But enough of this nonsense. I am sure that you, my patient reader, have experienced love and know full well its pleasures and pains. Let it suffice to say that I was a young man, and I was truly in love for the first time.
I tried to expunge Nur from my fevered thoughts with healthy outdoor exercise. Robin had suggested that I work on my skills with a lance, which were surely lacking, and he had also asked our captain of cavalry, Sir James de Brus, to teach me.
Sir James started me off on the quintain, which he had set up beyond the army camp on a fairly level piece of ground north of the city. Above us on a high hill that overlooked the whole of Messina, King Richard was constructing a great wooden castle. It was a curious building, formed of already fabricated parts, which Richard had brought with him from France. It was strange to see a pack of foot soldiers toiling up the hill and carrying with them a long section of ready-made rampart complete with tooth-like crenellations, or to watch a group of cavalrymen using their horses to haul a great wooden door up the steep side of the hill. But I could see the logic: timber was scarce and it was much more sensible of Richard to have brought his own materials to construct a defensible position than to rely on God to provide the appropriate materials locally. The castle was to be called ‘Mategriffon’ — literally ‘Kill the Griffons’ — as a grim reminder that Richard, from his new stronghold high above the town, could take Messina and punish its citizens whenever he chose.
The sacking of the town had two interesting consequences: firstly, King Philip had been furious when he saw Richard’s royal standard flying above the walls of the town — I think he had expected Richard’s insane attack with a tiny band of knights to fail — and he had threatened to take his men back to France, if he was not given half the spoils of the captured town. The second consequence was that King Tancred of Sicily was completely intimidated by the swift capture of his most lucrative port, and had paid Richard a mountain of gold and silver to end the trouble between them. The money, chest upon chest of it, was supposed to be the full and final payment of Queen Joanna’s dower, but it was also in actual fact a bribe to gain Richard’s goodwill and support in the future. Tancred had his own enemies in Italy and an alliance with the most powerful prince in Christendom was more valuable than mere money.
Some quiet diplomacy on the part of Robert of Thumham did a great deal towards smoothing things over between the English King and the French. Richard took down his own banners from the ramparts of Messina, and replaced them with the flags of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. And these two great orders of fighting monks henceforth assumed charge of the town. Richard then decreed that all the plunder taken from Messina must be returned. Of course, nobody in our army was foolish enough to admit that they had any ill-gotten goods or silver, so this was a meaningless gesture; and certainly Richard did not press this point. But, in an effort to keep relations between the townsmen and our soldiers sweet, Richard did outlaw gambling, under pain of ferocious punishment. And he fixed the price of bread at a penny a loaf and wine at so-and-so-much a pint and decreed that these essentials of life could not be sold by the Griffons any dearer.
As the final gesture of his desire to keep the peace, and most generously in my view, Richard gave one third of the gold he had received from Tancred to King Philip. Thus mollified, the French King went back to his lair at the palace, no doubt to begin searching for a fresh grievance against our generous monarch. My friend Ambroise said to me, over a cup of wine and a haunch of crisp roasted pork one night, that the French King’s great and holy expedition was not so much aimed against the Saracens as against King Richard — and although it was meant only as a sly witticism, there was a great deal of truth in his boozy jest.
The quintain was a horizontal pole with a circular wooden target at one end and a counterweight in the shape of a leather bag of grain, or sometimes water, at the other. The pole was mounted on a vertical post and when the shield was struck from horseback by the lance, the contraption would rotate at high speed and the counterweight bag of grain could sweep an unwary horseman off his seat as he rode past.
I had used one before a couple of times, when I lived deep in Sherwood Forest at the home of an old Saxon warrior called Thangbrand, but I had never mastered it. I did know, however, that the answer was speed. So the first time Sir James told me to ride at it, I put my heels to Ghost and cantered at the target, going at a fair lick, with an unfamiliar kite-shaped shield strapped to my left arm and a long blunted spear couched under my right.
I found that trying to control the heavy lance was much more difficult than I had thought. The padded tip wavered all over the place as I moved with the gait of the horse, and as a result, I missed the target completely. Ghost faltered but carried on charging forward, impelled by his own momentum. At the last minute he shied slightly to the side to avoid the target, which crashed into my shield a heartbeat later with surprising force and nearly unseated me. The swinging sack of grain whistled past my back, missing me by a whisker.
As I trotted back to Sir James de Brus, I was expecting a stream of ridicule to spew from his scowling face. I had heard him upbraiding his troopers and the man’s language, when he was angry, would have disgraced a whoremaster. But he merely said: ‘Nobody gets it right to begin with. Watch me again.’ And he cantered off towards the target, his lance straight out in front of his body, the long heavy wooden pole as unmoving as if it were held in a vice. He charged up to the target, going up to the gallop for the last few yards, hit the circle of wood dead centre and was riding easily past before the swinging bag of corn was a quarter way round its circular path.
I tried again; missed again, and had to fend off the target with my shield once more. Then I made a mistake and slowed right down, to make sure I could hit the target foursquare. But Ghost and I were moving too slowly and the swinging sack caught me hard in the ribs and tumbled me out of the saddle. Bruised and breathless, I remounted Ghost and returned once again to Sir James. ‘I think we’ll start with something a wee bit simpler,’ he said, but not altogether unkindly.
Sir James set up a pole at about head height, with a fork cut into the wood, into which was stuck a ring of plaited straw about the size of an apple. With a real lance, not a padded one this time, I had to put the spear point through the ring as I rode past and lift the straw circle off the pole. It was extremely difficult. I missed time and again, even only going at the trot, and found I was growing frustrated, angry even, with myself and with Sir James de Brus for making me feel so small and incompetent.
‘Now try it at the gallop,’ my teacher suggested after I had missed the ring for the twentieth time. I bit back an angry retort and dug my spurs into Ghost. He responded and we thundered towards the ring on the pole. Strangely, the galloping horse gave me a more stable platform and as we approached the ring I lunged forward with the lance, as if it had been a sword, and to my amazement, I pierced the straw ring and lifted it clean off the pole. I was elated. Triumph at last! Sir James even offered me a twisted grimace, which I took to be his scrumpled version of a congratulatory smile. ‘Now do it again,’ he said gruffly. So I did.
Within the week I had mastered the straw ring. I could lift it off the pole nineteen times out of twenty. And so we went back to the quintain. Two weeks later and I had mastered that, too. And made a friend.