The Long Sword

by Christian Cameron

  But God delivered him into my hands as surely as he saved Daniel from the lions. Because at that moment, a bowshot away, the brass-lunged herald announced the next knight serving the Emperor, and it was none other than my recent enemy, Duke Rudolph von Hapsburg, last seen lying unconscious under one of his knights, a victim of my spear, about half a bowshot from the gates of Florence.

  I pointed at the knight, who was in dazzling bronze-edged panoply with a scarlet surcoat that matched his beard and his caparison, wearing a link-belt of gold and looking the chivalric hero of every romance. ‘Duke Rudolph was present when I was knighted,’ I said. Unconscious at the time, of course.

  The judge looked at me. He didn’t collapse, or vanish in a puff of ill-smelling smoke, but my victory was total, and he could only cover it with a display of ill breeding. ‘These battlefield knightings,’ he said. ‘Anyone can claim them.’

  I bowed my head briefly. ‘I’m sure it makes your work very difficult,’ I said, emphasising work as if to imply that he was some sort of tradesman. I smiled at him. ‘I’ll try not to let it happen again.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You make light of serious matters, sir.’

  I shrugged. ‘Will you be fighting, sir?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I am a judge.’

  ‘Very convenient, I’m sure,’ I drawled in my best Gascon French. ‘But should monsieur at any time feel the urge to don his harness, I would be at monsieur’s pleasure.’

  Nerio, at my left side, choked on his laughter, and then threw back his head and brayed like an ass.

  The judge turned a dark purple.

  On my right, Fiore caught my reins. ‘Ahem,’ he said.

  Fiore was not the best man at social complexities, but he was, in this case, right – I was not doing my duty by the Order in provoking some French functionary of the King of Poland. So I turned my head and managed to say nothing.

  The Frenchman turned on Fiore. ‘And you, monsieur? Were you also knighted on the battlefield? Perhaps by the Emperor himself ?’

  Fiore beamed with satisfaction. ‘I was knighted this very morning, before all these worthy gentlemen, by the King of Jerusalem!’ he said with such evident goodwill that it was hard for our Frenchman to be rude. But someone had set him his mission, and he was determined, like any petty court functionary.

  ‘Knighted this morning?’ he said, his voice rich with insinuation.

  The King of Jerusalem and Cyprus, who, through all of this, had been moving among his team, discussing the contest, rode up behind the King of Poland’s man so silently that we all missed him. He leaned over and tapped the Frenchman’s back with his tournament sword. ‘I knighted him this morning, yes. I’m sorry – is there a rule against it?’

  The Frenchman sniffed – very like a princess of France I knew – a sniff of contempt. ‘There is no rule, he said, implying the opposite.

  ‘Excellent!’ the king said. ‘Then if you are done investigating our noblesse, perhaps you could let us have a chat, eh, monsieur?’ The king’s French was perfect – it was, after all, the native tongue of the nobility of Outremer.

  The courtier bowed. He wasn’t uncivil to the king, at least in form, but the tension was palpable.

  The king backed his horse and waved the sword in his hand. ‘Visors open. On me, mes amis. Come – press close!’

  The judges were all conferring together, and the Emperor’s team was forming for the contest. This was the first I had seen of the Emperor. He was in a fine armour, but not an ostentatious one – Rudolph von Hapsburg was much showier. The Emperor, Charles IV, was also King of Bohemia; a famous jouster and by all accounts an excellent king and lord. I couldn’t see his face, but knew him to be quite old – almost forty or so.

  Hah! Younger than I am now.

  But our king leaned in. ‘They want us to be afraid. The Emperor wants us to fail or withdraw or be disqualified.’

  Mézzières looked pained.

  The king gave a little shake of his head. ‘Each time I win, it is that much harder for that cautious windbag to stop his knights from following me on crusade.’

  Don’t imagine I had anything to say. These were matters of high diplomacy, being acted out on a tournament field. Nerio and Fiore and I were the merest participants.

  The king looked around. He glanced at the Emperor.

  A judge raised his baton and shouted, ‘The knights will now swear the oath!’

  The king shook his head. ‘Listen, the Emperor’s men will form close about him – a wedge, I suspect. They will stay together like the expert fighters they are. I say we will fight them like Turks: we will divide at the first onset, scatter, and come at the ends of the Emperor’s formation in threes. Do not abide! For their wedge will crush us if we allow it. Swing wide, stay off their front, and pick off the men on the ends. Remember, the only thing that counts is throwing a man to the ground, seizing his mount, and returning it to our pole. You may deliver as many blows to a man’s head as you like – it is worthless.

  A herald was riding in our direction.

  Well, I had seen a dozen of these fights. I’d watched one in London with Nan, a thousand years ago, or so it seemed.

  The king looked right at me. ‘You three know each other – and we do not know you yet. Stay together. Don’t get taken. I’ll put enough Germans down to win the contest – don’t you three lose it for me.’

  His other knights nodded, as if this wasn’t a piece of cocksure bravado, but a home truth. I glanced at de Mézzières. He looked away.

  He did not like me.

  Before the herald reached us, we trotted forward a few yards and formed a line. You can learn a great deal about a group of horsemen by how well they form and keep a line: by what horse frets, and what rider has to curb, or walk, or turn his horse. Right there, I saw that the Cypriotes were superb horsemen. And their horses were good.

  Well, thanks to the Bishop of Geneva’s best efforts, my horse was good, too. He was my favourite colour, a pale gold with darker gold mane and tail. He wasn’t the largest horse I’ve ever had, but par dieu he was beautifully trained, and his best trick was that, at a weight change, he’d turn on his front legs, like my first great horse, Jack. He was also intelligent, for a horse.

  Well, I called this one Jacques. He was like Jack, only French. Ha ha!

  Fiore’s horse was a rich black, the biggest of the three, an odd contrast to Fiore’s shabby harness. Nerio’s horse was a deep, dark bay with black mane and tail, which went perfectly with his family’s green and gold arms. He had a caparison – God only knows why he brought it, but most of the Cypriote knights had them, too. His was an exercise in extravagance – a horse caparison embroidered in gold, with tiny gilt leaves attached everywhere. There was a motto running around the base, a line from Dante, I was told later. As it never stopped moving, I couldn’t read it.

  At any rate, he was without a doubt our side’s most magnificent knight after the king, and the crowd – especially the Poles, who did not particularly love the Emperor – began to cheer him and the king.

  The judges waved their batons, and we all raised our voices and swore the oath in unison, as if we were reciting prayers in church.

  ‘Raise your right hand to the Saints!’ intoned my French courtier.

  ‘By my Faith! And on the promise of my body and my honour, I swear that I will strike none of this company in this tourney with the point of my sword, or below the belt or line of his fauld, nor will I attack by surprise, or an unarmed man! And if it should happen that a man’s helmet comes off, I swear I shall not touch him. If I knowing do otherwise, I will be banished from the tourney, I will lose my horse and my arms, and I swear this on the faith and promise of my body, and on my honour!’

  You see, I can recite that oath to you, seventeen years on. I’ve said it many times, now, but it’s serious. And for me – for Fiore
– the loss of our horse and arms would have been a catastrophe.

  In truth, by the time I was done with the oath – my helmet off, my gauntlets still with Nerio’s squire – I had had a good look around. There were ten thousand people, as quiet as a crowd that size can be. There were two queens, an Emperor, several kings, and a crowd of aristocrats and courtiers as big as the parade of the guilds in London.

  If I hadn’t had a horse between my knees, they’d have banged together like a tinker’s pots. I stood to lose my horse and arms and professional reputation in front of a crowd of ten thousand commoners and another thousand of the most powerful people in Christendom. Any failure would be reported for the rest of my life.

  Nerio leaned over. ‘You look white, my friend, not Gold.’

  I just shook my head. My breastplate was too tight and I couldn’t breathe.

  Nerio laughed. ‘I’m used to this public performance,’ he said. ‘I forget that you are not. Listen; forget them. They aren’t even here. It’s just us.’ He pointed at the Emperor’s men, even then riding down the field to their flag on its pole – the great red lion of Charles IV. ‘And them.’

  I managed a deeper breath.

  ‘Or you could just look at Fiore,’ Nerio said with a wicked smile.

  Fiore beamed at me. ‘I’m a knight!’ he said.

  De Mézzières came by, arranging the team. Our trio went at the left of the line – the position of least trust and confidence.

  To be fair, I’d have done the same.

  I heard the king – our king – laugh and say to one of his knights, ‘It’s nothing, mon ami. We can take them, even nine against twelve.’

  That stiffened my spine. The king thought we were worthless. No, to be fair, he thought we were a liability and he was planning around us. He’d made that clear when he told us to simply avoid capture.

  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 mêlée, 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 mêlée, 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 rig
ht, 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.

  King Peter slapped his visor open a horse-length from me. ‘Well fought!’ he shouted. Then he pulled it down and turned his horse. He held his horse for the length of his speech, half reared, perfectly collected, his weight back – he looked like a centaur. He was, in that moment, the knight I wanted to be.