The Leopard Sword (7 page)

He did not.

He leaned, and the warhorse carried him. The lance rose and fell, and then steadied as he came on.

Sir Nigel was not slow in kicking his horse, or hesitant in couching his lance, seating it under his elbow and leveling the weapon.

But Nereus the warhorse was not quick in responding. When the horse did react, he showed the wrong sort of spirit, tossing his head and snorting, the halter fittings jingling. Even when Nereus trotted forward, his ears were flattened, his eyes rolled, and he kicked out at nothing.

Sir Jean was already halfway across the field when Sir Nigel's voice, soothing and clucking, finally persuaded Nereus to barrel forward in the right direction. Sir Jean's lance shifted and searched as the knight rode forward, the point of the lance looking like a living, lethal creature.

Realizing that at the point of impact the two horsemen would not be approaching at equal speed, the cunning lance chose not to seek to impale Sir Nigel or drive him off the horse. The point hunted upward, toward that vulnerable seam in his armor, where the helmet and the chain mail left the throat exposed.

Horse furniture it is called, the breastplate and back plate of the saddle, girth and crupper of the leather, the snaffle bits of the harness. Every point of this furnishing strained as the lance point missed Sir Nigel's head, and the shaft of the lance caught Sir Nigel across the breast. Sir Nigel reeled, but did not haul at the reins or lurch in the saddle. He sat well, riding on through the point of impact as the lance levered out of Sir Jean's grasp and clattered to the dust.

I had a sudden, inappropriate thought:There, it's over and done, and now we can all feast and be friends.

It was far from done.

 

 

 

My own mount was trembling, shivers running along his frame, and it took only a touch of my spur knob to coax him forward. I rode hard through the dust in the air to Sir Nigel's struggling form, where he worked to wheel his horse around. At Nigel's side I tugged at his shield to straighten it—the strap had developed a twist. I helped him adjust his grip on the lance, neither of us speaking. As I turned to face Sir Jean and his squire, the sun was at our back.

Sir Jean kicked his mount, the force of the blow making the harness leap, and the charger was quick to respond. When the horse suddenly went down a moment later, it looked like an act of willfulness, the animal deciding to dump his knight and rest for a long moment on the ground.

The fall was so abrupt that even as I hauled at my reins, slowing my approach, I had to puzzle together what I had seen and heard: the horse flinging his forward-striding hoof too high, a hind hoof stumbling, the whites of the animal's eyes wide and fearful. A loud, sickening snap.

The horse screamed, a sound not at all like a human cry, but one that nevertheless chilled me. Again the big animal cried, a full-lunged shriek.The horse flung out a foreleg, and the hoof angled straight down, swinging, connected only by flesh and sinew.

Sir Jean struggled to haul his body out of his saddle. It was no easy effort—one stirrup was trapped under the horse's heaving form. The saddle that helped the knight stay mounted and secure now trapped him. Nicholas held out a hand, leaning from his own mount, but Sir Jean slapped it away.

At last Sir Jean wrestled his bulk free of the horse. Nigel and I struggled to control our own chargers, both animals agitated by the agonized screams of the injured steed. Sir Jean drew his sword and in one blow cut his injured horse's neck, nearly all the way through.

One of Sir Jean's ostlers wailed, his voice high and broken as the sight of this fine horse bleeding moved him beyond words. Nearly every witness, many of them wagering men, had something solemn and urgent to say to his neighbors, and the air resounded with an undercurrent of voices.

Sir Jean used both hands to extricate the blade, pulling in a stiff, ugly movement, and then he brandished the weapon, gilded with blood. It was a gesture that both threatened and invited.

Sir Nigel laughed, his sound both captured and amplified by the iron helmet. It was a single burst of merriment that from some fighters would have been empty bravado. But I knew Sir Nigel well enough. Mounted, Sir Jean, the bigger knight, had an advantage. But on foot, shield to sword, Sir Nigel could have traded blows with any warrior under heaven.

Unless he broke his arms again.

My own sword still in its scabbard, I held the leather bridle as Sir Nigel half fell from the saddle, caught himself, hefted his shield, and marched upon the larger knight, his chain mail skirt making the
chink chink chink
I found pleasant to hear under other circumstances.

A single bee, a spiraling speck of amber, circled crazily around Sir Nigel's helmet.The island of Chios was famed for its sage-flavored honey; from where we fought, straw bee-hives could be seen, a row upon the stony field. Sir Nigel hated insects and spiders, and even armored he hesitated now, letting this little chip of life make a wide orbit. Perhaps the bees mistook the blooming gush of scarlet all around for a sudden burst of flowers, because there were several insects, glinting brightly in the morning air.

Sir Nigel circled. Sir Jean set his feet and landed a sweeping blow on Sir Nigel's kite-shaped Crusader shield. In return Sir Nigel slammed his shield into Sir Jean's, shoving hard. I winced, looking on, knowing that if the splints and gauntlets protecting Sir Nigel were going to fail, it would be now.

“Pig!” grunted Sir Jean in English.

Sir Nigel cut through the air, his sword ringing out on the edge of Sir Jean's shield.

“Weak as a lady,” said Sir Jean in his simple, infirm English. “Weak as a little maiden lady.”
May-den lay-dee.

Sir Nigel drove his shield into Sir Jean. The heavier Frankish knight took a step back and began to breathe heavily, his breath echoing in the iron bucket of his helmet.

“Thief master,” panted Sir Jean.

I could not keep myself from stealing a glance at Squire Nicholas, wondering how embarrassing he found his lordship's invective. Nicholas allowed the mail coif to shadow his features.

Sir Nigel did not speak. The two knights circled each other. Sir Jean feinted once, twice. Sir Nigel, keeping his footwork economical, always thrust his left foot toward Sir Jean while the taller, stouter knight sometimes slipped, his feet confused, like a dancer too drunk to keep the tambour's rhythm.

“Piss hole!” gasped Sir Jean.

Sir Nigel delivered a solid, convincing blow squarely on the golden bird on Sir Jean's shield. Sir Jean shuffled, and his feet found the slop where the warhorse's gore had pooled. The big knight slipped. He stumbled, and caught himself only by sticking his sword into the scarlet muck.

Sir Nigel could have cut Sir Jean badly right then, the big knight exposed, but he did not. The Frankish fighting man staggered. He hopped on one foot, his mail skirt jingling, the sun bright along his polished shield. He swore by the Holy Face of Lucca, a favorite curse among knights.

And he fell hard, unharmed by Sir Nigel.

I was about to dismount. Nicholas's shadow was in the corner of my eye, his approach distorted by the sweat that stung my vision.

Edmund's voice.

 

 

 

I turned toward the movement rising near me—the gleam of a gauntlet, the glint of a sword.

But the sun was at my assailant's back.

With no warning, I was on the ground, flat, hands out, feet splayed, closing and opening my eyes. My ears were ringing, but I had no impression of having fallen. I was not concerned for the moment, and felt grateful for the flat, solid earth beneath me.

But as I lay there, I began to experience a deep puzzlement. Had I planned to do this? Surely, I mocked myself gently, this was not a good idea. I tried to imagine that the joust was over—it was time to stretch out in thankful exhaustion.

I had to guess my way through very recent events, and I found no logic behind my position here in the sunlight, men and horses moving about me, hooves kicking up dust.When I tried to sit up, I could not move.

Nicholas de Foss knelt over me, pressing my head down with one hand. The squire's mail coif whispered as he bent over me.

He lowered a
couteau
—a long knife—to my throat.

A fist seized the rounded top of Nicholas's coif and pulled him back.

Edmund had Nicholas, and as tall as the blond squire was, my friend raised him high off the ground and threw him down.

Edmund put the head of his war hammer on Nicholas's chest and said, “Do not move.”

I parted my lips, but no words came.

“Where are your hurts?” asked Edmund, kneeling beside me.

“I am quite well, Edmund,” I heard myself say—a perfect lie.

“Hubert, can you move?” Edmund insisted.

“When I choose,” I managed to say.

A melee commenced, the field crowded with energetic, angry, impatient folk, excited to be battling again. Weapons made a terrible clash, shield against sword, hammer against armor.The sound makes the pit of the stomach leap, and the eyes blink. Mail-clad feet hurried around me, and the leather-bottomed boots of pikemen slipped in the bloody mud.

Edmund stood over me, laying about him with his hammer, warning people away.The tension was easily spent, and few men had drawn swords with murderous intent. Besides, this scurvy, jaundiced, worm-eaten crowd could not fight long without fatigue. Edmund stayed right where he was, one mailed foot on either side of me, keeping me from harm. Sir Nigel's voice rose over all the others. Just as in the Crusader camp, he won their attention, commanding men to sheathe their swords, and ordering squires to help their knights back to the tree shade where they could all drink cool wine.

Rannulf's voice reached me. In a calming tone he told some unseen warrior that if he did not scabbard his sword at once, he'd cleave his arm from his shoulder.

An ostler soothed one of the warhorses, with kissing sounds and quiet urging. A water boy outfitted in Sir Jean's worn and faded livery, a moth-eaten swift flying skyward on his breast, knelt beside Edmund.

“Sir Jean sends to know,” said the lad,“if Sir Nigel's squire is badly hurt.”

I tried to speak yet again, but could not form a further word. A great pain began to expand in my head.

“Good herald,” said Edmund, his voice taut with anger, “pray ask Squire Nicholas's attendance upon us, if it please him.”

Squire Nicholas wore his mail hood back, his blond hair sweat-soaked.

Edmund let the squire wait, wiping my face with a cool cloth.Then he stood and folded the cloth and made a show of bored surprise at Nicholas's presence. Edmund had learned a great deal among the Norman knights, and no one would have guessed he was a staver's son as he looked Nicholas up and down with nearly Frankish coolness.

“Upon my honor, Nicholas de Foss,” said Edmund evenly, “and before Saint Mark, I swear that if I ever set eyes on you again I will take your life.”

I had sometimes wondered how the trussed prize goose feels, carried from the market. I was trundled in Edmund's arms, with Rannulf marching ahead, the veteran knight only once having to call out, “Make way.”

However, I was aware that if the pain in my head grew greater, I would die. And even as I struggled to be courageous, I felt the cold of this new fear seep into my bones. I promised myself that I would not lose consciousness or fall asleep.

I would stay awake forever.

 

 

I lay on a cot in our inn, and I slept, only to be shaken awake and offered a white, chipped bowl by Edmund. How he anticipated what I required I could not say, because I hardly knew myself. I disgorged the scanty contents of my belly, a brief bout of vomiting that left me feeling even weaker.

Edmund held my helmet into the lamplight so that I could see it. The head covering was cut badly, the brass and leather gashed. My head was sorely bruised, but as I searched with my fingers, it seemed that my scalp was intact.

The high-pitched shrilling in my ears was ceaseless, and I saw a double image of Sir Nigel as he entered the room.

 

 

Father Stephen, the English priest, paid me a visit, looking so wraithlike that I had to stretch out a hand and feel his arm through his sleeve.

“The weather has changed,” said the priest.

I was not reassured by this visit, believing that I was sure to die and that this gaunt man of God was here to provide me with the appropriate rites. He did offer a few remarks on the sanctity of suffering, but then he sighed, and I realized—it had the force of fresh insight—that sometimes a priest needs comfort, too.

“It will be a blessing to see home again, Father,” I offered, hoping he would allow me to adopt such a familiar tone.

“I dreamed of this,” said the priest.

“You dreamed of what, Father?” I forced myself to ask.

“My parents were people of worth,” said the priest.“With scullery servants and a bottler. But do you know, of all that luxury—” He let the word drift in the lamplight. Luxury was a sin, carnal and self-satisfying. “Of all that easeful luxury, do you know what I recall with the greatest joy?”

I could not shake my injured head.

“The sound of rain in the thatch,” he rasped.

The priest and I shared the gentle sound of a downpour, increasing now beyond the shuttered windows.

 

 

 

A surgeon knelt before me, smelling of garlic and of sweat. He peered into my eyes, lifting my eyebrows as though he wanted my eyes to fall out so that he could examine them more completely. He put his hands over my head, fingertips pressing, as I cringed involuntarily. It did not hurt, I told myself.