‘For all this bout is unofficial, I say ye’re to hold yerselves bound by the rules of a duellum. If you agree say Aye.’
We say it, both together as if we had rehearsed it.
‘The duellum’s ‘to excess’, which is to death or mortal wound. If either combatant takes a lesser wound, is maimed or is exhausted, he may cry “Craven!”
an’ be spared his life. Or else relinquish it by coup de grâce.’
Guillaume recites from memory. ‘The victor who shirks the coup must be accounted loser. The loser who cries craven must be outlawed, excluded from his lord’s protection. If at the time of sunset. neither combatant has triumphed – the defendant (in this case, Sir Hugh) must be judged innocent of charges. Got it? Understand it, both?’
He waits. We nod.
‘Then I am here to offer ye the chance to think again, an’ settle for first blood instead.’ The stern blue stare on his worn face turns first on me, then Hugh.
‘There’s no sense, lads, in goin’ further to decide the thing,’ he growls, ‘unless ye’re silly in the head.’
‘Or the lady in the case insists that one of us, and me for choice, should part with all our blood,’ Hugh says, ‘and we’ve agreed to set all sense aside to satisfy her on the point.’
Old Guillaume grunts, coughs twice, returns to his recital.
‘Then knights of Sussex, hear the laws by which ye may compete. You are required to swear that ye’ve concealed about yer person no weapons other than those in yer hand. Nor herb, nor magic charm whereby the laws of Heaven may be abased, or those of Satan exalted.
‘Do ye so swear? So help ye God?’
‘I do so swear.’
‘So help ye God?’
‘I doubt that the Almighty has the time to spare on such sordid affairs. But if I must, “So help me God” by all means.’
Amusement in the words, contempt in the tone. But Hugh swears, nonetheless – and so do I.
‘Spectators, ye may neither speak, nor cough, nor spit during duellum.’ Guillaume addresses all the men and boys who stand in clusters by the cattle byres, the stables, stores and armouries, around the tiltyard walls and up the wooden stairway to the northern motte. ‘Nor may ye divert the combatants by movement of the hand or foot, on pain of floggin’ if discovered.’
Elise up in her window? Would they dare to flog a lady if she cried out?
But now to us in the same ringing tone: ‘Perform salute and bind!’ We back four paces, raise our naked blades.
I feel the warmth of my gloved fists gripped on the strap and pommel, the pulse of my own blood…
‘We borrow time from life is all.’ ‘We make time as we live it.’
But which? If the author of my life has planned this day, will he consider its extension? Or is the loan already overdue? And in an hour perhaps, or less, will these gloved hands, these legs, this thinking brain, be nothing more to me or anyone than so much meat and bone?
Advance one pace to cross swords for ligacio.
Shields tight on wrists, to measure one another’s weight and strength just as the rams did in the alps. My reach is longer, I’ve the height. I would have had the weight once, but no longer. He’s limber, supple, quicker on his feet.
Guillaume’s long marshal’s staff rests in the crutch of the steel cross we’ve made. Touch blades. Lock eyes. Black Hugh, black frown, black eyes like flints. No trace of laughter now.
‘You eat for pleasure, sing for pleasure, fuck for pleasure, lad. But ye don’t FIGHT for love of it, you fight to win.’
And in my hands, and in my brain, the future. Mine, Elise’s and the child’s.
It’s not enough to fight to win. I have to kill the man!
Abruptly Guillaume’s staff jerks upward, breaks the bind.
‘Commence!’ A gust of indrawn breath runs round the outer ward.
Passing step, back on the left. Tread through. Hold middle distance. Block! Thrust and block. Step through.
Trust to training. Skill in place of hatred. Bone and sinew, strength of grip. First blow can be decisive. But that’s past and we’re still…
SMASH! Use the bucker! Boss on boss. CHOK! CHOK! Rams butting heads.
Clumsy, that was clumsy – work it as a weapon…
Hugh’s dark eyes, slit like visors, giving, missing nothing. No sign in them of anything but total confidence in his ability to kill me. Keep his sword higher. Out of reach. Away from legs, from thighs – from hamstrings.
He’s moving round, offline. A chance? I see what he’s about! The sun, a fiery ball, it’s…
PAIN! Pain out of light! A searing slice of fire! Jesus Christ, he’s…
‘He’s cut already! God, his face is cut!’ I couldn’t help but scream it.
‘Whose face? What kind of wound?’ The Countess’s cool voice helped me to look, and tell her that it wasn’t serious.
‘It is Sir Garon, and there’s blood. But not so much – he’s fighting on, My Lady.’
First blood. Stinging, warm where it’s run down into my collar. But not so bad. Good to be done with. Makes you less afraid and brings its own new burst of strength.
Push forward and tread though, and round – block…
SMASH!
Recoil and thrust. Give him a taste of sun himself. Too much control can hamper your reactions.
And here at last, the surge! The feeling I have waited, hoped for! Hands. Feet. Reflex, instinct, something I can’t put a name to, flowing through my arms and fists into the steel.
My body knows its business now – frees me to listen to the slither, whine of steel. Our gasps and grunts. A pair of rutting beasts, one of them black-bearded, the other with a bloody face.
Step wide. Step through. In line. Offline. Changing ground to place the blows – to force the other round to face the sun. I’m free to see its sparkle on our bucklers. Lightning flashes on our blades. We know the steps, are better matched than anyone believed. My eye as quick as his. His reach as good as mine. We tease, we tempt, we dance, we circle. Now in shadow. Now in light, slicing silver patterns through the sunlight.
I watched a spider in the angle of the window, working to repair his web. I watched the shadow of the solar creeping out across the tiltyard, to catch the fighting men as they stepped through it – into shade, and out of it into the light.
The blood’s drying. But sweat’s dripping from my cap-band. Shirt soaked. Throat raw. Arm muscles corded, screaming for relief! The pace is punishing and every move hard-fought. Keep on. Keep on. Maintain the rhythm. Save energy. Move only as you have to. Sheer stamina – in a protracted bout that can be what decides the outcome.
‘You’re favouring your right, Garon.’
Where does he find the breath to speak?
‘Is it the knee?’ His blade darts at me hissing like a snake, turned flat to penetrate the ribs.
Block. Counter-strike. Keep on. Keep on. No need to answer him or break the flow.
‘Or is your problem with the foot? IS–IT-THE-FOOT?’ Hugh’s words timed to the movements of his sword.
Step wide to lunge. He’s close. Close range. Shields clash and interlock. Grapple. Twist and grapple, thigh to thigh.
The stench of him! His sweat, his…
AAAH! CHRIST, THE FOOT!
Break free! Back! Back, out of range. Block. Thrust, and block…
Don’t let him see. He couldn’t know that it was broken then – or now again.
Sweet Jesus! I thought his time had come. The pain in his poor bleeding face!
‘What is it child, what can you see?’ I couldn’t leave the window, couldn’t even turn my head.
‘Somehow he managed to lock shields, My Lady. Wrenched him round and stamped on him. His foot.’
‘Who did? Whose foot?’
‘Sir Garon’s injured foot. Sir Hugh is pressing in…’
I knew that she expected me to tell her everything. But all I really wanted was to hide from it – escape from WHAT I KNEW WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!
Flat feet. That’s all you need for sword and buckler fighting. Can do without the toes.
Keep on. Keep on. Push through the pain. Push through, YOU CAN.
To falter even for an instant is to die!
Their shadows had already crossed the yard – giant shadows, elongated, rearing back and forth across the stable roof. From light to shade, from life to…
Breath rasping, burning in my throat. Block. Block.
SMASH. SMASH! Pressing his advantage.
The dazzle of the sun. Low-slanted now and level with the keep. Stripes him with light reflected from my blade. Across his arm. Across his neck. A white cross. Could it… could I?
Too bright. Can’t take it. Have to turn. Left foot passing step. Now right. AAH,
close – too close! His sword-point’s knicked my coif…
Sun’s image ringed with red. Imprinted on my brain. The sound of bells, the Priory ringing Vespers. But can’t last to sunset – know I can’t. And if I could, he’d win. How long? How many steps as we turn back? How many strokes before the sun is hidden by the solar roof? How many chances to…
He’s in! God, in again and grappling! His favoured move. A wrestler’s throw – I’M DOWN!
Black eyes triumphant. Venomous! The upraised blade – SMASH! Blocked by the buckler covering my fists. Rams jarring brains. Two fists together, gripping sword and shield…
A chance!
–
just one, the very last. My blade cross-angled to the sun. Last burst of light above the ridge, becomes a weapon. Band of brilliance stripes his face, his eyes – through to the brain behind them.
To blind him. Send him wide, expose his sword-arm at the wrist…
AND NOW! AND NOW! Now undercut. Slice up behind the buckler, through the gauntlet…
CRACK! The sharp, clear sound of snapping bone. The grate of steel. The single cry of pain. The useless falling blade.
THE BLOOD! He staggers, spent. Drops to his knees.
I stumble upright through the pain. My weight on the good foot. My sword still firm in hand.
‘He’d won! Thanks be to God!’
I turned back from the window, to show My Lady Isabel a face already wet with tears. Beside her chair, young Tom was grinning like an ape.
‘So God has spoken through his sword,’ My Lady said complacently. ‘And is he dead? Has he received the coup?’
Down in the tiltyard, neither of the men had moved. Sir Hugh still knelt with right wrist gripped in left, still gouting blood. Sir Garon stood above him with sword held ready for the mercy blow – the coup de grâce to finish it and clear me of dishonour.
‘Now Garon, NOW,’ I whispered. ‘JÉSU, DO IT NOW!’
His right hand’s useless. Lifeblood spurting, pouring through the fingers of the left. There is a moment when a hare, gripped in the falcon’s talons, accepts its fate and ceases to resist. It’s in the eyes.
It’s in his eyes, the willingness to die.
‘Kill me then, be done.’
‘Say craven and be spared.’
Bared teeth and a contraction of the lips to imitate a smile.
‘What? Spare you the pain of doing it, and lose in any case?’ He lifts his chin unflinchingly and braces for the blow.
I drop the buckler. Raise the blade to catch the last rays of the sun – and strike, less with the point than to it.
He plunged his sword point-first into the sand. I turned back from the window with a crimson face!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lewes Fortress: March 1194
EXPEDIENCE
In sixty-four eventful years the Countess of Warenne has only ever sought her bed in daylight to conceive a child or to produce one. In fact she has the constitution of a draught-ox, but attributes her good health to daily doses of cranesbill and orris root in Bordeaux wine, and to the expert team of herbalists, astrologers, apothecaries, barber surgeons and personal physicians she employs.
Six of them are to travel with her to North Kent, and are already mounted in the outer bailey with their charts and cures and tonics packed behind them in a covered cart; only waiting for the signal to depart. A seventh has remained with his assistant in a basement chamber of the fortress, with instructions from My Lady to attend the wounded knight.
The physician, Bonfil, stands at the table they have cleared for him to mix his potions. He wears an apron stained with blood, a linen bonnet to confine his hair.
‘Hogbile, hemlock, henbell, three spoons of each.’ It helps in his experience to tell over the ingredients first before selecting them.
‘Three more of neep and lactula and pape, a dash of vinegar. Let’s see, that’s six jars, with a bottle and a pan – you’ll need a tray,’ he tells his young assistant.
This is the part Bonfil enjoys the most, the measuring and mixing. With the containers, tightly corked and neatly labelled, set in an ordered row before him, he takes a silver spoon, the smallest of three sizes, and advises his apprentice to ‘Observe and learn from observation.’
Bonfil has attended lectures and dissections at the universities of Oxford and Montpelier. He’s read the
Hippocratic Corpus,
the
Canon of Medicine
and Galen’s
Natural Faculties.
He practices the principles of humorism, to balance the four elemental fluids of the body with reference to the horoscope. So the preparation of an opiate, a dwale to keep the patient out of pain while his heart sucks vital blood from the nutritive fluid in his veins, makes perfect sense to Bonfil.