‘When the contracts are signed the whole bank will celebrate,’ he told her. ‘Tonight it will be just you and me.’
The last message told her she had a voicemail waiting. She dialled in and listened in silence.
‘Probably it’s Lechowski asking you out,’ Blanchard joked. He stroked a strand of hair back from her cheek; he reached across to kiss her again, then paused. He must have read it in her face.
‘What is it?’
XXVIII
They say the ground shakes when two lines of horsemen come together. If you’re one of the riders, you don’t notice: your whole world is a shaking anyway. The rise and fall of the horse, the sway of the lance, the creak of leather and the rattle of shifting armour. Some of the knights wear knotted cords tied to their helmets, to snap and crack as they blow behind them. It’s vanity: just one more thing for an enemy to grab hold of.
But for now, everything is still. The drums and horns have fallen silent. The crowd are hushed. I sit in my saddle, feeling the cantle dig into my back. A cold wind catches the pennon on the tip of my spear. The horses stamp and blow hot air through their nostrils. Across the field, some two hundred mounted knights wait in line in front of a grandstand. It’s draped with cloth which spreads and billows in the wind, so that the whole construction seems to wobble.
A herald calls ‘laciez’. Four hundred men pull their helmets on. I tie my chinstrap tight under my chin. From under the brim, I scan the opposing line for any sign of Guy de Hautfort’s banner. It’s part of my ritual, part of the danger. We’re far from Normandy, but men travel a long way for the tourney.
Something at the far end of the opposing line catches my eye. A familiar shade of blue, or perhaps the shape. It’s too far away to see clearly: the device is hidden behind another knight’s banner. But it worries me. Usually we get there with enough time to ask the heralds who’s on the other side, but we were delayed on the road from Poitiers and only arrived last night.
A trumpet sounds. We charge.
This is my fifth tournament in Etienne’s company. In my first, at Dijon, I captured three knights and five horses. Etienne sold four and let me keep one, a chestnut charger. I was just getting used to him when I lost him again, in the next tournament. It happened in the first charge: a lance caught me plum on the boss of my shield and bowled me out of the saddle. I was lucky I only lost my horse.
Since then I’ve been more successful. Ada tells me to be careful, that the last thing I want is a reputation, but if you hold back in the heat of battle — even a mock battle like the tourney — you’ll probably find yourself on the ground. Do you want me to do my worst? I ask her. Wheel and flee rather than face the other knights?
She never answers, but I can see it in her face. If you loved me, you’d flee. I don’t know how to make her understand that the two aren’t incompatible. I do love her — but I have to fight.
I survive the first charge, though only just. I’m still worrying about the banner I saw, and don’t have my lance properly sat in its fewter. But they call it the tourney because the true test is when you hear the shout of tournez. Turn again. Any fool with enough courage can risk the first charge. It’s turning to go back that really tests your mettle, when your arm’s shivering and your lance is a splintered stump, when you no longer have your comrades riding knee to knee. Reining in a horse from full gallop, bringing him round and spurring him to the next charge is no easy feat. If you’re too slow, you’ll get broadsided by the enemy who turned faster.
I wheel about and spur forward, trying to edge down the line to my left. I can’t see where the banner’s gone. There are no blunted weapons on this field: if Jocelin’s here, it would be easy to kill him.
A knight on a bay charger comes galloping at me, heading me off. I put the banner out of my mind and draw my sword. It’s always more dangerous the second time. Neither of you, man or horse, is as focussed. The worst injuries happen now: the shield you don’t hold high enough, the piece of armour that’s come unlaced, the dazed horse who staggers at the crucial moment.
I prick my spurs and return to the battle.
It’s a good day for us. By the time the bugles end it, we’ve taken a dozen prisoners, including a castellan’s son who should fetch a good price. My body aches all over, though nothing compared with what it’ll be like tomorrow. I’ve got a cut above one eye where a splinter caught me, but otherwise it’s only bruises.
Yet I still feel uneasy. I watched for it all day, but I never found the banner I’d spotted. After the second charge, the tourney splintered into scores of skirmishes and individual combats, gradually spreading over miles of fields. I had to stay close to my company; I couldn’t risk myself alone.
I tell myself it’s probably nothing. Lots of knights carry blue banners — and even if it was Jocelin, he could have broken his lance on my shield and never recognised me. But I’m eager to get back to our camp and find Ada.
The tent’s empty; she’s not there. Etienne and the men have gone to feast in the Count’s castle, but one of the grooms is sitting by the fire, drinking wine we took as ransom for a Burgundian knight.
‘Where’s Ada?’
He wipes wine from his mouth. ‘She went to meet a horse-dealer at the chapel of Saint Sebastian, near the forest.’
Why not the horse market? I hurry down between the rows of tents, trying not to snag my spurs on the guy ropes. I’m so busy watching my footing I don’t see the young squire approaching. I barrel clean into him. It’s only as I draw back, murmuring an apology, that I see his face. The red-brown hair in loose curls, the mouth that droops down at the corners, the cheeks that never quite lost their youthful fat.
‘William?’
‘Peter?’
He’s not happy to see me. He knots his hands together and twists them in his tunic. He doesn’t know what to say.
‘It’s good to see you again.’ I have a fixed smile on my face; my mind’s racing. How much does he know? Who can he tell?
‘Have you taken service with another knight?’
He shakes his head. ‘I’m here with Jocelin.’
I should kill him — cut his throat, sink him in the town ditch. But we lived in each other’s pockets for six years: sparred, played, joked and fought together. He isn’t my enemy.
I put my hands on his shoulders and force him to look at me.
‘Where can I find Jocelin?’
William stares at the ground. He mumbles something — I probably wouldn’t have caught it, but I heard the name just five minutes ago.
‘The chapel of Saint Sebastian.’
The chapel stands on the edge of a mown field, with a walled crypt beside it. I arrive on my charger, armed and helmed. I don’t see anyone there.
A cry comes to me on the evening air. I follow the sound, around the churchyard wall to the place where the forest comes hard up against it.
She’s tied to a birch tree wearing nothing but her shift, so badly ripped that there’s barely a palm’s breadth of cloth intact. Rasping blows have lacerated her skin, and there are burn marks on her arms that look like the tip of a heated sword.
Her eyes open, tiny points of light against deep wells of shadow. ‘Peter?’
I jump down and run towards her, my sword drawn to cut the ropes.
‘Go away.’
They’re the last words she speaks to me and I wish she hadn’t said them. I want to remember her voice as it was, full of life and spirit. Not this cry, dragged out of her in agony.