The Leopard Sword (6 page)

“We'll pray for the soul of this thumb, Osbert,” I said.

“And this shield man from Beaune,” said Osbert, “is thought to be an expert at sword combat, my lords.”

I didn't want to hear what Osbert was about to say.

Osbert had the grace to lower his voice. “I nearly struck the words out of his mouth with my fist, my lords. He says you'll make Nicholas de Foss sweat, my lord Hubert. But he'll stick your head on pike.”

 

 

 

In the busy town where I spent my childhood, there were wealthy peasants, field folk who had worked the land for many generations and gradually prospered. Such men wore the finest homespun, not hairy cloth speckled with chaff but supple, pleated blouses, with ox-leather belts. Sometimes such monied farmers could afford a few ells of North Country wool, and they would enter my father's shop respectfully, pulling off their caps deferentially but paying king's coin, just like any franklin's wife. My mother made a point of remembering their children by name, although in truth most of them were either John or Lucy.

One such hardworking plower was Alf, a man I always associated with tireless labor and good cheer. He was always splitting a stump, or hanging a hog carcass from an oak. And one Michaelmas, Alf drank more ale than usual, and stumbled over a neighbor passed out drunk in the road.

The surgeon in Coneygate made Alf some wooden splints, and wrapped them so securely that he was able to steer a harrow and wave to any passerby even as his bones mended. I considered this, and reflected on Edmund's skill with his hands, whether mending a helmet or a delicate jewelry hasp.

I drew a sketch in the dirt.Wagons rumbled through the town, past the fountains, laden with jiggling mountains of black grapes, emerald grapes, pink grapes, the entire harvest of Chios beginning all at once.

I was concerned that Sir Nigel would shake his head and say that if Heaven willed him dead, then he would be dead. Nigel liked his wind rough and his wine tart, and tried to smile if something hurt him. Perhaps my master believed that a knight had to demonstrate unending
dureté
—toughness—to his squires. But to my great relief, he knelt and studied the sketch I had scratched in the sand.

“Brassards,”
I said, using the Frankish term for such armor. “Edmund can make one for each forearm.”

“You think God will not strengthen me?” asked Nigel with a gentle laugh.

“God and your willing squire,” I said.

Nigel smoothed his boot sole over the sketch.

“If it pleases you, Sir Nigel,” I added urgently.

Nigel chuckled. “If it pleases
you.
” But he gave a nod. “I will wear your
brassards
with gratitude.” His bright eyes peered into mine. “And you, Hubert—is your sword arm ready?”

 

 

 

The morning of the joust was cold.

I had not slept, and neither had Edmund, we both admitted as we stepped out of the inn under the morning star.We each ate fresh brown bread in the early light, with honeycomb spread over the warm slices.

What words we utter, and what words we carefully do not say, can shift a day one way or another. Edmund made the sign of the cross, and his lips moved in silent prayer. I asked Heaven to heed what Edmund asked for, and to forgive my sins.

We went out to the place where, later that forenoon, the joust would take place. Frost-glazed thyme stroked our leggings. The flat, fallow field had been curried by the wind into an almost perfect surface, sun-baked but free of what folk in my town called
popples
—small stones. Knights preferred what Rannulf called a true fight, with no peaks or stumps to allow an advantage or hiding place.

I could not keep from feeling strangely detached, both myself and a stranger, like a court player paid to imitate me in a fete. My father employed such travelers on festival days, musicians and jongleurs from Derby. They wore pied-patterned leggings and colorful caps. I knew how the balladeer would describe me, his voice lifted handsomely in song:

 

I was afraid for myself, of course—many a squire has his liver lanced during a joust. But I was afraid, more than anything, for the life of my master.

Fear is a poison that makes the fingers cold, and the mouth dry. It is a great cause of sweat and of piss, and I found myself hurrying to the chamber pot all morning. It weakens the bowels, too, and it stirs the mind so badly that no single thought can settle. I was certain that the hour would never arrive, and in my anxiety half convinced myself that the long, slowly passing morning was proof that time was creaking, and falling still.

But the hour came.

 

 

 

Sir Nigel rode out into the sunlight.

He wore a brilliant blue cloak, bought especially for this joust from a knight from Arles, and combed and mended by a fuller, one of many men who came forth to offer Sir Nigel their best help. It was held by an enameled clasp the shape of a lozenge. He wore a surcoat of finest white lamb's wool, a fabric that my father would have kept stored and brought out one bolt at a time for his most wealthy customers. I had fussed over the fabric and ordered the hem mended where a minuscule tear had marred one corner.

Sir Nigel carried his lance erect, the ashwood weapon sharpened with a soapstone and polished by my own hands, using the training drilled into me by stern and expert masters in the years when I could only dream of such tournaments. His shield was blue, decorated by the Crusader cross in white, polished by me to a satisfying luster.Wool clothing is rich with oil that accumulates on the hands, and I used it to bring out the light in the metals, and the glow in Nigel's leather. The shield hung from a jousting strap around his neck and over his left arm.

I carried Sir Nigel's helmet.The hair of his head had been close-cropped by a shearer from Whitby. Nigel's newly cut hair made him look younger, as did his bright gaze. Father Giles was right—the eye is the source of the world, and when someone like Sir Nigel closes his eyes, something is taken out of it.

Sir Jean's shield was scarlet, decorated with the symbol of a golden swift, a pair of stylized wings. Nicholas carried a standard, a muster flag of silk, that fluttered and tossed in the wind. The squire wore a surcoat of scarlet, and stabbed the standard into the earth, and plunged it in again, several times, until the rippling thing stayed where he wanted it, stuck into the field.

I carried no such standard, and the surcoat over my mail was the color of the sheep that had worn it on the hill, except for a fine blue border all around. Sir Nigel had said he preferred to spend his silver on wine and capons, and I tried to tell myself that I would turn the simplicity of my garment into a point of pride.

Sir Jean allowed his charger, a roan horse brushed until he gleamed, to high-step back and forth along the edge of the field.This process gave us long moments to admire the way Sir Jean sat in the saddle, and the firm way he carried his lance, but it was important that a horse be allowed to drop dung before heavy exertion. At last this necessity was accomplished, bright green-yellow manuring the dry land.

Sir Jean turned to one of his several sergeants and shield bearers, and motioned with a mailed hand. A crucifix on a long staff, the image of Our Lord, was carried out to him and held forth so that he might kiss it.

Knights and squires had attended Holy Mass at the edge of an olive grove, celebrated by an ailing English priest from the Genoan ship
Santa Croce.
The Greek priests practiced a dubious variety of Christ's creed, and Father Giles had warned me against worshiping in a sanctuary “not blessed by the Roman faith.” When I had peered into a white-walled chapel, I had seen niches of flickering oil lamps, and a bronze-green visage of a saint or martyr imprisoned in a wooden frame. It was essential that men about to die draw their swords in a state of grace, and even now, as I cinched the saddle girth of Sir Nigel's horse just a little tighter, I was grateful that an Englishman—even one haggard from weeks of bowel flux—had blessed us.

I studied Sir Jean's ruddy face from a distance, looking for some trace of hesitation, some glimmer of doubt that honor required the death of at least one knight on this fine mid-morning, the sun warm, the air sea-fresh. He settled the helmet down over his head, hiding whatever feelings he might have.

Sir Nigel released his cloak, and it drifted out, over the horse's haunches. Sir Nigel accepted his helmet from my cold hands, the heavy iron bucket making a soft, dull chime as my fingers left it. He hefted the armored piece, like a market-day bargainer estimating the weight of a cheese. Now I heard myself saying what I believed could be my last words to my master.

“In Heaven's hands, my lord,” I said, sounding as devout and calm as I wished I truly felt.

There had been a showy element to Sir Jean's kissing of the cross. Sir Nigel's prayer was almost silent, and reduced to two holy names.

“Our Lady and Saint George,” said Sir Nigel.

The look he gave me was one of purest serenity, and something more.

Sir Nigel approached death as a famished man approaches a banquet. His arms were protected and strengthened by high-sleeved gauntlets, designed by Edmund. The gauntlet sleeves were fitted with splints of ashwood, provided by cutting up a spear and working it into the leather, the entire device strapped and bound into place. Sir Nigel had declared it the finest work since King David himself rode to battle.

My master felt the interior of the helmet, making sure the woolen head pad was in place, and while my hand lifted upward, following the helmet as it fitted down and over his head, I did not touch it now, letting Nigel make the adjustments that suited him.

I was sick at heart, certain I would never again see his face alive.

A crowd of knights and their squires, as well as sailors and ship's boys, had gathered, a wide circle of folk.

The knights were hooded from the sun, the servants in flowing cloth caps of straw-brown homespun or once jaunty and now weathered colors.We were a battle-battered bunch. A few archers, jaundiced or heavily bandaged, sported the rounded leather caps of their kind. None of the Chian villagers had gathered. Even in a humming, welcoming port town, Crusaders had a reputation for unpredictable violence.

A farmer along a distant rocky path paused to let his donkey browse a stand of thistles and gazed down on us from the hillside. A line of clouds streaked down from the north, and despite the warm sun there was a harvest coolness in the light wind.

Sir Rannulf looked on, his eyes narrow, as though he watched what was taking place from a great distance. Edmund watched quietly, appearing even taller than usual. Both Rannulf and Edmund were armed, Edmund carrying his gleaming war hammer.A joust sometimes began with two knights, attended by two sword-wielding squires, and then as events spilled out of control, fell into a general melee.

Edmund set aside his hammer and helped me strap on my simple brass and leather helmet, the chin buckle compressing my lips.

“Keep the sun at your back,” said Rannulf.

Perhaps I should have been more forgiving, but Rannulf's advice annoyed me just then. He was a knight who could kill but could not battle, a cheerless, loveless fighting man who had won little glory on this Crusade. Besides, I thought, the joust would begin with the daylight against us, as anyone could see. The still climbing sun was behind Nicholas as that sturdily built squire adjusted his own head protection, a hooded coif of chain mail.

I felt envy and further anxiety.The hood fastened with a tie under Nicholas's chin and afforded him protection along his neck, and free movement. It gave a good appearance, too, and jingled softly as he shook his head to flex the armor, or show it off in the sunlight. No doubt, I tried to tell myself, the simple helmet I wore would protect against a blow almost as well.

Osbert took my arm. “Remember, my lord Hubert,” he said, “they are liars and wretches.”
Liyhers ant wrecches.
“Such men can never fight bravely.”

I thanked him.

“And, Lord Hubert,” said Osbert, in a confiding whisper, “I hear Sir Jean cannot put his weight on both feet. If his horse spills, let Sir Jean try to stand up.” He winked. “Sir Nigel will cut him to pieces, even with two broken arms.”

 

 

 

I recalled the only joust I had ever witnessed, a tourney on a green outside Sheffield.The church disowned, and generally warned against, tournaments because they so often led to brutal homicides, spiteful knights dispatching old rivals. The Sheffield tourney, however, had promised blunted lances, and a lord mayor, chief burgess, or some other worthy had dropped a white flag to initiate the first of many breathtaking charges.

Clods had flown, and Sir William of Pontefract lost an eye, but wine had been drunk and rooks frightened. I recalled the black fowl clearly, perhaps what I could observe most successfully, being a boy among much taller city folk. The birds flew from nearby trees, settling again only to be frightened off once more, until after hours of broken lances and foaming chargers, the black birds at last had not bothered to stir a feather, and stayed where they were in the chestnut trees.

I folded Sir Nigel's cloak with great care. “Osbert says Sir Jean is weak-legged even now,” I said.

“I can see that,” said Nigel quietly. “But my thanks to you.”

 

 

Sir Jean lowered his lance and lifted it, a brief salute. Sir Nigel responded with a gesture, a toss of his own lance, and then Sir Jean hulked forward, like a man about to topple from his horse.