"You're under arrest, Colonel Loring," Anthony Knolles said. "And you've added firing on the forces of the Crown to the tally of charges!"
Nigel felt himself smile; it was even genuine, which hadn't happened often since his wife died. He'd always liked Knolles, who was an entirely honest man-and who had a mind as savagely straightforward as an ax blade. Nothing could turn him from his duty but death-and even then one would be well advised to cut his head off to make sure-but he didn't handle conflicting duties well.
"Not under arrest quite yet, Tony," he said. "And you haven't lost any men yet, either-good men the country needs. I've a proposition for you, old boy."
"You'll return with me, and name your accomplices," Knolles said. "Besides those two, that is."
"I'm most assuredly not going to give you any names," Nigel said serenely. "Here's what I will do. We'll run a course here and now. You beat me, and I'll surrender myself; you let my companions go-they're planning on leaving the country in any event. If I beat you, you let us all go and I promise on my word as an officer and a gentleman- and a Loring-that I'll leave England as well-'abjure the realm,' to use the terminology His Majesty prefers. We won't go to Ulster or the mainland colonies or Gibraltar, either, of course-nowhere in Europe, in fact. The king will have heard the last of the Lorings."
His face went tight. "Except for Maude, of course. His Varangians have ensured that she stays."
Knolles blinked at the savagery of Loring's momentary expression and winced slighty. "How on earth are you going to leave Europe?" he asked. "Where else is there to go? Norland-"
"Is part of Europe. Come now, Tony. You didn't think I was going up the Ml just to join the Brushwood Men, did you? And of course I can't tell you the details or destination, because you'd have to report it and the king might try to stop me."
"I have definitive orders," Knolles said.
Nigel smiled. "You had very emphatic orders from the politicians not to cross the border that time in South Armagh, Tony," he said. " 'Eighty-five, wasn't it? We didn't pay much attention then, either of us."
A smile struggled to break through the other man's craggy features for a moment, then he shook his head.
"You always were stubborn: I have to bring you back, Nigel. You know that." He sighed. "You should have accepted the governorship of Gibraltar when they offered it you last spring. You'd have got a gong with it, too."
"Which would have put me conveniently out of the way until I retired," he said dryly.
"I cannot simply let you go!"
"No. You can try to personally capture me, Tony. As I said, if you win, you return with your mission accomplished. If not: well, you can honestly say you did your best and took losses in the trying."
"You're better at this King Arthur business than I, Nigel, and you know it," Knolles said. "I still feel like an actor waving this stick about, sometimes. Don't you?"
"Not recently. More sporting than guns, what? And you have knocked me off my horse in practice bouts, you know."
"Not as often as the reverse," Knolles grunted sourly.
"You could bring me back," Nigel pointed out. "And without endangering any of your men. It was pure luck that shaft didn't go through your archer's throat. There aren't so many Englishmen left we can afford to waste them-or their sons and daughters yet unborn."
Knolles looked over his shoulder; his men were grouped around their wounded comrade.
And you know they're not enthusiastic about this, Loring thought. They're good soldiers, they'll do as they're told, but you can't make them like it.
"Very well, Sir Nigel," Knolles said formally. "There aren't many men whose bare word I'd take, but you're one."
"Thank you, Tony," Loring said. "And Tony? Whatever happens, look after the princes."
Knolles's face changed slightly; backing the king didn't mean he liked the new queen any too well.
"Here? Or up on the Ml?" he said. "No rabbit burrows there."
"We can check before we run the course. The footing's better for the horses on grass than on tarmac and I'd prefer to come off on dirt, if I'm going to come off at all."
Knolles nodded assent and turned his horse. Sir Nigel did the same, riding two hundred yards along the side of the low slope at a slow walk, checking the ground for rabbit burrows and foxholes beneath the yard-high growth of grass and thistles. At the end of it the horse turned in its own length at the pressure of his thighs, superbly trained and willing. He felt a pang of absurd loss; not only was he going to have to part with it soon, but it would be spending the rest of its life pulling plows and harrows on Rasta Bob's farm. Doubtless well-treated, but: he ran a gauntleted palm down the smooth hard curve of the yellow gelding's neck.
Four hundred yards away Anthony Knolles was a tiny figure of steel and menace on his big black warmblood. Nigel bared his teeth; now he could stop being responsible and rational, and hit someone. He'd been wanting to do that very badly for a day and a half now.
With identical gestures they reached up to snap their visors shut; the world darkened, sight limited to the long narrow slit ahead. He squeezed his thighs, and Pommers broke into a walk, a trot, a canter: and then a hard hand gallop. Nigel braced his feet in the long stirrups, brought the shield around under his eyes, the lance down-held loosely at this stage. Hooves thundered, throwing divots of turf and brown earth high under the uncaring blue arch of the sky. The world shrank down to two bright lance heads and a shield marked with a silver wedge.
Two and a half tons of horseflesh, human bone and muscle and steel armor hurtled at each other. He slanted the lance across Pommers's neck, clenching his legs against the horse, locking himself into the high-cantled saddle.
And I don't much care whether I live or die, he knew. Alleyne and Hordle escape in either event. If Maude's waiting for me: and if there's nothing beyond: then sleep.
Suddenly the other armored lancer was close. Loring clenched his legs and leaned forward, the lance tight under his arm, the point unwavering. At the very last instant his knees pressed, and the yellow horse swerved slightly, leaning away. Loring's lance head stayed glued to its target, the narrow spot where the bevoir laced to the breastplate:
Crannng! Then crack! like a miniature roll of thunder as the tough ashwood of a lance shaft broke.
Nigel Loring swayed drunkenly in the saddle at the massive impact hammering on his shield and smashing his hips backward against the cantle; the curved sheet metal shed most of it, cunningly held to glance the point, but it was enough to tear him half out of the saddle and lose one stirrup; the warhorse itself staggered and nearly fell. The taste of iron and copper filled his mouth as his head snapped violently forward and back, rattling his brain in the skull and cutting his lips against his own teeth. He threw aside the broken stub of the lance before he realized what had happened to his opponent.
Knolles's black horse galloped on. Loring sprang down from the saddle, fell flat on his face, levered himself erect and staggered over to the spot where the other man lay fallen. For a moment he thought he was dead-gone gray-pale, with blood flowing from nose and mouth and one ear. The helmet was gone completely, the laces burst by the terrible leverage when Loring's lance head caught it under the bevoir. One of the captain's archers dashed up and fell on his knees on Knolles's other side, dabbing at his face with a square of linen soaked from a canteen.