Undecided, he lay trying to clear his mind but the thoughts would give him no peace. They chased about his heart: the boy should die, an eye for an eye; the father was guilty, not the boy. He couldn’t make a decision. It was impossible.
Sitting up, he felt his clothes. They were dry enough, but his shirt and hose were dreadfully scruffy. He would have to get changed into clean finery for the béhourd, but there should be plenty of time. Rising, he walked up the hill in among the trees, then followed the line of the woods eastwards until he was past the castle and on the way to Oakhampton. Here a tree had fallen over the river, and he waited a moment, clawing his hair back from his face and tidying himself, before clambering on to the tree and stepping assuredly along the trunk until he reached the other bank. Once there he turned back towards the castle, a late-night reveller wandering homewards. None of the other travellers on the road took any notice of him.
Philip entered the tented area and was about to go to his own small pavilion when he saw the last man. And he felt the rage, freezing as winter frost, ice its way along his spine, felt the muscles of his back and belly suddenly clench as if he was preparing to strike the mortal blow.
He turned away and entered the pavilion, quickly doffing his clothes and washing his face and hands before selecting a fresh shirt and pulling on his tunic. Soon he was back in the tilt-yard.
His determination had returned. He would kill one more time.
‘You have achieved much, Bailiff. Is there any news of the dead man?’
‘I thank you, Sir Richard. No, there is nothing yet on Wymond, but the Coroner has hopes.’
There was no need for an introduction to Sir Richard Prouse; everyone knew who he was. His scarred features, with the appalling line of twisted and raw-looking flesh that ran from his temple, close to the milky white and ruined eyeball, down through his ravaged cheekbone to his broken jaw, was instantly recognisable. Seeing him so close, Simon felt his belly lurch. He looked away hurriedly.
‘You need not worry about my feelings, Bailiff. I know I am an ogre now, a repellent creature used to scare children when they misbehave. “If you don’t behave and do your chores, they’ll send Sir Richard Prouse to take you away”! I have heard it often enough.’
Wanting to change the subject, instead Simon found his mouth running on. ‘It was in a tournament you got that wound, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, Bailiff. I got in front of a dangerous man. I was only twenty-four when this happened.’ His eyes clouded and a slight tremble made him lean more heavily on his stick. Hobbling slowly and carefully, for his right leg still dragged, he walked to the stands beneath Lord Hugh’s seat and stared about him. ‘It was in Crukerne, back in 1316 – another tournament designed by that sodomitic cretin Hal Sachevyll.’
‘You are angry with him?’
‘How would you feel?’ Sir Richard snapped, his voice rising as he spoke. ‘The Goddamned fool didn’t strengthen the stands. That was how I got this!’ He spoke with a bitter, shivering rage, but gradually his fury ebbed. ‘Damn him! I was riding in the mêlée and became the target of an attack by Sir Walter Basset. The murderous bastard managed to squeeze me up against the stands, where he started beating me about the head with a mace. I was forced up against the wooden barricades, and he was on my left side. It was hard to wield my sword to protect myself, and he was battering me with two or three blows for each one of mine.’
He could recall it perfectly. The mount beneath him kept trying to move away, but was forced against the wooden boardings while Sir Richard felt the heavy ball on its reinforced wooden shaft raining down upon him.
‘I was young and resilient, but deafened by the clanging of steel striking my helm. It felt as though my head was being used as the clapper of a giant bell. And there was no let-up to the ringing, hammering torture. Do what I might, I could not stop the assault. Nor could I escape. Some of my anxiety was reflected in my horse, too: pushing forward, then pulling back, trying to release himself from Sir Walter’s great destrier, but he was snared. And meanwhile I could feel the energy sapping from my arm. I will not lie – I was panicked.’
It was terrifying, and with the terror came the realisation: he was a failure just like his father; he would be captured and ransomed. A fool who would lose all, who would see his properties mortgaged once more.
‘A heavy blow caught my head and glanced onto my right shoulder. Instantly my arm was dead. No sensation whatever. I had no defence. My sword-arm was gone. You know, at that moment I could look into the eyes of the spectators. They were so close, I could see into the throats of the men and women as they roared… ’
He was quiet a few minutes. ‘It was as if time stood still. I saw people shaking their fists, shrieking with blood-lust, longing to see a man die… to see me die. It was very curious.
‘Then another buffet knocked my head and I knew I must get away. My only safety lay in flight. I was desperate and spurred my horse until the blood ran in rivulets, staining the cloth covering.’
He had tried to move, Sir Richard told Simon, but he had no purchase. He barged forward and tried to thrust a path between the boarding and Sir Walter’s mount, but the Cornishman wheeled his horse to block them, his mount’s rump slamming into the ber frois. ‘I swear that at that moment I could hear a dreadful creaking,’ Sir Richard said quietly. ‘It was like a kind of grumbling, as though the barrier and plankings were complaining. That was it, a sort of moaning, like an old man muttering under his breath as the cold weather seized up his ancient joints.
‘And then, with a crash, the section nearest me gave way. I was falling, and as I went I felt an explosion of pain in my neck. The mace had struck the weak spot between my shoulders where the mail was feeble from age and rust. I had never worried about it before, but now, with my head bent, the spot was exposed. That blow felled me like an ox under the hammer. And if it wasn’t for Hal Sachevyll, that section of barrier wouldn’t have collapsed and I wouldn’t have fallen.’
‘Was it the barrier that did that?’
‘You mean, was it the barrier which so ruined my face and looks, Bailiff?’ He smiled thinly. ‘No. This was a sword. I fell through the barrier, and as I fell a chance blow almost broke my neck. I was not aware of anything else for some time. But as I fell, Sir Edmund of Gloucester came to help me, I thank God. He rode up and fought with Sir Walter to protect me, but Sir Walter was a wild beast at being frustrated in capturing me. He set about Sir Edmund and so belaboured him that Sir Edmund was driven back.
‘I knew I’d been seriously injured. My horse was dead, impaled upon a metal spike, but when I saw Sir Walter was fighting someone else, I pulled my helmet off to breathe. God, it was hot! When he returned to me and bellowed at me to yield, I couldn’t hear. My head was full of a clamorous row, because of the beating I’d received. When I noticed him, I knew only fear to see him again. I grabbed for my sword, which lay a few feet from me and as I caught hold of it, Sir Walter swung.’
He remembered that blow. It came to him at night, when he was in a deep sleep, the sight of that notched and scratched blade swinging down at him as though time was standing almost still. Then the slamming agony of the blade above his temple and the hideous dragging as it clove through his flesh and skull, tearing and rending its way down, through eye-socket and cheek and on down to his jaw. That was where the blade and the horror ended. At last Sir Richard’s mind surrendered and he passed out.
‘Have you ever seen a bear enter a ring to be baited?’ he asked quietly. ‘Sometimes it will look mild, until the dogs begin to snap at it, and then it will defend itself, but without fury. That comes later. At first the bear wants only to protect itself, but then, once a mastiff has got to it and maybe chewed the bastard’s leg, that is when the thing becomes enraged and flings its tormentors away or smashes them. Sir Walter became like a bear, may his cods shrivel.