The Champion (8 page)
Hervi and Alexander were halfway across the camp when they encountered a man crawling through the grass in a drunken stupor. He wore the tattered habit of a Benedictine monk and the bald ring of his tonsure was fuzzy with stubble.
Hervi gave a snort of amused disgust and stooped to haul the sodden cleric to his feet. ‘Lost your way again, Brother Rousseau? Alex, help me hold him up.’
Grimacing with revulsion, Alexander grasped the man’s sleeve. Even to be near a monk made him shudder. The stench of wine and ginevra warred with the pungency of the man’s unwashed body. Red-rimmed eyes surveyed him owlishly, then lost their focus. ‘
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula poster
,’ he slurred, then belched. Alexander averted his head and fought the urge to gag.
‘Do you know what he said?’ Hervi enquired. ‘He always speaks Latin when he’s in his cups.’
‘Enjoy the day, trust little in tomorrow,’ Alexander replied in a constricted voice, as he fought not to inhale the priest’s foul breath. The man was like one of the cadavers out of his nightmares.
‘That sounds like Brother Rousseau’s philosophy. Come on, his tent’s just over here.’
They half dragged, half carried Brother Rousseau beyond another ring of firelight occupied by a group of ragged-clad women and children, and brought him to a dilapidated canvas awning, one of its poles surmounted by a crude wooden cross.
Brother Rousseau collapsed from their arms on to his pallet. His eyes rolled in their direction. ‘
Dominus vobiscum
,’ he said, making the sign of the cross with a wavering hand before unconsciousness claimed him.
‘Go with God,’ Alexander translated.
‘I know that one. Come, he’ll be all right. It isn’t the first time I’ve seen him to his bed.’
Alexander gazed at the fire nearby. One of the women thrust out her bosom and pursed her lips at him in blatant invitation. Another, a straggle-haired blonde, rose from her place and approached the brothers.
‘Hervi,’ she purred, rubbing against the discomfited older man like a cat. ‘I hear you took some fine ransoms today.’ She wrapped her arm around his.
Hervi shook her off. ‘Let be, Alys, I’m not here on business.’
She pouted at him. Her eyes slid to Alexander.
‘Neither is he. Go and find Osgar if you’re short of coin.’
‘Oh, Hervi!’ she said in an impatient voice. ‘You know I prefer you!’
‘You do at the moment because I’ve got silver in my pouch.’ Lowering his head, Hervi took Alexander by the arm and set off at a determined pace. Hands on hips, Alys tossed her head and swayed back to the fire.
‘I have seen her before,’ Alexander said with a frown.
Hervi cleared his throat. ‘She was in my tent when I brought you there out of your senses.’
Alexander looked at his brother with interest. ‘Do you know her well?’
‘Hah, only too well! She’s a camp whore, good at her trade, but as fickle as a west wind and given to emptying a man’s purse in short order. Don’t you go getting any ideas,’ he warned sharply.
‘I wasn’t; I was just curious.’
‘Well, keep your curiosity above your belt.’
Alexander thought of several retorts, but was sufficiently prudent not to utter them. Hervi had a powerful right arm. Instead, he asked about the priest they had just helped to his bed.
‘Brother Rousseau?’ Hervi pinched the end of his nose. ‘He’s French, a former chaplain to some noble family in the Seine valley. He was thrown out for embezzlement and drunken debauchery, among other things. He acts as our confessor and comforter – when he’s sober, which is not very often. Earns his money by baptising and shriving.’ They arrived at their own tent and Hervi unlaced the opening. ‘He is not a proper priest, but no ordained cleric will touch those who live off the tourneys unless they are very high nobility with the necessary bribe-silver. Any man who dies jousting is considered to have committed suicide and is therefore beyond the Church’s grace.’
‘I know. More than once at Cranwell the prior condemned such gatherings as this.’
‘And I suppose that only made you all the more determined to sample the life for yourself,’ Hervi said drily.
Alexander shrugged as he followed his brother into the musty darkness. ‘Nothing could ever be more damning than the life I lived at Cranwell,’ he replied bleakly, and knew that tonight his dreams would haunt him.
‘Again,’ Hervi said relentlessly, and beckoned with his forefinger. ‘Come at me again.’
The noonday sun sizzled overhead, and the air was motionless, saturated with the heat of late July. Alexander blotted sweat from his brow with his forearm and tightened his grip on the damp leather hilt of the sword. His left arm was encumbered by the weight of a shield, and a quilted gambeson hampered his body. Hervi was similarly attired, the high dome of his brow glistening and his breath rasping in his throat. Dust rose from the grassy Norman meadow on the western edge of Rouen. A three-day tourney was to begin on the morrow, and the competitors were out, honing the skills which Alexander was only just learning.
He tried to remember what he had been told. Don’t go for the beckoning bright target of the shield, go for the man behind it, disable him. How to do that when your limbs felt like lead weights had not been explained.
Drawing a deep breath, he launched himself at Hervi, aiming high above the rim of the shield. Hervi ducked out of the way and directed a sweeping backhand slash at Alexander’s right knee. The young man leaped over the blow and his sword flickered up inside Hervi’s shield edge and touched his torso. Triumphant, Alexander withdrew, a half-smile on his lips. It was quickly wiped away as Hervi’s leg shot out, swiping his feet from under him, and Alexander found himself looking along the length of a blade, a steel point in the hollow of his throat.
‘Never assume that you have made a kill until your enemy is down,’ Hervi panted. ‘If that had been a real battle, the force of your strike would have done no more than nick me, probably not even that if I had been wearing mail. One good hit does not constitute a victory.’ He removed the sword, leaving a crestfallen Alexander free to rise.
‘Still,’ he added judiciously, ‘you’re coming along. A month ago you would have got nowhere near me, and I’d have downed you with that first leg blow.’
‘It seems to take forever.’ Alexander puffed out his cheeks and remained on the ground for a moment, taking what respite he could.
‘You are trying to squash what takes five years to learn into as many months,’ Hervi said. ‘Indeed, you are making far better progress than I anticipated. Rush your training and it will let you down when you need it the most.’ Squinting in the sun’s glare, he sheathed his sword. ‘Enough for now. It’s too hot to be wearing all this padding. This evening, when it’s cooler, we’ll work on your horseback skills.’
Alexander nodded with relief and rose to his feet. Within seconds he had removed the stewing weight of the gambeson, followed by his tunic. His shirt clung to his body, and perspiration gleamed in the hollow of his throat. ‘If you want me, I’ll be down by the river with my scribing tools.’
Hervi grinned. ‘If you want
me
,’ he replied, ‘I’ll be at Edmund One-eye’s with a jug of wine.’
Alexander gave a knowing roll of his eyes and departed to collect his small portable lectern and writing materials from their tent. Then he mounted his horse and rode off in the direction of the river.
In the ten weeks that had passed since Alexander’s arrival on the tourney circuit, Samson, as he had been named, had filled out with good grazing and a conditioning of oats and barley. His hide was like a black mirror, and beneath it, his muscles were long and fluid. He was intelligent, strong, but not too large, the perfect kind of animal to train up for the mêlée and individual joust. Even Hervi, who was seldom fulsome with his praise, had nothing critical to say about the stallion.
Alexander’s mind turned to the comments meted out just now as he lay defeated in the dust.
Better progress than I anticipated; coming along
. ‘But I want it now,’ he said aloud, his tone full of frustration. Skill lay an unspecified time away and could only be attained through the sweat of learning and experience.
Samson’s ears flickered and he gave a playful buck. Alexander tightened his thighs as Hervi had taught him. He no longer required a saddle to remain mounted these days, could ride at a canter bareback without falling off, and could vault astride without recourse to stirrup or mounting block. Hervi said that the true test of skill was vaulting to the saddle in full armour, and then controlling the horse with the thighs whilst manipulating a shield and lance in the hands.
Alexander had tried on Hervi’s mail shirt while cleaning it. The weight had not seemed too bad, although it was mostly carried on the shoulders and upper torso. Once leggings, coif and helm were added, however, Alexander doubted that he would be able to leap into a saddle with any degree of agility. That too, apparently, came with the sweat of practice.
Man and horse approached the sleepy flow of the river. Here, on the edge of the Fôret de Roumare, the waters of the Seine were sluggish, turbid with tench, bream and pike, the blue reflection of the sky woven with green ribbons of water weed. Alexander dismounted, tethered Samson loosely to a low-growing red hawthorn and leaving him to graze, sat down on the river bank with his lectern.
He had made it out of a rescued piece of firewood, had patiently carved and polished it into shape at evening camp fires. Now it was a smooth wedge that rested comfortably in his lap, but could as easily be used at a trestle. The vellum was secured in place by two adjustable brass straps at the edges of the lectern. Hervi, so sure of himself on the tourney field, had watched with eyes full of awe as Alexander assembled the lectern, ground up the ingredients to make ink and commenced writing the first of the many letters with which he was to make his contribution to their daily bread.
The tourney folk quickly learned that Alexander wrote as neat a scribe’s hand as was to be found in any castle or town, and that the finished missives, whether they be to impress a prospective lover or a future patron, were professionally executed. He charged a fair price, was willing to negotiate fees and most important of all, he kept his mouth shut. Not a word of his clients’ business ever passed from his lips to another’s, not even Hervi’s. Alexander’s reputation grew, and with it the amount of his custom.
Today’s undertaking was a will, requested by a prudent but pessimistic mercenary who wanted to divide his belongings fairly between his offspring and yet leave his widow sufficiently provided for. Alexander selected a quill from the soft pouch at his waist, trimmed it with a small sharp knife and unstoppered his ink horn.
In the heat of the day, Monday felt as if she was frying. Her head itched to distraction beneath the hated wimple. It was worse than having lice. The tent was stifling, the lack of air filling the enclosed space with a musty, earthy smell that made it difficult to breathe. How she envied the men who could walk around bare-chested in the heat, clad in nought but their braies, or the children who splashed and played in the river shallows, naked as God created them.
Monday folded the garment that she and her mother had been stitching that morning – a winter cloak of double-lined grey wool for Alexander de Montroi, to replace the threadbare blue one that he still wore about the camp. Strange to think of winter on a day like this. She envisaged the chill in an attempt to cool herself, but although a shiver ran up her spine, the heat remained as relentless as ever.
Her mother was resting on her pallet, her hands folded protectively over the visible swell of her pregnancy. Monday had still not decided whether to be pleased or resentful about the coming baby. More work and responsibility had devolved upon her shoulders; her childhood had been curtailed, but she was looking forward to helping care for an infant brother or sister. She found herself constantly peering at babies and small infants, a maternal pang stirring in the pit of her belly.
Clemence had enjoyed good health thus far, her complexion radiant and her hair as lustrous as golden silk. She was in her sixth month now, not yet so large that she was unwieldy, but enough to show the world that she was round with child.
Monday had sensed her parents’ conflict of embarrassment and pride; and beneath it the worry. The tourney route was a difficult place for a pregnant woman – difficult for any woman come to that, Monday thought with a grimace, and scratched her head through the thick fabric of the wimple.
Her father stooped into the tent, his brown hair curling in wet tendrils on his brow and neck. There was a gleam in his grey eyes and a smile on his lips
‘Is your mother awake, lass?’ he demanded, and not waiting for a reply, pushed past her and drew aside the curtain that screened off the sleeping quarters.
Clemence sat up on her pallet, her face flushed, her fair hair a tousled thick braid. ‘Arnaud?’ She spoke his name, the muzziness of sleep still in her voice.
‘Love, beloved, I have it, I have it!’ he cried, his face alight as he took her hands in his and raised them to his lips.
‘Have what?’ Clemence asked.
‘Our winter quarters!’
‘You do?’
‘A place in the retinue of Bertran de Lavoux, a permanent place.’ Arnaud grinned from ear to ear. ‘As one of his household knights with a daily wage and lodging for yourself and Monday. I’m to be hired as from Lammastide!’ He glanced at Monday, sharing the news with her too.
Clemence stared at him, her eyes slowly clearing. ‘A permanent place,’ she repeated, as if to give the fact more texture.
Monday flung herself upon her father, squeezing her arms around his neck in a ferocious hug. She knew how important this offer was to them. The security of a place in the world, a chance to settle down.
His body shaking with laughter, Arnaud strove to prise her off. ‘Give me room to breathe, child!’ he declared. ‘Else I’ll not be fit to take up the position!’
