Michael, JECKS - The Tournament of Blood

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.

‘He brought it down two-handed,’ Sir Richard said softly, adding, ‘I felt every moment as it passed through my bones and skin.’

‘It must have been terrible,’ Simon said with an awed hush.

Sir Richard stared over Simon’s shoulder as his hand rose to the dreadful scar. A forefinger traced the line of rippling and badly mended flesh, following it from his ruined eye down to his cloven jaw. He looked like a man who lived in a permanent nightmare, a man pursued by his own terrors.

‘Terrible, Bailiff? You could not possibly imagine. At the time I thought it was going to kill me. It never sprang to my mind that I would soon wish it had.

‘It almost split my head in two. And then Sir Walter, brave Sir Walter, would have gone to find another victim, but the people were so furious that they ran forward to attack him.’ His good eye hardened. ‘They chased him from the field. That bold, proud man fled before the rabble of Crukerne. But gentle, kindly hands came and collected me and took me to a convent where I was gradually healed. Although then I was ruined financially instead by the usurers.’

‘Because you had lost?’

‘Yes. I was captured by Sir Walter, so I had no escape. He demanded my money since I had yielded to him, and would give no quarter when it came to his cash. What would he care? He had destroyed my life, so he might as well have my money as well. And he had a willing accomplice. Benjamin the Bastard came to me and said that he had settled on my behalf. I demurred, said I hadn’t agreed to any funds, but Benjamin had a clerk with him, and they showed me a document I had signed and sealed. It confirmed I had asked him to settle with Sir Walter.’

‘And you hadn’t?’

‘How could I?’ Sir Richard demanded sadly, his anger fading as swiftly as it had flared.

‘How could I have managed such an agreement while my face was being stitched or when the flesh had caught afire with agony as the fever gripped me? No, Bailiff. I knew nothing of this. Benjamin came to me in the convent while I suffered, pretending to be a friend and counsellor, but in reality he was a thief. And I could not even prove it. All I can say is, the bargain was less costly than my father’s.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘My father Godwin was a knight in the great tournament in Exeter of 1306, but he died when a mace caught his neck. At least I have my life, even if I’ve lost my leg and my arm,’ he said, gesturing with his left arm towards his useless right arm and leg.

‘I’ve heard of that one,’ Simon said. ‘There was a whole family killed.’

‘Yes. So I seem to recall,’ Sir Richard frowned. ‘Tyrel, that was their name. The father was there. Poor devil saw the stand collapse and tried to rescue his children and wife, but it was no good, of course.’

‘Christ Jesus! You mean that he was there and saw his family die?’ Simon winced.

‘Yes. Poor fellow. Philip Tyrel. I was only a child, of course, but I remember him.’

‘What was he like?’ Simon asked.

‘Tyrel? A large man, big-chested and with a great belly, if not very tall. He had a strutting arrogance, and he was always wary of insults. He took his own importance very seriously.’

‘He sounds like Tyler,’ Simon said half jokingly.

‘Hmm. If Tyler wore a beard, I would almost say they were brothers. Certainly not dissimilar.’

‘Really?’ Simon was interested. ‘Did this Tyrel survive?’

‘He disappeared soon after the disaster. His heart was broken, I think. Whose wouldn’t have been?’

Simon tried to imagine how he would have felt if he had seen his own wife and children killed. ‘Have you seen him since then?’ he asked absently, and then his head shot up. ‘Christ Jesus! You haven’t spotted him here, have you?’