A knight barreled into me, chopping furiously at my shield with an enormous pike. My legs buckled under the heavy blows. All around were the sounds of groans and terror, the chilling clang of iron, shields splitting against the weight of steel, horses neighing, soldiers crying out.
Fighting back, I managed to pin the face of my attacker’s pike against the dressings of an adjacent mount. Then I lashed upward with my sword, praying it would strike something. It pierced the armor just above his knee plate. The knight howled, and his mount bucked. I was able to drag him from the saddle and throw him under the hooves of his own horse.
Our ranks were already two-thirds encircled. Men groaned and dropped in place; the ranks thinned. We could not withstand much more of this onslaught.
“Back,” I shouted. “Now!”
Slowly we started to retreat, still fighting in formation, making our way toward the cover of the woods.
[411] Across the way, I saw Black Cross righting with fury and rage, cutting down men with a single strike, pushing his own knights out of the way. I knew he was trying to get to me.
We made our way back toward the trees. Stephen’s horsemen closed for the kill. We continued to resist in formation. Someone’s blade slashed across my arm. All around, we were being encircled, a noose strangling our ranks. I saw Black Cross steadily approaching, watching me as he came.
Suddenly a roar rose from the woods. The trees themselves seemed to come alive with hide-clad horsemen and club-wielding warriors springing forth out of the green. The knights between us and the woods spun around. All of a sudden they faced a charging enemy from behind. Their horses, caught in the squeeze, tripped and reared, tossing riders off. We began to strike at them, using our swords like battering rams, crumpling armor until it gave and then running the knights through.
Now Stephen’s horsemen were pinched, fighting a renewed foe from all sides. You could see in their darting eyes the terror of this unanticipated shift of fortune. More knights began to be stripped from their mounts, their heavy weapons useless in the closeness of battle among the trees. It was a massacre. A massacre-but not the one they had planned.
Soon, barely half of Stephen’s knights were standing. Many were off their horses, fighting two or three of us at a time in their cumbersome suits of armor. Shouts of exhortation were replaced by pleas for mercy. Some began to cease fighting and put up their hands. Weapons dropped to the ground.
Relief rippled through me. I could not believe it. I was so tired I wanted to sink to my knees.
Then a fearsome voice pierced through me, sharp as any lance. “You rejoice too soon, jester. Before we call it a day, let us see how much power that little stick of yours really has.”
Chapter 142
HIS VISOR WAS UP, a cold expression on his scarred face. I fastened on the hard-set eyes of Black Cross, the man I hated more than any other in this world.
“Twice,” I spat at him.
“Twice what, innkeeper?”
“Twice I have to rid the world of the scum who killed my wife and child.”
I rushed toward him, hurtling my sword at his neck.
The Tafur put his visor down and stood his ground, pinning back my strongest thrust with ease. I hacked at him again and again. Each time he parried my blade.
“You have caused me shame,” Black Cross said. Through his visor’s narrow slits I could see his pupils darting from side to side.
With a ferocious howl, he leaped and swung his blade down on me with the power of a mangonel. I darted backward, the wind from his blade only inches from my face.
The Tafur did not even stop to regain his breath. He swung again, backhanded, aiming to slice through my legs. The mighty force of his blow almost drove my own blade into my thigh.
Slowly I forced his blade upward, but it took all of my strength. I felt like a boy straining against the power of a fully grown man.
[413] “You are every bit the fool your reputation speaks.” Black Cross chuffed. “When I kill you, Stephen will take the lance and the lives of your men. Your severed head will be at the foot of your whore’s bed.”
He sliced at me again, each blow harder to fend off. I darted to the left, trying to catch my breath. Only my speed prevented me from being cut in half. But my quickness was waning. I couldn’t beat Black Cross, I realized.
He butted me, helmet into my forehead. I staggered back, the crash reverberating through my skull. The breath was heavy in my chest. A voice inside me pleaded, Please, God, show me the way.
The Tafur pressed closer and I stumbled, trying to scamper away. I crawled along the bank of the river, knowing my death was only seconds away. Stephen would end up with the holy lance after all.
Black Cross stood in front of me. There was no escaping him now. He put up his visor and let me see his awful, scarred face.
He sniffed. “Your soul is already lost. I only do God’s dirty work by delivering your corpse to Him.”
For a moment I blinked, disoriented, the sun glinting off his armor. I felt in another place, Antioch, staring up at the Turk, sucking in the last, precious breaths of my life.
Once again, the craziest urge took hold of me.
I began to laugh. I did not know at what. That I had come full circle, back to the moment of my death? That despite all my hope, life in the duchy would remain as it was? That I would die in the patchwork clothing of a fool?
Something crazy had come into my head. A line from a stupid joke. I don’t know why it seemed funny to me, but I could not help myself. I was a fool, wasn’t I?
“It sure is deep,” I said. Then I started to laugh again, twisting up my legs and rolling on my side.
“You die witless, jester. Tell me, what image is so funny that you will carry it to your grave?”
[414] “Oldest joke in the book.” I caught my breath. I did not know if it was cunning or total lunacy that was in control. “Two men pissing off a bridge. Each trying to prove to the other who’s bigger. One rolls out his pecker. ‘Bbrrr … this water’s cold,’ he says. ‘Yeah,’ goes the other, ‘and it sure is deep.’ ”
Black Cross looked blank, not understanding. He stood on the bank of the river, ready to dispatch me to Hell.
“It sure is deep,” I said again, this time a renewed certainty in my voice.
It was only a flash, but I was sure I saw on his face the subtle recognition that all was not what it seemed, that he had misjudged something.
Before he could figure it out, I kicked my legs and struck him squarely in the midsection. The blow sent him stumbling to the very edge of the riverbank.
Black Cross struggled to keep his balance. And he did! He smiled disdainfully, as if to say, You little man. That’s all you have?
Then his boots could not hold the ground. He teetered, his armor dragging him backward. And still his look was not of peril but merely annoyance. Little man, little problems.
But then he began to fall. A clang of metal the armor dragging him, picking up speed like a boulder until he rolled, grasping at rocks and weeds, all the way down the embankment and tumbled into the river.
He slid under the surface. I am certain that what flashed through his mind was that he would pick himself up and climb back and finish me off. Moments passed. I could not believe what was happening myself. The Tafur did not rise. A gloved hand broke the surface and thrashed in the air, struggling for something to grasp on to.