Chapter Twenty-One #3
“I have no knowledge, sire,” Ralph lied. “We will have to ask him to clarify his statement when the joust is finished.”
Dustin was shaking with fury and confusion and Marcus reached out to pat her arm. He and Edward exchanged disgusted glances, each man knowing exactly what the knight had meant. Had Christopher heard it, there would be French guts spilled out all over the ground.
The tournament marshal took the field, looking at both competitors to make sure they were ready.
A hush settled over the crowd and Dustin’s palms began to sweat terribly.
She wanted to cover her eyes but she could not seem to lift her hands.
The stands grew quieter and quieter until it seemed that all she could hear were the screams of the hawk riding the drafts high above the arena.
She wondered vaguely if it were a bad omen.
Dustin closed her eyes a brief second, fighting off her lurching stomach. She swore at that moment that if Christopher survived, she would make him promise never to compete in a tourney again. She simply could not take the terror it provoked, excitement be damned.
The marshal dropped the flag and Dustin’s heart surged into her throat as she watched her husband and Dennis charge at one another like rolling thunder, poles leveling out as they closed the gap.
Dustin’s fingers flew to her mouth and she bit hard to keep from screaming, seeing the two mailed and colored knights come together in a scream of wood and metal, horse and man.
Yet a split second before their poles collided with one another, she saw her husband jerk sideways in the saddle and then came a thunderous, shattering crash.
Christopher’s whole body snapped like a rag-doll from the force of the blow, but he remained seated as his destrier came to a halt at the end of the run.
The crowd let up a collective groan and rose to their feet, concerned for their newly-returned hero.
Dustin shrieked as Marcus and Edward shot angrily to stand.
“Damnation!” Marcus shouted. “He brought that pole to bear on Chris’ head.”
Edward furiously agreed. “Had he not ducked when he did, he would have had his head torn off.”
“Jesus, his shoulder must be broken from that blow,” Marcus raged. “How does he look, Edward?”
Edward was standing at the end of the platform, scrutinizing Christopher closely. His liege seemed to have righted himself adequately, but he could see that his left shoulder was bleeding through the mail.
“He shall live,” Edward said reluctantly, turning back to his seat. “But that shoulder is going to need attention.”
Dustin was still seated, her hands folded at her mouth and her huge gray eyes full of tears. Marcus gazed down at her, realizing they must have terrified her further with their shouting.
“He’s fine, Dustin,” he said softly, sitting beside her. “Another pass and he shall have the bastard on his arse.”
She shook her head and closed her eyes, wiping at the tears as quickly as they fell and trying hard to be brave. “I know,” she said with courage she did not feel.
The field marshal and a few other officials were conversing with Christopher and they could see his head nodding faintly. John turned to gaze at Dustin, his eyes grazing over her.
“I do hope your husband is well enough to continue,” he said. “ ’Twould be a shame to lose de Lohr. The competition wouldn’t be the same without him.”
Dustin looked hard at the prince, sick and tired of his deceptions and games. “Why do you offer me such bold-faced lies? You hate my husband and would like nothing better than to see him dead.”
Only Dustin and her forthright manner could get away with such blatant disrespect. John’s eyes widened with feigned surprise.
“How untrue, Lady de Lohr,” he insisted. “I greatly respect your husband and his skills. To lose him would be to lose the Defender of the Realm and leave us all vulnerable.”
Dustin’s face twitched with fury. “You are a liar, my lord, and a disgrace to the crown,” she snapped. “I should have listened to my husband when he told me to stay away from you.”
Ralph turned on her savagely. “Anymore from your mouth, madam, and I throw you in the dungeons for blasphemy.”
Marcus and Edward were up, preparing to rip Ralph joint from joint but John put up a quelling hand.
“Sit down, everyone, or I shall have you all removed.” His hand fell limply to the arm of the chair.
“Emotions are high, especially with an injured comrade, which is why I forgive Lady de Lohr her words. Look, now; the marshal is moving to centerfield.”
Dustin, her beautiful face dark, sunk back into her chair as Marcus and Edward regained their seats. The whole day had been draining on her and it wasn’t even noon yet, she could not even fathom what the afternoon might hold.
Dustin wasn’t mentally prepared when the marshal dropped his flag.
Christopher and Sir Dennis stormed toward each other with a deafening roar, shafts leveling out, and Dustin tried to close her eyes but she could not manage the action.
She could only stare, frozen in her seat, waiting for what would happen next.
Two glancing blows and naught else occurred.
With the next pass, Christopher broke his shaft and took his brother’s one as a replacement.
As he handled the heavy pole, Marcus and Edward glanced at each other over Dustin’s head, silent words acknowledging that their liege was definitely favoring his left shoulder.
The crowd’s feelings were rising and falling like waves upon the shore, and Dustin’s emotions with them.
Every time Christopher made it through a pass unharmed, she whispered a prayer to God that his next one would be as successful.
It was completely maddening and frustrating and she was so sick to her stomach that she thought she might vomit, but she didn’t want to leave the lists.
As much as she was terrified to watch, she knew there was no other place she would rather be.
At the other end of the field, Sir Dennis switched from his crow’s foot shaft to a spear-tipped one. Marcus saw the exchange and his body went stiff with fury.
“Damnation,” he spit, then turned to see if Edward had caught the switch. Indeed, Edward had and his golden eyes were wide with apprehension. In the midst of their anxiety, Dustin suddenly shot to her feet.
“He has got a dagger on the end of that shaft,” she gasped with realization. “He is going to kill Christopher with it.”
Marcus grabbed her arms and set her down as the combatants took up position. But Dustin would not be so easily sated.
“You must stop this!” she said frantically.
“I cannot,” Marcus said quietly. “ ’Tis perfectly legal for Sir Dennis to joust with the spear-tipped shaft.”
“Like hell!” Dustin shot out of her seat again, thrusting herself forward towards John and Ralph. “Sire, surely you will not allow your champion to compete with a blade on the end of his pole?”
John looked amused with her terror. “My lady, ’tis painfully obvious that you have never been to a tournament before. Until a year or two ago, spear-tipped shafts were the only type used in a joust. The crow’s foot tip is very new.”
Dustin looked back at the prince in disbelief, her eyes trailing to the field helplessly as the competitors prepared for their run. The field marshal raised his flag and with the drop, the destriers sprang into a rumbling gallop.
Dustin could not move. It took all of her concentration to stand there and watch, her breath caught in her throat and her heart quivering in her chest as her husband and the prince’s champion raced toward each other at breakneck speed.
Behind her, the crowd slowly rose to their feet in anticipation of what was to surely come.
When it happened, it happened too fast for the human eye to comprehend.
The shafts came down and suddenly there was a deafening noise; Sir Dennis went flying from his destrier as if unseen hands had thrown him.
Dustin’s heart soared until she saw a split second later that Christopher, his destrier gored by the 12-foot shaft, went down hard enough to shake the ground.
Dust and chunks of earth spewed into the air and before she could react, Marcus and Edward flew from the lists and were racing across the arena.
Dustin was in shock. In fact, almost the entire lists were rushing onto the field.
Even Ralph had jumped from the platform and were running toward the mass of people, all swarming around the two competitors.
The arena turned into a boiling pot of knights and officials and she completely lost sight of her husband and his horse.
The crowd in the lists were loud with their concerns, but Dustin could not hear them.
It was as if she were locked in her own little world, her entire life hanging on what was happening out on the dirt in front of her.
She tried to pick out her husband’s knights, any familiar head, but there were so many men in armor that it was impossible to single out any one person.
She could hear shouting and see all sorts of movement surrounding her husband and his animal.
“My, my.” Prince John was standing beside her, shielding his eyes from the glare of the weak sun as he gazed out on the field. “Quite a finish to an exciting bout. I do hope everyone is all right.”
Dustin could not even manage a retort. Her mind was like mud.
Before she realized it, she was descending the stairs and making her way across the field like a woman hypnotized.
She saw nothing, heard nothing; her focus entirely on where she last saw her husband.
The honor guard that Christopher had left in charge of her broke rank and began to follow, wondering if they should prevent her from going any further.
Yet they did not, instead, acting as an escort and shoving people out of her way as she went.
Dustin didn’t even notice their assistance.