Michael, JECKS - The Tournament of Blood

It was rather like this taking of a woman, he thought. There was a similar tingle to the blood, a similar clutch at the belly, a heightened awareness of life. And the delight as an opponent fell was similar to the pleasure when a woman surrendered herself. Both were exquisite, wonderful experiences. Different, but similar in some way.

He had never lost in the lists. He couldn’t. He would take on any odds to win because within him he knew he harboured a strain of explosive cruel violence that exceeded the fabled madness of a berserker . When his blood was up, his rage was like a red mist which encompassed his entire being, and he could throw himself into combat without a thought for his own safety, beating at his opponent with a wholehearted ferocity that terrified any who stood before him.

It even shocked him sometimes. Like when he had almost killed Sir Richard Prouse six years ago at Crukerne. Not that it was his fault. Anyone could fly off the handle in a mêlée ; he wasn’t the first. It was nothing to be ashamed of. Especially in a battle. The ransom had been paid in full, which was what mattered. More business for that usurer Benjamin, no doubt.

The memory of Dudenay brought a scowl to his features. Tight fisted bastard son of a Parisian peasant’s poxed dog! His charges for the armour had been extortionate. It was all Sir Walter could manage not to put his hands about the money-man’s throat when he had demanded his interest. Never again, thank God! Not now the creature was dead.

Baldwin felt his wife’s grip tighten as the contractions returned, her breathing changing until she was almost panting while her fingers dug into his forearm, making him wince. Gradually her breathing recovered and Baldwin blew out his cheeks in relief as her fingers released him.

She looked up at him, her hair clinging damply to her forehead, her face pale and weakly. ‘I feel so cold now. As the contractions get me, I burn, but as soon as they pass I freeze.’

Wary after her earlier outburst, Baldwin ventured nervously, ‘Um… should I put a log on the fire?’

‘My winter cloak would be easier. Then I can throw it off when I’m hot again.’

He went to the chest and pulled out a heavy woollen cloak lined with warm squirrel fur, draping it about her.

She touched his hand. ‘Thank you.’

‘How much longer will this go on?’ he asked quietly.

She looked up at his wretched expression, and rested her hand on his, smiling up at him. This was a new experience for her, a strange, overwhelming experience, but it felt oddly natural. There was no fear for her, no terror, although she was aware of the risks: she had seen other women die in childbirth, especially when the delivery took too long. That was something that didn’t worry her. At a fresh sensation her attention turned inwards again.

‘I can feel the baby,’ she said softly. ‘It’s moving… dropping downwards.’

His face relaxed slightly, but she could still see his anguish. In his eyes she could see his concern, his fear for her. She reached up and pulled his head down to her, kissing him. As the next wave of pain mounted she let him loose. ‘You can’t do anything here, Baldwin. Go! Leave Petronilla with me and we will call you when all is done.’

He was tempted to argue, but then he saw the cramping begin to distort her features again, and he rose quickly, calling for Petronilla.

The man called Philip Tyrel was in a lousy mood when he walked into the field. Later than he had intended, tired from his long journey from Exeter to Oakhampton, all he really wanted was a comfortable bed and pot of cool ale to soothe his exhausted limbs, but he must first put up his small tent, see to his horse and prepare for the jousting.

It took less time than he had feared. Soon he repaired to the market and once he had a quart of ale inside him with a beef pie to keep it company, he began to feel more human, but his feeling of glumness remained.

His tiredness wasn’t caused solely by the journey to get here. This lassitude was a manifestation of his decay. All creatures died sooner or later, their bodies rotting until only the bones remained, but for his part he knew he had begun to die on the day he had seen his wife crushed to death. He craved the peace of the grave. It was so long since he had known comfort or true rest, and his spirit was flagging.

After killing Benjamin he had felt so good it was as though a rush of fresh vigour had sunk into his very marrow, as if he had found himself, miraculously, ten years younger. He could almost think that some form of energy had been absorbed by him from the man whom he had killed. An alchemist he had once spoken to in Rome had hinted of an emanation given off by living beings, something that only occultists and the trained knew of, and it was from this, he had said, that the secret of eternal life could be determined – but the fellow had been drunk, and his discourse soon sank into incoherent rambling.

Perhaps it was not so fanciful a concept. He had heard that a man who took the life of another gained a little of the dead man’s power, and that was certainly his own experience. His sight had never been so clear, his limbs so strong, his hearing so acute as after Benjamin’s execution. His very soul felt invigorated.

Could it be that when a man ended another’s life, this was always the result? he wondered. If so, any killer must kill again, for no one would be able to resist the addictive temptation to repeat the experience. If a man enjoyed such a sense of revitalisation after killing and subsequently found himself like this, enfeebled once more as his body continued its journey to the grave, there must be a constant urge to kill afresh and renew oneself.

But no power on earth could renew his life. Since the terrible day sixteen long years ago, when his wife and two young children had been taken from him, he had travelled regularly. Battles, tournaments, quests, he had thrown himself into them all hoping to win some ease, and if not, death. Except he had failed. He had gained a certain renown, but it had not helped. His grief was too deeply ingrained in him. He knew that only death could excise the pain.

As his thoughts grew gloomy, the crowds made him claustrophobic. He turned away from the people and walked quietly to the river, standing near a great oak and gazing at the rippling waters. A lick of sunlight caught the back of his neck like a soft kiss, and he smiled sadly, recalling that last kiss on that last day. If only he had remained with them. It would have been good to have died at the same time.

He sighed and threw a stone into the waters.

Benjamin’s death was not the same. The man had broken God’s laws: committing usury and causing deaths. If he was any other man, if he was a peasant and had been responsible for so many deaths, he would have been executed. But no, his crimes were ignored because he was wealthy. At least he had finally paid the price of his unbearable greed. Perhaps that was the reason for the sudden burst of dynamism that flooded Philip after the event – it was God’s way of rewarding him, to show that Benjamin had deserved his fate. Revenge was justifiable.

If the banker had only been guilty of usury, Philip would have been able to forgive him, but that wasn’t his sole crime. In his insatiable hunger for money, he had maximised his profits with his accomplices by skimping on the wood they had acquired to build the ber frois , the grandstands, at the tournament at Exeter in 1306. Benjamin had been a member of a trio consisting of a builder, an architect and himself as financier, who helped set out tournament fields, to construct the stands, the barriers, weapon rests and so on. Benjamin paid suppliers for the materials, working to a budget which the tournament organiser agreed with him, and if he and his friends scrimped and saved on materials, they could pocket the difference.