The Iron Tempest (45 page)
Authors: Ron Miller
There was a long silence when Bradamant stepped onto the field, a hush that fell over the crowd, the animals and the birds—even the air itself, which became as still as glass, with every living creature imbedded motionlessly, like insects in amber.
Occasionally, after a particularly violent thunderbolt sets the atmosphere vibrating like a drumhead a powerful wind will arise, like the breath of a dragon aroused by the crashing sound, a wind that will thrash the sea into a wild foam and darken the sky with clouds of dust. Birds and beasts flee alike before the tempest and the shepherd hastily chases his flock beneath a sheltering grotto. The air seems to congeal into hail and rain that beats the earth like a flail. Just so when the signalling trumpet sounded, Bradamant gripped her sword and charged her enemy.
Rashid, who had done nothing more than to approach a few yards onto the field, yielded to the girl’s first blow no more than might an ancient oak to a tempest or a stone tower to the crashing surf. There was such a blinding shower of sparks that many of the spectators believed the prince has been hit by lightning.
It seemed to Rashid, too, that he was being struck by lightning, attracting the flashing bolts like an iron rod. He was astonished and frightened at the ferocity and power of his lover’s attack, that fell on him from every side, as though he was a city under the bloodthirsty siege of some barbaric army.
Even more than the blows of Bradamant’s sword he felt the hate, fury and savagery that empowered them and he almost staggered under that psychic pummeling.
Bradamant had turned her body over to a berserk demon that now drove her, like a murderous psychopath at the reins of a coach. She watched with that same sort of detached anxiety with which an engineer might watch a tyro take the controls of his locomotive. She approved of the skill with which she struck here with the edge of her sword, there with the point, seeking at every moment a weakness, a seam, a joint through which she might pass her blade. If she could do that, she could not only watch the man’s lifeblood pour from his body, but she could watch her hot wrath drain away as well. So now on his right, now on his left, she kept trying, wheeling first in one direction and then another, with a lightness and agility that belied the weight of her armor. She struck backhanded and stabbed with the point until the blows fell upon her enemy with the rapidity and violence of a hailstorm, with the deafening rattle of hail on a slate roof—yet her enemy remained on his feet. Within her adamantine shell, Bradamant gnawed at her bloodied lips with frustration.
If that same savage army that was besieging the city symbolic of Rashid discovered that it was only vainly assailing its impregnable walls, battering its immovable gates, thwarted by its moat, exposing its soldiers to certain death—yet still could not find so much as a crack or crevice by which it might gain entry, this army found itself in much the same agonizing position in which Bradamant found herself. For all her mighty labor she could find not a single weakness in her opponent’s armor.
Sparks flamed from Rashid’s helmet, shield and hauberk, and the grass surrounding the warriors smoldered and scorched until the warriors seemed to resemble demonic creatures, merging with and emerging from the acrid smoke.
Yet, for all her skill and strength, Bradamant had not yet so much as wounded her opponent. What was even more frustrating, humiliating and infuriating was that the man she supposed to be Leon refused to fight back—he was content with merely defending himself from her most fatal blows. Never once had he attempted to injure her.
She could almost bring herself to admire the agility with which he evaded his murder. If he did use his sword, it was against her blade; if he did strike her it was invariably someplace that would do her the least injury. These courtesies only served to fan the flame of her already incandescent fury. How dare he condescend to her so! How dare he patronize her!
She glanced at the sky. The sun is so high! Can the day be half over already? This is impossible! She felt herself in mortal peril of falling victim to her own machinations, trapped by the proclamation she cajoled from the emperor.
Sweat poured in stinging rivulets down her face and loose strands of hair were plastered across her forehead and cheeks like wet leaves. She shook the moisture away from her eyes as she felt the first weakness growing in her arms. But as her strength ebbed her rage grew in proportion. Though each blow sent seismic waves of pain through her shoulders, she redoubled their number, still trying to shatter that adamantine armor or to find some fatal, overlooked chink. She was like a handyman who had lagged at his task and now saw the end of the day approaching without any hope of being paid and who now vainly hurried, trying to do his day’s work in a single hour, tiring himself until his strength at last fails and the job remains undone.
Sobbing, hot tears streaming to mix with hotter perspiration, Bradamant faced the horrifying realization of the terrible flaw in the emperor’s contest: that while
she
had to kill or disable her opponent, all
he
had to do was remain standing. All of the offense was on her part—Leon’s rôle was purely defensive. He was under neither obligation nor requirement to do her any harm—indeed, to do so would have been entirely counterproductive, so far as a suitor was concerned. There would be little point to winning the hand of a corpse.
Exhausted both in body and spirit, Bradamant dismissed the sound that rang in her ears until she recognized it as the trumpet signaling the end of the contest. She glanced to the sky with horror: the sun was settling into the trees of the western woods like a gobbet of blood. People were running toward her and there was a great roar, as though a maelstrom had burst in her head. She heard Charlemagne’s voice booming above all the other noise, his words decreeing the end of the battle and that Lady Bradamant had accepted Leon for her husband to the exclusion of all others.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In which many Confusions are Resolved and everyone,
particularly Bradamant, appears to be satisfied at last
With nothing remaining to prevent her marriage to Leon, Bradamant was prepared to defy not only her parents but the imperial edict. She would break her word, abandon her honor, make an enemy of Charlemagne, suffer the disdain of the court, her friends and relatives and, if nothing else remained to her, she would fall on her own sword. Death seemed preferable to life without Rashid.
“Where can he’ve gone, Marfisa?” she agonized. “Can he’ve gotten so far away that he was the only person in the world not to have heard of the proclamation?”
“It must be true,” her friend agreed. “I’m certain that if he had even gotten so much as a hint of it, nothing would’ve stopped him from being the first to respond.”
“So what else am I left to think than the worst?”
“It’s hard to think about that.”
“How else can it be that Rashid was alone in all the world in not having heard? And if he had heard and didn’t come at once, how is it possible that he’s not dead or a prisoner?”
“You know what I think? I think that Leon has somehow managed to either entrap Rashid or delay him in some way. Why else would he’ve been in such a hurry to begin the duel?”
“I’ve thought that myself and if it’s true, or if I even believe that it’s true, I’ll kill Leon with my own hands. I will cut him into a human shishkabob. But what am I to do now? I’ve fallen into a trap of my own making, Marfisa, and I don’t know how to get out of it. I was so certain that no one in the world was capable of beating me except Rashid. I believed this because I valued him beyond anyone else. Now God has punished me for my audacity and conceit by having this—this effete princeling, who’s accomplished nothing noble in his entire life, take me from Rashid.
“Well, I’ll tell you this, Marfisa: perhaps I’ve lost my hand to Prince Leon because I was incapable of beating him or killing him. This isn’t just and I’m not going to stand by Charlemagne’s decision. I know I’ll be condemned if I go back on my sworn word, but I’m not the first woman who’s been inconstant and I’ll not be the last. Let it be sufficient that I kept faith with my lover and in this I know I have surpassed all the lovers of ancient times or those who live now or those who’re yet to come. I don’t care if in all other things I’m accused of being unfaithful, so long as I gain by this one. I can be called as fickle and uncertain as people wish so long as I don’t have to marry that fool Leon.”
Leaving her distraught friend with what few words of comfort she could invent, Marfisa went directly to Charlemagne and demanded an audience.
“Surprise me,” said the emperor, “and tell me that this isn’t going to be about Bradamant’s marriage.”
“Then prepare yourself for a disappointment, your majesty,” she replied, continuing in a rush to explain her belief that some great wrong had been done her brother.
“I’ll not endure,” she growled, “seeing his rightful wife taken from him with no one to protest. I intend to prove against whoever disputes it that Bradamant is the true wife of Rashid.”
“And what makes you so certain that this is so?”
“I heard Bradamant herself, in my presence,” she glibly lied, “speak the vows of marriage to my brother. Indeed, every legally mandated word was settled between them—if not the actual ceremony—so she’s not free to promise herself to another or to leave Rashid for someone else.”
“What? You’re claiming that Lady Bradamant is in fact
already
married to Rashid?”
“Yes.”
“I am astonished!”
The emperor immediately sent for Bradamant and her family. When she saw Marfisa and her mother and father and the grim-faced emperor waiting for her, she didn’t know what to think. Nevertheless, she refused to allow any of them to suspect the depth of her despair, any more than she would allow them to see how much a physical wound pained her. She stood as straight as a sword. She expected the worst, but was wholly unprepared for what Charlemagne repeated. Haemon and Beatrice glared at her with combined horror and disdain as she hung her head. Those present thought she did so in shame, but in truth it was to hide her confusion and embarrassment. She could bring herself to neither deny nor agree with the lie that Marfisa had declared, though she knew full well that her silence would be interpreted as confirmation that the Moor had told the truth.
Renaud and Roland, realizing what Marfisa had done, that she had never heard any such words spoken between the lovers, were pleased. This was all the doubt the emperor would need to postpone Bradamant’s marriage to Leon—and perhaps even annul their betrothal altogether. Their sister and cousin would have Rashid in spite of Haemon’s obstinancy and without them having to take her from her father by force, as they had been scheming to do.
The duke, however, was not so readily willing to accept Marfisa’s word.
“This is some sort of trick, your majesty! But whatever they may have gotten you to believe, it’s wrong. Even if everything they’ve invented
is
true, I’m not yet beaten.”
“Go on,” said Charlemagne.
“Even if we admit—which I do not do for one minute—that Bradamant’s been so foolish and disloyal as to speak the vows of marriage to this pagan Rashid, and he to her, when and where did this supposedly take place? I’d like very much for Lady Marfisa to explain this, or perhaps Renaud or Roland can do so if she can’t.”
“And what has the time and place have to do with this alleged marriage?” asked the emperor.
“Just this, your majesty: there
was
no marriage if it took place before Rashid was baptized!”
Renaud, Roland, Marfisa and Bradamant exchanged a flurry of glances.
“If it was done before,” the duke continued, “then it was illegal because Bradamant is a Christian and Rashid was a pagan. For this reason alone, it was a shame that Prince Leon was put to the indignity of having had to fight for something that was in truth rightly his.” He turned angrily to his son and nephew.
“And if you two knew of this alleged marriage you should’ve said something earlier and certainly before the emperor had made, at Bradamant’s insistence, the proclamation that put Leon through this useless, unnecessary and humiliating combat.”
The emperor leaned back into his throne, his leonine face bathed in shadow. The people who surrounded him—Marfisa, Haemon, Beatrice, Renaud, Roland and Bradamant—were as still and silent as the caryatids that supported the canopy shading the throne. Bradamant felt as though if she were to so much as whisper a single word the entire tableau would collapse like a house of cards. Elsewhere, however, the court was filled with a low buzz, the hum of a hundred speculations that even in that moment’s hiatus had spread beyond the walls of the chamber and throughout the palace.
“Your majesty,” said Marfisa, breaking the silence, “I have a suggestion. If Bradamant can’t belong to another while my brother lives, let Leon, if he really wants her, use his courage and strength to deprive his rival of his life. Let whichever one of them survives attain the hand of Lady Bradamant without fear of competition or dissent. Would you and Duke Haemon agree to this?”
“Yes,” said the emperor, before Bradamant’s father could say anything, “we will.” And that was, of course, that.
When Leon received word of this unexpected impediment, he rushed immediately to his pavilion, where his proxy had taken refuge after the previous day’s victory and where the two men had quickly traded costumes. While Leon had rightly feared fighting Bradamant, he was terrified of the prospect of confronting Rashid, whose prowess at arms he knew all too well. Therefore he hoped that he would be able to wring one more favor from the obligation he held over his anonymous knight of the unicorn, that once again he might be persuaded to save the prince from disgrace and harm.
But when he entered the tent, he found it empty. Thinking that the knight had merely wandered off, perhaps riding a mile or two into the forest for pleasure and relaxation—a risky proposition and one for which he’d have to be reprimanded, however sympathetic the prince may be—he calmly awaited his return, which he expected momentarily. But the unicorn knight did not return in a few hours, nor later that day, nor the next day. After two days had passed with neither sight nor news of the man, Leon began to seriously worry. For all he knew, the indomitable Rashid was at that very moment on his way to Marseilles to claim what he believed to be rightly his and would consider the presence of the intellectual Greek prince to be an insignificant impediment. If he wished to retain his hold on Bradamant, to say nothing of his life, Leon needed his nameless knight to once again fight in his place. He was certain if anyone were capable of eradicating the Moor it was the warrior he had personally witnessed decimating an entire army.
By the third day, Leon’s panic had reached such a feverish proportion that he saddled his horse and went himself to search for his proxy.
He had, of course, no idea which direction his quarry may have gone—and there were no witnesses, given the large number of people coming and going from the city—so he simply tried to go all directions at once. Traveling in an approximate spiral he stopped at every hamlet, farmhouse, manor, inn and tavern, he examined every hayloft, abandoned hut, grotto, stable and henhouse; every place, in fact, his friend might have been seen, have eaten or slept. He stopped every stranger and enquired of every fieldhand and shepherd, all to no avail. Every crossroads was an agony of indecision: would the knight of the unicorn have gone to the left or right or straight ahead? Days passed, then a week. At the tenth day he knew he’d have to return to Marseilles to await the expected appearance of his nemesis.
Yet
, he told himself to restore a little cheer,
who’s to say that my knight hasn’t himself returned in the meantime, spending the last week wondering where I might’ve gotten off to?
He smiled at the incongruous thought of the knight lounging in the cool shade of the prince’s tent, eating delicious, well-prepared food and sipping fine wines while his benefactor was sleeping in his saddle and eating and drinking whatever he happened to find.
Leon had only proceeded a mile or two in the direction of Marseilles when he met a beautiful woman riding toward him on a white pony. She was luminous in the bright sunshine and her hair poured like molten gold over her shoulders and down her back, where it spilled in heavy waves over the flanks of her mount. She was dressed only in a gossamer white gown that seemed to float around her pale body like smoke.
As soon as she spied Leon, she spurred her pony and hurried to intercept him.
Impatient as he was of any delay, Leon’s princely upbringing forced him to pull up and greet the woman with a civil enquiry as to her health. Coward he may be but he was courteous.
“I’m well, thank you,” the woman replied. Leon thought that had he not been so infatuated with Lady Bradamant he could easily be hypnotized by the almost unearthly beauty of this stranger. He wondered if he might in fact afford an hour or two from his quest, just to see how strong his commitment to the fair knight actually was. “But that’s more than I fear I can say for another,” the woman continued.
“Pardon?”
“There’s a knight fallen nearby, the very best knight of our age, and if he doesn’t soon receive aid he’ll die. If your soul’s as noble as your face, kind sir, if your chivalry and goodness truly befit your appearance and bearing, then you can’t refuse this man comfort.”
“Who is this paragon?” he asked.
“The finest knight who’s ever buckled a sword to his side,” she replied, “or carried a shield on his arm, or who ever will. The fairest and noblest knight of all those alive or who have ever lived. Sir, I tell you that he’s now dying for no other reason than that he did another a kindness. For God’s sake, sir, come and save him!”
Leon for all his faults was certainly neither stupid nor slow and it had long since occurred to him that this woman was undoubtedly offering to lead him to the very man he sought. Thanking whatever kindly gods had engineered this fortuitous meeting, he agreed to follow the woman, who immediately turned and rode back down the road. He felt his flaccid spirits reviving like a rehydrated toad. He would now have nothing to fear from Rashid with his knight to once again take his place. He left his horse to follow the woman on the pony as he daydreamed about his final reconciliation with the desirable Bradamant.
He did not dream for long for less than a mile down the road the woman turned off onto a nearly invisible trail. This wound through a field of tall, dry grass in the midst of which was an enormous, ancient tree, gnarled and twisted like an angry fist. Beneath the tree was the knight he had been seeking.
“He has neither eaten nor had a drink for more than a week,” the woman said, dismounting as the prince did.
He was appalled at the appearance of his hero, who lay stretched at full length in his armor, his helmet on his head—which rested on his unicorn shield—and his sword at his side. At the sight of the prince and the woman, he tried to rise but fell back with a groan.
* * * * *
After defeating Bradamant, Rashid had taken Frontino and in the excitement following the duel, left the city with no one the wiser. He let the horse choose the road and for days they wandered, sometimes on a straight highway, sometimes along a crooked country path, sometimes through forests and sometimes through fields. Day and night, without pause, the faithful animal carried its weeping master, who was too blinded by his tears to see or care where he was going.
Rashid could imagine nothing better able to alleviate his misery than death and he begged that it might be forthcoming. “Who else have I to blame?” he asked. “Who other than myself has taken away from me everything that was good? If I’m not willing to bear the brunt of my vengeance, who else is there? There’s no one else who’s injured me, no one else who’s brought me such unbearable suffering. I can only take revenge on myself, since I’m responsible for this evil.”