.
‘That’s a fine vintage,’ Chaucer said. ‘But after all, you did save his brother’s life.’
Again Froissart leaned forward in anticipation.
Sir William spiked the last bit of his meat pie on his pricker and ate it, drank some wine, raised an eyebrow at Chaucer. Chaucer shook his head. ‘It’s your tale,’ he said. ‘I was only there at the end.’
Aemilie was pausing in the doorway of the small dining room, waiting to hear whatever was said. Outside, Sir William could see his squire, John, and a number of other men. He swirled the wine in his cup.
‘If I’m allowed a full ration of this apple pie,’ he said, ‘perhaps I’ll tell a tale – but out under the rafters, where all can hear. Master Chaucer, do you play piquet?’
‘Not with professional soldiers,’ Chaucer said.
‘Fie!’ Sir William answered, and again they exchanged that look.
Froissart leaned past Chaucer. ‘Tell us about your crusade,’ he said.
Gold smiled his wolfish smile, and stroked his beard. ‘Very well. But I hope you are no fan of Robert of Geneva.’
Chaucer narrowed his eyes.
So did Sir William.
VENICE
1364
In the spring of 1364, I had just been knighted on the battlefield by that two-faced bastard, the Imperial Knight Hans Baumgarten, for my feat of arms at the siege of Florence. Except, as you know if you’ve been listening, there was