Chapter 8 You
You
You’d planned to leave the fighting to one of your knights, but the sight of him dismantles your intentions.
He seems uncertain of his own skills, but there’s care in his movements as he runs through his drills, each angle studied and practised until it flows unthinkingly.
Few men of your acquaintance have mastered such precision of technique, and even fewer have disarmed you with nothing but a smile and a handful of words.
When did you last have a fair fight? You can’t remember.
You’ve rarely had the opportunity to spar against an equal these last few years – if you can be called Bisclavret’s equal.
He has the body of a man who hasn’t rested a day in his life; despite his slender frame, he has broad, strong shoulders, and you see the muscles shift beneath his undertunic as he moves.
You avoid his gaze as you warm up, relearning the feel of the sword in your hand, but when, by accident, you catch his eye, you are all the more grateful for the blunted edges.
His attention is totally, unwaveringly, on you, and for a moment you have a sense of how it feels to be a hapless deer in the forest, in the breath before an arrow is loosed.
Your knight in green – a man you knew well once, in your youth, and still trust implicitly – has appointed himself the bout’s herald and judge. He clears the spectators to the edges of the courtyard, giving you space, and then he steps back, calling for the fight to begin.
You regard Bisclavret. He regards you. For a moment neither of you moves.
And then—
He’s fast. Faster than you expected, almost too fast to block, but you meet his sword and twist away.
There’s a thrill to being unarmoured and vulnerable to bruising, though the blunted swords would cause no real wound.
You gather your strength and your speed and go on the offensive, forcing Bisclavret to match you blow for blow.
His footwork’s a little clumsy; you exploit it, slipping inside his guard, but only once, and then he realises what you’ve done and corrects himself, learning as he goes.
The crowd fades away. Their jeers and heckles, their shouts of encouragement, may as well be the whistling of wind through the trees.
You forget where you are, forget the duties of kingship that wait for you, seeing only the swords in your hands and Bisclavret’s face as he calculates his next attack.
There is fierce joy in his dawning smile.
It begins as surprise, the first time you parry one of his feints and nearly twist his sword from his hand; it transforms into delight when he manages the same, moments later, and you stumble to avoid being disarmed.
He feints, twists, catches you in the ribs with the flat of his blade.
It will bruise. You stagger under the impact, the pain resounding through your torso and startling a gasp from between your lips.
It’s a pure kind of pain, a clarity-bringing pain, and though the crowd sucks in a breath and Bisclavret hesitates, unsure whether he’s allowed to strike you like this, your grin only widens and your efforts redouble.
Before long you’re both panting, dripping in sweat.
Bisclavret’s hair falls over his eyes, overlong, and as he brushes it aside, you take advantage of his distraction to strike his wrist, hard enough that he almost drops his sword.
With a sharpened blade, he could have lost the hand; as it is, he hisses in surprise and pain, before swapping his sword to his left hand.
And that’s a trick you didn’t anticipate.
He’s slower and clumsier on this side, but stronger than you’d be, trying to do the same – it’s never occurred to you to fight with your left, and it throws you off-guard, unable to properly counter his moves.
An oversight, surely. A kingdom should not be so easily brought down by a sinister opponent. You’ll have to make that good, when next you have the chance to seek out a sword master for your own education.
The fight continues, but it’s awkward now, slow, and neither of you has the skill to drag it out. Finally, you stab your sword down into the ground and hold up your hands. ‘I yield, Bisclavret.’
He lowers his own sword hesitantly, as though anticipating a trick, but you don’t move.
You’re not sure that you can, leaden with exhaustion.
The rest of the world begins to intrude on your reverie, the colours of your knights’ clothes bright and demanding attention at the edges of your vision.
Bisclavret’s undershirt is soaked and clinging with sweat, and you know your own must look much the same, but you cannot keep the grin from your face.
‘You must tell me who trained you,’ you say, earnestly. ‘I haven’t had a fight like that since—’ Then you break off, unable to recall a bout that left you so exhilarated.
Bisclavret is flushed red with exertion, so it’s hard to tell if he blushes now, but certainly there’s something bashful in his expression as he says, ‘I am largely self-taught, sire.’
It makes sense, of course; he’s rustic, countrified, his father dead. And yet at the same time it doesn’t, because he’s so good, so quick to learn, enough to put any warrior to shame. ‘You expect me to believe you’ve not sparred before?’
‘Of course not,’ he says, and inclines his head towards his cousin, among the crowd of spectators. ‘We played at knighthood often enough in our youth. Still, I had little formal training.’
‘But—’ You shake your head a few times, stunned. Beaten in a fight by a man with no formal training – you should be furious. Instead you’re delighted, and more than a little intrigued. What, you wonder, would he be capable of, if given the chance? ‘Most impressive.’
Servants approach with cloths to wipe your faces. You’ll need to bathe, next, and have a physician examine your bruises, though you think there’s little real harm done. You’ll need to rest, too, after all that.
‘You are too kind, sire,’ says Bisclavret, rubbing his sore wrist. ‘It was an honour to spar with you.’
‘Well, it won’t be the last time. Come. You will need a bath, and there are arrangements to be made, if you are to be a knight.’
‘Sire—’ He pauses, glances away. ‘On that matter, I would speak with you. Alone, if such a thing is possible.’
You’re puzzled by his serious expression, but a consultation with your knight in green secures you the armoury and a few moments without interruptions – save for Bisclavret’s cousin, who accompanies you.
You’re about to send the man away, but Bisclavret says, ‘No, let him stay. He knows well enough what I plan to say, I’d imagine. ’
‘That your health is too delicate for knighthood?’ says his cousin, baldly. ‘That you should be allowed to retreat back to your mother’s estate and pretend that this never happened? That you intend to spend the next twenty-five years hiding, as you have done until now? Yes, I rather fear I do.’
Bisclavret winces. ‘You know that I . . . that I am . . . unfit for this, that however much I want it, I cannot take it.’
‘I know that as a youth you dreamed of knighthood and as a man you fight better than anyone,’ retorts his cousin.
‘This is your inheritance. I will not stand idly by while you forsake it because your courage has failed you. I beg your pardon, my lord,’ he says suddenly, as though remembering himself.
‘I should not have spoken so in front of you. It is . . . it is an old argument.’
‘So I see,’ you say, eyeing the pair of them.
You had suspected already that it was the cousin’s doing that brought Bisclavret to court, but you’d thought, briefly, that their aims were aligned.
And nothing you have seen of Bisclavret so far suggests he lacks for courage.
‘What is it you would say to me, Bisclavret?’
He chews on his lip for a moment. ‘Sire,’ he says at last, ‘I came here seeking my father’s place and my father’s lands, I will not deny that.
I did not expect your favour and I did not expect your attention, but I thought – hoped – that you would grant me the small boon of my inheritance.
And then, I thought, I would retreat there, to my own lands.
I . . .’ His gaze darts to you as though he anticipates an interruption, but you say nothing.
‘I will serve you, sire, in whatever capacity you ask of me; I will fight when I am needed, and train men to do likewise, but I cannot . . . I cannot stay here at the court, so far from my own home.’
His belief in his unsuitability, whatever underlies it, appears unshakeable – but you cannot understand the difficulty. ‘Is it your lands you fear for? A good steward may take care of them for the best part of the year. Of course, you’d need to travel to see them on occasion, but—’
‘It’s not that. My cousin is not wrong, when he attributes my loss of courage to my health. It isn’t as strong as it could be; it’s one of the reasons my mother never brought me to court before.’
You’d wondered; he might have come alone, if she wasn’t well enough to travel. ‘What manner of weakness ails you? My physicians . . .’
‘They cannot help me,’ he says, with a glance at his cousin. ‘I have been bled and purged and bathed and it has not helped. I have . . . I am . . . Sire, it is not madness of the true sort that troubles me, but madness it might become, amidst the noise and the crowds.’