The princes’ charge was more of a show than the previous ones. A bond of friendship tied Brittany and France, and it was a mark of their trust for one another that they consented to take to the field. Not a drop of royal blood was to be shed, and to this end they must hold a spear, not a lance, and aim for their opponent’s shield on the fence.
The huge white bird dropped out of the sky and landed on the central fence, on Brittany’s shield. On the Duchess’s dais, a waiting-woman gasped. ‘It’s a raven, my lady! On your lord’s shield! Christ save him!’ Ravens were associated with death.
The Duchess looked on, impassively. ‘It’s a white raven,’ she said, sedately, ‘only black ones are evil.’
The trumpets sounded. Spurs flashed. Hoofs ripped through the sand.
The Duchess of Brittany’s waiting-woman gulped. ‘If you say so, my lady.’
‘I do.’ With inflexible calm, the Duchess shifted her eyes to where her husband was thundering full tilt across the lists.
The warhorses were closing on each other. It would have been all too easy for one of the princes to break their word and aim for the heart, but as they had arranged, they turned their spears aside at the last moment and hurled them into the wooden shields marked with their arms. Brittany’s spear hung, quivering in France’s colours. The crowd shrieked their appreciation. France’s spear thudded into the sand, the great white raven impaled on its point. Blood and feathers were everywhere. A wing flapped, once. There was a second’s silence before the crowd went wild. Gwenn felt sick.
The trumpets let out a clarion blast and one of the King’s heralds ran onto the field with the baton. The King threw it down. The gates opened at either end of the field and, pennons flying, the army of knights roared onto the sand.
The mêlée had begun.
Swirls of dust and sand lifted into the hot air, it was like looking into a sandstorm. There were so many twisting, fighting men, so many screaming, biting horses, that it was impossible to tell one combatant from another. Slowly the knights spread over the field. Some were down, and as the field began to clear, Gwenn was able to distinguish individuals.
There was Sir Raoul, she knew his colours now. Not content with losing one horse to his opponent at the jousting earlier, he was trying his arm in the mêlée. Gwenn did not think that his luck had changed, for his elaborate green and white caparison had been slashed to tatters and hung raggedly from his steed’s back. Sir Raoul kicked his mount into the press, and Gwenn lost sight of him. The King of France had judiciously left the field, no doubt holding the view that an army’s commander should never be put at risk. A dark flash caught Gwenn’s eyes. She saw the ermine, and a warhorse’s wide flaring nostrils, and an ebony tail streaming like a banner. Duke Geoffrey was in the thick of it – not for him the strategic withdrawal. She watched as he unhorsed a man and crimson blood mingled with the sand. The ducal sword waved in triumph and, with either supreme arrogance or supreme folly, Duke Geoffrey lifted his helmet in the air and grinned at his Duchess seated primly on her dais. The Duchess inclined her head. The Duke jammed his helm back on, dug his spurs in his mount’s flanks, and was off again.
Ned had gone from his place on the sidelines, but Gwenn picked out Alan. He was stationed by the palisade where the Duke’s arms were laid out. As the two cousins were not of the knightly class they were forbidden to venture onto the field of combat. Alan was watching intently, dark brows frowning with concentration, and knowing that he had to stay on the boundary, Gwenn was surprised when she saw him take a step forward as though he would enter the fray. Where was Ned?
Suddenly, gripped by a hideous premonition, Gwenn forgot about the heat. She forgot about the cramp in her thigh and stood up. Alan’s face was paler than the field of the Duke’s shield. He was tugging his sword out. He was shouting. He ran between two horsemen fighting it out centre field and was swallowed up by thrashing limbs. Where was Ned?
‘Sit down, Mistress Fletcher!’ Lady Juliana hissed. ‘You mar the view.’
But Gwenn couldn’t sit down. She stood, with her heart in her mouth, staring at the spot where Alan had been. ‘No, no,’ she muttered, in a daze. ‘Something...something dreadful is happening.’
‘Mistress Fletcher,’ the Lady Juliana spoke sharply, ‘if you’re ailing, you may withdraw.’
‘I’m not ailing. It’s...’ Gwenn gasped. Alan was in the middle of the action. He had sheathed his sword and was crouching, dragging the body of a man by the belt. The man’s flaxen hair was uncovered, and mired with sand and dust. There was blood on his chest. As Alan neared the northern gate, the gate nearest Gwenn, he bellowed. A marshal raced to assist him.
It was no knight that Alan was succouring.
Impossibly, it was Ned.
Lady Juliana had seen what was happening. She rose gracefully. ‘Come, Mistress Fletcher,’ she said, with the unruffled assurance of a woman who had tended men’s hurts on such occasions a thousand times before. When Gwenn made no move, she gently took her arm. ‘We’ll go to Sir Raoul’s pavilion and see what needs to be done.’
***
Alan had barely had time to lay Ned down on a pallet when Duchess Constance’s messenger arrived, chest heaving, at Sir Raoul’s pavilion. ‘Lady Juliana!’ the messenger panted, shoving his head unceremoniously through the tent flap. ‘The Duchess is calling for you, there’s been another accident!’
‘Another?’ Lady Juliana lifted her eyes from the bloody mess that had been Ned Fletcher’s chest and avoided looking at Gwenn.
‘My lady, you’re to come at once!’
Lady Juliana rocked back on her heels, secretly relieved at her timely reprieve. As God was her witness, she didn’t mind helping when a man had a chance. But Ned Fletcher was a doomed man and she did not want to be the one to tell his young, pregnant wife. ‘One moment, my man.’ She stared at Gwenn’s jawline. ‘Can you cope, my dear?’
‘I...I think so.’ Trembling fingers reached for Ned Fletcher’s slashed gambeson. ‘But there’s not much we can do, is there?’
Lady Juliana squirmed, unable to avoid such a direct question. ‘My dear, I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time. It’s tragic, such an unlucky blow. Both lungs are affected.’
‘Both?’ This from Alan.
‘Aye. With lungs, if one only is damaged, it is not necessarily a mortal blow. But two... It’s tragic. And when the bubbles of blood come to the mouth, you know the end is near.’ Lady Juliana pressed a linen cloth to Ned’s mouth, and displayed the stained cloth to the injured man’s wife and cousin.
Gwenn fixed her with agonised dark eyes. ‘You’re saying he’s going? That it’s only a matter of time?’
‘Yes.’
‘But there must be something we can do! We’ll try anything, won’t we, Alan?’
‘Anything. My lady, are you certain we can do nothing?’ Iron fingers sunk into Lady Juliana’s arm.
‘I’m sorry, Captain. He’s drowning–’
His wife stirred. ‘Ned’s drowning in his own blood. Oh, sweet Jesus. Ned. Ned.’
Gwenn felt Ned’s pain as if it were her own. If only there was something she could do to help him. She would sell her soul if it kept Ned alive. That morning Ned had been so happy, so excited. Ned was young. Ned was strong. He should not be dying. How could God destroy someone as kind and selfless as Ned? Where was the divine purpose in his death? And why had it been Ned who had stopped that lance? It might just as easily have been someone else. Why Ned? Why?
The ducal messenger was wringing his hands. ‘My lady, you must come,’ he said. ‘The Duchess has need of you.’
‘Yes, you’re needed elsewhere,’ Gwenn said, dully. ‘Thank you, Lady Juliana. We’ll manage.’