Harry can feel how unsettled the atmosphere is. Nobody knows what to do. The steward is distracted, looking at the sharpened tip of Crocker’s lance brought to him by the assistant who was cleaning the detritus off that lane. The Knight in Silver is pacing his horse back and forth at the other end of the tiltyard, waiting to be cleared. And the crowd grows increasingly restless with the lack of information.
So Harry steps in and gives the situation a nudge.
‘Steward,’ he calls. ‘My opponent?’
The steward grips the sharpened lance-point. Harry can see the anger in the man’s eyes at Crocker’s deception. ‘Fair lances,’ he cries. ‘The winner of the tilt, at three lances to one, is the Knight in Silver.’
There’s an audible sigh of relief from the crowd. Order is restored.
The knight presses his lance hand over his heart and bows his head, both in thanks and in honour of the life taken, the solemnity of the accident that occurred. The crowd responds with thunderous applause.
Bloody showman, Harry thinks. But God’s breath, he wears armour well.
He shakes his head, before those thoughts can plough any further into the gutter.
The steward turns again to the knight. ‘Knight, will you ride another tilt? Against Sir Harry Lyon of Dartington, champion of Woodstock and Newmarket tourneys?’
The knight hesitates. He’s two hundred yards away and yet Harry knows that body posture perfectly. It’s Iain trying to find a way to say no. But they both know that it’s bad to end the day on a death. If Iain doesn’t ride against Harry, Crocker’s accident will be all the crowds talk about when they look back on Guildford. And it will look suspicious, the knight showing up only to tilt against Crocker.
It will almost look like a grudge match.
The knight nods. He will ride another joust.
Harry manoeuvres Nomad into position and tucks his lance under his arm, the point still at forty-five degrees, as he waits for the knight to be ready; as he waits for the steward. His heart is beating like a terrified bird, even though there is no opponent he knows better than Iain.
The steward’s hand falls. And then it’s—
Hoofbeats, the huge muscles of the horse under him. The lance coming down across the horse’s neck, clamped under his arm, keep the point steady, aim it true, left to left, shield to shield, brace only at the last moment—
Icy silver eyes glint through helmet slits—
Brace—
The lance-point crashes against Harry’s shield, his whole body tensed against the blow, and then the lance does what it’s built to do, and shatters.
His lance also hits the knight’s shield, also shatters.
Nomad slows to a canter, then a trot, as Harry’s muscles unclench. Behind him he can hear the steward call, ‘One lance to each,’ and he doesn’t have to look around to know the man is holding two fingers up. Harry walks Nomad around in a circle and beckons for Kit to pass him another lance.
They line up again. Harry inwardly curses himself; it was only by the grace of God his lance broke. It had been badly set. His head was too full of thoughts to concentrate. First he’s too numb and now he can’t get his brain to shut up.
He bites down on the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. Then he nods to the steward. Iain is already in position.
The steward’s hand drops. The second pass begins.
Harry is there now, more present, not riding with half his attention outside his body. He sets his lance and braces for impact as Nomad thunders towards the knight. Iain shifts his shield slightly and Harry follows it, minutely adjusting the angle of his lance. He clamps down on the butt of it and tenses his legs around Nomad as the point of Iain’s lance comes rushing at him and—
Two more shattered lances.
Harry realises, distantly, that the crowd is cheering. He’s not sure if it’s him they’re cheering for, or the knight, or simply for the spectacle of the combat. He and Iain have done this so many times in practice. And somewhere along the line, in fallow bean fields and borrowed tournament tiltyards, they stopped going easy on each other. They just set the war-horses galloping hell for leather and knew that no matter how hard they rode, the other one would always catch the lance. There is no hesitation here.
They line up for the last pass. As Iain gallops towards him, lance perfectly aimed, some cloud in Harry lifts. They can still communicate, in a way. They still are mirrors of each other, so in sync that—
Iain’s lance wavers, an instant before the strike—
It glances off Harry’s shield, rather than hitting true. Harry feels his own lance hit, and then there is no resistance—
Iain is on the ground, rolling.
Harry slews Nomad around, stopping the big horse, and he throws the butt of his broken lance onto the ground. The lance had shattered against Iain’s shield, but he’d also unhorsed Iain, because Iain had missed.
Iain never misses.
Harry dismounts before he can think about it, discarding his helmet and shield on the grass behind him. The knight is already rising to his feet, brushing the dirt off his plain white surcoat. ‘Are you hurt?’ Harry says, and it is only with an extraordinary act of will he keeps his hands from reaching out.
The knight looks at him, and shakes his head.
It is Iain. Harry never doubted, but he knows those eyes anywhere. And they are not the eyes of a man furious with himself for a poor final tilt.
Iain turns away from Harry and strides over to his horse, which has stopped a dozen or so yards away and is nosing around in the grass for clover. He swings up onto the horse easily, armour and all, and raises his mailed hand in salute.
He’s going to ride away.
He’s just going to leave. Again.
The steward is
