When the applause dies down, swords are drawn, stirrups are tested, and knees are tightened against their mounts.
Then, with a scream of trumpets and a crash of kettledrums, it begins.
Harry unhorses Arundel quickly. Once a knight is unhorsed, he is allowed to continue fighting on foot, but few do. The risk of being kicked or trodden by a couple of tons of war-horse is far too high. Arundel throws up his hands melodramatically and exits the enclosure, accepting a cup of beer from his squire. He doesn’t look very upset. There is no clear goal to the mêlée, other than stay on your horse until the kettledrums crash again and the time is up, but it’s a lot easier to do if your team has more knights left in the field than the other team.
Harry’s next target is Waldegrave, but before he can make his way to the stout Yorkshire knight, he is caught up by Rabbie and his damned mace. The mêlée prohibits attacks with the point of the sword. That puts him at a disadvantage against a mace, where the best response is to block with the shield and then thrust with the sword. Sir Hugh rides to his aid, distracting Rabbie with a hard blow across his lower back.
Harry peels off to pursue Waldegrave, who is hanging around the outside of combat, shouting and waving his sword and trying to look busy. He doesn’t even bother fighting Waldegrave; he just rams into the man, and unhorses him with a hard blow of his shield.
Then there’s a flash out of the corner of his eye. Waldegrave’s squire has ducked the fence and is running out into the field, not towards his master, but directly towards Harry. The boy grabs Harry’s stirrup and shield and tries to yank him off his horse. Harry frowns and clouts the boy on his head with the pommel of his sword, and the squire goes down. He’s yelling over his shoulder to Iain, Drag the boy out before he’s trampled, when Rabbie’s mace connects with his helmet.
Harry stays on his horse, barely. Nomad has the sense to get clear, biting Rabbie’s destrier then taking Harry to the edge of the battle where he can regain his balance. Arundel’s squire is dragging Waldegrave’s boy out, so he’s safe. Iain is glaring murderously at Rabbie, and being physically restrained by Tristan and Rolly. Harry shakes his head a last time to clear it, and turns Nomad back to the fray. He’s going to knock Ufford on his arse if it’s the last thing he does.
And, a split second before the trumpets sound, Harry succeeds.
The Outsiders are announced as the winners and take their bows before the Queen. Then Morley and the King ride out of the enclosure arm in arm and laughing, showing there’s no hard feelings. Past them, the fools and gymnasts are already dancing onto the pitch, to distract the audience before the following mêlée. Some of the knights scheduled next are heading around the edge of the pitch, towards their ends of the enclosure. They nod to Harry as he passes on his way to the exit gate.
Tomorrow, Harry’s group will begin jousting, and he will tilt individually against each member of the opposing team over the course of two days. Then, if he places highly enough, there’s a final day of jousting against the top knights from the other mêlées.
Iain meets Harry at the enclosure’s exit, his body tense and jaw tight as he reaches for Nomad’s reins. The first words out of his mouth are, ‘Why did that squire attack you?’
Harry looks down at him. There’s a feral anger in Iain’s pale eyes, and Harry worries his unspoken second question is And can I kill him for it?
Harry sighs. ‘There’s a rule, Iain. A squire can run into the mêlée. If he unseats a knight, he can keep their horse. But nobody actually does it. You have to go in unarmed and without a shield, at most in a mail shirt and a helmet.’
‘Oh,’ Iain says, a grin playing at the edges of his lips.
‘Iain, no,’ Harry says.
Harry comes second in the tournament overall, behind Morley. It’s a far better result than he’d dreamed of when he glimpsed the hundreds of tents in the competitors’ field.
Iain does well in the squires’ competition. Rolly wins, which surprises nobody, but Iain makes it a close-run thing.
There’s a celebratory dinner on the last day at a nearby castle, hosted by the King. Harry is startled to be invited, and even more taken aback when he begins to be known around the camp. Knights he’s never met nod and smile to him as he goes by, and seek him out for conversation.
He manages to sit next to Alys at the dinner. She is like no other woman he has ever met: beautiful, yet down to earth. Courtly and appropriate, yet not simpering like so many of the other women. Harry begins to wonder what it would be like to have Alys in his life more permanently. If she’d ever be satisfied with his shabby little estate in an unfashionable corner of England.
He feels no pressure with Alys. There’s not the panic, the feeling of drowning in a lake of bright fire, that he gets around Iain. He and Alys talk, and they dance and joke, and that’s it. And this, in its own way, is right.
He asks her as the dancing begins why she spends so much time with him, and her brown eyes crinkle at the sides with merriment. ‘You don’t think I’m the envy of all the other ladies, having the attention of the tournament’s young champion?’
‘But Morley won,’ Harry says.
‘Morley always wins,’ Alys groans. ‘And he’s old. And married.’ Her eyes sidle to the edge of the hall, where Rabbie is kissing Alys’s silly blonde friend up against a wall, his hands roaming up her front. ‘Besides,’ Alys
