The White Cross (5 page)

‘Ah prayers!’ He stretched and yawned, and as he settled back more comfortably I caught the rank scent of his sweat. They say that all of us are woven on the same loom. But that’s not true for Hugh smelled differently to me or any of my flesh and blood, and in the difference lay a challenge. Something animal and violent.

‘So useful prayers, I always think, against a mounted force of desperate men.’ Closing his eyes again he turned his head into his arms. ‘I take it then that you’ve rehearsed the moves you practice in the tilt yard, down to the final flourish?’

I told him sullenly that it was we trained for, and it struck me as I did so that his strong black hair was thinning at the crown. With any luck, I thought, in ten years he’ll be bald!

Six years had passed already since he’d made his choice between continued service to the Earl of Warenne or marriage to a widow at his lord’s disposal, my mother Lady Constance – and although she’s half as old again as him, de Bernay saw his way ahead. His own forbears held Haddertun before they backed the wrong side in the Empress Mathilde’s War and lost the manor to my father, Sir Gervase. So by marrying my mother he not only gained life-tenure of the Manor of Meresfeld, which she’d inherited in her own right, but if I died, a claim on Haddertun as well though any children he could get on her. For Hugh the match made perfect sense. But not for me, with his existence robbing me of tithes and any son that either of us sired a threat in some way to the other.

His marriage and the way he smelled gave me two reasons to dislike the man. The third was something meaner. Come Garon and confess it, you were jealous. There’s no earthly point in trying to remember, if you can’t face the fact that you were jealous of Hugh’s confidence and handsome face, the ease with which he took your father’s place at bed and board. All right, you felt wrong-footed by him. You thought he talked too much and laughed too readily. But if he’d been less skilful with a sword and lance, less comfortable in his own skin – be honest, wouldn’t you have liked him more?

‘So are we to infer that lances are the only weapons you know how to use?’

De Bernay chose the very moment that I dropped my cloak and beckoned Jos for my massage, to raise his head and eye my naked body. ‘You’ll pardon me for wondering. But will that eager bride of yours approve so short a spear do we suppose?’

It was one of those times that stay with you, that you can’t forget, another link in the long chain that’s drawn me to this place. He mocked me openly before our squires, and like a dog that can’t stand being laughed at my first thought was to turn and hide. My second was to use my fists to smash Hugh’s handsome face in. But all I did when it came down to it was scowl and flop onto my pallet, scarlet to the hairline, knowing I was outmanoevered.

‘And do try not to grind your teeth, boy,’ I heard him murmur from the hairy cradle of his arms. ‘It sounds so unattractive.’

We dipped our lances side by side before the Earl and Countess, Hugh and I, as the appellants dipped theirs on the far side of the field for Archbishop Baldwin – a small man in black and white who sat with his secretaries and chaplains in a stand garlanded with bright red poppies to represent the blood of Thomas Becket.

Returned to England for the trépignée and coronation, the Earl had come by road from Dover to join his lady at the fortress on the west bank of the River Ouse, Baldwin came up-river from Newhaven to his manor of South Malling on the further bank. Word of the tournament they were to hold between the two had spread like wildfire through the County. Spectators thronged the wooden barriers, burgesses rubbing shoulders with the peasants. Sunhats sprouted everywhere like mushrooms, some on children perched up on their fathers’ shoulders; and on a scaffold a small group of umpires sat apart, two knights from either camp to see fair play with scribes to keep a tally of the scores.

‘Knights of Sussex, hear the laws by which you may compete!’ A clarion fanfare announced a mounted herald in the Warenne livery of blue and gold, a man as slight as the archbishop chosen for his mighty lungpower.

‘By order of Prince Richard, by grace of God the rightful Lord of England,’ he bellowed with his hands cupped round his mouth. ‘No combatant on pain of death may bring onto the field of tournament a boar-spear, bow or arbalest, a dagger or a slash-hook. Knights may only fight with lances, swords and axes, flails and bludgeons. Squires must go unarmed. Those taken at a disadvantage must be dragged by main force to the stakes erected and there remain until their ransoms are agreed, with one half of all payments, or half the value of their confiscated steeds and armour to be rendered to the Honour of Warenne for contribution at Exchequer to the Kings’ Croisade.

‘Knights of Sussex, know that you are subject to your Sovereign Lord to do his bidding, and swear this day in presence of this great assembly to bear fealty to Lord Richard, King Elect.’ The herald’s face was flushed, eyes like a throttled cat’s. But none of us were free to arm until the words he’d memorised had been repeated.

‘I do so swear in life and limb and earthy honour,’ I recited with the others. ‘I swear against all men and women who might live and die, to be answerable to Richard Lord of England, to keep his peace and justice in all things.’

And the girl up in the west stand with the Earl and Countess? The girl I was to marry? She was no more to me just then than a figure on the far side of a hill I’d yet to climb. Just then all I could think of was my own tense body, feeling as I’d only felt before at point of climax with a whore. Panting for achievement!

I know that I was panting, for I’m panting now as I re-live it. ‘VICTOIRE!’ I couldn’t write the word. But it unfolded like a banner in my brain!

Our squires were waiting at the barriers to arm us, my raddle-pated Joscelin and Hugh’s Fremund.

‘Well don’t just stand there, witless,’ I called to Jos as we rode up. ‘I’ll have the short arms and the gauntlets first, and then the shield.’

There’s something comforting about the bulk, the sheer weight of armour once you have it on. All I could see of Master Jos as he reached up to tie the flail and bludgeon to the saddle rings and then to lace the gauntlets, was a freckled forehead and a nest of bright red curls.

‘Shield and helm, all here My Lord,’ he said.

I looped the shield guige round my neck, then asked once more if he would check Raoul’s girths.

‘Are both bands…?’

‘Tight enough and sound?’ said Jos, who had a knack of knowing what I was about to say before I said it. He skipped back nimbly in the nick of time from Raoul’s savage teeth, to offer me the helm with a broad grin. ‘Tight as a nun’s cunt as a fact.’

‘As soon as I’m accoutred then, you’d best trot up the rail to where the first brunt’s like to be,’ I told him, busy with my straps. ‘If I should fall to an attaint, you know what you must do, Jos? You’ll not…?’

‘Fail you, Sir Garry? Never!’

I blinked. ‘Am I so…?’

‘Obvious? No Sir, not by any means.’ My squire’s eyes, as round as shillings blue as periwinkles, considered me with helm and shield in place and chain-link aventail pulled up to guard my chin. A natural child of Father’s brother Anfrid, he’d known me since we both were boys and followed me with cheerful constancy through every stage of training – known me and supported me through every step of my career.

‘Sharp’s the word an’ quick’s the motion, Sir.’ He handed up the lance, much heavier than those we’d used for practice and painted in a spiral, red and green.

Another beaming smile. A friendly pat for Raoul’s twitching flank, and off Jos ran to do my bidding.

Anyone on Raoul’s back must look the part provided he could hold him. I shortened reins and wheeled to join the line of our defendants ready for the charge. Five lances to each line. Six lines deployed across the field to face the same formation at the other end. Two horses in our team were close to shying.

I yawned as I’d been taught to do, to ease the tension in my lungs. No man is worth his salt, I told myself, until he’s given and received a blow.

‘Defendants show your mettle!’ our leader, Rob de Pierpoint, shouted over the heads of the excited horses. ‘Remember men, we fight in company, each one of us accountable for four confrères. We win by looking to each other’s interests. A man who fights alone may fall to rear attack, and we’ve no use for fallen heroes.’

I saw the other knights stare sightlessly as I did, saving energy for all that lay ahead. Even now and at this distance, even here where all about me is serene, I can still feel the pulse, forge-hammer heartbeat, burning breath, sinew, muscle, blood and brain – the trembling muscles of my thighs? Or Raoul’s, gloved in satin, shivering beneath me? It scarce mattered which. I was as one with the great destrier whose pedigree I could recite back to Seville, and in another line to Duke William’s battle stallion, Mauger. We were as one, Raoul and I, sharing the need to use our fear to spur us into action.

If I fear pain I’ll never show it. I fear no man and nothing save dishonour.

The trumpeters put up their clarions to catch the morning sun. A sound like rising wind passed through the stands.

Big breath and steady, Garon. VICTOIRE for the taking!

And am I there? Or simply watching and recalling? Is there still something in me of the foolhardy youth I was that day, taut as a bowstring, knowing the defeat of fear was what made men, trembling on the brink of violence?

WIN GARON! WIN THE CONTEST! I’d willingly have given the fingers of my left hand to achieve it!

The ear-splitting trumpet blast struck like a bolt from heaven, resounding and rebounding from the hills and down the valley to the sea. The crowd’s roar reached a bestial pitch, as first the Earl, then the archbishop signalled for the action to begin.

The strain of waiting over. A wall of sound. My sharp-spurred heels and Raoul’s response a single impulse, springing forward to a canter which in five paces had become a full-stretch gallop, grinding his great frame up to the speed that he was bred for.

The earth beneath us shuddered. Six muscled legs, two thumping hearts, four bouncing balls and any number of bared teeth. We were unstoppable!

HAVOC! HAVOC! HAVOC!

My own voice yelling with my friends. I felt invincible – like William Conqueror, the Cid of Vivar, Richard of Anjou and Sir Gervase my father all rolled into one. Charging with the heroes of my dreams!

CHAPTER THREE

The lance points ahead of us were glinting in the sun. Against the thunder of a hundred hoofbeats I sought the knight in the archbishop’s line who must by rights be mine, and held him him in sight – all else a frame for the marked man who was my target. From a distance of two hundred paces I could see his horse’s shoulders milling him to fighting speed. Then as I watched, his lance dropped to the couched position behind his yellow-painted shield. A second lance came down and then another. A rake of lances dropped together.

The gap between us closed as sixty lethal weapons offered to collide at twice the speed of every charging horse. Not yet! I told myself. Wait! Wait, just wait…

NOW, COUCH! For me the field had narrowed to a corridor of sunlit grass down which two riders hurtled on collision course. The sense of savage joy I felt pumped through my heart to fill my lungs. The only man I saw between Raoul’s flattened ears was covered by my lance point.

Nothing now but fifty paces lay between us. His mouth beneath his nasal-guard was open wide

With feet thrown forward in the stirrups, back hard against the cantle of my saddle, I braced myself for the terrific shock of impact.

Now twenty paces and twelve foot of quivering ashwood from the brunt… NOW TEN!.

The other’s face beneath his nasal guard was near as fearsome as the horse’s with it’s rolling, white-walled eyes. His lance swung in from nowhere. Struck hard. Deflected from the horn plates of the shield I flung to meet it…

…as my own point jarred – slid- jarred again and reflexed, to lift me bodily and hurl me from the saddle!

The sound of mass collision echoed from the hills, followed by a great roar from the crowd.

Jagged splinters cartwheeled twenty foot into the air. Horses, pierced, uprearing, forced back onto their haunches, screamed in pain and terror. Riders bellowed for their squires against the thunder of the stands.

Stunned. Winded. Sprawling on the turf, the first thing I saw was my opponent’s yellow shield, and the pain I felt became a small thing beside the large, surprising thing that was his corpse. It sat and stared at me, surprised itself by the ash shaft thrust through its teeth and sticking out a foot behind its shattered skull.

‘Dear Lord, it seems the only thing men love as much as killing one other and pestering us women, is making a loud noise while they’re about it.’ The voice of Countess Isabel across the bellowing of all those men.

I can’t look up, can’t tear my eyes away from that poor wretch’s head with Sir Garon’s lance stuck through it like a skewer. Ugh!

I’ve seen folk die before, of course I have, both my little brothers. And I won’t be sick, I can’t be, Maman would disown me.

But see, the red-haired squire has caught Sir Garon’s horse. He’s on his feet again and mounting – God, he’s brave! He has his sword, but not the…

His squire is tugging at the lance with one foot on the dead man’s face. At every jerk the dead eyes bulge grotesquely – a rim of tattered lips dragged forward like a pouting lamprey’s. Beastly!