Frederick sprang up. “The breastplate first. Just wait for me to do it.”
He buckled on the front and back halves of the steel corselet. Noel felt pressure on his wounded shoulder and sucked in his breath sharply.
‘Too tight?“ asked Frederick.
“Yes.”
“I told you this would not work. The plate has to be snug or a lance can catch it and rip it from your body. Why will you not let me-”
“No,” said Noel. “You can’t participate-”
“I know more about fighting than you!” said Frederick hotly. “I shall probably be knighted by Michaelmas.”
“Fine. In the meantime, no glory for you. Don’t argue, Frederick. It’s not to be, and that’s final. I can’t explain.”
Frederick hesitated, then lifted the collar bearing Theodore’s coat of arms-hastily painted by the armorer at Sir Olin’s castle. Everything was borrowed piecemeal since Theodore’s own resplendent armor had been lost in the initial ambush. Noel didn’t like his colors of yellow and black. He felt like a bumblebee once he put on the long surcoat. The ends flapping about his ankles made him feel ridiculous. Frederick snapped the helmet to the chain on the breastplate and knelt to buckle spurs on Noel’s feet.
Next on went the mail coif. It covered Noel’s chin to the lips and the edges scratched his cheeks. He wondered how the others could stand to wear these things all the time. His head itched and while he was rubbing it through the links, Frederick buckled on his sword.
Noel practiced grabbing the hilt a few times in his mittens. They were clumsy all right. With these things on he might well drop his sword.
“How do I look?” he asked. “You have three choices for an answer: class A dork, class B dork, or the pride of Camelot.”
“I understand you not, but verily you look frightened.” Frederick’s gaze met his earnestly. “Are you certain you will not have a priest’s blessing? To go into combat unshriven is tempting fate.”
Exasperating though it might be, the boy’s concern was genuine and well intentioned. Noel smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “No, thank you.”
“Noel?”
“Yes?”
“Father says that when everything goes amiss it is time to pause and reevaluate the situation. He says if God is against you, then stop and either abandon your purpose or go at it differently.”
Noel wished he could follow that advice. Even if he got very lucky and didn’t drop his sword, his borrowed war-horse didn’t run away with him, and he found he had a natural aptitude for lances, he hadn’t much of a prayer against Sir Magnin’s skill and experience.
“Sir Olin is a wise man,” Noel said. “If I’m defeated by circumstances, that’s one thing. But if I quit now, before I’ve done all that I can, then I’ve defeated myself. I can’t.”
Frederick nodded. “No one can doubt your courage.”
“Just my sanity, right?” Noel grinned.
Frederick smiled back. “I do not wish to unman you by saying this, but you are truly mad.”
Noel pretended the hollowness inside him was nothing to worry about. “Time to go.”
“Noel?”
This time he let his impatience show as he glanced back. “Yes?”
“I sent word to Father. He should know about this.”
Noel shook his head. “You think he’ll come? There’s no point now. By the time they get here, it will be over one way or the other. Come on. I’m not going to miss this.”
Before he went outside, Noel put on the helmet and lowered his visor, ft cut off most of his vision and some of his hearing. It was incredibly hot and once he had a good dose of sunshine warming it, he would be a prime candidate for roasted skull.
Whatever drug Cleope had given him was working. Its taste was so foul, he almost couldn’t swallow it, but now he felt pleasantly numb. If the sky tended to become a weird shade of pink at the edges and if sometimes his arms and legs seemed to float away… well, so what? He would pay the consequences later. Right now, the trip was worth the ticket.
The ruse of passing himself off as Theodore simply by putting on armor that bore the man’s ensign seemed too simplistic to work. No one in Noel’s own time would swallow it, but while men and women here might scheme and connive, they still apparently took coats of arms and insignia at face value. Frederick was not yet entirely over his shock at this duplicity. Noel decided if Leon could show these folks how to break a few rules, he might as well do the same. Besides, Theodore had started it by having Noel take his place once already.
Swathed in a cloak to conceal himself from the watchful eyes of guards patrolling everywhere, a tense, silent Noel rode a nondescript palfrey along the streets to the tent enclosure. Noel opened his cloak to show the emblems on his surcoat, and the guard waved them through with scarcely a glance.
Indeed, there were armored knights and squires milling everywhere in such confusion no one had time to be suspicious. Most were comparing wounds or complaining that the tournament field and tents should have been closer together. It was an awkward arrangement, mostly for the squires who had to dash back and forth for mislaid gauntlets or forgotten weapons.
At the d’Angelier tents, Frederick and the other squires set to work transferring Noel from the gentle palfrey to a massive war destrier dappled gray with a black mane and tail. The animal’s head was nearly as long as Noel’s torso; his shaggy feet were the size of dinner plates. Noel stared up at the creature’s back with trepidation and barely stopped himself from asking for a stepladder.
“Percheron?” he asked, drymouthed.
“Yes, indeed.” Frederick patted the horse’s shoulder with visible pride. “Bloodlines all the way back to Normandy. He is a steady old campaigner. He knows every trick of the jousting field. Leave him his head once you start down the tiltyard. Do not attempt to rein him short.”
Noel watched the brute prance around like a yearling colt while his bardings were put on. He might be huge, but that didn’t prevent him from being frisky. Although horses were extinct in Noel’s century, the Time Institute had brought a few specimens back for training purposes. Noel knew that Percherons were considered the most spirited of the big draft breeds.
It took two men to lift the heavy chanfron and buckle it on the horse’s head. Constructed of wood and leather, it made the animal fret and snap. Smooth mail and plate covered his chest and shoulders, and his rump was draped with a massive leather crupper at least two inches thick. Feeling as though the horse was better protected than he, Noel wondered if it could even move, much less run with so much weight to carry.
Once up in the saddle, Noel had to close his eyes a moment against a wave of unexpected weakness. He wasn’t sure how long Cleope’s opium mixture was going to last, especially under exertion.
Handling the reins, Noel quickly discovered his mount had a mouth of iron and the temperament to match. It was like trying to ride a moving mountain.
Frederick climbed into his own saddle and another squire handed him a bound bundle of lances. Another moved ahead of Noel and unfurled a gonfalon of black and gold silk. The wind made the colors swirl. Noel cast off his cloak and wished himself luck.
As they rode through the town in their own miniature procession, people paused to look, then to point. Word flashed ahead, and by the time he rode past the round Byzantine church with its red tile roof and bell tower, and reached the stone bridge spanning the river, spectators had begun to gather beside the road. Many of them cheered, and Noel felt like a complete impostor as he lifted his hand in return.
“ Jesu mea,” muttered Frederick as the cheering grew louder, swelling ahead of them in a wave. “Do not open your visor for any reason. I vow this will goad Sir Magnin like tossing water on a hornet.”
“Good,” said Noel. ‘That’s what we want.“
He saw the field ahead on the flat plain. People thronged the stands. Gonfalons waved in a myriad of colors. Sweating horses stood tied to their saddles out of the way. Knights yet to compete roamed restlessly on horseback, their visors up, colorful pennons fluttering from their lances. Others stood about, flirting with ladies in the stands. A boy and girl in servant’s homespun were rolling in the hay beneath the stands, half-concealed by the cloths hanging
