Guiscard!’
‘If you mean, my Lord, Roger Guiscard, yes, I fought with him against the Moors in Sicily.’
Hamilcar rose to his full height, drained his goblet of wine and threw the empty vessel at Hereward’s feet.
Hereward remained impassive.
Rodrigo jumped to his feet and glowered at his visitor. ‘You insult a guest in my camp!’
‘Yes, I do! I seek revenge. This Englishman killed my brother in an ambush in the mountains above Catania. The survivors said that the leader of the attack was a golden-haired Northerner with a mighty double-headed axe.’ Hamilcar bellowed at Hereward. ‘You are that man!’
‘Yes. I remember the encounter. Your brother was a brave man; he fought well.’
Hereward was still sitting calmly as Hamilcar leaned towards him menacingly.
‘Let’s see how well you fight and how brave you are when death offers you its eternal comforts. You need to find peace with your Christ; it is your last day on this earth,’
Rodrigo stepped between the two men. ‘Hamilcar, this is my camp; Hereward of Bourne is my guest. I will have no contests here.’
‘My Cid, don’t jest with me, you know I have the right. This is a matter between the Englishman and me. He should never have crossed the Pyrenees. Allah himself has delivered this gift to me. He has ordained this encounter, may the Holy One be praised!’
Hereward got to his feet. ‘Rodrigo, with your permission, I will accept Hamilcar’s challenge. It is his right.’
Rodrigo turned to the formidable Moor. ‘Very well. Hereward will need time to prepare. My men will make ready the ground; the contest will begin in one hour. Gentlemen, your chosen weapons?’
Hereward spoke first. ‘Whatever Hamilcar chooses.’
‘A knightly joust. If that doesn’t end it, a duel — all weapons permitted.’
Hereward nodded and Hamilcar turned on his heels and left.
Rodrigo looked at Hereward with a worried expression. ‘I’m not sure there is a jousting tradition in your homeland. Where did you acquire the art?’
‘I haven’t, my friend. I suppose now is a good time to learn!’
‘Be careful. Hamilcar has never been unseated in a joust; he is very strong. Make sure to aim your lance at his midriff, just above his saddle. It is hard to deflect it from there. Follow the point of his lance with your shield; he may not aim it until the last moment, so watch carefully. Whatever happens, don’t let it come down to a knife fight; he has killed many men in hand-to-hand contests.’
Rodrigo loaned Hereward one of his jousting lances and his finest war horse.
Alphonso helped him prepare. ‘This man has a crazed look in his eye. Kill him quickly!’
Dona Jimena emerged from her tent as Hereward began to ride out to the improvised tilting ground. ‘Be careful, Hereward. I know you are a great warrior, but this man has an evil reputation.’
‘Thank you, Dona Jimena. I will be careful. I have important matters to deal with in England. That is incentive enough to meet whatever danger Hamilcar poses.’
When the two men were in position some sixty yards apart, Rodrigo signalled for the contest to begin.
Lances were lowered and the horses set off at a gallop. Both steeds were soon into their stride and closing on one another at enormous speed. Rodrigo was right about Hamilcar’s threat. He was strong enough to position his lance high above and to the right of Hereward’s head until the moment of impact, when he suddenly dropped it to a trajectory aimed directly at Hereward’s heart. The jousting lance of a knight was far longer and significantly heavier than the battle lance with which Hereward was familiar. He tried to hold it steady, but it was not easy with his horse moving at full gallop. Jousting was a skill requiring endless practice — a training in which Hereward had little experience.
When the collision happened, Hereward had little awareness of the detail of the impact. He hit the floor hard and his head whipped back, rendering him unconscious. Whereas his opponent’s aim had been perfect and had caught Hereward square in the chest, Hamilcar had easily deflected Hereward’s lance with his shield and had only taken a glancing blow. Hereward’s shield had taken the impact but, even so, he had been knocked clean out of his saddle and thrown some distance from his horse.
Dona Jimena wanted to rush to Hereward’s aid, but Rodrigo shook his head. Hamilcar pulled his horse round and rode back to his prone opponent, who was still motionless on the ground. The Moor catapulted himself from his mount with an athletic leap and strode towards the Great Axe of Goteborg, which was lying on the ground where it had fallen. Alphonso, realizing Hamilcar’s intention, made to go to his friend’s aid, until Rodrigo put a heavy hand of restraint on his shoulder.
Even though Hamilcar was a powerful man, he had difficulty lifting Hereward’s huge axe and needed both hands to raise it above his head. His expression was that of a man possessed; his eyes were fixed and he moved with a slow and deliberate gait.
Hereward still had not stirred.
When he regained a vestige of consciousness, the first hazy image Hereward saw was a glint of sun on his Great Axe as Hamilcar began to propel it towards his head. His instincts came to his aid and he rolled away just as his axe embedded itself into the earth only inches from his ear. The ground was still shaking from the impact as Hamilcar struggled to pull the axe from its deep crevice. The narrow escape from his own weapon had brought Hereward to his senses, and he quickly used his legs to flip his opponent on to his back.
Both men regained their footing and drew their swords at the same time. A ferocious sword duel ensued. The flashing blades cut through the air with astonishing rapidity. When they clashed, they created a harmonic percussion of steel striking steel. It was many minutes before the pair began to tire; they were gasping for air and soaked in perspiration, their muscles burning from the exertion, their concentration beginning to falter. Then came a chance occurrence that threw Hereward a crucial advantage.
Hamilcar’s sword broke at the hilt, leaving him with a stub of a blade and vulnerable to Hereward’s next onslaught. The Moor immediately pulled his dagger from his sheath and discarded his shield with a bravado that belied the meagre odds he faced. His weapon was a vicious implement: a saifani jambiya, handed down through his family for generations from his ancestral origins in the Yemen of ancient Arabia. Its short, curved blade was ideal for close-quarters fighting or assassination by stealth.
Hereward paused and, instead of pressing home his advantage, watched Hamilcar circle him, crouched ready to strike. The Moor, although a man of obvious malevolence, had made his challenge according to the Arab code of chivalry, a tradition that was beginning to be adopted by knights throughout Europe. Hereward decided to respect this noble tradition and, despite Rodrigo’s warning to avoid a knife fight with Hamilcar at all costs, cast aside his shield and sword and drew his seax.
The Moor smiled. ‘Very gracious of you, Englishman. As a reward, I will make your end quick.’
Another battle ensued, but this was much more a sparring of lunges, feints and postures than their previous brutal combat with lances and swords. Hereward knew that a knife fight was like a sword fight; the key was to avoid focusing solely on the eyes of one’s opponent but also to concentrate on his weapon and his body movement. He soon realized that Hamilcar often used a rapid gesture of his right hand just before he thrust with his left. Hereward decided to gamble that the Moor would not know that, because of injuries sustained during his encounter with Thurstan’s assassins many years previously, he had trained himself to be equally proficient with both his left and right hand.
He chose his moment carefully.
As Hamilcar launched another attack, he threw his seax from his right hand to his left. The Moor was surprised and distracted, giving Hereward the opportunity to grasp his adversary’s wrist. At the same time, he plunged forcefully with his weapon — a mortal blow that Hamilcar only avoided at the last moment by a desperate clasp of Hereward’s forearm. The two men fell backwards as Hamilcar lost his balance in defending Hereward’s strike.
Now the two men were face to face, feeling one another’s breath, smelling each other’s sweat, sensing every strain of muscle and sinew; they were as close as two lovers in a tryst.
Hereward had the advantage; his grip was firmer than his opponent’s tenuous hold on his forearm, and it was only a matter of time before he was able to wrestle free his seax. However, instead of inflicting the coup de grace, he delivered a mighty blow to the side of Hamilcar’s jaw with his fist and the pommel of his seax, followed by a
