Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

The crow again.

“I think you know.”

“Hooo,” the ignorant knight started again, but the comte shot him a look that cut it short. This was deadly serious business.

“Are you threatening me?” Chrétien d’Évreux said, leaning forward a little, hoping there was a trap here for the older man to stumble into.

“I am offering you the chance to redeem your honor, and mine, in an affair of arms. Here, in the sight of witnesses, both men and…”

“And what?”

“Those higher than men.”

The crow again.

Now all eyes were on the comte. He had mishandled this—he desperately wished he had shoved this man aside before he could say his piece; but now the words were hanging there, and none of these men would forget them. Particularly not the young man, recently knighted, who had served as squire to Thomas of Picardy. Chrétien had once delighted in the theft of this man’s fealty, on top of everything else he had taken; but now he thought the former squire’s true allegiance lay where it always had.

He wished, too, that he had not ridden ahead in his eagerness to meet with the pope; another forty loyal men rode three days behind them with his younger brother, Charles.

He wished he were with them now.

If only that goddamned crow would stop.

“This man is excommunicate,” he declared, “and cut off from honor, and the rights and privileges that come with it…” He felt the gazes on him now, and they were not kind. They weren’t going to let him dismiss this man now that they knew who he was. If Chrétien opened the gates of Jerusalem with one hand and burned down Acre with the other, these men would remember his cowardice here, by this stream, and they would speak of it. His father had been cousin to the king; his blood was royal on his mother’s side, too. He would be king of Navarre when she died. Death was promiscuous now; it was not impossible that the crown of France might fall to him, him , if he had enough support. If he was not thought a coward.

He would have to fight.

He might best this rustic fellow on his own.

If not, Don Eduardo would save him in extremity, out of love for his dead father.

“Notwithstanding that,” he said, changing his tone, “I would not have any man here say that the Comte d’Évreux and the heir to the throne of Navarre would hide behind such words, especially from a man who insults him before his peers. Many who ask for justice are sorry to get it, and so shall it be with you.”

Don Eduardo de Burgos, the oldest of the four knights, a Spanish vassal of d’Évreux’s father and a veteran of battles with the Moor, shook his head at the young man’s foolishness. It was always best to avoid a fight that would cost much and gain little. The man in the rusty armor was a serious man.

“Ay,” Don Eduardo said, shaking his head again, and he dismounted, as did the others, all of them making their way back to the clearing by the stream.

The crow stopped cawing.

As Thomas had no horse and would not condescend to borrow his own, it was decided that the affair of honor would take place on foot.

The men squared off.

Thomas in his bad hauberk, bareheaded, his legs unarmored as his cuisses and greaves had sunk in the Rhône.

The comte in his thigh and shin armor, his arms likewise covered in steel, fine riveted mail under all of it, and under his breastplate, which gleamed in the weak sun—he had removed his surcoat so it would not be torn should the man’s notched and snagged war sword cross it.

His own sword was beautiful, almost pristine, the shallower notches of the training yard having been easily ground out of it by his squire.

“Ready?” said the Spanish knight, who would reluctantly serve as marshal for this grotesquerie.

Thomas nodded.

The comte nodded as well, lowering the visor of his helm.

The Spanish knight lowered his baton.

“This is your last chance to think again,” the comte said, his voice muffled ridiculously. He circled the older man but kept well out of range.

Thomas said nothing, holding his ground, his legs at a good bend.

“I will be willing to forgive your insults if you apologize and go your ways.”

Thomas said nothing.

He knew the man would speak again.

“Then prepare yourself for the justice you—” he started, but Thomas launched himself at just the moment he knew the other man would have to inhale. He was stronger than the comte, much stronger, and lighter, too, since he had little armor. The comte defended himself, his training overriding his fear enough to keep from being killed, though only just. His breastplate deflected a thrust, aimed at the armpit, that would have broken his ribs through chain mail. He panted and gave ground, setting himself again.

“Anything else to say?” Thomas asked, but this time the younger man kept quiet. He licked out at Thomas with the point of his sword, and his reach was so long it might have caught a slower man, but Thomas batted it down, struck the young man a vicious upswing against his helm, and then knocked his sword down again. The comte managed to hold on to it, using it to block the blow that came at his legs. And so it went. Thomas worked at exhausting his better-armored foe, battering down his sword six times, causing the other knight, whose sword was getting very heavy, to panic and flail. Thomas ducked one fatigued upswing and this time planted his sword deftly in the comte’s armpit; the chain kept it from killing him, but he tore muscle, and the comte cried out.

He saw motion to his side.

The one with the axe had gotten closer.

He circled away from that man and tried to close again with the comte, but the Spaniard interposed himself.

“Hold!” he cried.

“What?” Thomas shouted.

“I will make sure the comte can continue.”

“The fight is on, man. There is no stopping it!”

“You will have your chance,” the Spaniard said regretfully, “but I will make sure his armor is not damaged so as to prevent him from defending himself. Because this would not be honorable.”

He took his time about checking the articulation of the injured man’s armor, giving him plenty of time to catch his breath. Several of the squires and even the little page were shaking their heads at this, but it continued.

“If your lordship is quite ready,” Thomas called.

The younger man nodded.

The Spaniard stepped away and, before he lowered his baton, gave the young lord a look that said quite clearly he could expect no more indulgences.

It started.

When Thomas beat down the exhausted knight’s sword again, the man with the axe stepped too close for Thomas’s taste; he spun just in time to raise his sword at the man, who had indeed shifted his axe in preparation for a swing. The man shrugged as if to suggest he had no such intention, but it was obvious to everyone watching that he had been about to strike. Now Thomas’s former squire took that man by the shoulders and threw him down. The ignorant knight, seeing this, pushed Sir André away from the downed axe-man and drew his sword. André drew his in answer.

“Stop it!” the Spaniard barked, deeply ashamed, knowing that his lack of honor in defending his dead friend’s cowardly son was to blame for the disgrace this was becoming.

Before the axe-man could get up, Thomas had a moment of inspiration about how to deal both with him and with the problem of the comte’s armor. He kicked the downed soldier in the face, throwing his own sword out of reach and taking the heavier axe from the stunned man. He now rushed at the Comte d’Évreux, who, blinded by sweat and confused by all the motion, parried high, protecting his head, using his mailed palm to reinforce the blade near the point. He was right that the stroke would be heavy. He was wrong about where it would land. Thomas caught him squarely in the breastplate, his hips sunk into the blow; but the armor was Milanese, and, though it dimpled with a loud clang under the war axe, saved the outmatched comte’s life again. He fell backward onto his ass.