Chapter Fourteen #2
A greater moment there might never be, but the fight was hard and bruising and there were so many knights involved that it was often more like a real battle than one played by tourney rules.
The noise was deafening and at times there was scarcely room to manoeuvre the destriers.
When there was space to charge, men and horses were so strung up that the clashes were thunderous.
Lances splintered into myriad shards; knights were thrown; destriers fell—and some horses and men did not rise again.
The vine fields over which the companies ranged were trampled and churned.
Battle cries and rallying cries rang out.
Harry Norreis was as good as his word and bellowed William’s name for all to hear at the top of his lungs.
“God is with the Marshal!” he roared, twirling his lance, while the bells on his bridle rang and rang.
The field was a wheeling, changing tapestry of movement and at one point William and his troop became separated from Henry by a conroi of Flemings.
Cursing, William hacked a path through them and was in time to see his lord’s bodyguards, including Yqueboeuf and the de Coulances brothers, haring off in pursuit of some richly caparisoned French knights, whilst Henry, oblivious with battle fire, launched himself into a group of Burgundians with only a handful of knights to back him up.
William saw Henry’s lance shatter like glass on an opponent’s shield, the pieces flying far and wide.
His opponent rocked in the saddle but did not fall and his companions closed in on the Young King, seizing his bridle, attempting to bring him down off his horse.
William spurred into the fray and Norreis’s cry rang out.
“The Marshal, the Marshal! God is with the Marshal!” Laying about with his sword, William battered his way to Henry’s side.
The young man had lost his helm and arming cap and his hair stuck up in spiky brown tufts around his flushed face.
His arm rose and fell and his teeth were gritted with determination: he was not going to be taken for ransom at such a prestigious tourney with all his peers looking on.
However, the Burgundians were loath to relinquish their prize and without control of his horse, Henry was still theirs.
William reached out, laid hands to the brow-band of Henry’s destrier and pulled.
The stallion struggled and plunged. The Burgundians battered at William, but he held on grimly, aided in his endeavour by Ancel who had galloped up on his right.
William managed to peel the bridle off the destrier’s head, leaving the opposing knights with nothing to grasp.
Henry had nothing to grasp either, except a handful of mane, but that was enough and he was able to kick his destrier out of the fray.
“Ware!” Ancel roared, pointing towards a band of Flemish knights who had seen Henry’s predicament and were galloping to take advantage.
Cursing, William leaned to grab a fallen lance and charged to intercept their leader.
Giving Bezant an extra dig in the flank, he ran the lance on to the knight’s shield and felt the impact shudder up his arm.
The shock flung Bezant back on his haunches, sturdy though he was, and the overstrained length of ash splintered and broke, leaving William clutching a stump.
For a terrifying instant William thought that Bezant was going over, but with a tremendous heave, the destrier recovered his legs and William drew his sword, hoping that he had bought Henry time to escape to one of the sanctuary points.
Parrying his opponent’s determined blows, it was all William could do to avoid being captured himself and it was with a great surge of relief that he heard Harry Norreis shouting the Marshal rallying cry.
From some desperate corner of himself, he found the breath to roar an answer.
Ancel blocked a blow that would have struck William side on, and Baldwin de Béthune appeared, his surcoat torn and muddy.
William renewed his efforts, and his adversary drew off rather than risk being taken for ransom.
As the opposition withdrew, William leaned over his saddle bow and gulped breath into his starving lungs.
Eyes stinging with sweat, he studied the field through the slits in his helm and was furious to see a blurred cluster of red and gold at one of the respite enclosures.
He spurred Bezant towards them. Arriving at the enclosure, he removed his helm and thrust it at a royal squire.
“Good of you to rejoin us, gentlemen,” he snarled at the knot of Norman knights, which included Yqueboeuf and de Coulances.
“Where were you when your lord was within a gnat’s cock of being taken for ransom?
A gang of peasant brats has more discipline and control! ”
Yqueboeuf strode up to William’s destrier, his complexion dusky with exertion and temper. “As far as we knew, you and your mighty band of English lackwits were at our lord’s heels. It is not our fault that you were not up to the task.”
William flung down from the saddle and seized Yqueboeuf by the throat. “You dare speak thus to me when you lack the competence of a swineherd!”
Yqueboeuf wrenched William’s hand away and pushed him, his eyes blazing.
“You treat our lord as if he’s a babe in need of a wet nurse when he is a skilled fighter in his own right.
At least we took some ransoms for our lord’s coffers.
Your only concern is to promote your own glory.
‘The Marshal, the Marshal, God is with the Marshal!’ Hah!
” Yqueboeuf spat at William’s feet then turned in appeal towards Henry, who had been intently watching the exchange. “Did we do wrong, sire?”
Henry frowned. “No,” he said. “It happened in the heat of the moment and as you say, Adam, you took some useful ransoms. I value you both, and I will not have you shame me by quarrelling in public. That too is a slur on my dignity. Let it go. There is still half a day’s tourneying left and I want the prize.
Clasp hands and set your differences aside. ”
William swallowed bile. The heat of the wine in his belly had gone from flame to ashes.
He was furious, but with himself more than anyone else.
He had allowed Yqueboeuf to strike under his guard, which was precisely what his rival had intended.
Tightening his jaw, he held out his hand.
At least Henry had not asked them to apologise to each other, only to set their differences aside.
With bad grace, Yqueboeuf grasped William’s hand, gave it a squeeze that deliberately crushed William’s fingers together, and then abruptly withdrew.
Satisfied, Henry gave a terse nod and lifted his voice. “Anyone who needs a fresh horse or sustenance, attend to it now. We ride on the moment!”
The enclosure became a surge of knights hastily obeying Henry’s bidding.
William checked Bezant’s legs, but they were sound apart from a minor graze to the left fore.
Indeed, William thought, he was probably in a worse case than his mount.
Somewhere out on the field was the shattered stump of a lance with Queen Marguerite’s ribbon attached to it, but he wasn’t about to go and search for it.
Collecting a fresh one from his squire and setting his mind to the business in hand, he lined up behind Henry, who had changed his own winded mount for a spirited Spanish roan.
“Stay with me if you can, wet nurse!” Henry shouted, and clapped spurs to his mount’s flanks.
Pushing Bezant after his lord, William began to wonder if he was getting too old for this.
***
The tourney lasted for three days and on the last night, Henry held a feast in his hall for the knights and lords who had fought on his side.
There were prizes given out to those deemed the best. Harry Norreis was presented with a silver trumpet in token of being the knight with the loudest voice.
William le Gras was given a silver-headed spear for breaking the most lances in the tourney and Thomas de Coulances was awarded a fine silver goblet for being the most drunk.
Yqueboeuf too was given a drinking vessel—a gold-rimmed mazer.
“It’s a loving cup,” Henry said with a wave of his hand and a gleam in his eye.
“Because your nature overflows with the milk of human kindness.” Yqueboeuf thanked Henry with a bow and a forced smile.
For William there was a silver-gilt aquamanile in the form of a knight on horseback, and for Ancel a cloak lined with squirrel fur with a clasp of gold and amethysts.
Ancel beamed at William. “What would our brother John say about all this?” he asked.
“That I was leading you down the slippery slope to perdition,” William said wryly.
The tourney feast was a masculine affair and no women had been invited (beyond the ubiquitous dancing girls) for which William was thankful.
He could not have dealt with the Queen and her ladies this night.
Besides, after three days of some of the hardest jousting and feasting he had undertaken in a while, he was tired, his body telling him that he was no longer twenty years old.
However, Henry showed every intention of roistering all night, albeit it with a select few.
Partway into the feast, he suddenly declared that he had decided that only men named William were allowed to sit at his board, and ordered everyone else to leave.
Anyone taking exception was helped on his way by a pair of hefty serjeants.
Ancel chuckled as he fastened his new cloak and, slapping William’s shoulder, left the bench. “At least you won’t have to suffer Yqueboeuf and the Coulances brothers for the rest of the night, eh?”
William made a face at him. Yqueboeuf glared murder at William as they left the Young King’s hall, obviously believing that the jest was William’s idea and deliberately aimed at excluding them from Henry’s company.
William could do nothing about that. He directed a squire to pour wine into his cup and set about getting as drunk as his young lord.
Gazing round the hall, he saw that it was far from empty because William was a favourite name amongst all ranks of the nobility.
Henry had sent messengers out in search of more Williams to fill the empty benches.
“Now you’re one among many the same, Marshal,” Henry slurred, giving William a bruising nudge. “But I’m the only Henry.”
It was almost dawn when William and the knight William de Preaux hoisted the Young King between them and brought him semi-comatose from the disarray of the feast hall to his lodging chamber.
William’s feet were unsteady, although he had a harder head for drink than Henry, and de Preaux was staggering too.
A squire ran to open the chamber door and William heard the anxious murmur of the Young Queen’s maids, and then of Marguerite herself.
She was wearing a thick, fur-lined bedrobe.
Her hair lay over one shoulder in a heavy brown braid, and as the men tottered into the chamber, her eyes widened and she set one hand to her throat.
“He’s all right,” William said, “although he won’t think so when he wakens.” The two knights brought Henry to the bed and laid him face down, turning his head to one side so that he could breathe.
“I am glad that this is the last tourney of the year,” she said bitterly. “I do not think that I could bear another one.”
“You can’t bear anything,” Henry slurred, more aware than he appeared. “Least of all a living child.”
Marguerite made a small sound in her throat, but it never left her lips which were tightly compressed. William saw the misery in her eyes. “Madam, he is in his cups. He does not know what he is saying.”
“He knows exactly what he is saying and it is what he thinks when he is sober. It is what everyone else thinks too.” She turned away, her palm pressed over her mouth.
“Madam…” William held out a beseeching hand but she did not see it for her back was to him and facing the dark shadows in the room.
“Go,” she said in a trembling voice. “And thank you for seeing my husband to his bed.”
William and de Preaux bowed from the room. “I wouldn’t change places with either of them for an instant,” de Preaux said, shaking his head.
William said nothing. When the Queen had spoken, the cracks in her voice had run through his body. Pity and compassion welled within him. Poor lass, he thought, poor, poor lass, and wished that he had gone back to look for the silk favour she had given him in pride for his chivalry that morning.