‘A family trait,’ he managed lightly. ‘I thought my brother Edward had stolen most of it for himself, mark you.’
‘No laughing matter,’ Wishart spat back. ‘It is clear who has put this Malenfaunt up to it – Badenoch and Buchan both gave him the siller that ransomed him from his tourney loss. Now he is in debt to that pair and flung in like a dog in a pitfight.’
‘They must rate him highly, then,’ Bruce replied sourly, ‘if they think to humble me using such poor fare.’
Wishart waved an impatient hand and broke fluidly into French without missing a heartbeat.
‘They win, no matter the outcome. If you beat Malenfaunt, then Buchan and Badenoch have revenge on the man who captured the Countess of Buchan and held her to ransom. If you are defeated, they have humbled you. Better still for Badenoch if you were killed in such a combat – and those will be Malenfaunt’s instructions, mark me.’
He broke off and shook his head sorrowfully.
‘And The Plantagenet, of course, permits it in the hope of bringing you tumbling, my lord earl,’ he added. ‘Mark me, the King will send word soon that you are not to kill. He will send the same to Malenfaunt – though that one may ignore it. But a defeat over such a matter will ruin your honour, leave you ostracized at court, denied the peace of God and so left at the mercy of the royal favour.’
‘If he defeats me,’ Bruce declared, then frowned and shook his head. ‘Malenfaunt is a brave man, for all that, to put himself, with no great reputation as a knight, against me.’
Wishart snorted. In times of stress, Bruce noted wryly, he reverts to his roots and the lisping French was banished like mist.
‘Think yersel’ all silk and siller? Aye, mayhap – second-best knight in Christendom after the German emperor? When was the last time ye jousted à l’outrance, my lord earl? Using the French Method and bound to it?’
Bruce thought and the sudden, thin sliver of fear speared him. A long time, he had to admit. The French Method – charging home on a warhorse trained to bowl a man over – was one he had used as a youth on the tourney circuit.
Then he had learned the German Method – riding a lighter horse, avoiding the mad rushes of French Method knights and attacking from behind or the side in the mêlée. It was called ‘German’ as a sneer by the French, for everyone knew it was a Saracen trick learned by crusading German knights of the Empire and brought back by them. Better for prizes and sensible in war, it was not considered honourable for the nobiles of the civilized world to the west. Worse even than that, it was not French.
Acceptable – barely – in the whirl of the mêlée, it was not permitted in that perfect contest of skill and bravery, the joust, which was the epitome of the French Method, preferred by the young and daring.
This joust was à l’outrance and there was no German Method permitted at the edge of extremity.
For God was watching.
Lincoln
The day after – The Feast of St John the Evangelist, December, 1304
It was cold, so that the King was ushered to a seat with heated cushions and swathed in warm furs alongside his wife. In the striped pavilion, with the horse gently steaming and two coal braziers smouldering, Bruce saw the leprous sheen on his maille as the trembling squire helped him into the jupon emblazoned with his arms.
The horse shifted, clattered bit metal and champed froth. Bruce eyed the beast, which had been given to him by his brother since he had no decent warhorse for a joust like this. Castillians his were, fine, fast and strong but no match in a stand-up fight with something like this terror, all muscle and vein like an erect prick, with heavy legs and hindquarters. A Lombard, crossed with Germans, his brother had told him – black as the De’il’s face and called, with bitter irony, Phoebus.
Somewhere outside, Malenfaunt stood with his own horse in a similar pavilion; custom decreed that neither should see each other once the processions and oaths and mummery of it all had been concluded, save at the very moment of combat. The mummery, Bruce thought to himself wryly, had possibly been the worst part of the affair.
The King had processed, the witnesses and bishops and officials of the tourney had processed, the ladies of the court had processed – including the stiff, disapproving Elizabeth. When presented with the news of the affair from her husband, she had raised one scornful eyebrow, and had spoken not one word to him in all the hours since. He could scarcely blame her – her honour was braided with his own and if he fell from grace, so did she.
Speeches had been exchanged, blessings given, oaths made regarding the anathema of using weapons forged by spells, or with spells placed on them. Lances had been measured, so that neither had an advantage and, for the same reason, agreement had been reached over the number and type of weapons carried – it was, as always, three lances, the same axe each, their own sword and a dagger or estoc of their choice.