The Greatest Knight (8 page)

“I won’t.” Richard put his hands together like an angel. However as soon as Salisbury released him he added cheekily, “For a start, I wouldn’t fall off.” He was gone in a duck and a rapid flash of heels.

Salisbury dug his fingers through his hair. “Young devil,” he muttered, but there was reluctant humour in his eyes.

“You let him off lightly too,” William said.

“True,” Salisbury replied, “but they’ve still got to run the gauntlet of their mother, and there’ll be no mercy from her.”

***

“Lame,” announced the groom with the relish of the eternal pessimist proven right. “Said yesterday afternoon that foreleg looked dicey.”

William laid one hand to Blancart’s shoulder, and ran it firmly down the affected leg. The knee was hot to the touch and the destrier flinched and shied with a grunt of pain.

“Strained it good and proper, the lad has,” the groom continued. In this instance, the “lad” referred to was Prince Henry, not the stallion. “Horse’ll not be carrying you anywhere for a sennight at least. I’ll get a poultice put on it straight away but…” He clucked his tongue, shook his head, and rumpled his hair. “A sennight,” he repeated.

William cursed. The stable yard was busy as Salisbury’s knights mounted up and prepared to escort the Queen to a neighbouring castle. Eleanor had not yet arrived, but the moment she did, the troop would depart and Salisbury would only have sharp words for laggards.

Beckoning to his squire, William collected his bridle and saddle from the tack room at the side of the stables and set about harnessing his second destrier. Fortunately, Fauvel was as dozy as a gelding and saddling him only took half as long as it did with Blancart. William buckled the bridle and fastened the breast-band while his squire cinched the girths. By the time he led Fauvel out to join the escort, the Queen was just entering the yard with two of her women. Eleanor wore a riding gown of blue wool and a light cloak of leaf-green edged with silver braid and fastened with a magnificent cloisonné clasp. Silver spurs glinted at her heels. Her bright gaze settled briefly on William and Fauvel before she nodded to Salisbury.

“The Princes are not accompanying you, madam?” the Earl enquired as he boosted her into the saddle of a dappled Barbary mare.

“No,” she said, “they are not, although perhaps I should have made Henry ride with us and suffer in the saddle for yesterday’s folly. As it is, I have allowed my sons the pleasure of a day’s extra tuition in Latin and on the subject of the responsibilities of kings.”

Salisbury gave a laconic grin. “I am sure they will benefit, madam.”

“Then you are more certain than their mother,” Eleanor replied with exasperation.

The company rode out into the bright spring morning. Initially William was morose at having to ride his second destrier, but the fine weather and the festive atmosphere soon lightened his humour. He was the only man wearing his hauberk. The other knights had brought their mail and weapons, but carried them on sumpter horses or rolled behind their saddles—as William would have done had he not been testing the fit of the repaired garment.

“If my son has caused injury to your stallion by his prank, then I will have him reimburse you,” Eleanor said, joining William as the party rode along a rutted cart track. Sunlight dappled through the new leaves, the hawthorn sprays were in bud, and the breeze was as warm as a lover’s breath. Hidden amongst the trees a cuckoo sent its throaty call in search of a mate.

“In truth, madam, I believe that he has paid his debt,” William answered. “I doubt he will be as hasty to repeat the trick. My groom tells me that Blancart will need to be rested for a week, but that there is no lasting harm.”

“You are generous.” Eleanor’s smile curled her mouth corners in a way that shortened William’s breath. Three months on from the Christmas feast at Argentan, he had grown more accustomed to Eleanor’s powerful sexual charisma, but her flirting still caused him to be deliciously disturbed.

“Madam, if you had spoken to me earlier, I might have been less amiable,” he admitted ruefully.

“But you are not one to hold grudges, William?”

He shook his head. “Not over trifles, madam.”

She tilted her head at him as if considering a puzzle. “You are perhaps the most good-natured man I have ever encountered. Promise me that you will not let the passage of time sour your temper or your temperament.”

William smiled. “Depending on what the morrow holds, I promise.”

Eleanor threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, very diplomatic, sir!” She leaned across to slap him lightly on the arm. “You will go far.”

“I sincerely hope so, madam.” William bowed in the saddle, delighted to be bantering with her. And yet, beneath the banter, what was being said had a serious core. The Romans said that there was truth in wine—that men and women spoke their inner feelings when the grape loosened their tongues. But there was also truth in things cast lightly into a conversation: the sort of gossamer to be snatched as it passed, and then examined later in the open palm.

The party stopped at a wayside stream bordering a hedged field to water their horses and refresh themselves with wine. Some of the men, including his uncle, dismounted, but William remained astride Fauvel, lowering the rein to let the stallion dip his muzzle in the swift running water while he himself drank from his leather travelling costrel.

A squire, who had wandered a little away to take a piss in the bushes, suddenly yelled a warning and William looked round to see a conroi of knights galloping out of a copse a hundred yards away and thundering down on their own small troop. The squire ran, his legs a blur. William threw down the costrel. Reining Fauvel out of the stream, he was already unslinging his shield from its long strap at his back and thrusting his left arm through the shorter grips. He seized the lance that he had propped against a tree trunk while he drank and, couching it, spurred forward to engage the enemy.

Salisbury grabbed Eleanor and bundled her back on to the Barbary mare. “Go, madam!” he shouted urgently. “Ride hard for Lusignan and don’t look back!” He struck the mare hard on the rump and Eleanor, after one shocked glance at the fast-approaching knights, lashed the reins down on the mare’s neck and took off with the speed of a storm wind.

“Go with the Queen!” Salisbury commanded the closest knights. “Make sure she reaches safety…with your lives if you must!” With the enemy almost upon them, Salisbury drew his sword, threw himself on to his palfrey, and spurred towards his groom and destrier.

As the knights closed in, William recognised the blue and silver shields of Geoffrey and Guy de Lusignan, with whom King Henry had been in dispute these long months. They were formidable warriors and it was plain that this was no chance meeting but a planned ambush. One of their number rode wide, clearly intending to intercept the Queen. William urged Fauvel across his path and bowled the knight from the saddle with a driving thrust of his lance. The warrior struck the ground with a jarring thud and his horse careered off, stirrups hammering its belly. William pivoted Fauvel, brought down another would-be pursuer, and then spurred to defend his uncle.

Reaching his destrier, Salisbury leaped from the palfrey’s saddle and reached to his stallion’s bridle. As he set foot to his stirrup, Guy de Lusignan bore down on him at full gallop and pierced his spine with his lance. William saw the bright, sharp point punch into his uncle’s body, saw his uncle slam into his destrier’s flank and recoil, mouth open, arms sailing wide and sword falling from his hand. For a moment the lance held him upright and then de Lusignan was wrenching it out and Salisbury was buckling, crumpling, his expression one of utter astonishment. He hit the ground, landed hard, rebounded on to his side, and stared at William with blood in his mouth and the soul already gone from his eyes.

“No!” William’s bellow clogged his skull with red fury, obliterating reason. “Treachery!” he roared, and rammed his spurs into Fauvel’s flanks, intent on reaching de Lusignan, but his path was blocked by more enemy knights. He brought the first one down, and the second. Then he lost his lance and had to draw his sword which meant fighting at close range. The battle cry of “Lusignan!” rang in his ears and there were no voices to counter it except his own, and soon he had no breath to shout for aid and no hope of rescue.

A knight clad in a sumptuous silk surcoat ran a lance into Fauvel’s breast. The stallion went down, legs threshing. William kicked free of the stirrups and rolled away. Scarred shield held before him, sword edge red to the hilt, he backed from his attackers until he stood against the hedge bordering the field. His breath burned in his chest and his arms were on fire. He knew his situation was desperate, but rather than felling him, that desperation kept him strong. He fended off their probing assaults, keeping his shield tight in to his body and his sword poised. At the back of his mind was the spark of hope that they would tire of trying to cut down one man and ride away. After all, his death was mere chopped straw compared to the harvest they had reaped by killing his uncle. The thought of Salisbury’s shameful murder goaded him to continue fighting, even when Geoffrey de Lusignan shouted at him to surrender.

“I do not yield to cowards and traitors who would strike an honourable man from behind!” he cried, his voice somewhere between a sob and a snarl.

“You’re a purblind fool,” retorted de Lusignan. “This is war, not fair combat on a tourney field.” He spurred forward, but William struck his horse a hard blow to the head with his shield and the stallion shied, almost unseating him. Two knights engaged William, but although they were mounted and he was not, he held them off, for neither knight wanted to lose his warhorse to a slice from William’s all too skilful sword and he was holding his shield in such a way that they could not reach him without endangering their mounts.

Instead of tackling William head on as the others were doing, Guy de Lusignan set his destrier at the hedge and jumped his stallion into the field of new spring wheat. He cantered along the hedgerow to the point where William stood with his back to it, and once more used his lance from behind.

The pain was as sharp as the steel tip and William was unable to suppress the cry that fled over his larynx before his breath caught on the agony of the wound. Brought down at last like a stag at bay, his shield was dragged off his arm and cast aside and his sword torn from his hand. Geoffrey de Lusignan stood over him and laid his blade to William’s throat. “You should have yielded when given the chance,” he said.

William glared up through an explosion of red stars. His wound and the sight of his uncle being cloven from behind like a carcass in a town shambles had splintered the courtly shield he usually presented to the world and left him naked. “You’re baseborn murderers!” he gasped, tears of grief and rage running down his face. “You butchered my uncle without honour or chivalry. Now do the same to me too and finish it.”

Geoffrey’s blade nudged William’s windpipe but did not bite. “You are a green fool if you expect to find much courtesy in true battle,” he growled. “Patrick FitzWalter received his just deserts.” Withdrawing his sword, Geoffrey snapped his fingers to his men. “Find him a mount and bring him with us. He’s FitzWalter’s nephew and worth a few pounds of silver if he lives. Make haste. The sons of whores will have a full troop out after us soon enough.”

William’s awareness dissolved in pain. The lance was still embedded in his flesh and his captors were not gentle when they pulled it out. The ground reddened under him, for although a flesh wound, it was deep and his blood soaked his braies and hose. A knight thrust some coarse linen at him to plug the wound and he had to bind the material in place with the garters from his hose. They seized his hauberk and thrust him on to the pack animal that had been carrying his uncle’s accoutrements. William clung to the wooden hoop at the front of the pack saddle, knowing that he was probably on the swift road to death. Even if he survived his wound, his captors were unlikely to treat him well, especially when they discovered that despite being Patrick of Salisbury’s nephew he had no wealth at his disposal and neither did his family. There was no one to pay his ransom and, sooner or later, they would tire of him, cut his throat, and dump him in a ditch.

***

That night they camped in a wood and William was thrown down at the fire’s perimeter. The crude bandages he had been given were sodden with blood, but his requests for fresh bindings and water to wash the wound went ignored, apart from the occasional kick or sneer. Once the horses had been tended, a squire did bring him a cup of wine, a hunk of dry bread, and a blanket stinking of horse sweat, but the youth refused to meet William’s eyes and returned swiftly to the company of the other men.

Excluded from the enemy’s camp fire, William lay shivering in the darkness. The pain in his thigh was like a continuous scream from which there was no respite and his mind was screaming too as time upon time he relived the moment when Guy de Lusignan had struck down his uncle. He clenched himself around the image, using the rage and grief it generated to fuel his determination to survive and wreak his revenge. Later in the night, unsleeping, racked by pain, he heard the brothers arguing around the embers.

“We should have taken FitzWalter for ransom,” Geoffrey growled. “He’s more of a threat to us dead than he ever was alive. He’d have made a rich prize with which to barter. As it is, without Eleanor, we’ve got less than nothing; it’s all been a waste of time.” Sparks flared skywards as he angrily cast a dry branch into the grey-red glow.