lower tiers of the seats, tossing early flowers to their favourite ladies.
There were professional spectators – a dozen men-at-arms, most from the castle garrison of archers. Word had spread quickly, and the rumour was that the king had been challenged by this foreign knight and meant to show him a thing or two.
Desiderata watched her husband sitting quietly by the little wooden shack where he had armed. He was drinking water. His hair was long and well kept, but even at this distance, she could see the grey in the dark brown.
At the other end of the lists, his opponent’s hair was an unmarked gold, the gold of sunset, of polished brass, of ripe wheat.
Ser Jean finished whatever preparations he was making and had a quiet word with his cousin, while his squire held the biggest war horse the Queen had ever seen – a beautiful creature, tall and elegant of carriage, its gleaming black hide unrelieved by marks of any kind, with a red saddle and blue furniture all pointed in red and gold. Ser Jean’s arms, a golden swan on a field of red and blue, decorated the peak of his helm, the tight, padded surcote over his coat armour, the heavy drapery over the rump of his horse, and the odd little shield, curved like the prow of a war-galley, that sat on his left shoulder.
It was a warm day. Perhaps the first truly warm day of spring, and the Queen bathed in the sun like a lioness and gave forth a glow of her own that bathed her ladies and even the knights on the seats below her.
Today the foreign knight glanced up at her quite frequently, as was her due.
She looked back at the king. By comparison, he looked small and just a little dingy. His squires were the best in the land, but he
His war horse was smaller too – Father Jerome, the king called him, and he was veteran of fifty great jousts and a dozen real fights. The king had other, younger, bigger horses, but when he went to fight for real he rode Father Jerome.
The herald and the master of the list called them to action. It was friendly play – the spears were bated. Desiderata saw Gaston, the foreign knight’s friend, say something to the king, pointing to his neck, with a bow.
The king smiled and turned away.
‘He’s not wearing his gorget under his aventail,’ Ser Driant said in her ear. ‘Young Gaston asks why, and requests that the king wear it.’ He nodded in approval. ‘Very proper. His man wishes to fight hard, and he doesn’t want to be accused of injuring the king. I’d feel the same way myself, if the king had challenged me.’
‘The king did
Ser Driant gave her a queer look. ‘That’s not what I heard,’ he said. ‘Still, I suspect the king will tip him in the sand and that will be that.’
‘Men say that man is the best knight in the world,’ the Queen replied, a little coldly.
Ser Driant laughed. ‘Men say such things about any pretty knight,’ he said. He looked at Ser Jean, mounting with a vault and taking his lance. ‘Mind you, the man is the size of a giant.
The Queen felt a mounting unease, such as she had never experienced watching men fight. This was her place – her role. It was her duty to be impartial as the armoured figures crashed together, and to judge the best of them. To forget that one was her lover and king and the other an ambitious foreigner who had all but accused her of being barren.
She should judge only their worthiness.
But as the two men manoeuvred their horses on either side of the barrier, she felt a band tighten around her heart. He had forgotten to ask for her favour, and she almost lifted the scarf she held in her hand.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched men fight without bestowing her favour on one, or perhaps both.
Ser Jean wore a foreign type of helmet, a round-faced bascinet with a low, round brow and a heavy dog-faced visor with the Cross of Christ in brass and gold.
The king wore the high-peaked helmet more typical of Albans, with a pointy visor that men called pig-faced but which always reminded the Queen of a bird – a mighty falcon.
Even as she watched, he flicked the visor down and it closed with a click audible across the field.
There was a stir up in the castle yard – soldiers craning their necks, others moving to the walls, while still others jammed up at the gate beyond which were sounds of shouting and galloping horses.
The Queen did not often pray. But as she watched the king she put her right hand to the rosary around her neck and prayed to the Queen of Heaven, asking her for grace-
Two horses flashed past the gate, galloping along the cobbled road to the lists down by the moat yard, their riders shouting and horseshoes striking sparks that leapt even in the sunlight.
She could feel the gathering of powers in the tiltyard, exactly as she had been able to feel the first gathering of Harmodius’ not inconsiderable power, but this was power of another order – like bright white light on a dark day.
The foreign knight touched his spurs to his horse.
The king spurred Father Jerome, almost in the same instant. In another time, she would have applauded.
The two messengers were racing along the moat road, neck and neck, as king and knight charged each other-
– and Ser Jean’s horse shied beneath him as a great horse fly sunk its sting far into the black horse’s unprotected nose, where the soft lips emerged from beneath the chamfron.
The war horse balked, missed a stride, and half-reared, half-turned from the barrier. Ser Jean fought for his seat, tried to force his mount’s head back to the barrier, but he was hopelessly out of line and now too slow to strike with real force. He raised his lance and then cast it aside as his pained horse reared again.
The king came on at full tilt, back straight, Father Jerome perfectly collected under him, lance aimed like a swift arrow from some ancient god’s bow. A foot short of Jean de Vrailly’s prow-shaped shield his lance tip swept up, plucked the swan from his helmet, and then the king thundered by, his lance dropping again to strike the brass globe on the last post of the lists. He struck it squarely, so hard that it ripped from its post and flew through the air to bounce and roll past Ser Gaston, past the two messengers thundering up the rise to the lists, and into the moat.
The Queen applauded . . . and yet felt that the king – she tried to keep the thought in check – that he might have voided his lance and passed his opponent without taking his crest. It would have been a generous act, and such things were done, between friends, when a knight was obviously struggling with his horse.
De Vrailly rode back toward his own end, back straight, horse now firmly under control.
A dozen royal archers ran to get between the king and the two riders, who were bearing down on him with intent, shouting but their words indistinct. They both held scrolls, the colourful ribbons dangling.
The archers parted to let them through when the king opened his faceplate and beckoned to the messengers. He was grinning like a small boy in his victory.
The Queen wasn’t sure whether this was the outcome of her prayer or not, and so she prayed again as the messengers reached the king, dismounting to kneel at his feet even as his squires began to take his armour.
At the same end of the lists, only a few feet away, Jean de Vrailly dismounted. His cousin spoke sharply to him, and the tall knight ignored the smaller man, and drew his sword – almost too fast to follow.
His cousin slapped him – hard – on the elbow of his sword arm, and the foreign knight fumbled his sword – the only clumsy movement she’d ever seen him make. He turned on his cousin, who stood his ground.
The Queen knew unbridled rage when she saw it, and she held her breath, a little shocked to see the Galle so out of control – but even as she watched, the man mastered himself. She saw him incline his head very slightly to his cousin, as if acknowledging a hit in the lists.
He turned and spoke to one of his squires.
The man collected the mighty horse’s reins and began to strip its barding with the help of a pair of pages.
She lost the action for a moment while she tried to take in what she had seen.
Suddenly the king was by her side.
