‘No laughing matter,’ Wishart spat back. ‘It is clear who has put this Malenfaunt up to it — Badenoch and Buchan both gave him the siller that ransomed him from his tourney loss. Now he is in debt to that pair and flung in like a dog in a pitfight.’
‘They must rate him highly, then,’ Bruce replied sourly, ‘if they think to humble me using such poor fare.’
Wishart waved an impatient hand and broke fluidly into French without missing a heartbeat.
‘They win, no matter the outcome. If you beat Malenfaunt, then Buchan and Badenoch have revenge on the man who captured the Countess of Buchan and held her to ransom. If you are defeated, they have humbled you. Better still for Badenoch if you were killed in such a combat — and those will be Malenfaunt’s instructions, mark me.’
He broke off and shook his head sorrowfully.
‘And The Plantagenet, of course, permits it in the hope of bringing you tumbling, my lord earl,’ he added. ‘Mark me, the King will send word soon that you are not to kill. He will send the same to Malenfaunt — though that one may ignore it. But a defeat over such a matter will ruin your honour, leave you ostracized at court, denied the peace of God and so left at the mercy of the royal favour.’
‘If he defeats me,’ Bruce declared, then frowned and shook his head. ‘Malenfaunt is a brave man, for all that, to put himself, with no great reputation as a knight, against me.’
Wishart snorted. In times of stress, Bruce noted wryly, he reverts to his roots and the lisping French was banished like mist.
‘Think yersel’ all silk and siller? Aye, mayhap — second-best knight in Christendom after the German emperor? When was the last time ye jousted a l’outrance, my lord earl? Using the French Method and bound to it?’
Bruce thought and the sudden, thin sliver of fear speared him. A long time, he had to admit. The French Method — charging home on a warhorse trained to bowl a man over — was one he had used as a youth on the tourney circuit.
Then he had learned the German Method — riding a lighter horse, avoiding the mad rushes of French Method knights and attacking from behind or the side in the melee. It was called ‘German’ as a sneer by the French, for everyone knew it was a Saracen trick learned by crusading German knights of the Empire and brought back by them. Better for prizes and sensible in war, it was not considered honourable for the nobiles of the civilized world to the west. Worse even than that, it was not French.
Acceptable — barely — in the whirl of the melee, it was not permitted in that perfect contest of skill and bravery, the joust, which was the epitome of the French Method, preferred by the young and daring.
This joust was a l’outrance and there was no German Method permitted at the edge of extremity.
For God was watching.
Lincoln
The day after — The Feast of St John the Evangelist, December, 1304
It was cold, so that the King was ushered to a seat with heated cushions and swathed in warm furs alongside his wife. In the striped pavilion, with the horse gently steaming and two coal braziers smouldering, Bruce saw the leprous sheen on his maille as the trembling squire helped him into the jupon emblazoned with his arms.
The horse shifted, clattered bit metal and champed froth. Bruce eyed the beast, which had been given to him by his brother since he had no decent warhorse for a joust like this. Castillians his were, fine, fast and strong but no match in a stand-up fight with something like this terror, all muscle and vein like an erect prick, with heavy legs and hindquarters. A Lombard, crossed with Germans, his brother had told him — black as the De’il’s face and called, with bitter irony, Phoebus.
Somewhere outside, Malenfaunt stood with his own horse in a similar pavilion; custom decreed that neither should see each other once the processions and oaths and mummery of it all had been concluded, save at the very moment of combat. The mummery, Bruce thought to himself wryly, had possibly been the worst part of the affair.
The King had processed, the witnesses and bishops and officials of the tourney had processed, the ladies of the court had processed — including the stiff, disapproving Elizabeth. When presented with the news of the affair from her husband, she had raised one scornful eyebrow, and had spoken not one word to him in all the hours since. He could scarcely blame her — her honour was braided with his own and if he fell from grace, so did she.
Speeches had been exchanged, blessings given, oaths made regarding the anathema of using weapons forged by spells, or with spells placed on them. Lances had been measured, so that neither had an advantage and, for the same reason, agreement had been reached over the number and type of weapons carried — it was, as always, three lances, the same axe each, their own sword and a dagger or estoc of their choice.
After those had been exhausted or broken, it would be fists and teeth, Bruce thought grimly.
The rules regarding the conduct of squires and the hundreds who thronged to watch had been read out — no-one horsed on pain of death, no-one else armed on pain of death or loss of property — for this was no raucous entertainment, but a solemnity of chivalry to decide which knight was favoured by Heaven. It was decreed by custom and Law and, therefore, by God.
Bruce, moving stiffly and talking in single words, was aware that all the procession and pomp and conspicuous legality was because, when all else was done, there were no rules at all in that rectangle of tilt field.
Outside his tented pavilion was a low hum like a disturbed byke; they were removing the altar, crucifix and prayer book on which each man had sworn to defend the right of his honour before God. Bruce nodded for the squire to leg him up on to Phoebus and the horse, knowing what was expected of him, trembled a little, baiting on the spot so that the splendid drape of his covering flapped. Bruce settled himself with a creaking of new leather.
‘ Faites vos devoirs,’ a voice called and the squire handed Bruce up his helmet.
‘ Faites vos devoirs.’
The squires dragged back and fastened the flaps of the pavilion and the crowd spotted him, swelling up to a roar of approval, drowning the final ritual call for both men to ‘do their duty’.
The two caparisoned beasts moved out, led and flanked by squires, on to a tiltyard cleared of snow and laboriously sanded. The Tourney Marshal waited with one white glove in his raised hand. He paused; the crowd fell silent.
At least this is the last act of ribaldry, Bruce thought, and glanced at Malenfaunt, seeing how pale he was and how his face, framed in maille coif, seemed clenched like a fist. He wondered if his own was as stiff and tight and if the reason for appearing unhelmed was less to do with making sure the combatants were who they were supposed to be than for each of them to savour the fear of the other.
‘ Laissez-les aller,’ the Marshal said, dropping the glove. Let them go. The squires bustled, handing up shield and lance; the first was slid through two straps on the left arm, the latter rammed firmly into the fewter attached to the stirrup.
Bruce half-turned to where Elizabeth sat, raised the lance in salute, seeing his squires scatter from him. The handing of the lance was the last allowable contact from human hands that either would receive until matters were over.
He took his helm from his saddle bow and slid it over his head, plunging himself into the dark cave of it, split only by the framed rectangle of view from the slit. His breath, magnified, wheezed in and out and he tried to slow it, feeling the end of his nose rasp against the metal. Opposite, the inhuman steel face of Malenfaunt stared blankly back at him.
From now on, Bruce thought, we are alone in this. Save for God.
Woods at Pittenweem
The Feast of St John the Evangelist, December, 1304
If it was not for the bad luck, Bangtail thought to himself, I would have no luck at all. It was bad enough having lost the cast of a dice to the Dog Boy without having the sour memory of losing the last of his dignity to the chiel as well.
Now Dog Boy was riding back to the comfort of Edinburgh and on to Sim at Herdmanston while Bangtail Hob, once the Dog Boy’s better in every way, followed the guide up a muddy trail in the freezing cold.
