Standard of Honor (30 page)

To his men, and to the world at large, Richard Plantagenet was every inch the warrior king, but Henry barely noticed him after the first, analytical look in which he gauged the monarch's temper and judged it to be pleasant. Thereafter, his eyes remained fastened on the knight who rode at the King's right shoulder, his own son, Sir André St. Clair. He had expected that André would be returning, as he was now working permanently as an interlocutor of some kind between the Fleet Master de Sablé and the King. It had been many months since Henry had last seen him, and his first thought, even from as far distant as they were from each other, was that the lad looked older—older and more mature, which was as it should be, and happily carefree, which was even better. He noted, too, that his son yet wore his own knightly mantle, bearing the device of St. Clair, which meant that whatever else had been occupying his time, André had not yet joined the ranks of the Temple Knights. For just a moment, St. Clair was overwhelmed with pride in his son, with anticipation of the simple pleasure of sitting with him, hearing his voice, listening to his opinions. He felt a lump swell up in his throat and swallowed it down gratefully. Then, schooling his face to show nothing, he spurred his horse forward.

Richard saw him coming and greeted him with a shout from a long way off. Although Henry could not make out the King's words, he inferred from the broadness of
Richard's wave towards André that he was showing Henry his thoughtfulness in having brought his son along. Henry waved back, reined in his horse, and dismounted, acknowledging that he had been recognized and waiting until the King's party reached him. When they did, he stepped forward and brought his clenched fist to his left breast in salute to his liege lord, but Richard was already staring off, over Henry's head, his ever-shifting attention captured by something beyond the line of Henry's vision. Henry stood waiting to be addressed, and for long moments nothing happened, but then Richard looked down and smiled at him.

“Henry St. Clair, old friend. Forgive my inattention and bad manners in seeming to ignore you, but I thought I saw someone I did not expect to see here.” His eyes flicked away again, then returned to Henry. “But that is neither here nor there. We have been in the saddle all day and stand in need of relaxation … that and stimulation.” He straightened his shield arm and worked with his other hand at freeing the clasp that held his cloak in place. “Tomkin! Take this, quickly.” As one of the young squires moved quickly to take the monarch's shield and cloak from him, Richard continued speaking. “You look hale and hearty, Henry, and I hear tales from all directions that you have been doing sterling work here. There!” He finally rid himself of cloak and shield and stood up in his stirrups, pushing his elbows back and flexing his back muscles. “I recall I promised to tell about the coronation next time we two met … and no doubt you will be panting to hear all.”
He looked about him at the expressions on the faces of the others in his small group and then laughed. “Well, my friend, if that is the case you can put your tongue back into your mouth. You were the fortunate one, to be far gone on that occasion. It was tedious, Henry, tedious. Was it not so, Sir André? Apart from the single instant when I felt that crown come down solidly upon my head, to be sure. That one moment made the entire thing memorable and worthwhile. But the remainder of the event was boring beyond belief, all muttered Latin amid solemn dirges sung in a sea of smelly, swirling incense.” His eyes moved away again, narrowing with interest.

“Damn me, it
is
Brian.” He glanced back at Henry, obviously impatient to be gone. “I must have words with my English captain, Brian of York, over yonder, my friend, so I pray you, bide you here with your son while I do so, or come with me if you so wish. This should not take long.” He jabbed his horse with his spurs, and Sir Henry turned his head to look at his son, who was watching him expectantly, flanked by the other knight who had come with him and the King. Henry judged the stranger to be almost his son's age, perhaps a year or two older. He nodded courteously to the stranger and spoke to his son.

“Well, what think you? Shall we join the King?”

Sir André smiled and shrugged. For a moment, Henry thought he detected a tinge of something unexpected, almost a bitterness, in his son's eyes, but when he looked more closely there was nothing there to be seen, and he thrust the thought aside.

“If he is going to fight afoot with the English soldiery,” André was saying, “as I suspect he is, we ought not to miss the spectacle, for I am told he does it rather well.” He bent forward in the saddle, reaching out towards Sir Henry, who grasped his hand warmly. “Good day to you, Father. Permit me to introduce Sir Bernard de Tremelay, who has accompanied us from Orléans.”

Sir Henry again nodded cordially to the newcomer. “De Tremelay, you say, from Orléans? Was there not a Master of the Temple once who had the same name and came from Orléans?”

“Sir Bernard de Tremelay.” The stranger nodded, smiling. “Your memory is excellent, Sir Henry. That was more than thirty years ago, and he was Master for barely a year. He was elder brother to my grandfather. I heard much about him in my youth, for he was highly regarded, but I never met the man. Shall we join the King?”

The three men prodded their mounts towards the place where the King and his two squires had dismounted in front of the small knot of kneeling English yeomen whom Henry had been watching earlier. By the time they arrived Richard was already rousing the kneeling men to their feet, laughing and slapping at the cumbersome padding the men wore.

“ … on your feet,” he was saying. “A fighting man need kneel to no other. A bending knee may indicate a pledge of fealty from time to time, but a bent knee that stays bent means subjugation, and I'll have none of that in men who are my friends. Brian!” he called to the instructor, the only man among the English yeomen
who was not swaddled in padding. “Pick me your three finest among this crew. No, wait. That would be … injudicious. I'll pick my own three, and take my chances. You will supervise the fight.” He scanned the twelve astonished men in front of him, then raised a hand. “Now listen, all of you. I pick three of you, and we fight. Three single bouts, to a fall or a solid hit. Brian will judge.” He favored all of them with his dazzling grin, all flashing eyes and gleaming teeth. “But be warned, any man fool enough to hold back to spare my royal kingship and dignity will find himself digging latrines for the next two weeks. Is that clear? It had better be. I want to beat all three of you honestly and fairly because I am the better fighter. And if you can beat me, best me, knock me on my arse in the mire, then you had better do it, for I will not thank you for insulting me by holding back. And besides, I have a golden bezant for any man who knocks me down— three of them, if need be.” He looked from man to man again, meeting each one's eye, then chose his opponents with three flicks of an index finger. “You, you, and you, let's fight. Someone among the rest of you lend me a quarterstaff, and we'll set about it.”

Word spread quickly, for the King's behavior around his soldiers was well known, and even before he and his opponent faced each other for the first of the three bouts, a crowd had formed, encircling the fighters tightly so that the remaining nine yeomen of Brian of York's group had to busy themselves forming a protective cordon, keeping the press back sufficiently far to
afford the fighters room to move freely. But the nine of them were not sufficient to control the surging crowd. Those at the back of the throng jostled for a better view, pushing the people in front of them forward, and Sir Henry himself soon had to requisition additional “volunteers” to hold back the crowd.

The first bout began innocuously, both men circling to the left, easily balanced on the balls of their feet, their quarterstaffs held at the ready and their eyes intent upon each other. They were watching for the slightest hint of a coming attack, judging and interpreting every nuance of shifting balance, every flickering shade of expression. The yeoman, a tall, wide-shouldered young fellow called Will, whom St. Clair would have sworn to be less than twenty years old, had the enormous arms and wrists of a longbow archer, and he appeared to be unimpressed by the fact that he was face to face with his King in single combat. He was poised and cool and showed not the least sign of being intimidated as he moved easily in concert with Richard, gliding smoothly, knees lightly bent in readiness to spring.

Henry was not surprised that it was Richard who made the first move, lunging forward to his right, the staff in his hand suddenly transformed into a whirling blur of violent motion punctuated by hard-hitting, clattering blows that would have broken bones had they landed on anything other than his opponent's weapon. They would certainly have forced most men to fall back and give ground, but the young yeoman stood firm and met the attack strongly, parrying and absorbing the
flurry of blows easily and seemingly without effort, so that Richard soon stopped in mid-swing and sprang away, ending the clash and landing lightly poised on his toes. The younger man went after him immediately, giving him no time to rest, and for a space of whirling, rattling blows and stifled grunts it was Richard who went on the defensive, even yielding ground to the inexorable strength of young Will's advance before he managed to regain the advantage by feinting ingeniously and almost disarming his opponent with a backhanded chop that forced the archer to spin nimbly away to his right. That spin, a miraculous recovery against an unforeseen blow, should have resulted in the end of the contest, for it exposed the archer's back fatally to the huge blow that followed as the King swung around in a full pirouette, continuing the arc of his backhanded chop into a massive, sweeping downswing. But the young archer's evasive move was so sure and swift that it carried him beyond Richard's reach, and instead of striking him squarely between the shoulders, the tip of the King's staff merely grazed the center of the heavy padding at Will's back and glanced off, continuing downward to strike the ground hard and giving the young man an opportunity to recover and regain his poise.

After that, neither man seemed willing to take any risks, and for a while the action swayed back and forth as first one and then the other sought to take the initiative, but that state of affairs could not last long—not with Richard Plantagenet being watched and judged by his
own men. He feinted right and then sprang to his left, slashing backhanded again in the hope of catching his opponent off guard. The archer was there to meet him and smashed the quarterstaff right out of the King's hands, drawing a grunt of surprise, quickly followed by a howl of approval, from the watching crowd.

Disarmed and shaken as he was, Richard nonetheless gave his opponent no time to improve upon his advantage, but flung himself forward into a head-tucked, rolling tumble towards his fallen weapon, barely missing Will's legs in his charging dive. The yeoman was forced to step aside as the King passed directly beneath his arms and snatched up the fallen quarterstaff in lunging to his feet. Sir Henry had to stifle a grunt and bite down on an admiring smile, for this action was pure Richard Plantagenet—the kind of spontaneous, unpredictable, and brilliant feat that made the man so beloved of his soldiers of all ranks; a move so unexpected and yet so sure and sudden that the King, re-armed, was back on the attack before anyone, including his opponent, could recover from their surprise. He cut young Will down with a heavy, powerful blow to his padded thigh that crushed the man's protective padding and paralyzed his leg, sending him toppling sideways to his knees, hands flat on the ground, head hanging, with no other choice but to yield when the butt of Richard's quarterstaff pressed down against the back of his neck.

The watching soldiery went wild with approval when Richard grinned and gallantly assisted his battered and vanquished adversary to his feet, making a great show of
being out of breath and pushed almost to the limits of his strength. And yet, as he handed young Will from the fighting arena, he was already beckoning to the second man to step forth and face him.

This bout was far shorter and less exciting than the first, perhaps because Richard was flushed with victory and enthusiasm, or perhaps because the second yeoman was dismayed by what he had already seen. Whatever the reason, the second man crashed down solidly, flat on his back with both wits and breath driven out of him mere moments after the onset, having failed to anticipate or counter any one of a trio of blows that struck him within a brace of heartbeats and left him senseless.

The third man stepped forward slowly and judiciously, holding himself erect save only for very slightly bent knees that gave his posture the merest suggestion of a crouch. He held his quarterstaff across his chest with both hands and gazed at Richard through deep-set, almost slitted eyes. Richard, standing hipshot across from him, stared back calmly, his own quarterstaff gripped gently upright in one hand, its length resting against his shoulder. Sir Henry already knew the third man's name was Hawkeye—he had heard it shouted by his friends—and looking now at the man's expression he could understand whence the name had come. There was something of the raptor about this Hawkeye, with his low hairline coming to a point in the middle of his forehead, a great, narrow hook of a nose, and wide black pupils beneath straight, archless brows.

There was no questing for position between these two; they stood square to each other and breathed deeply, neither making any attempt to begin the joust, content for the time being to take each other's measure, and as the moments passed a stillness fell over the watching crowd. Henry's horse snuffled and stamped, rebelling against the bite of a fly, and he reined it in ruthlessly, willing it to be quiet and stand still. The two adversaries had not moved until then, but as though the horse's stamping foot had been a signal, both men exploded into action, leaping towards each other across the space that separated them. From that moment on the air was filled with the hard, staccato rattle of wood against wood as they belabored each other hard and fast, each seeking to penetrate the impenetrable curtain of the other man's defenses. And then, between one blow and the next, the man called Hawkeye leapt backward, away from the fight, landing in a crouch and flinging himself forward again immediately, catching his opponent in the very act of beginning to lunge after him. The concussion as their bodies met was almost palpable to Henry, but Hawkeye had the advantage of both momentum and surprise, and Richard went staggering backward, off balance. One heel landed awkwardly on the uneven surface, striking a half-buried stone, and unable to right himself, the King fell heavily, flat on his back and shoulders, his arms flying wide and the heavy quarterstaff tearing loose from his grasp.