By now the headache had moved into his forehead and was hammering against his temples with agonizing regularity.
He pushed himself up on his elbow and drank the medicine she gave him. Then he lay back down again, his eyes shut.
“The mêlée,” he said faintly.
“You can’t fight in this condition,” she said.
She was right. At this point, he wasn’t even capable of standing up, much less sitting on a horse.
His stomach heaved.
“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Where is that bowl?”
She handed it to him, and he vomited what was left in his stomach of last night’s dinner.
His head pounded harder.
He lay back down again. Cristen’s gentle hand smoothed his hair off his sweaty forehead.
“I don’t want anyone to see me like this,” he said desperately.
“There’s nowhere else to go, Hugh.”
He groaned.
She said firmly, “No one will bother you as long as I am here.”
He opened his eyes and looked up into her face. His eyes were almost black with pain. “You can’t stay here in the knights’ pavilion!”
“Of course I can stay,” she returned. “The men will be back only to get into their armor and then they’ll be heading for the stables to collect their horses. They’ll be out of here in fifteen minutes. Don’t worry, it will be all right.”
But word had already passed among the Somerford men that Hugh was sick, and after breakfast Nigel came immediately to Hugh’s pallet to ask Cristen what was the matter with him.
She looked up from her place on the ground next to Hugh’s bed. “He is ill, Father,” she said matter-of-factly. “Much too ill to participate in the mêlée, I’m afraid.”
Nigel glanced over her head at Hugh’s face. The boy’s eyes were shut and his face was white and drawn with pain.
“What is it?” he asked his daughter in a lowered voice.
“I’m afraid something he ate last night must have disagreed with him,” she returned. “He can barely stand, Father. You will have to do without him today.”
Nigel scowled. He hated to part with his best knight. He looked again at Hugh’s face and knew he had no choice. The boy did indeed look dreadfully ill.
“You can’t remain here, Cristen,” he said to his daughter gruffly. “We need you at the mêlée in case someone gets hurt.”
“I have every intention of coming to the mêlée, Father,” she said.
Hugh half-opened his eyes and looked up at Nigel. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said.
“It’s not your fault, boy,” the older knight replied bracingly. “But Judas, we shall miss you.”
Hugh managed a faint smile before he closed his eyes again.
Fifteen minutes later, the pavilion was empty once more.
“Is it any better at all, Hugh?” Cristen asked softly.
“I think the medicine is helping,” he replied. His voice sounded stronger and a little color had come back to his face.
“Lady Cristen…”
She looked up to find one of the Somerford knights standing behind her.
“May I talk to Hugh for a moment?” he asked.
Cristen frowned.
Hugh said, “What is it, Geoffrey?”
Cristen rose to her feet. “I have to get dressed for the mêlée, Hugh,” she said reluctantly.
“Go ahead,” he replied. His eyes opened fully and held hers. “There’s nothing more you can do here. And I really do think the medicine is helping.”
She smiled at him, then turned to give an admonitory stare to the young knight standing behind her. “Don’t talk for too long, Geoffrey.”
“I won’t, Lady Cristen,” he replied earnestly.
With palpable reluctance, Cristen left the pavilion to go and array herself in her best finery in order to attend the mêlée.
Philip was glad that Father Anselm had insisted they follow Hugh to Chippenham. This was probably the only chance he would ever get to watch a tournament mêlée, and he was thrilled at the prospect.
Of course, it would have been even better if he could have participated in the fight himself. Unfortunately, it was out of the question for him to ask Nigel Haslin to add an unknown knight to his team, so Philip was forced to content himself with looking on.
This particular mêlée would have two hundred men on each of the two sides, which would be led by Lord Guy’s vassals, each of whom had come to the tournament with a team of twenty knights. These teams had been grouped together by Lord Guy to form two opposing armies. Guy himself had forty knights participating in the mêlée, but he had divided his men so that twenty were assigned to either side, which kept the numbers even.
The action of a mêlée consisted of one side hurling itself upon the other, just as in a real battle. The goal was to unhorse as many knights as possible, to the point where the opposition could no longer hold together and was forced to flee the field in chaos.
Of course, Philip knew that the Chippenham tournament was negligible compared to the great tournaments that were staged in France. There, thousands of men fought on each side, and the field itself was immense, often encompassing a village or a vineyard where opposing knights could be driven and surrounded and made to surrender. Another difference between Chippenham and the French tournaments was that the knights participating in the French tournaments did not do so solely for the honor of their team. They came, as to war, in order to take weapons, harnesses, and horses, and to capture men for ransom. If a knight was skillful enough, much money was to be made in France.
The tournament at Chippenham was for honor only. But the participants took it with deadly seriousness, and the spectators did so as well. The wooden stands were filled with ladies dressed in brightly colored silk and samite, vigorously waving scarves that bore the colors of their teams. Lord Guy presided from the center of the stands, the same golden-haired lady who had been with him the previous evening once more at his side.
Philip was surprised that the earl was not on the field at the head of his own men, but a squire standing nearby told him that Guy never participated in the battle itself.
“He is the judge,” the squire said a little scornfully. “He decides when to separate the sides during the fight, and when the mêlée is over, he chooses the best knight from among the winning team.”
“And how is the winning team chosen?” Philip inquired.
The squire grinned. “Whichever team has the most men still on the field at the end of the day is the winner.”
Philip and Father Anselm had stationed themselves in one of the lists, which were barricades at the side of the field behind which men could seek safety after they had been unhorsed. Any knight who tried to pursue a man into the lists would be heavily penalized.
Philip watched with eager anticipation as the two sides began to line up at the far ends of the open field. He searched for and found the blue and white flag of Somerford among the army to his right, then he trained his keen, farsighted gaze on Nigel’s men as they began to form up into two lines of ten, one behind the other.
Suddenly, Philip frowned.
“I don’t see Hugh,” he said to Father Anselm.
The priest looked in the direction of the Somerford men.
“You’re right,” he said after a minute. “He isn’t there. Unless he is riding another horse?”
“Wait a minute,” Philip said. “Here he comes now.”
As the two men watched, the white stallion that had swept the honors in the horsemanship contest the day before came cantering up to the Somerford team and moved into the place of honor next to Nigel.
The front line was the most dangerous as well as the most honorable place to be. If a knight in the front line was unhorsed, he faced the possibility of being trampled by the horses of his own side, which were directly behind him, as well as by the horses of the opposition.