I bit my lips and looked around again, still really searching the crowd for Marc-Antonio. I suspected that my lady, par amour, would forgive me some Polish girls if I wore her favour in front of the Emperor — but that really only shows how little I know about ladies.
Then I looked at Nerio.
Nerio was a popinjay, a dandy, a courtier. He wrote poetry and danced. I’d never really seen him in a fight, and yet he had my total confidence. That was based on small things — his demeanour when his purse was lifted, the way he rode, the way he handled his sword. Now, as the imperial squires handed us all the tournament swords — rounded points, light and flexible — he met my eye and winked.
‘I’d like to take the Emperor,’ he said. His eye twinkled.
On my other side, Fiore grinned. ‘That’s the most sensible thing you have ever said.’
I won’t say my fear dropped away. That would be a lie. But Fiore’s grin leaped to my face, and I laughed. ‘You two are the best companions a man could wish,’ I said, and I meant it. ‘Let’s take the Emperor!’
The judges came by, mounted now, and absolved us of our oaths. That actually mattered to Nerio. This meant that for the duration of the melee, Nerio did not have to feel any fealty to the Emperor. I had never seen this ceremony before — but I liked it, and I added it to the tournament at the Italian Wedding. Ah, we’ll reach that in time, messieurs. If not tonight, than another night.
And then the judges called Le Laisser. My heart pounded again. I knew all these formalities from watching tournaments in Smithfield; from hearing about them in romances and from knights, all my life, but now I was the one donning my helmet, and lacing it up.
The world closed in to be the width of the slit in my visor and the height of the air holes from my brow to my jaw. I was already sweating, and my sweat ran down the back of my arming doublet inside my mail and my backplate — right to the base of my saddle. Cold as sin.
I swished my tournament sword through the air a few times. It was very light — but stiff enough, I thought. I looked around for Marc-Antonio-
And there he was, the blessed man. Even as I spotted his cherubic face, he passed under the ribbon that held back the crowd with more grace than you’d have expected from such a portly lad, and deftly evaded a halberdier’s kick.
He ran at us.
Nerio’s horse didn’t shy. If you are a horseman, you know what I mean.
He ducked under Nerio’s horse’s head without getting bitten, and managed a bow to me. Really, he earned his right to be my squire and not some servant right there — it was a beautiful performance, and he had an audience. He handed me Emile’s favour.
I had my helmet and gauntlets on, so I couldn’t help, but he got it on my left shoulder, flashed a bow, and vanished back into the crowd before the three halberdiers could catch him.
The blank, cold stare of Nerio’s sugarloaf helm turned to regard me. ‘That was a pretty play,’ he said in Italian. ‘Now every woman in the crowd is watching you.’
And then there was nothing but the chief judge, and his white baton, held above his head.
All I could hear was my own hot breath inside my helmet. All I could see was the red lion on the Emperor’s banner, and the solid wedge of horsemen in plate armour sitting in front of it. My hands were shaking.
The baton dropped.
Sometimes, when I tell my tales — bah! — perhaps I embroider. But this … by the passion, friends, I remember that day in Poland as if it was happening today.
I just touched my spurs to Jacques, and he went forward. One of his many excellent qualities was his ability to accelerate, because he was trained to the joust, unlike almost every warhorse I’d ever had. So he went from the stand almost to the gallop in four or five paces, and that explosion off the line placed me a half-length in front of my companions.
I rode at a shallow angle to the left, where the crowd was. Fiore and Nerio followed me. We cantered, our horses throwing clods of earth — at least, I assume they did, because everyone else’s did.
Off to my right, the king was the first off the line, and he angled sharply to the right, all but riding away from the oncoming metal wave of German knights. All the Cypriotes went with their king like a flock of starlings, leaving the three of us alone on the left.
The German wedge wheeled neatly — they were only moving at the trot — and the centre of the wedge point was about twenty yards in front of me.
They were coming for us. Excellent tactics. Break the weakest link in the chain. Start any fight with an easy win. Twelve to three; excellent odds. And in a melee, not the least unchivalrous.
Their wedge had some cracks in it. If they had practised together often enough, I imagine they could have ridden about, knee behind knee, for hours, without showing a fist of daylight between their horses, with their Emperor in front, and every man echeloning away, a single unstoppable wall of horseflesh and knighthood. That was the German tactic.
But in fact, they were a dozen great nobles, and there was a horse-wide gap between Johann von Hapsburg and his brother. I’ll guess that Johann didn’t see the wheel — the turning of the whole wedge — begin, and he was late to the turn, had too far to go to catch up …
I pointed my horse’s head at the gap and put spurs to Jacques’s sides.
He exploded forward.
He did everything. Because of his sure-footed turn and his magnificent burst to the gallop, I was on Johann von Hapsburg in less time than it’s taken to say this.
I let him swing his sword at me. He hit me — hard. He put the whole weight of his strength and hips into that cut and he rocked me. The blow hit just on my left temple, and then my sword went past his head on the inside; I put my right knee into his knee — at the gallop — and my arm was around his neck and I ripped him from the saddle, just as Fiore taught. My beautiful horse threaded the gap and I let go of Johann before I shared his fate, and I was through.
Oh, but that’s not the best of it.
Fiore was on my right, and he collected the beast’s reins. Go ahead and practice that at a gallop in the tiltyard.
Nerio slammed his horse, chest to chest, into Rudolph von Habsburg as that knight turned to attack me or recover his brother’s horse, and knocked them — horse and man — to the ground — and rode on.
The crowd roared.
Have you heard a crowd roar for you, messires? It is like strong wine and love and the touch of God all in one moment.
I turned Jacques to my right, and rode along the back of the German line, even as the wedge struggled to right itself and turn about. They had passed almost up to the crowd and missed their quarry.
I gave Jacques a strong left knee and made him sidestep — we were not moving fast yet — and slammed my sword into the Emperor’s helmet as I went past him.
And so, of course, did Fiore.
And so did Nerio.
The crowd roared again. The first roar had, apparently, not been their best effort.
The three of us passed all the way across the German wedge, and cantered easily to our flagpole — the arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, gold on white. There were half a dozen unarmed squires there, and one of them grinned and grabbed Johann von Hapsburg’s horse.
People cheered, and we were up, one to nothing.
We swung around the flagpole, saluted our squires — and the Cypriotes struck the far end of the German line. We were too far from them to take part, but it was sudden and stark. I had never fought the Turks, or I would have known.
The Cypriotes fought the Turks all the time. They came in at a dead gallop, caught the Germans halted, trying to rebuild their wedge, and they knocked the end two knights down, swept up their horses, evaded the German attempts to turn the raid into a general combat, and galloped away. They had two horses.