Bernard Knight - Crowner's Quest

Ralph Morin, as the senior military man present, rose and pointed to de Braose. ‘You will go to the east end, your adversary to the west. When I drop this white kerchief, you may begin,’ he rumbled. ‘You may make as many passes as you wish. If you are unhorsed you may remount, if you can. Otherwise, there are no rules. You will fight, tooth and nail if needs be, until one of you is dead.’ He remained standing until the two horsemen had trotted off to opposite ends of the long wicker fence, their squires running behind them until they all turned to face each other.

The crowd fell silent. They were used to tournaments and jousting where, not infrequently, fatal injuries occurred, but trial by combat, where death was mandatory, was becoming uncommon. Certainly, the sight of their county coroner, a well-known and respected former Crusader, fighting an alleged murderer as champion for a thirteen-year-old boy, was unique, and the city held its breath while they waited for the Constable to make his signal. Even the clouds seemed to stand still while everyone watched for the cloth to drop.

There was a flutter of white and then a pounding of hoofs. The two horsemen hammered along opposite sides of the tilt, lowering their lances as they went. De Braose’s steed was faster than Bran and the point where they met was to the left of the viewing stand.

Both lances met the shields simultaneously with a tearing thwack, as the leather on both was gouged. De Braose attempted to lift his spear-tip at the last second to hit John in the face, but the coroner lifted his shield at an angle to protect his head and caused the lance to slide off sideways. His own caught de Braose’s shield squarely over his breast and the great weight of Bran, with the spear held vice-like in de Wolfe’s muscular arm, jerked the other man back, almost pushing him back over the raised cantle at the rear of the saddle. In a fraction of a second, they had thundered past each other and slowed down towards the further end of the tilt.

The crowd relaxed slightly, some yelling encouragement, others cat-calls, as the more knowledgeable of them knew it was a foul to aim for the face in a tournament — though, admittedly, this was a fight to the death with no holds barred.

As soon as de Wolfe got near the end of the barrier, he turned Bran in a wide circle to avoid losing speed and immediately galloped back down his side of the list. De Braose, who had slowed almost to a stop to turn his horse around, was at a standstill when he saw the coroner pounding down at him from the other end. Caught unawares, he lost a few seconds in cruelly spurring the gelding into action and was not up to speed when de Wolfe bore down on him, again well beyond the centre-line. John’s lance again caught him four-square on the shield and crushed it against his chest, knocking him clean off his horse into the mud. There was a great yell from the crowd and all those on the benches stood up to get a better view.

Bran’s great bulk hurtled on under its own momentum for twenty yards until de Wolfe could pull him round. By that time, de Braose had picked himself from the mire, miraculously without any apparent injury. His well-trained horse had stopped short and wheeled around to canter back to his fallen master. As the black gelding came up to him, Jocelin put a foot in the stirrup and scrambled back into the saddle — no mean feat considering the forty pounds of chain-mail on his back, which spoke well of his youthful fitness. There was a roar of congratulation from the crowd, who even-handedly applauded his remarkable recovery, just as earlier they had condemned his foul.

As he remounted, Giles Fulford had raced up the side of the tilt and handed up the fallen lance to his master’s right hand. De Wolfe was now alongside on the other side of the tilt. He made no move against de Braose while he was getting back into the saddle, but suddenly de Braose made a sudden jab with his lance across the hurdles, catching the coroner in the ribs. The attack was futile, as without the force of a galloping horse behind it, the spear was easily blocked by the chain-mail and caused nothing more than a bruise. The crowd booed and hissed at this unsporting violation, again ignoring the fact that anything was acceptable in this mortal combat.

The wolf-emblazoned fighter ignored the jab and cantered away down to his end of the field, again making a swift turn and accelerating back towards Jocelin de Braose. This time, the younger man had learned his lesson and imitated de Wolfe’s manoeuvre, so that they were both up to full speed when they met. Whereas de Braose had raised his lance to John’s face on the first encounter, this time he unexpectedly dropped it, and as he took the impact of the coroner’s weapon on his shield, he deliberately plunged his own spear deep into the neck of de Wolfe’s stallion.

With a dying scream as the iron tip tore into his spine, Bran’s front legs collapsed and he pitched his rider over his head. Landing with a crash, with his great horse almost on top of him, de Wolfe was not as lucky as de Braose had been a few moments earlier. He turned through half a circle in the air and landed with one leg under him. Almost as if everything was happening in slow motion, he heard the bones in his left shin snap as it took most of the impact. Though the fracture saved his head and chest, the pain was agonising for a moment, then faded. His overwhelming feeling was for his horse, his beloved Bran.

‘My horse! You bastard, de Braose, you swine!’ he heard himself rave at the sky above. The crowd seemed to agree with him, as there was a great tumult of abuse from all sides against this unscrupulous act. The fight to the death was between the men, not the horses, and the spectators screamed their hatred at de Braose. In their anger some tried to run across to the tilt, but Morin’s men-at-arms rushed along the line and forced them back.

The great stallion was kicking spasmodically in his death throes, eyes rolled up, showing only the whites, the legs thrashing as the lance still lay embedded in his spinal cord. De Wolfe realised suddenly that the death of his horse might be the prelude to his own demise for, seconds later, he saw de Braose scrambling over the hurdles, sword in hand. There were yells on every hand, mainly from the crowd but also from Gwyn and Giles Fulford, as they raced back from either end. De Wolfe tried to get up, but his leg collapsed under him, bent at an unnatural angle. He got as far as his knees and managed to draw his sword, but de Braose was already upon him.

‘Fight to the death, you said, Crowner!’ he exulted. ‘You’ve had your wish, but it’s you that’s going to do the dying!’

As de Wolfe crouched on his knees, ineffectually holding up his sword towards the redheaded attacker, he thought what an ignominious end he would have, after surviving all those years in so many conflicts. Then, in the split second before Jocelin lifted his weapon to strike, he was suddenly at peace, his only regret being that he would never again lie with Nesta or Hilda. With poor Bran gurgling and jerking alongside him, he prodded upwards feebly and deflected the first slash that de Braose made.

The sneer on the young man’s face was worse than the fear of impending death. ‘Still fighting, Coroner? Then try this one!’ He lifted his blade high above his head and stepped back to make a swing that could cut de Wolfe in half.

John closed his eyes automatically and felt a heavy thud against his arms. Puzzled, he could not understand how that could be his death agony and opened his eyes to find de Braose spitted on his sword, the blade passing up between his thighs, through the slit in his hauberk. The man had fallen forward, his face on John’s shoulder, blood pouring from his mouth and nostrils, his body twitching a little but with nothing like the convulsions that the huge stallion was making alongside them.