Dropping to a crouch, he said some soothing words to de la Pomeroy and undid the laces that closed the neck of his tunic beneath the leather jacket. Then with fingers on the pulse at the man's wrist, he cocked his head to try to understand the garbled words that were now punctuating the gasps for breath.
'You have pain, sir? Where is it, d'you say? In your chest and arm?' Gently, the experienced druggist coaxed some sense from Henry, at the same time calming him down, so that the purpling of his face and lips began to recede. Lustcote climbed to his feet and looked around the circle of faces. 'He has had a seizure of the heart and lungs, not a stroke of the brain,' he diagnosed. 'Too much exertion and frantic excitement in a man who should have eaten and drunk less these past few years.'
'What's to be done?' asked the sheriff anxiously. 'Will he live?'
Richard Lustcote pulled him further away, so as not to be discussing prognosis over the patient himself.
'He could die in the next five minutes — or live another twenty years,' he replied. 'Get him to a bed and leave him be in peace for a few hours. I will give him some tincture of poppy to quieten him down.' He groped in the capacious scrip on his belt, as he always carried a few basic medicaments for use in emergencies such as this.
As Henry was hurried away on a wooden stretcher by a couple of soldiers, the apothecary's pouch was put to good use again, as Joan de Arundell, concerned for her husband's injury, petitioned Lustcote to attend to the wounded arm. While this was being done, Henry de Furnekkis tried to get some order back into the disrupted proceedings. He conferred with the two justices who had come forward into the centre of the combat zone, then threw up his arms and yelled for attention, the tuneless trumpeter trying to help him with a ragged series of blasts.
When the hubbub had subsided sufficiently, the sheriff bawled out his announcement. 'By whatever means, an Act of God or the frailty of man, there is no doubt that Sir Nicholas de Arundell was the victor of that bout of arms. He has thus satisfied the first part of this wager of battle and in one hour will meet Sir Richard de Revelle to determine the final outcome.'
There was a murmuring from the crowd, some more catcalls and a few yells that it was unfair to match an injured man against a fresh opponent. Richard de Revelle, who with his cadaverous steward, had come up to the group in the centre, pushed his way through to the sheriff. 'I agree with those men,' he said earnestly. 'Surely we can delay this pointless business until he has recovered from his injury?'
De Furnellis glared at the dandified Richard. There was no love lost between the two men who had both been sheriff twice over.
'I would have thought you would have welcomed the chance to fight a wounded man, de Revelle. It's the only way you have a chance of winning.'
The fact that de Revelle had already considered this and weighed it against the chances of having the whole affair postponed or even abandoned, blunted the curtness of the answer that came to his lips — but Nicholas de Arundell broke in with a loud cry.
'No, sheriff, there's no need for an hour's delay! I have suffered nothing but a mere scratch and the disturbance has allowed me to get my breath back. Let us get on with the battle and settle it once and for all?
Again, de Furnellis went into a huddle with the king's justices, and John saw de Bohun shrug indifferently, while Walter seemed quite happy with de Arundell's proposal.
This time without the aid of the trumpeter, the sheriffs strident voice announced that the bout would continue at once, and all but the leading figures began to drift back to the ropes. Looking as if he was walking directly to the gallows, Richard de Revelle plodded back to his end, where his steward-squire, Geoffrey de Cottemore, and another servant took away his fine cloak and strapped him into his boiled leather jerkin and helmet.
The small shield and the sword were handed to him and he stood immobile for a moment, ashen-faced and numb of mind.
An educated man who loved learning and politics, he had never espoused the normal pursuits of most lords, fighting, gaming and hunting — though he was fond of womanising and embezzlement. Now to be thrust into an arena with a hardened Crusader who had spent years surviving on Dartmoor was the most frightening experience of his life, for he knew he had wronged the man and fully expected Nicholas to kill him. He felt frozen to the spot and it took a push in the back from his squire to get him advancing like an automaton towards the middle of the square.
'You have already taken your oath against sorcery,' said the sheriff. 'So after the priest has invoked the wisdom of God, you will begin to fight — if needs be, to the death.'
Brother Rufus came to repeat his call for the Almighty to see justice done, then he and the sheriff retreated, leaving the two men alone in the centre of the lonely field. De Arundell's arm was not nearly as good as he alleged, the lacerated tissues throbbing painfully under the tight bandage that the apothecary had applied. At least he had not lost much blood, so he was not weakened or shocked, and for now he was able to hold his sword in his right hand, though he was prepared to change and fight with the other if needs be.
As the two men circled each other, Gwyn and John de Wolfe watched anxiously from the side. 'Without that wound, there'd be no doubt, Crowner,' growled the Cornishman. 'I'd wager my last ha'penny on Nicholas. But he's tired after that run-around that Pomeroy gave him, apart from that strike on his sword arm.'
John had his eyes fixed on his brother-in-law. 'He's terrified, but all he's going to do is defend himself and hope that our man flags from exhaustion. I wonder if Nicholas intends to kill him?'
As he spoke, de Arundell — tired of slowly wheeling round his adversary — made a sudden lunge towards de Revelle, who jerked up his shield to take a swinging blow that almost knocked it from his arm. John saw a spasm of pain cross Nicholas's face as the impact radiated up his damaged arm and he was not surprised to see him back off and change his sword and shield to the opposite sides.
Richard de Revelle saw it also and attempting to seize his chance, ran in and struck several blows, all parried by Nicholas's shield. De Revelle tried again, then gave a squeal as the tip of de Arundell's sword slid beneath his guard and jabbed him on the wrist that held the buckler. Nicholas followed up without hesitation and kicked out at Richard's leg as he slammed his own shield against that of the other man. De Revelle staggered backwards and only just regained his balance, before his opponent was on him again, hacking left-handed against the shield, shredding the leather and splintering the underlying wood.
Abruptly, it was all over.
De Revelle suddenly dropped to his knees and sent his sword spinning across the dried mud of the bailey.
Throwing up his arms, one still inside the thong of his shield, he shrieked out the fateful word 'Craven!' Hovering over him, blood now oozing afresh from under his bandage, Nicholas stood with sword upraised.
For a long second, de Wolfe wondered if he was going to bring it down to cleave Richard's skull in half. Then he slowly lowered it and, with a contemptuous shove, put his foot against de Revelle's shoulder and rolled him over on to the cold earth.
In the Bush that night, the trial by battle was the talk at every table, not only at the landlady's place near the hearth. To have one defendant felled by a seizure and the other to make the most abject surrender at the hands of a wounded adversary was unique in everyone's memory.
'What I can't get over is Matilda's behaviour,' confessed de Wolfe, about to attack a trencher carrying a slab of fatty fried pork, with onions and beans around the sides.