Except, as you know if you’ve been listening, there was no siege and we never had a chance to take the city. Five thousand men against a city with a hundred thousand citizens? And the aftermath of my great deed was bitter; most of the companions, the Englishmen and Germans who had formed the great company that had made war on Florence for Pisa, accepted bribes and changed sides. There were fewer and fewer of us with Hawkwood – even Baumgarten himself, one of the most famous soldiers of our day, took the gold and crossed the river to join the Florentines. Sir John Hawkwood didn’t change sides. Some say this is because of his honour. That’s possible – he had a solid view of his own worth, and no mistake – but for my money, he stayed loyal to Pisa because they’d made him their Captain General and that meant promotion. He had never been the sole commander of an army before, and he knew that if he could stick it out and attract men, he’d make a name that would mean employment and real money, not the forty florins a month that most of the men-at-arms earned, if they didn’t take a wound, lose their horses or pawn their armour or get the plague or fall prey to the hundreds of perils that beset soldiers.
